Coiling Dragon: Age Of War

Richard found himself running through a maze of buildings with urgency. He was rushing through doors, jumping over tables and smashing through windows.

Not knowing what lay at the end, he was unsure of his path. He felt fear creeping into his heart, fear of taking the wrong path.

Reaching the roof of a building, Richard looked around for others. He wanted to use them as a reference point, but there was no one.

It was getting hard to breath and panic was setting inside. Richard started running and jumped to the adjacent building. He kicked the door down and ran down the stairs, pushing people out of the way and searching for his destination.

Suddenly, he woke with a start and the rest of the dream became unknown. Richard felt the agitated heart beat signifying his far from stellar mindset.

He was still very much stressed inside and just shifted his focus away from the emptiness within.

'Twice in a single day, now that's a miracle.' Richard thought as he looked at the tree above him, all of them were sleeping outside since it was cooler outside during the summer.

The sun had risen and he was the last to wake up. However, he felt tired within and didn't wish to continue.

He already had problems and now one more had been added to the list. He didn't know why life couldn't give him a break.

He wasn't some unbreakable guy, and he would break if life continued in such a manner.

Shaking his head, Richard pinched his cheeks.

'Don't focus on the negatives. Nothing good comes from it, just focus on what I can do.' Richard thought to shift his focus from downward spiral and got out bed.

Never delay what can be done at the moment, as you might not get the chance. Procrastination started from the small things and worsened over time. Richard had battled that problem and didn't want to fall down that rabbit hole again.

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

'I can do this.' Richard pushed through as he remembered a friend that fought against depression.

He had failed in life. The reason was that he screwed up somewhere. As a result, he could not get out of the house. His family always treated him in a lukewarm manner. They did not scold him and treated him like they had always. It was perhaps kindness, but it was like poison to him.

It continued the next day, the following day too, and then a week, a month, a year and suddenly 10 years had gone. He had entered his thirties and lost his twenties.

Something would have changed if he had stepped forward, but he did not and none reached into the darkness. None gave him the light of hope. None gave him the push that was required. They were afraid of the unknown, of taking responsibility of a possibility and he continued to fall into the abyss of his mind.

He couldn't start. He did not have the courage to take that step. He was missing that one thing that would help him achieve the goal. But, he knew that something was just an excuse and the excuses continued to grow that he was unable to untangle from the web of lies he had weaved.

He didn't know what to do any more. Frustration, impatience, self hate and shame continued to kill his soul. He wanted to take that step but he was afraid to do so. He did not know what to do any more and just lived like a zombie. He hated to live but he was also afraid of dying. He was afraid of failure and didn't understand that failure wasn't everything. It was just a learning point. His view on life was too simple and his parent's didn't help, as they sheltered him and didn't allow him to experience pain and suffering of the world. .

In a dimly lit room his life was reversed in the day and night. In front a monitor with a keyboard being tapped and the sound of the fan, that was his life.

Suddenly, he was pulled from the abyss by an angry voice that was filled with pain. Everything was hazy but he remembered the car carrying white coffins. People spoke while he stood not knowing anything and snapped out when he say their faces. It was the memory of the death of his parents.

They had died in an accident while he had been living as a parasite.

He shed tears and cried for the first time in ten years. It was the cry of despair, heavy on the soul. Everything was in ruins. It was already too late but it was at that moment that angry voice again held him up.

"You are not alone."

The voice was Richard and the man crying was Rachel's older brother. Richard had wanted to help but the parent's had asked him to give the man some space. He wasn't always in the area so it also slipped his mind.

It was a sad event but the man was able to walk again with the help from Richard and Rachel. Tom was his name and he was a close friend to Richard. He had spoken about his experience after a few years and Richard felt sympathy for him, though he didn't think it could ever apply to him.

Forgetting about the depressing things, Richard ate breakfast and spoke to Lala before leaving for morning practice.

Richard stretched his body and did some light training before testing his new abilities. Among them, some were very simple.

Richard went to the fish pond near the training grounds. He could have gone to the bath area but realized that he had to overcome the problem. There was no guaranty that he would always have clean water to swim through.

Jumping into the water, Richard swam to the bottom with ease and was surrounded by many fishes. He didn't care about them and focused on the task.

Underwater breathing was one of the core skills for an adventurer as you didn't when you would be submerged.

It was a simple technique that utilized water mastery and used Ki to allow humans to act like fishes. The book talked about transforming Ki into the source of breathing, meaning they didn't know about what people really needed.

With the image of fishes swimming around him breathing through their gills, Richard operated his Ki. He wanted to the same thing, getting oxygen from the water.

Richard continued trying as he used the technique successfully according to the people around him, but it wasn't what he wanted.

Richard cancelled it and tried again.

