Gentō:

  "Bah! What a futile effort!"

  The Baku kicked a begonia tree roughly his size, only to clutch his foot in pain after it collided with its dainty trunk. Yet another reminder that physical prowess was not his strong suit.

  His Amikiri companion, Kreef, had better luck with this taxing endeavor, plucking a few weeds off the ground with successful earth magic.

  "It isn't THAT bad!" Kreef bore an insufferably sweet grin on his beak while he flew circles in the air. "You gotta find the rhy-"

  "DON'T YOU TALK TO ME ABOUT RHYTHM!" the Baku hysterically shouted while pointing a finger at his comrade. "It is hopeless! The best Saniya tutors in the Dragon's Guard couldn't make me tap into any elemental path!" He sat on the ground, carrying an anguished glance at the flowers. "Not even sucking those dreams are helping me in that regard..."

  "Well... Perhaps you're too dependent on her dreams, my boy!"

  Great. Now the canine douchebag came along...

  "Why can't I expel you from my head?!" Gentō asked, clutching his head in growing frustration.

  The old coot chuckled. "Kid, I'm even older than you! Unsurprisingly, almost a millennium of honing your mind and spirit makes both impenetrable fortresses and unmatched weapons. That said, your mental defenses are quite lacking."

  The Baku huffed a faint, sparkly mist. "I don't need a reminder of my shortcomings, thank you."

  "No, no, no! You misunderstand! I seek to guide you through self-improvement!" The elder snickered. "Mockery is just a fun little bonus."

  Gentō rolled his eyes. "What gives you the delusion of accomplishing what so many couldn't? You must be Tizohi himself..."

  Hōkō giggled. "Oh ho ho! Not exactly! But I have a unique edge over your past teachers. Something called... experience with your kind."

  The Baku's eyes widened. "You met other Baku?!" He stood up.

  "Gentō? You're acting weird right now..." Kreef hovered beside him. The Amikiri's yellow eyes scanned his.

  The dream stealer ignored him, too enthralled by the telepathic conversation. "What else do you know about them?! Tell me!"

  "I know your people were revered as forces of good for the Humans before the war broke out, and the foreigners painted you in a bad light to turn them against you," Hōkō explained. "You use a scarier form for your dream escapades, and your diet and physiology were greatly adapted to feed on dreams, which affected your stomach tolerance and how you grow your Saniya..."

  Gentō stroked his droopy snout. "What was that about my Saniya, again?"

  "You see, your species have their dream techniques engraved into them since birth. The tradeoff is that their Saniya pathways are completely scrambled compared to the other Monoke. Diversifying your skillset beyond mind spells and specialized spore-like magic constructs is not impossible. Although your strength and speed might not grow much without shapeshifting. Your species are not very gifted in that regard..."

  The Baku's eyes sparkle with awe. "So, how do I develop earth magic, then?"

  "In my experience, your people connect to your Saniya pathways by digging through your minds. With my help, you can determine the cadence your energy must adhere to tap into an elemental path."

  Gentō jumped and bounced in countless directions, shouting at the top of his lungs. "YES, YES, YES! I'M NOT A COMPLETE FAILURE!!!"

  Kreef stared at him with frightened eyes, shaking while coiling himself around a branch of the pego tree. "When you start with your mental small talk, could you give me a heads-up?"

  The dream Monoke couldn't care about the Amikiri's complaints. The excitement for the future was too overpowering! But then, he cocked an eyebrow as a moment of realization settled in. "Wait a minute. If you could help me all this time, why didn't you tell me this before?!"

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  "I wanted to first test if your basic Saniya cycling was adequate," Hōkō clarified. "Besides, your roaring ego and crushing self-doubt are a treat to watch together."

  Why was this old fool in a position of power?! You know what, forget it. You wouldn't look a gifted Wolf in the mouth, after all.

  "Alright! How do we begin?!"

  "As one always does! Sit your bottom on the ground, close your eyes, calm your heart, and let your mind do the rest!"

  Simple enough. The rotund Monoke sat down, took a deep breath, and... everything else melted into nothingness...

  Gentō practically lived in the void shenanigans of the mental plane. However, he hadn't changed into his dream form this time, even though it was virtually second nature every time he abandoned the sensitive reality. To make matters stranger, a similar enough quadruped animal his size stood a few meters from him - a pig-like hooved creature with a long, droopy snout with grey, shallow fur. His bestial counterpart, perhaps?

