Chapter 45

Counter Measures

Balance in all things is key for a cultivator.

Though with balance, the idea of strengths and weaknesses comes into play. This is why teams are assembled of cultivators of varying elements and styles. While a cultivator of Lightning might make a great matchup against conductive elements like Water and Metal, they match up poorly against non-conducted elements like Earth and Force.

The thing that often gets missed, is that most of these pairings and observations of strengths and weaknesses apply only against positively charged elements to positively charged elements. In a way this makes sense as these are the methods that are most easily testable by experts of the various fields.

Also, of note is that for the most part these noted strengths and weaknesses remain the same but are often inversed when dealing with dark attuned, or negatively charged elemental forces.

This is why, a burst of positively charged Fire fueled with positively charged Air particles met an undeterminable field of resistance that somehow partially negated the bust of force being hurled at Frank.

Simultaneously multiple events happened all at once.

First a burst of flames shot forward, striking Frank and all but roasting his right side of his body.

The flames were so intense that they instantly burned away The hair and part of his dirt covered uniform.

Fortunately for Frank, due to his odd entrance into the cavern and subsequent need to crawl through negatively charged Earth energy, his clothing had a partial layer of resistance that helped protect him from the initial burst of flames.

“AHH!” Frank cried out, immediately recognizing the threat and covering his face from the flames by raising up his arm for protection.

Fwoosh.

“”

Silence.

There were the sounds of flames erupting and melting everything around him, followed by an overly loud version of the angels singing, then nothing.

The flames stopped, this was good as it gave Frank a chance to put out any lingering flames and traces of fire.

Ache.

Just moving, let Frank realize that parts of his uniform had been either burnt away or been forcefully melted into his overly sensitive skin.

Beep.

The pillar beeped, drawing Frank’s attention to it, as a red beam of light once again shot out from the pillar and began scanning Frank’s body.

“.”

Student has been injured while under the protective custody of the Master Training System. Switching process feeds to provide emergency medical assistance.

The pillar on the wall both said in writing, and likely repeated in the odd language of the founders.

Hearing the words and reading the text seemed somewhat incongruous, but Frank seemed to understand what happened.

Then turning to his right, Frank looked as he saw the black smoke and dust clearing enough to show the body of a fellow soldier laying sprawled out on the floor their full body being hidden by the pile of overgrown insects that had also been killed in such a way.

Frank was about to move, but then saw the way a new stream of green energy seemed to rise through the pillar before him. Then simultaneously a second beam of darker green energy also appeared, though the second one seemed like it was piped upwards from the lower floors to here.

Emergency Care Operations Underway: Absorb just enough to stave off the damage sustained. But do not leave the testing area.

Seeing the message Frank realized that the people who designed this place were apparently fanatical about their training.

Also, it was clear that since he got injured while apparently under the guidance of the pillar, the pillar would take this time to try to heal him.

Quickly changing subject matter for the purposes of this class. The positively charged Life energy will be used to stimulate muscle and skin growth. The negatively charged Life energy will used to break down dead or inoperable skin and muscle, while allowing the positively charged life energy to have a great effect on the body. Note: Healing in this way will require multiple iterations of both positively and negatively charged Life energy to cycle through your body.

Begin.

Seeing the message, Frank couldn’t help but wonder what exactly was happening. At least he wanted to spend time thinking about such existential things, until he involuntarily moved his face and right side of his body causing his already painfully dry skin to crack and peel under his newfound stress.

Seeing the gift for what it was, Frank began.

At first while both streams of energy were clearly visible to his Energy Sight, only one form of energy was available, that being the positively charged Life energy stream.

Seeing the stream, Frank reached out and placed his right hand on the pillar. While this was the injured side, it only made sense to try to get the healing energy to the damaged part of his body as quickly as possible. Thus, Frank fought through the pain of moving his aching skin, and was met with a single word response.

Denied.

“What?” Frank stated, his whole body suddenly aching as even a light breeze going through the tunnels now was enough to set off the odd aches that can only be felt on an overly exposed nerve endings. Then as if seeing Frank’s confusion, the message changed.

Incorrect posture noted. Positive and negatively charged entry and exit points already identified.

Pausing at the message, Frank thought to himself for a moment, before realizing that his right arm was already assigned to receive negatively charged energy. At least the negatively charged Earth energy that he received below.

Not wanting to waste too much time, Frank let out a slight groan before lowering his sore arm and raising his healthy left hand up to receive the energy.

Warm tingling.

Almost immediately, Frank felt warm energy flowing into his body. Taking the energy he began immediately trying to cycle the energy to the wound site, just as Dr. Evans had taught him.

The moment he did however, something odd happened.

Shutdown.