Adversity breeds excellence was his thought, so he didn't even surface and continued to struggle underwater.

In his stressed out mindset, Richard was acting hasty and almost drowned as he felt that he was getting closer while losing awareness of his body.

Feeling the water in his body, Richard quickly surfaced as he felt panic. Throwing up the water and taking in heavy breaths, Richard finally snapped out of his careless mindset and started working cautiously like always.

Sometimes it was easy to get lost into the work when you were avoiding other thoughts that were too potent.

Breathing normally and drenched completely, Richard dived down once again to achieve his task. It took 9 more tries before he got some success, and Richard got out to rest.

Reaching the dry ground, Richard saw Leone and took his outstretched hand.

"I thought you would never get into dirty water, what changed?" Leone smiled as he pulled him out. He was also taking a short breather from his workout.

Richard allowed his body to catch a break and breathed heavily.

"I didn't think you would have trouble with this. What happened to your confidence?" Leone sat down with him and asked another question while waiting for Richard to catch his breath.

He remembered Richard's confidence when talking about the underwater breathing like it was natural for him.

"For you first question, we never know what will happen. I want to fix the weakness or it could lead to death when I need to jump into a swamp for survival." Richard replied slowly and stopped.

"The second question, I didn't have a problem. I did it on the first try, but I want to go beyond what was written. I know how fishes breathe inside water, so I was repli.. copying them. It was hard but I got some success…I should be done after a few days."

Leone was stunned for a moment and then whooped in excitement as he hugged Richard, "I always knew you were special."

It was a genius level achievement to get it on the first try and it wasn't the first time either, Richard had gotten other skills right as well.

"It wasn't anything special. You just need to look at the fishes. How do we breathe? What are we breathing? What is air made of? What does our body need? When you start questioning things, they will lead to answers eventually. If you don't ask questions, you will always be dependent and limited by others. Do you understand, Leone?" Richard answered like normal before getting a bit serious and advising the young boy.

He was also in the field of education and had issues with how kids were being taught. To him the classroom was responsible for the destruction of countless talents.

People don't always change as required, so the school shaped their futures more than what people understood.

A child that never asked questions in school would go onto never asking questions at a higher level. The school was responsible for destroying the curiosity of the child and putting their minds inside a box.

For an effective education, it was necessary to challenge the mind and encourage creative thinking. It couldn't be a system that pushed everyone into a single mold.

Of course, it wasn't just the school. Parents were also responsible along with the society the children lived inside that shaped them.

It was unfortunate that most parents lacked the parenting skills and thought that throwing money around was parenting.

Children listened to their parents more than anyone at a young age, so parents had to also teach them and shape them carefully.

Parenting and teaching was a hard job that decided the future of mankind, but they were never given the importance that was required.

It was unfortunate, but the downfall of humanity was in the negligence of the future generations and in many countries people still didn't give knowledge the position it deserved.

Humanity continued to create problems for itself but it was out of his hands, so Richard did what he could do with his limited authority.

Leone was silent for a bit as he tried to understand what he heard. He had never really wondered why the fish could live inside water while they couldn't, and vice versa.

How did the birds fly?

How did the lizard stick to the walls?

He had never questioned these things and followed instructions. He didn't think about getting creative with his techniques and just did them how he was taught.

"That only made my head hurt. I don't think it will help me, and I have you to guide me." Leone massaged his head as he now had questions without answers.

"No, it is useful. I won't be there for you all the time, so you need to start thinking or you will have a hard time changing the bad habit in the future… Leone, I am serious."

"Okay, okay, damn when did you get so preachy? I thought we could have some laughs and here you made by poor head tired."

'I have always been preachy.' Richard thought as he remembered similar scenes throughout his life. He was very serious about things and could go on a long lecture without stop.

It was also not his first time speaking about important things with someone that understood nothing. He just had to show the importance of the subject with examples.

Seeing that Leone hadn't shared the secret with anyone, he gave him some real importance.

"Fine, don't get so jumpy. There's no fire under your ȧss. Let me try improving your mood…. Did you hear about the guy whose left side was cut off?...He's all right now." Richard patted his back and thought about a joke. He really wasn't the guy to crack a joke, so it wasn't natural for him.

Getting that tone right, Richard made the joke.

Leone knew his friend didn't make jokes so he wasn't expecting anything. The joke wasn't too bad and made him give a small smile.

"You need to try harder."

"What do you call a pudgy psychic? A four-chin teller." Richard tried again and just ended up laughing at himself for trying to do something ridiculous.

His laughter caused Leone to slip up as well and both of them chuckled at the silliness of it all.

Both boys continued to talk silly for a while before continuing their training.. Richard wanted to check out other skills as well but had to postpone it because Charles arrived with Lance and Rosalina.