The next day Hou finished his new design and when he did, he noticed somebody was knocking on his door. He sat up and opened the door, to see a young man in a leather apron.
"Hou, nice to see you, I guess again. Feels weird since you used to be Saviour, what happened there anyway, you said you returned from the future?"
"You must be the blacksmith, sorry for not remembering you, come in let's talk first."
Hou opened the door fully and led the man to the living room,
"Sit down, I'll get some cups and make some tea."
Going into the kitchen, Hou brought back two cups and a container of tea. Hou sat down on a chair facing the blacksmith and put a few tea leaves into their cups.
Hou then used his spirit will to instantly pour out boiling water.
"So what's your name firstly, I should know that at least."
"Ahh sorry for not telling you, it's Thor. We've interacted a few times when you were Saviour, just how far in the future are you from, how was the future!?"
Hou smiled and lightly chortled,
"Much longer than you think, at least a hundred year!"
"....one...hundred...YEARS!" Thor's mouth dropped opened and he leaned forward staring at Hou.
"You don't look a hundred, I can excuse you forgetting me then." Thor sat back against the chair and laughed a bit.
"I know, I look quite good still. Nice to meet you again Thor. Anyway, the reason I called for you..."
"Ah yes, let's get down to business properly"
"Yes let's, I want to hire you as a private blacksmith for the Hou family and sect.Ill need your help lots so I feel I should make a deal. How about this, whatever you want you can have, of course in reasonable amounts."
"Well you do have the authority to say that... Sure, I will need more metal though. It's risky business mining for ore, although maybe these new mountains will be useful."
"Don't worry about that, I'll make sure that I get you ore. For now, can you make this."
Hou pulled out a piece of paper with a sword design on it. This was the final design Hou decided for the flying sword. Once it was enchanted properly, it should be able to fly a few miles a day cumulative with only a few mana stones.
This distance however wasn't definite, since it relied on the natural world it was very dependant. Hou also left one mana stone on the hilt for protection. If the mana ran out mid flight it would protect the user until they landed.
Thor took the design and left to his smithery, getting to work instantly. Hou looked at the time and judged that Junior should be there soon.
While Hou waited he contemplated for a while
'There needs to be a sort of currency in order, barter is too hard to judge worth. What is worthless to one, is precious to another. If I use mana stones, only I can make them and they have limited amount. This is indeed suitable. But I need to introduce them to the people. I need to give jobs like I've done with Thor and pay in stones. But I also need some use for them. I should set up a purchasing system for meat, alcohol and other things I can produce en masse. Then I should be able to stimulate people to use mana stones as currency.'
As Hou was lampooning, he jolted out of his mood when Junior walked in.
"Hi... Master..?"
"No need for that, just call me Uncle Hou like usual. Come sit down"
Hou patted on the floor in front of him, Junior sat down cross legged and nodded.
"Right just do exactly as I say"
Hou his will and blood in Junior in the form of false spirit will formations. He sensed then and withdrew them, bloody formations exiting Junior's pores and into Hou's.
One of the special spirit wills Hou got from the sun is a dream spirit will that put people to sleep. He used a variant ability of that and put Junior in a state between sleep and wake.
"Imagine your consciousness, the you within your body. I'm wrapping a chord around it, now imagine I'm pulling it out, you're exiting your body. You are not just your body."
Normally astral projection was an extremely hard skill, for normal people not Hou, but using Hou's spirit will he predicted it would only take a few days.
Junior followed Hou's instructions and slowly he heard his voice fade. Instead there was pure silence, or maybe a symphony. In the astral world, senses became merely a way to comprehend laws. Junior focused on the sound and could hear many different tunes. All around him were noises and instruments, voices and explosions.
Suddenly Junior felt overwhelmed and jolted back into his body, despite his state of being between sleep and awake he still stood up.
Hou was surprised and asked why he stood up,
"I...think I did it ...? I left my body and everything became silent until I heard a noise and then all sorts of sound assaulted my senses."
"Perfect, senses are merely ways to comprehend the incomprehensible. I see them you must hear them. Those things you hear, those are laws. They are what govern the world. Everything about everything is because of the laws. Next time, instead of focusing on sound, focus on sight, see the laws"
Sight was the main intuitive sense for humans, most people could comprehend the world easier with sight than hearing. It was easiest to teach Junior with sight.
Junior sat back down and tried to leave again. It happened and his body slumped down, he entered the astral world again. This time he ignored whatever he heard and looked, slowly seeing morphing colours.
Until they snapped and formed a beautiful arrangement of coloured thread, each vibrating at a frequency he could hear as well as see.
If Araxis saw this, he might've chose Junior over Hou as his disciple. Junior was overwhelmingly talented at magic, this was a skill called 'resonance'.