The two were awoken by their father.
"Dad? Why are you waking us? What time is it?" Riven questioned.
"Did you forget?" Kaden then put an instruction manual in front of his son's face. "Let's get a building as a family. Find a hammer, a screwdriver, and extra nails, just in case," he ordered.
"Can we get some breakfast first?" Jordan asked.
"No. You want to have friends over, then you need to be prepared. The sun is about to rise — hurry up," he ordered. As the two got up groggily, it took them two hours to build the entire building. Even though it took that long, none of them got tired. It confused the two boys how their father could really keep up with them. They were awakened thanks to which their bodies didn't need as much sleep, but when they were tired, they could do nothing but sleep — yet their father was keeping up with them. No, Jordan could see he was doing better than they were.
"Time for breakfast," Kaden said as he got himself a bowl of cereal. "So how long is it going to take your friends to get here anyway, and how long are they exactly going to be here?"
"They'll probably take until the afternoon most likely so they can get all their credentials in order to come in. And two, I don't know. Since we built that hall in the backyard, they could probably sleep in there," Riven replied. He turned on the telepathic link, but after hearing nothing, he could tell everyone was asleep, so he decided to just leave them alone for right now and turn it back on when everybody's ready to get their things in order and to communicate.
"Hmm. So, do you want a head start, or do you wanna learn it with them? You two should be ahead of them by a decent margin since you were able to learn the two things very quickly," Kaden said with his mouth full.
The two thought about it.
"Well, they should catch up really quickly since the system did analyze the two techniques that we learned," Jordan thought, knowing Riven must've turned the link on for him so he could talk about it.
"No. Resonance is very different from just an ability or a mutation," Riven replied.
"What do you mean?" Jordan was confused at his brother's response.
"I can't control the Resonance around my body like you did, and it's probably the same for you, but you'll have a hard time producing it to a sword since that's the only thing I can produce it through right now," Riven said, gripping his hand.
"Maybe Dad meant way more than we thought when he said two brothers going down different paths," Jordan thought.
"So, do you want a head start or not?" Kaden questioned.
"I do," Jordan said.
"Same," Riven followed.
"All right, let's go to our new place," he said, doing his dishes.
"Wait, hold on, let us get done eating first," Riven stressed as Kaden went to the backyard. After the two got done with rushing through eating, they went outside to the training hall behind their father. When they entered, they saw their father with a white gi.
"When did you have time to put that on?" Jordan thought.
"Put on your gis," he said, sliding the two the same type of clothes that he had, but the middle was green unlike their father's, which was black.
"He's really taking this teacher-student thing serious, huh," Riven said as they both put on the white gi.
"Okay, now split apart from one another. After semi-mastering what I taught you yesterday, you two have now started to go down your own separate paths. I probably should've told you this before — here, sorry — but there's no fixing the past now. Jordan, you are now known as a Flowor. You can manipulate the Resonance throughout your body, but you can't output it like your brother can. While Riven, you are a Conductor. You're able to use Resonance outside, being able to channel it through weapons and armor. You can also leave your Resonance on inanimate objects, empowering them, but it'll be a while before you're able to do that. And you have the opposite effect of your brother. You two could try to learn each other's primary, but it will take a longer time to do so and overall will not be worth it. And even if you have amazing talent, it'll take you at least five weeks to do so."
"Kinda wish you told us that beforehand," Riven said, dumbfounded.
"I have no regret on the path I went towards. I will use it to surpass this idiot and show him I made the better choice," Jordan said with a smirk.
"Is that a challenge?" Riven questioned, returning a smirk of his own.
"That's what I like to hear."
To focus, Riven turned on the link for everyone but turned it off for him and Jordan. He'd never tried this before, but it would allow everyone to stay in contact with him without having to hear them.
"Now." Kaden then put down a muter on Jordan's side, making it where Riven couldn't hear them. "Since you two talked so big, I'd rather not let the other hear how you're going to progress." Jordan nodded to his father. "Now, like I said, Flowor and Conductor are different from one another, with Conductor being seen as the stronger of the two. Before you say anything, I want to tell you that none of that is true. Neither is stronger than the other — all it depends on is the user, not the path they go down. Now, if I remember, a Flowor can do a couple of things.
One: your nerves — you can control your own nerves. Like, you can relax your own brain, push it to its limit of capacity. Hell, you can go down to the very deepest memory of your childhood from when you were even born. This could be very helpful, but you'll have to focus a lot in your brain and be careful that you don't overwrite it. You may become brain-dead if you do so. I would say hold off on trying this.
Two: muscle conduction. As you know, you can travel Resonance throughout your body, meaning you can focus it at a certain point and release a powerful burst in one of your limbs, but this also has a risk of breaking one of your limbs while added. But if you're able to truly master it, you might be able to focus it constantly around your body like a type of circuit, with your brain being the mainframe."
"Dad, if I could say something," Jordan gestured, with his father nodding. "The way you talk about it, I'm guessing that means I'll have a harder time than Riven since you're not a Flowor, are you?"
"Correct. I am a Conductor, meaning I cannot teach you hands-on. But what I can do is give you peace of mind on what you can shoot for. Obviously, I don't know all that a Flowor can do — heck, I don't even know all that a Conductor can do. All I'm doing is just giving you boys the best I can and allowing you to learn from each other and to help one another."
