CHAPTER 90: CHAPTER 90: STONE SPLITTER

Before the massive boulder, Sosuke stood silently, the hammer-sword hanging in his hand.

The three people who had been observing the Automaton gathered around him, glancing at the hammer in his hand and then at the stone before them.

Senjuro whispered to Kyojuro, "Brother, what kind of stone is this?"

"...It’s just a stone!" Kyojuro replied, his expression a mix of exasperation, confusion, and bewilderment.

If Sosuke had simply shattered the stone with a single blow, Kyojuro wouldn’t have been so perplexed. After all, Sosuke’s strength was extraordinary, far beyond that of ordinary humans, and Kyojuro knew how heavy his hammer was.

But neither Sosuke’s strength nor the hammer’s weight could explain the clean, blade-like cut that had appeared on the stone.

This wasn’t a slash from a sword!

In fact, if Sosuke could split a stone like this with a single sword strike, it would mean his swordsmanship had truly reached a level of mastery.

But as it stood... while Sosuke’s swordsmanship had indeed improved, it hadn’t yet reached such a level of accomplishment.

For a moment, the experienced Kyojuro was stumped.

But soon, the man rallied, his eyes blazing with fervent light. "That’s it! This must be the result of his special training!"

Everyone immediately turned to look at him.

Kyojuro’s eyes shone with excitement. "I told you! The Swordsmith Boy harbors a hidden treasure within his heart! With relentless forging, it will blossom into dazzling brilliance!"

Kanae glanced at him, then turned to Sosuke. "How do you feel?"

Sosuke shook his head, carefully considering his words. "It feels... like water flowing into its channel. As if something within my body suddenly reached its peak. In that instant, I had this overwhelming certainty—that if I struck with that hammer, the stone would split."

"And now?"

Kanae asked again.

Sosuke shook his head. "It’s gone now. The hammer is just a hammer, the stone is just a stone. There’s no strange feeling anymore."

As he spoke, he struck the already cracked stone again.

This time, the hammer broke through the stone’s surface, creating a pit, but the stone didn’t split further.

"The feel is off, the sensation is wrong, the force is still off..."

He shook his head. "And just now, that feeling seemed to be only directed at the stone. I didn’t sense it with anything else."

This situation seemed to defy explanation.

Sosuke shook his head. "Let’s put this aside for now and test the Automaton."

The Automaton had been assembled. The next step was to verify whether it possessed the swordsmanship of Flame Breathing and whether it could be trained.

The ideal opponent for this test was, of course, Kyojuro.

The process went smoothly. Man and machine clashed in the courtyard as Sosuke focused intently on verifying the Automaton’s capabilities, minimizing any potential errors.

After one final adjustment, he declared the Automaton complete.

Forgetting their elation, Sosuke and the Rengoku brothers exchanged a few words before returning to their rooms to begin writing the operating manual.

Yet as he stared at the blank paper, his mind inevitably drifted back to that inexplicable hammer strike from earlier.

His penmanship grew erratic. Finally, he rubbed his forehead and turned to find Kanae sitting beside him.

"Are you alright?" she asked softly.

Sosuke smiled. "I’m fine."

Though he couldn’t fathom how that strike had occurred, he was naturally pleased to have gained a new ability.

His current dilemma was that he couldn’t recapture the sensation of that strike.

The sudden feeling of fullness within his body seemed to have vanished the moment the hammer fell.

Of course, it was also possible that the fullness hadn’t vanished entirely, but rather that in his usual state of "emptiness," he simply couldn’t perceive it.

"But try to calm your mind and keep searching," Kanae suggested after a moment’s thought. "I don’t fully understand what that feeling is, but Urokodaki-sensei once said that the power hidden within your heart needs to be unearthed. The Flame Pillar also said that your heart holds a treasure. You could try asking your heart again, to seek out that hidden treasure."

In his current state, this was the only thing he could do.

Sosuke nodded, immediately clearing his mind of distractions and focusing all his attention on the operating manual before him.

After finishing writing, Kanae accompanied him out of the Rengoku family estate to a nearby clearing.

The area was scattered with jagged rocks. Sosuke sat on one of them, holding his breath and concentrating, searching within his heart.

Unfortunately, after an entire afternoon, he found no hidden treasure within his heart. Instead, he ended up taking a good nap.

When he woke up, the sunset was already nearing the horizon. He stretched his arms, glanced at Kanae beside him, and shook his head in resignation.

"It’s alright. We’ll try again tomorrow," Kanae said with a gentle smile, unfazed by the setback.

Sosuke was speechless. "You didn’t even wake me up when I fell asleep?"

"You looked so peaceful, I couldn’t bring myself to," Kanae said with a soft laugh. "Actually, I think it’s hard to clear your mind when your nerves are so tense. You put too much pressure on yourself. Sometimes, a moment of relaxation like this can be a good thing."

Sosuke nodded thoughtfully.

As he stepped down from the rock and turned to leave, a sudden inspiration struck him. He turned back and struck the rock with his hammer.

Kanae immediately focused her gaze on the stone.

But... as the seconds ticked by, the rock remained unchanged.

Sosuke shrugged. "Just my imagination, I guess."

"Then let’s go eat," Kanae said with a smile, taking his hand. In the setting sun, their shadows stretched long across the ground.

At that moment, a faint cracking sound reached their ears.

They turned simultaneously to see the massive boulder Sosuke had been sitting on all afternoon, now split cleanly in two as if by some razor-sharp blade.

Their gazes froze, locking onto each other. Kanae’s eyes sparkled with joy, while Sosuke looked utterly bewildered.

After a long moment, Kanae asked, "Why don’t you seem very happy?"

"...I’m just wondering what kind of demon would let me sleep half the day and then get up and strike it down," Sosuke said, a mix of amusement and exasperation in his voice. "No demon would give me that much preparation time."

But the next moment, a wide grin spread across his face. "Still, this is just the beginning. I’m starting to get that strange feeling now. If I can just grasp it, maybe I won’t need so much preparation time after all."

Kanae nodded enthusiastically.