Chapter 14.

"Very well, Basara, it seems that your progress is quite frightening and suitable at the same time, we will have to step things up a notch. Now that you are at the third level you should be able to do basic Reinforcement." said master Shen while scratching his chin. the shock must have been powerful as he had yet to fully grasp the situation, the variables and the sudden progress must have ruined his plan and now he will need to reorganize himself in order to make a new training program.

"I cannot make you use full body strengthening right now, though you managed to breakthrough your body will suffer the consequences, due to it not being fully developed and your young age of fourteen is still not suitable for it, forcing your body to do such a task will mostly result in severe side effects, so first we start by the basic, your index finger..." he said while holding his right hand's index forward.

"To strengthen the body is different than to hone a weapon, unlike weapons, they don't feel pain and they can be honed and reinforced without a problem, however, the human body is different, it is made from flesh and muscle so your task will be to enhance these specs without harming yourself. let's take this finger, for example, if it is properly reinforced it can withstand a chop of a none reinforced blade without a problem. however do it poorly and your finger my either collapse on itself or shatter like a piece of glass on contact with a weapon. the trick is to find a balance between strengthening the body member and keeping it in a state where it can still move."

"So it has to maintain its flexibility while gaining enough durability to sustain damage from other weapons... this will not only need minute control over the body, I suspect it will need enormous focus and concentration to keep the state of the body member as it is even after receiving a shock, am i right?" I said to Master Shen.

"Indeed, that is the basics, now try to use your inner energy to not only to coat your finger but to fully imbue it muscle bone and skin, once you manage that we will proceed to the next step," he said

"Can you do a demonstration?" I asked

"Why do you need a demonstration, this will not be seen by simple vision it is an operation that happens deep within the body. I don't think you will be able to see the change"

"Well I have a way," I said with a smirk

Master Shen then forced his inner energy to circulate through his finger while I Focused on his index.

using monochrome vision I began to notice the change

"Monochrome vision... the second level already... quite frightening indeed," said Master Shen "With this, you will probably be able to see... good"

I didn't mind him and kept on looking at the energy. it swirled and moved then latched to his muscles, every fiber strengthened yet at the same time, not enough for it to turn rigid, just enough for it to remain flexible but they gained enormous durability.

"Alright, I think I got it," I said

looking at my index I willed Qi to move within it, as I already saw the process it was much simpler to do it once I saw it once.

the energy that I called, however, was much more than I needed, in the end, my finger felt like if it would explode if I didn't somehow redirect that excess energy somewhere else. so I made it coat my whole right hand.

"This should be about it?" I said.

Master Shen was mouth agape that moment and stayed that way for another moment before he said.

“I told you to only reinforce one finger… and you managed your whole hand… What a monster…” he said clearly in a good and encouraging way.

“I feel like I can break through a steel made a door with this,” I said as I was amazed at the newfound strength of the hand.

“No, you might feel like your hand became stronger and sturdier it but if you try you will break your wrist, if you want to do that, you will need to strengthen your hand, wrist elbow your shoulder your spine, your back ribs muscles and lower body and finally your legs in order to send a punch with that, if you fail to strengthen any of them at the same time then your body will break. Just because your hand is strengthened doesn’t mean that your body is. That is why you need time, though your progress is magnificent your body is far behind your talent.”

“That sounds like hard work”

“Hard work? What you just did took me three months! You succeeded on your first try! Don’t you dare speak about hard work you make my achievements fail one by one!” he said clearly dissatisfied, but at the same time, I could feel a hint of pride in his words.

“Good, now that you are able to properly strengthen your hand, try to reinforce your joints, and redo the exercise for the first level of the Lotus technique that I showed you the other day. It will help a lot once you manage to practice the formes while your body is reinforced.”

“Alright, I will do it at once,” I said then closed my eyes and concentrated.

The moves that Master Shen showed me were still etched into my mind, however having to move around like that time will be most troublesome if I use the reinforcement on my joints mainly I will be like an unoiled doll, but practice makes perfect.

