After striking the banana tree’s trunk for more than a thousand times, Edgar fell back. “This isn't easy.” His palms turned blood-red, and he couldn’t even clench the sword tightly. Though he was tired, he was also afraid that if he let go of the sword, he might not be able to hold it again, so he held onto it. “How can a banana tree be so sturdy?”

“Brute force isn’t everything. Cognizance plays a role in success, too,” the old man said, “and so is hunger. It requires the combination of all ingredients to make a curry. For Drive, you need more than just brute strength. And depending on how you use the ingredients, your Drive’s character and range of control will change. And there will be times when you’ll run out of drive, so you’ve gotta rely on other things such as enhancing your base bodily strength and senses or absorbing an elemental ability and what not. The deeper and diverse your pool of power is, the greater will be your chances of survival. You are getting what I’m saying, right?”

“Uh…” Edgar scratched his head.

The old man sighed for the first time. “Why do you think I forced you to hide, be it for eating or sleeping during the past month?”

“To make me stronger?”

“That’s not all there was to it,” the old man’s teeth chattered as he controlled his anger. “It’s to increase your chances of successfully climbing to the surface!”

Edgar was startled to hear that.

“You have neither super strength nor adequate experience to hope for a miracle,” the old man’s voice was still loud and packed with emotion. “That’s why you need something to help you in times when your strength fails to break your way open. That’s what you’ve been learning. Stealth. After all, if you don’t know how to hide yourself, even if you manage to escape from one beast, you’ll only end up being preyed upon by another beast lying in wait. Don’t underestimate this valley. It’s full of dangers. Those who take it lightly, will be killed the same.”

Edgar didn’t know what to say. It had never crossed his mind that the old man was calculating so much with everything he was teaching. With this, he found a great deal of respect in Edgar’s eyes.

Edgar pursed his lips before getting on one of his knees and bowing, “Thank you, Master.”

“You are the first disciple I’ve taken in many years,” the old man faintly smiled, albeit not so happily. “This may be fate. But I hate it when my disciples disappoint me.”

Edgar stood, while still bowing. “I will not waste your time.” Saying that he walked over to the banana tree and stared at it for a while. “Cognizance… If I’m correct, it means observation. If my sister hadn’t taught me, I wouldn’t have known even a bit of the scholar’s language. I’ve never asked her why there are so many words for just one meaning, but I will, one day, for sure.” He held the sword with both hands and raised it. “I’m not strong enough to cut you town, but I believe I’m hungry enough. However, I’ve never paid much attention to anything else. I’ve eaten your fruits plenty of times. Sorry for doing this, but please let me know more about you, O, banana tree!” he slashed his sword at one of the leaves.

The old man was nodding to himself as he watched from a distance. “If you can’t cut a scorpion’s tail, you cut its limbs instead. Then you move on to the next easiest thing. You take things bit by bit, which is how beings get to know each other, starting with the things that they can comprehend. That is the key to knowing the character of anything.” But then he noticed how Edgar kept talking with the tree. (Then again, why the heck is he conversing with a tree?)

For hours, Edgar kept slashing the banana tree at the leaves, stalks and trunk. He even climbed the tree as if it was a beast and then mercilessly went wild on the tree. He drilled holes in the leaves and scratched the stalks. Purposely, he didn’t strike at the same spot twice, so he could practice on a particular strike for long.

Hours turned into days. His pants were full of dried up stains. In return, all the branches, except the trunk, were cut off. But he was still only barely leaving scratches in the trunk.

The old man was trying his best to not show his disappointment. (He’s still got the motivation, but he’s only managed to cut through the outer layers of the trunk. Though his posture tells me that he has cut trees before, he probably never swung the weapon with the pure intent to cut it. After all, such a cut will only require one swing to slice through anything.) The old man pressed his lips a little as he ruminated. (I guess I should show him personally.)

The hair started to move, and it hastily surrounded Edgar and tightly wrapped him around like armor, startling him.

“W-What are you doing?” he cried out in fear. (Did he lose hope in me? Is he going to kill me?)

However, to Edgar’s surprise, the hair forced him to move around. “Don’t stand stiff. Loosen your muscles,” the old man shouted.

“Y-Yes,” the shout was so intimidating, the voice drilled into Edgar’s ears, and his muscles involuntarily loosened. His whole body shivered. (This geezer’s too scary!)

“Now, let me help you move around,” the old man commanded. “Do not try to focus or force yourself but feel… Feel the flow of the sword, and everything it touches.” 

Standing before the banana tree, holding the sword in both hands, Edgar was now fully armored by the hair. His arms lifted into the air and diagonally slashed through the trunk as if it were a pudding, stunning Edgar. But that wasn’t all, as the top part of the cut tree was sliding on the lower part, Edgar’s body moved again, and his sword slashed through the trunk left and right, cutting it to unrecognizable pieces. It was all over in seconds, and by the time Edgar landed on his feet, the tiniest pieces of the tree were all that floated in the air as if they were finely sculpted into thinnest feathers. Every cut was so precise and pristine that it was beyond belief.

“This…” as he watched in stupor, the armor was undone, and a sudden rush of pain coursed through his whole body, freezing him in his spot. He howled in agony, not knowing what was going on. Blood poured out all the nine holes in his body.

“That’s just the after effect of taking your body to its current limits,” the old man indifferently snorted. “With this, you should already know how strong your body has become just from eating the food available in this place. The problem is not with the ingredients but with the cook. The problem is not with your body, but with the way you’re using it.”

The physical pain was unimaginable, but the pain that the old man’s words brought hurt him more. Even after he had said that he wouldn’t waste the time of the old man, what had he been doing? For the past many days, he had been struggling to cut the damn tree. He didn’t know if it had been a week or not, but it could very well have been. As blood drooled out of his mouth, he gritted his teeth and dripped the cracked sword tightly. (A pain that would make most people faint, this pain is nothing before what my sister and I went through... I must overcome it.) He stepped ahead, toward the next banana tree that was much bigger than the one he had practiced on all this while. And with the first step he took, a reddish aura birthed at the point of contact between his feet and the ground. In an instant, it rose and spread over his whole body and the sword as he dashed toward the tree.

The old man’s eyes lit up.

Holding the weapon in one hand, Edgar horizontally swung his arm. His foot, however, fell on a banana peel, causing him to slip. The sword barely missed the trunk, but the pressure of the swing carried through the air and cut through the banana trunk through half of its thickness.