Jordan understood, allowing his father to continue.
"Now, the last thing I know of is Echo Sense. Problem with that is you have to be barefoot. Think of Avatar and the earthbending girl who can sense vibration in the ground even though she's blind, allowing her to tell where her pushes are from afar. This is a good technique just in case your eyes don't tell you all that you need to know. And this is all that I know — you may have to create new techniques of your own, my son." He patted Jordan on the shoulder as he walked out of the muter.
"He didn't exactly give me peace of mind or what I should practice first. Hmm, I should focus on my nerve control since, like Dad said, it was the most dangerous out of the ones he said. And who knows — having a full extent of my brain may be even more powerful than any weapon or armor." Jordan then got in a meditative position, trying to focus his Resonance into his brain little by little.
"Now for you," Kaden said, using another muter. "I'm gonna tell you the same thing that I told your brother — that being, you're gonna have an easier time since I myself am a Conductor."
"A what?"
Kaden forgot the fact that he had to explain the same thing to the other brother, which he did.
"Okay, now. A Conductor primarily focuses on the outside of your body, meaning you can do things like channeling your Resonance through weapons. Now, know even though you can channel your weapon to a wooden sword does not mean it's easy to channel it through an actual weapon. What do you mainly use as your primary weapon?"
"Gauntlets, I guess."
"What a strange weapon choice, but no matter." Kaden then opened a door and then figured out two black gauntlets. "To improve your Resonance, you need to, one, channel your power through an actual weapon. It's a different feeling with every weapon, so some may be harder than others. You may have an easier time channeling it through a blade because you already did it with that wooden sword."
"That explains the system. When it originally analyzed it, it said specifically a sword," Riven thought before his father could continue. They heard a voice outside.
"Uhh, hello? Anyone home?" a boy yelled out.
"Joey?" The two boys recognized the voice.
"I'll get it. You two focus on what you were training on."
"Yes, sir," they said in unison.
"Wait a minute, he only told me one thing," Riven complained.
"Hello," Kaden said. He could see a golden-haired boy and two green-haired kids, both of them looking tired and a bit annoyed.
"Hello, Mr. Harlow. Is Riven and Jordan hom—" but he was cut off when a gi was thrown in all of their faces.
"Put these on and meet us in the backyard, and leave those suitcases in the living room."
"Yes, sir!" Luka yelled.
"Good. One of you is energetic," Kaden smirked, leaving.
"Wait, before you go — when you see Riven, can you tell him to turn it off? He'll understand what we're talking about," Kira said with an annoyed smile.
"Sure." Kaden then made his way back to the hall, where he could see the two boys struggling at the task.
"What the hell? This was so easy with the sword. Why haven't I adapted to it yet?" Riven thought.
"The system is analyzing it, but it might take a while. You may need to focus on your own talent instead of relying on the system. Try to put 100% output of your Resonance into the gauntlets and see how that will work." Riven did as Jordy said, but he could see the gauntlets' exterior damaging over time.
"Dammit," Riven then pulled back his energy, not wanting to destroy the gauntlets in the process.
As for Jordan, he'd been trying to do it slow, pouring in more and more of his Resonance, but he barely felt any changes in his brain activity. He considered moving on but decided to keep trying.
"This is harder than I expected. I thought the system would just help me in instantly learning it, but I've gotten nothing — not like last time," Jordan thought.
"This means, for the most part, the system won't be able to help us," they both thought.
"Riven," Kaden called out, with the former then turning off the muter that was next to him.
"Yeah?"
"Three people who I'm guessing are your friends are here, one of them being that Joey kid from last time, and the girl said to turn it off — whatever that means." Riven knew what this meant. If it was directly to specifically him, he then turned off the link — most likely by her words, everyone got everything in order and was ready to come here.
"Now let us continue before I have to focus on your friends and their own training so they can catch up," Riven nodded. "Now, as a Conductor, you can use your Resonance as a type of shield. Those who aren't Flowor or aren't awakened yet don't know how to use Resonance. They won't know you're using it, and even if they did, they would have no real way of taking it off your body unless they're a master."
"A master?"
"Yes, a master at being both a Conductor and a Flowor. Riven, if you ever run into a person like that, the only thing you can do is run. They're a danger even to high-tier Evolvers." He could see his father's warning was serious. "Now, there is more that you can learn, but for right now, I can see you're struggling to channel your Resonance through those gauntlets, so before I teach you anything else, you need to learn that first." Kaden then walked away toward Jordan. "Now, how have you been doing?" He was interested in his progress.
"Nothing. I feel no different even while putting in more than half of my own Resonance," Jordan complained.
"That's the thing. You're pouring your Resonance into your brain, trying to force your brain to activate 100% of its capacity. That is why I said you need to be careful. Doing something like this could, in fact, cause brain damage. Instead, try to do it a little bit at a time, allowing your brain to adjust instead of trying to overwhelm it like a protective barrier around your brain." Kaden then saw three people walk into the hall.
"Woah, how did you guys afford this?" Luka looked around, amazed.
"I'm more concerned about how you were able to build it so fast," Kira said, sweating.
"Good, my new students — come, come." Kaden then led them to another corner of the room. "Today is the start of your training."