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When the little one looked up at him, Duncan got a good look at his eyes. They looked pretty and cool at the same time. "And that makes you my little brother Inori. I never had a little brother before so I'll make sure to help out a lot... though that means I also have no clue how to help you a lot of the time."

(7/27/14 okay i waited quite a while, sorry, but over a month is way to long Duncan is moving on to learn mana stuff)

Shira bathed in the pool washing her hair with the clean, crystal clear waters of the waterfall pool were she relaxed after her jog. The young kitsune female seemed to enjoy the cooling effective of the waters as it soothed her aching muscles from her exercise she had just put herself through. The idea was to gain speed and strength to put her in tune with nature and the spirits around her. It was good to be alone, but in reality, she was never really alone. Nature was alive and always with her as she basked in it's glory. The feelings of pleasure brought by the waters across her skin felt like the tender caress of a lover as well as that of the gentle massage of a skilled masseuse, giving release to the aching pain and putting a smile on her lips as she reclined once more, just absorbing the peace of the world around her. "It's nice...of course it always is.", she said to herself in a light tone, since talking to one's self would be seen as crazy by some, though it was not insanity, just self-assurance and reliance on herself. The journey to perfection and power was not always littered with companions and friends, and sometimes, like now, she would have to face the facts of how one would need to rely on themselves for growth and empowerment in her development of her own skills.

She then thought of traveling and exploring the realms to see what the world had to offer outside her secluded forest and waterfall laden homeland. She had heard of a party that as being thrown to celebrate the harvest. The idea of checking it out and seeing the different beings of the world crossed her mind, though she only entertained it as she then submerged herself to her chin, blowing at the water pensively as she tried to make up her mind on her future course of action. For now, she had plenty of time to just rest in between the hike home and rushing the experience of the clear waters that soothed her was not on her list of things to do. Shira wished that the world could always be as peaceful and as pleasurable as this pool of clean water. Serene and soothing, healing and relieving were the qualities she wished the outside world could bring, but she had heard stories of how unforgiving the civilized lands could be. For now she was content to reflect on her powers, though soon it would be time to head off and work on moving to return home.

Shira arrived home with her stacks of books and acquired items from the trip to the mines. It was now time to study as she sat down at her desk in her room at the temple in the Great Falls region. The first book, "How to Level Up" was an interesting read as she began to scan the pages with her eyes and drink in the information. There had been a lack of visitors to the shrine in the recent months so this would prove to be an excellent experience as she worked with the knowledge she had purchased with her hard earned cash. "To unlock my hidden potential, I must focus on improving aspects of myself.", she muttered as she scanned the pages of the book and shook her head. It seemed like common sense to the young female kitsune as she continued to study the basics of the book and log into her memory it's teachings, regardless of how simplistic it sounded. The idea was to become stronger, not criticize the writings of the ones before her.

The wisdom of the book continued to seep into her skull as she learned the words and drank in the knowledge. The idea was to increase her ability to train and to grow stronger faster to prepare for the incoming winter months when training would be more difficult or less frequent. It was also almost time for the Ritual of the Snow Fairy in which the nature shrine paid thanks to the earth for the winter months and the benefits it brought as well as the unity and community from people visiting relatives during these months and celebrating the incoming New Year. As she neared the end of the book, the last pages made everything click and she was confident that the teachings had brought her new insight.

The next book on her list to conquer was "Cresca's Book of How to Fight", as even though she knew a good deal about how to fight already, having gotten the basics down by the method of the school of hard knocks, experience and hard effort, the idea of learning what more she could do to improve her fighting finesse interested her all the same as she took to the book and began to learn from the secrets she had paid so dearly for. As Shira read over the texts she found herself analyzing different fighting stances, the different styles, and basic stances. It talked a good deal about balancing offensive power and defensive power to make yourself a more well rounded individual. All of it seemed like sound advice to put into practice should she be required to take up her spirit bow, or to have to club somebody with her vicious new weapon.

The idea was that Shira would not need to worry so much about her practice in the Fighting arts, though that idea was one of pure fantasy. The world was becoming slowly more violent and everything seemed like a power escalation war, so the concept of fighting and needing to know how to was becoming a necessity even more in the day and age in which she lived. Cresca's words in the book becoming a foundation for the technique she had already been versing herself in.

As she came to the close in the book, she decided that she would need to devote time each day to practicing her technique and combat skills to prevent herself from becoming rusty and to insure that while she may get stronger physically, that her technique didn't suffer and had the power to back up were she was coming from.

After she got to the last page and got a greater understanding of fighting, she put that book away and pulled out a book on hunting. "Cresca's Book of How to Hunt". As she looked into this book, she began to read over the basics of hunting and proper technique to use when performing such a task. She had been trained in this art from the time she took interest in it. Though a refresher course and some pages from another person's lesson plan never hurt. In fact she was learning a great deal about how to refine her breathing, and to move swiftly while tracking with greater accuracy.

As she read over the book on how to hunt, Shira learned not just about technique, but other methods, such as trapping and also more tips on archery style of using a bow and arrow to hunt. Then came the lecture in Cresca's book on how to kill your game target with one blow by explaining the importance of vital spots and how to hit them properly so as to avoid humane killing issues and to cause the target being hunted less pain and a swift death to maintain the integrity and honor of the hunt.

After covering several other chapters, Shira felt like she had connected a little more with her hunting side and how to best approach her chosen profession with a little more skill and grace, as well as with better accuracy for cleaner kills, and for faster tracking. The book also mentioned that hunting was also used to help prevent nature from going crazy and overpopulation from killing off or making all the other animals sick from lack of food resources to go around.

Shira then clapped the book shut and stacked it with the book on fighting. before she picked up the two tomes and took them to her room to fetch some other books to read. She still had plenty more material to continue with.