The bag rattles and slides a little ways across the floor. 

Black Claw whistles. "Damn, she wasn't kidding when she said it was a third level technique. You could hurt me with that. You'd need better form and some more training, but I see the potential. Again."

Better form. She envisions the hypnotic instructions in her mind. She will HIT that punching bag. Breath in, feel the stirring of qi- Lash out! "HA!"

"Good! Now do your meditation quickly while your qi and chi are still excited."

"Right."

Down she goes. Focus. Draw it in. It's HERS. Is it easier this time? If so, she wonders, why?

It's slightly easier now. She's getting the mental motions down, though they're still a strain to actually execute. 

Black Claw offers her a hand up from her seated meditation. "Get the thread?"

"Yeah." Breathe out. "The mental stuff is a bit trippy. Like a muscle I didn't even know I had. I can only assume getting very good at it is important."

She accepts the hand up, palm sweaty.

Black Claw grins and ducks his head with a small blush. "Here I am getting all master-y. Yeah, it's important. It's a muscle like any other, it'll get easier as you practice. Eight threads in a day is pretty doable at the end of the Hundred Days. So yeah, keep honing your body." He keeps his opinion on the current state of her body to himself.

She smiles back. "Mm, it's more like a student tutor group than you being a wizened old master? You're not giving me a lecture or assigning me homework, just little tips."

She starts stretching unselfconsciously as part of her cooldown. Elbow above her head in that behind-the-back stretch, and then further.

"-Geez, I'm way more limber than last week. It's pretty exciting to have such obvious progress, though? Working out as a mortal kind of sucked. Ooh, are there like- Control exercises easier than condensing a thread to practice that part?"

His gaze lingers, then darts away. "Yeah, body-tempering liquid does a lot. Shame about the fail rate, but." He shrugs. "As for control exercises - you pick things up. Try a thirty minute workout without the kicks, it won't excite your qi enough to get a thread out of it but it'll unstick it enough to let you practice calming and focussing."

"Shame about the fail rate. It'd be great to give to more people. I'll try that!"

...Um. She's finally noticed the looking and flushes slightly about it.

"-You, uh, don't have to not look at me. If I were worried about that I'd- Well, I was a little bit nervous before you got here but mostly that you wouldn't think I was cool, or something, so uh. I'm saying this all wrong. Nevermind."

"Yeah, uh... you're very fit. And I'm not immune to it. Another thing to thank Body Tempering Liquid for, hm? Though I'm sure you looked good before..." 

He trails off. "Anyway yeah, you're zeroth rank and I'm third so nothing serious is likely to happen, I'd be endangering you. Though, ah... never mind."

She ducks her head with a smile, but then,

"-Wait, do you mean I'd be a target to get to you or that having sex between ranks is literally, like, hazardous- I remember something about mixing yin and yang being bad-"

"You'd be a target to get to me, there are also - pairwise cultivation techniques, it's called being someone's dao companion, so if we got serious cultivators would assume we were working together like that and that they could squeeze you for my techniques. Something casual would be fine, like I said it's not hazardous... in fact with someone second stage and up you're fine on contraception and diseases too... but it's probably a bad idea for us to get, like, involved."

She nods slowly. "Well- I'm honestly not sure how I feel about all that, but I know I wouldn't want to jump into a serious relationship with someone the day I met them. And probably not with anyone for a while. But, like, I've done... Some kissing, and stuff, and it was nice, so maybe more of that would be nice, and you're cute in a hard to define way, and, but-"

She's blushing too much now, and looking to the side. (She blushes blue).

"Anyway! Lemme go shower and let's swim or something. Or I can look into sailboat rental, it's not too late in the day for that."

"Swimming sounds like a great plan," says Cocoa. "For reasons." He grins. "Let me just grab my swim trunks and change."

"-Heh. Reasons, right. See you in a bit." She's been leaving her swimsuit in the gym's changing room, so she goes and showers and luxuriates in the nice hot water for a bit, then gets into it. It's a sporty black two-piece, somewhat more covering than a bikini and with faint camo-like patterns in grey. (Man, she still can't get over the fact that she has abs now).

...Wait, he brought swim trunks along? He didn't seem to be carrying anything. Storage ring? Eh, probably not important. Poolwards she goes.

Black Claw just left his pack in the front hall before she saw him. He goes and digs out his swim trunks and changes in the spare bedroom. Leaves his pack by the bed in case he wants to stay the night. 

He meets her by the pool. He's lithe, with an androgynous swimmer's build and good muscle definition. "Nice to see you." His gaze roams over her body; he's not making any effort to conceal his appreciation any more. "Let's swim."

"Mm-hm!" Well she can look appreciatively too, so hah.

She's a really good swimmer, perhaps unsurprisingly.

Black Claw keeps up, also unsurprisingly. 

"This has been fun," he says. "Still want to go sailing with you, but that's for another day. For now I think I'll turn in? And you can keep training."

"Yeah, makes sense. It was good to meet you."

Her workout routine calls. She gently sucks on another blood and qi pill, then goes for two quick half hour runs to practice the mental motions, then condenses strand number four and tries to judge whether she should go for five.

She feels surprisingly good for all the workout she's done. Her legs hardly even ache. Maybe she could chance it?

Escalating growth is a wonderful feeling~

She'll go for it, with determination and heart!

It's easy this time. Her focus exercises must be paying off.