Clearly envisioning the move set and all the movements that the body should move through I understood what is the reason behind adding reinforcement over the joints. Simply put it is to put as much strain on the body for it to force itself to evolve to accommodate to the needs of the moves, by strengthening the joints the pressure on the body will become far larger and it will force it to grow in ordre to accommodate to the change, adding Assimilation to the mix will make the body grow the needed muscles to perfect that martial art.

At first, I thought that the teachings of master Shen were rather different and are saw no mean to use them all at once, but just right now, everything fit in.

From basic honing to assimilation to the lotus martial art and strengthening, they all harmonized in one single practice, to force the body to develop itself to become a war machine.

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‘Only the more for you to respect that man, he is well versed in the arts of war and knows the human body better than many, that man is one with himself and for your to reach his level not only talent is needed, but also dedication.’ Said Nocturne who sounded like he was admiring Master Shen

‘I know, he is an amazing man to be able to understand so many different methods to strengthen the body, and even apply them to his training… quit and impressive person’

‘True, however, there is something that you can do to make your training even more productive.’

‘What is it Nocturne?’ I asked as I was tracing all the different joints in my body and was imagining all the moves that I was going to be using.

‘You will be needing to Cultivate while in the process of training your strengthening technique. You already managed to reach their level of Cultivation, now you will be needing to imbue that into your training,’

‘Ah, you are right, you already told me that there was a way for me to Cultivate without having to remain still in one place, well what should I do?’ I asked Nocturne

‘You subconsciously found the way even without me telling you how. What you are doing now is a part of that technique, you need to breathe in, and circulate the Qi in the outside world, you must remain within your monochrome vision world, and at the same time make your body do the moves, split your mind  and make it do many actions at once, then you will be able to reah the realm of experts.’

‘Two tasks at once, that is difficult…’

‘Not but two tasks Basara, you will be needing to strengthen, move your body, and cultivate. However, the mind of a man is filled with mystery and can bring many miracles if one only has the will. What is your aim Basara? What is it that you seek? What is it that you want and need?’ said Nocturne.

‘You know what I want, I just want strength so that no one would bother me…’

‘The weight behind those words are too much for you to understand now Basara, acquiring enough strength so that no one will bother you is the equivalent of becoming a god. Only them cannot be bound by mortal matters, and if you truly wish to have power equivalent to them, then your will is far too feeble to acquire what you want’

‘Become a god you say? That is absurd Nocturne, What I want is power to defend myself and power to make others move out of my way, but a god? You seem to have forgotten that I am at the end but an orphan…’

‘You value yourself too lightly Basara, you have the blood of a god of death, don’t you dare forget that… Now show me your will, show me that you can manage what I had just asked of you, split your mind and do the tasks’

I sighed audibly while thinking that this multitasking will be quite arduous.

Complaining about things before I do them is not in my nature so I sucked it up and tried my best.

Breathing in the energy I found it quite difficult to make it submit to my will, to both be assimilated within me and whatever remains to strenghten my joints, whatever megere energy that I was harvesting was not sufficient to do both tasks, I could barely manage to strenghten my right hand’s and managing to assimilate a fraction of energy to refine my body and remove the impurities of the third stage.

To manage this on the whole body would be immensely difficult…

‘It is only you who makes this task seem difficult Basara, you are beyond capable of doing this so persevere and find balance…’

Balance again…

Sigh

I drooped down stopping the exercise to ponder about the current situation

‘Do you give up so easily Basara?’ said Nocturne

‘No, I need to think things through… it is something is missing, I just can’t get my hands on it, forcing myself to do it this way is not going to prove useful…’

‘Kekeke’ laughed Nocturne saying ‘Then think all you want, if it is you, then you might figure it out on your own’ he said as he faded into the background.

The main problem why I can’t do this task is probably due to the small intake of Qi that I can hold, my body is probably unable to contain much, however, that is wrong in itself. The last time Nocturne took over to show me how to Cultivate properly the amount of Qi that he harnassed was magnificent if I could copy that I might find it easier to circulate the energy…

How did he do that? Is the first question that popped into my head

A difference in experience is on reason however, I refuse to accept that, he used my body and the same resources I have now to dot hat deed, why can’t I?