  The Baku carefully approached the interloper. "W-Who are you?"

  Hōkō's voice paradoxically came out from nowhere and everywhere. "It's me, dear Gentō! Thought I should use a more friendly form to guide you through this lesson."

  The dream stealer narrowed his eyes. "What the hell are you?"

  "A tapir."

  "And that is...?"

  "Your bestial counterpart."

  "My first guess, then."

  The tapir nodded. "You can get started, dear boy."

  Gentō scratched his head. "I thought you would take the lead. Where do we even go from here?"

  The animal slowly dragged his hoof on the invisible floor. "We are in your mind - a Baku's, no less. You can shape your mindscape with more ease than any other Monoke." Hōkō sneezed a sparkly fog from his dream form's snout. "My advice? Try to cycle your Saniya right here from your mind. The results might be... bewitching."

  Well, that sounded a little... ominous. Nevertheless, it couldn't hurt to try, right?

  To his surprise and joy, Gentō's Saniya coursed easier when claiming control inside his head. It was similar to when he shaped dreams to his will, visualizing a pulsating, circular mass of pure, pink-and-purple energy between his hands. The problem, however, was that it was too compact and concentrated to discern which magic pathway was which. Remembering the basics of Saniya cycling, the Baku weaved his hands upward, sending the orb to the black sky until it could be seen only as a sole twinkling star.

  He and the tapir projection watched the luminary with growing expectation.

  "Expand your horizons, Gentō. Open your mind for yourself and others," said Hōkō.

  The Baku took a deep breath, then clutched his hands into claws close to each other as if he were holding an invisible object—the orb, to be exact. Then, he abruptly pulled his arms in separate ways, "opening" the sphere like a walnut! From it, a mesmerizing aurora borealis of countless tones of color was broken free, illuminating the void above them and sending a harmless yet electrifying current through his mental avatar.

  However, another issue arose. As the swirling sea of hues lost its awe in the dream stealer's eyes, he realized that to pick up on a single, solid rhythm, much less the one for the elemental path he was looking for, was impossible in this shapeless, muddled state.

  ...

  ......

  .........

  After staring at the light show for countless minutes, a proverbial lightbulb turned on atop Gentō's head. Could he separate each color? But each of them felt intrinsically connected to one another, so how could he pull this off?

  Right... He could shape this plane however he wanted! His imagination would push him through!

  After he envisioned the desired product, the swirling mass of Saniya slowly stirred and pulsed until it started to show gaps, revealing the black abyss again. The Baku's hands (un)graciously weaved, pulling a tendril of a different color from the contorted aurora. Red, blue, white, green, pink, and purple - these dyes formed an intricate web of twisting, serpentine paths that tangled around each other at parts, forming bright nods that threatened to blind the owner of this realm. The specifics of the design were NOT devised by him.

  "Truly outstanding..." The tendrils slowly swayed when Hōkō's voice reverberated through them. "I've barely had to guide you for your Saniya pathways to be revealed..."

  Gentō could barely believe it himself. He had never felt so... competent, even counting the moments he tapped into the Saniya from Stella's dreams. Rather than spontaneous bursts of energy, it was all more... deliberate, in a way. Even the unconscious details felt natural to him, giving him a warm feeling of accomplishment.

  And to think he only needed someone who could understand how his body worked. If only he knew about the Wolf elder centuries ago...

  "No need to thank me, young one." Hōkō's tapir construct's head nudged his shoulder. "I only gave you a solid ground to run on your legs..."

  The Baku's eyes began to sting. "W-What happens then?" He couldn't hold his voice from cracking.

  "How many pathways do you recognize?" the elder asked.

  "The pink and purple ones." Gentō felt the familiar pull coming from each. Although he had never directly interacted with them, gazing at the tiny silver particles swimming through the stream poked his mind with recognition as if it had been programmed into his flesh since birth. "Which one is the earth path?"

  The Wolf in tapir's clothing pointed his snout at the green energy path.

  "Are you picking up its rhythm?"

  The Baku nodded. Detecting Saniya was an arduous task after the confrontation with the icy freak. Thankfully, it was ten times simpler when it comes to your own inner energy.

  "Feeling confident?" The pseudo tapir turned to him.

  Gentō swallowed hard, his eyes darting between the mosaic of colors that daubed the black panel.

  "Less than I care to admit," ironically, he admitted.