At exactly the same time that Frank tried to cycle the cool energy to his burn area, the flow of energy stopped.

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Improper cycling form identified.

Then a pictogram appeared of the energy flowing from his hand to his arm, to his core, then letting it go from the core in a widening spiral pattern.

Unfortunately, there was a problem as the diagram all but forced Frank to oscillate the energy through his meridians with negatively charged Life energy already present. At least that is what Frank now mentally thought of the energy, but to be honest Frank now realized that he had all types of negatively charged energy flowing in that unit.

Frank did everything, until the point where he would somehow need to flip his one set of healing energy through his body to the other section. The entire concept made no sense to him.

First as far as Frank realized those outer set of meridians were for using energy at a distance. While the other set was for internal or near energy usage. By flipping them around, Frank felt that he was clearly missing something. In a way it reminded him of when he was first learning to dance by himself, he would move and pivot, all while feeling awkward. At first he thought the awkwardness came from not having a partner to balance off of slightly, but over time he realize that it was his own body that caused the issues. The way he moved his feet were wrong, the way he balanced his weight was off.

Slowly over time he learned to adjust these discrepancies by himself, but learning such a state was odd.

Now, it seemed that he was in much the same boat here. Having to learn a waltz likely intended for a three-legged dance, versus himself.

Mentally Frank chided himself thinking that if he had three sets of meridians the actions being described would make sense. Frank would simply take the negatively charged energy, and let them go into the third section, while moving the positively charged energy from the first to the second section and thereby leave the first section open.

Negatively charged Life energy already detected.

Commence polarity rotation movements to proceed.

Seeing the message, Frank’s eyes went wide as he tried to understand that very concept. The entire thing made no sense. He needed to commence a polarity rotation?

“What is that?” Frank asked.

Tingle.

As Frank spoke, he felt the same odd energy within his mind light up, as he voiced his sudden question.

Polarity Rotation Movements.

The display began, before showing a cartoonish humanoid being depicted in tiny groupings of micro-pixels. Then there were two streams of energy a red negatively charged stream of energy denoted with a minus sign. Then a deep purple positively charged stream, depicted with a plus sign.

As Frank watched, Frank saw the diagram show Frank what he already understood about his own cultivation processes to now.

First the positively charged purple stream entered the lower channels and began circling through. Then Frank watched as the negatively charged red stream entered the body, cycling through the same core, but incompletely different rotations.

Normal dual cycling movements.

Seeing the message Frank could only nod in agreement at what he was seeing.

Polarity rotation process.

The message above then changed indicating that what Frank was about to see would soon be different, and it was.

Step one, stream compression.

From there the image of the cultivator who was now in a sitting lotus position, much like Frank was began to focus, causing the wide red and purple streams of energy to tighten and condense, while also speeding up their pace.

Step two, thread components through core in equal but opposite directions.

From there the speed of the feed seemed to slow down, as the energy that had been cycling through the core at different directions entered the core, slowed down, and rotated once, then twice.

Strep three, thread the opposing needles and continue cultivating.

Then on the third time, when the energy was still in tightly condensed strings, those strings made their way to the opposing entry points.

As the energy entered the opposing entry points, the speed of the cultivation sped up once again, until finally both streams of energy made complete loops in the core without touching each other.

Step four, finish polarity rotation within seven cycles.

With each pass through the core, the two strings of energy began to slowly give way to one, before ultimately being caught up in one continuous loop.

Seeing the description, Frank could only blink in surprise and amazement at what he was being told to do.

With this, there was no need for a third set of meridian channels. Instead, Frank just had to do a seamless handoff with himself.

After seeing the correct way to do it, a number of cautionary videos began playing. The most notable was the way the compressed strings within the core had to be perfect. For even a slight imbalance in their approach to each other would result in line fluctuation and deviations, somehow implying that Frank might lose control of the two threads of energy.

“Show it again, please?” Frank found himself asking, not wanting to get this wrong. Particularly with seeing just how many different problems could arise from his trial and error.

Fortunately for Frank, the pillar once again showed the very basic training movements.

Each time Frank counted, to realize that the entire event took fifteen seconds, from slowing down the speed of his cycling and compressing his threads, to cycling the energy twice in his core, to immediately plugging the empty channel with the replacement energy stream.

Just for practice, Frank tried compressing his energy.

Your stream is too loose, relax for a moment and try again.

Seeing the message, Frank was at least relieved to have the system helping him slightly.

For his part, Frank felt that he was already receiving a partial healing effect from the positively charged life energy within his body. Even now he could focus on this training due to the subtle effects of Life energy already working within his body.