Thinking about it, what is the origin of this Qi? I might as well find out.

I used monochrome vision, this time not to look at myself, but at the world itself, what composed everything, I ignored the weaknesses of the objects and tried to focus on the immaterial, I wanted to see where this energy is stemming from.

And I saw it, there and here and everywhere, minute changes, on a  scale so small that it was absurd, small specs of energy encompassed the world and originated from… everywhere!

Literally everywhere, even I, who wanted to gather this energy was releasing some of it into the world…

This energy is not originated from all-powerful sources, the source was before me, it was the world itself that gave this energy and it was the world itself that took it in.

All beings would release these particles, for others to feed on. Like water that would vaporize into the sky, forme clouds then fall on earth to revive it. Then it would seep into the ground and would merge again with seas and rivers and circulate, again and again. Never stopping never halting, always moving in a circle of life. These particles were the same, they would go from a being to another, be consumed and once that being is dead, or still alive it would release this energy to the world for it to grow…

Looking at my body in a new light I discovered the reason behind why I was lacking.

My body was releasing more energy than it absorbed, simply due to the fact that it could not process it fast enough for it to be implemented in it. What nocturne have done was to force these particles to remain within the body without letting them escape.

He forced them to do what was needed of them before they would go out of their way and back into the world, he fused them to the body… However, understanding this is quite different than doing it, yet it is the mean for me to use this energy with more effectiveness…

Now the only way for me to do what Nocturne asked is if I gather enormous amounts of this energy as fast as I can, and use it as rapidly as I could. A hard task but a needed step.

Now how can I assimilate this energy the same way that Nocturne did?

Simply breathing it will not give me enough to fill my body.

As I was looking around within the monochrome world I was struck with an epiphany.

My body that absorbed Qi using that breathing method was not releasing the unprocessed through my breath ‘only’ it was my skin, my pores my hair and everything…

There was not just one way for the energy to be assimilated then! But probably breathing it was the simplest and most forward method… then what if I could revere this?

What if I could not only breath in the energy through my lung but also take it in with my whole body?

I sat down in the lotus position and began cultivating this time I didn’t breath in the energy but I tried to ‘feel’ it with my body.

And just like that, the pores within my skin opened like ravenous beasts and began in taking the energy at an absurd rate. So much that I felt stifled as how much energy the human body could harness. Then something unexpected happened

The medal on my body glowed and just like that… I broke through the third level…

That insurmountable Sea of consciousness that I thought would only be filled in years to come was instantly filled and broke into another realm.

I opened my eyes to see the world in a different state…

The ground that I was sitting on, the grass and the tree behind my back withered and shrunk, dead and unresponsive, stones crumbled to dust and all signs of life that were surrounding me disappeared…

‘KEKEKEEKEKEK! BASARA! YOU DID IT, YOUNG CHILD!’

‘What the hell happened Nocturne!’

‘THE BOOK! OPEN THE BOOK! RECORD THIS!’

I called upon the book and it instantly glowed in a dark sheen, the pages turned and a new line was written

‘The path of death is open to you, lead the path of despair and may the rest follow.’

‘What is the meaning of this Nocturne?’

‘Once you broke through the book has acknowledged you as its ‘true’ owner, now one of its secrets has been revealed.’

A magic circle was written in the book

Before I could touch it however

‘Don’t! you are not strong enough yet to wield that. In due time child, in due time.’

‘But tell me nocturne what the hell was this?’

‘in the process of breaking through, your true magic was evoked. Your sea of consciousness evolved and took in your magic to a newer hight, the flame of creation gave its true presence and now you can feel it around you.’

‘What do you mean by true nature? The only thing that I could feel around that is around me is… death’ I said unable to believe the staggering change of the once animated garden

‘Indeed…’ said Nocturne, in a voice much clearer and more powerful than before.

So it seems, that creation and death go hand in hand, to those of lower minds they may seem different. to create is to give life. And to destroy is to Kill life, yet at the same time, these two are but different sides of the same coin.