Sen

Sen pulled up her sleeves to remove the weighted straps around her lower arms and gently placed them on the floor. She did the same for the weights on her shins, then straightened her back and closed her eyes.

Breathe in and out.

In and out.

In and out.

While concentrating on her breathing, the dragon's student drew her sword and rested the flat of its blade against her shoulder, holding the hilt loosely in both hands. Sen opened her eyes and glared straight ahead, ignoring the spectators on the side of the training room. There was nothing in front of her.

The ethereal training dummy blurred into her view, a wooden log fashioned roughly in the likeness of a human torso. Certainly, there was nothing there; but the dummy was not 'there'. That was the point of the exercise: to reach this dummy that did not exist in the material.

Sen tightened her grip on the sword and entered a stance. The next time she exhaled, instead of inhaling, she kept breathing out until her lungs screamed for air. She seized that greed, the desire to take what was out of reach, and breathed in.

Leading with her left foot, she closed the distance in three strides and one breath. In the same moment, her existence changed. She felt real and unreal, and most of all she felt hungry: For air, for herself, for this thing in front of her that was not there. She exhaled and brought her sword down in the same instant.

To the onlookers, it seemed as though she had slashed at empty air.

To her own eyes, she clove the ethereal dummy in two, leaving the halves to drift downwards from the momentum of the swing. Sen straightened and sheathed her sword, letting the wood fade out of her sight as she closed her eyes. After a moment of temperance, she returned to normal.

Several seconds later, Teacher's spell on the dummy wore off. The wood became material, and the two drifting halves appeared out of thin air and clattered to the floor.