Wolf found solace in the pool as he always did. It wasn’t quite so much a pool as much as a sauna. The heat poured into him, welcoming him like the arms of an old friend.

A soft sigh escaped his lips, a rare treasure. Around him he could feel the warm air flow through him as he shut off his senses one at a time until all he could do was feel the warmth. Then he could hear the cursing of Tiger from all that way away near the obelisk.

He could even smell the sweat that puddled under his friend. Slowly he expanded his senses outward, trying to find the faint trickle of ki that surrounded this place.

This was the training ground their mentors once used to relax and recuperate their own strength after times of great distress. Others probably wouldn’t call this relaxing, but that was all relative anyway.

His muscles began to relax and the warmth seeped into all the aches. He sighed out and then began to close off his mind, trying to find nothingness. It was in this nothingness that he could probably find what he was looking for. However, he snapped out of it. He opened his eyes and then stepped out of the pool. The pool had just finished working off most of his ailments and weakness. His brothers were going off to tear down their bodies from their already weakened state, but that was not something that Wolf needed to do.

He made his way towards another area with an obelisk nearby, still in his nude form, and he reached over to brush his fingers along it. He could feel the grooves of the stone, the harshness as well where the jagged areas were, and then he clutched at it.

He waited there for some time, holding onto the obelisk. He closed his eyes and then pressed his forehead against it before his entire body grew hot, as though a volcano had engulfed him within it.

Then he found himself floating in nothingness, the same nothingness he had reached within the pond. He was naked, alone, but unafraid. He could hear something, a low groaning sound followed by a whistle. Then he shifted his body, rolling aside as the wind missed his body.

Wild Fang had taught him this technique. To bring a man, bare and alone, to face his darkness. Wolf had the trust of both Tiger and Dragon, and he failed to live up to it. It wasn’t that he was weak mentally or physically, it was just that he had something else on his mind. Right now he needed to forget how to think. So for the next month he was going to continue to fight within the void, until he was hungry and thirsty. Then he would continue until the concept of hunger or thirst were the only concepts that existed. Then, finally, he would lose all concepts, other than to survive.

Wolf continued to dodge and weave through the wind, and then he started to leap between the spaces of nothing, trying to find something within the nothingness.

His master had told him that once you feel even the slightest bit of hunger or thirst, you run. You run and you run away, not necessarily away from anything, but rather towards the pain and suffering. You have to embrace it, so that you can use it as a shield, rather than to allow someone to use it as a weapon against you.

He continued to dodge and weave between the breezes, making sure they only just barely brushed him if they did touch him.

Eventually the breezes decreased. Each breeze then came to him once every hour, before then coming once every few hours. Yet Wolf had to make sure he wasn’t struck by the breeze, otherwise it would bring him out of the void and he would have wasted the entire time getting to this particular position.

As the moments passed by, he continued to swerve each breeze until his gut started to tighten. He was starving now, ravenous, and he could feel his mind give in to the hunger. Yet he wasn’t done just yet, he could last for a long while. Remaining in the void would have driven most mad, but Wolf had a goal in mind. He didn’t care how long it took to get to it, he was going to forget how to think in order to clear his mind so that no distractions will be able to stop him from helping his brothers.

A moment of negligence can lead to an eternity of regret.