This was the accelerated healing rate that people would expect from a combat medic. The only problem was that the pillar, the seeming expert on cultivation seemed to think Frank could gain more, or do more if he but changed his patterns slightly.

At this point, Frank realized he was at a crossroads decision in his life.

He could get up now, end this process and likely get two Attribute points for leaving. Or he could try to take advantage of the guiding programs. Programs that seemed completely crazy, but also seemed to understand the energy of cultivation in ways that no one could master up until now.

Relaxing slightly, Frank felt the restraint that he had been exerting on his energy relax. Then he felt the energy slowly release over time. Going from one cycle to the next, and finally being fully released by the sixth rotation. Then just to confirm Frank’s own thoughts, the pillar spoke about his noted progress.

Try again.

Exhaling, Frank once again focused his will on his two revolving strings of energy. The only problem was that he managed to grab the positively charged string just that much faster than his negatively charged string. Not that he didn’t try grabbing both at the same time, but one he managed to gain control over immediately, while the other took more time.

Release and try again.

It seemed that even the pillar thought he failed. Though in a way it was good as Frank realized the mistake almost immediately.

Relaxing, Frank exhaled, before trying again.

Again, the waves of healing energy were already having their desired effect on Frank’s body, as he could feel more and more of his skin, particularly around his face and torso healing slowly but surely. At this rate there would likely be scarring, but that was to be expected with intense burns like these.

However, nothing stopped Frank from continuing to practice. At the very least, Frank knew that he wouldn’t be in any condition to move before his wounds healed shut completely. Even then a slight brush against a dirt covered wall, or sharp rock would cause him to lose all the progress he had gained thus far.

In a way, healing his body of burn wounds was a lot tougher than the healing marathon he had experienced at the military ball. There the damage was localized to a few specific areas, and even then Frank only had to focus on the necrotized portions of the flesh. As the other healers would then be able to heal a lot easier without the dead particles of skin being in the wounds.

Thinking of that, Frank realized that there might be more to this training than he thought.

For clearly, the original founders of cultivation realized that one would likely need both positively and negatively charged streams of energy to meet a harmonious conclusion.

Just as Frank had this internal epiphany, he found it was time to once again try to grab both streams of energy at roughly the same time. A feat that had been easy the first time, or rather had felt easy due to his ability to quickly grab and corral both strings of energy. But now, Frank found that it was a timing thing.

Also, Frank had to grip the faster moving negatively charged stream that much harder than the positively charged string.

Grip, and squeeze.

Frank found his mind and body grabbing both strands in vice-like grips almost immediately. Once again, the problem came down to the process of compressing both strands. While grabbing for control of the negatively charged string was tougher, once he got control the strings were easier to compress. Meanwhile the easier to grab and control positively charged strings were somehow harder to compress.

Abnormal regulation speeds detected. Corrective advice: Learn to oscillate both currents at the same frequency.

Seeing the message, Frank could only nod in agreement as he too was coming to a similar conclusion, and likely would have come to the very same conclusion if given enough time. At least, that was what Frank told himself as he paused, then once again focused his mind and looking inward at his own cultivation speeds he paused.

Then slowly Frank began speeding up the frequency that he cycled his positively charged stream of energy at.

To Frank it made more sense to cycle the energy faster, than to purposefully go slower. This was why when given the option, Frank decided to speed up the rate that he cycled the waves of positively charged healing energy throughout his body, until both of his streams of energy were flowing at the exact same rate of speed.

Then mentally pausing, he grabbed both and found that to his surprise it took the same amount of pressure for both streams. Similarly, the way he compressed both streams required the exact same amount of pressure.

Frank tested out the process once, twice, then finally on the third time he got a message that he had been hoping for.

Safe to proceed with polarity rotation.

Seeing the message, Frank relaxed. Then after seven rotations he found that his strands of energy were still condensed.

Pausing again, Frank realized that while he might be able to get the initial transfer completed, the final message was that he had to get his rotations back to normal within seven cycles.

Honestly with them both being at the same speed, this last part felt like it would be a lot easier to perform as well, though Frank also knew that he would likely need to do something to decrease the time needed for the energy to expand to its normal dimensions.

Finally, the idea came to him as a flash of inspiration.

The moment he had his first threads through the needles of the alternate meridian channels, he would let go of his vice like grip on the streams and let them expand out as normal.

With his plan set, and confidence in his technique, Frank went about actually performing the process as described.

There was a moment of slight inward trembling, as Frank felt his grip quiver slightly, as he desperately tried to thread not one but two different threads through two different chambers at the same time.

Fortunately, that part was rather easy, for once he got both threads relatively close to the new respective openings, a suctional force grabbed the threads and pulled them in.

With his task complete, Frank exhaled with delight, as he felt joy overtake him as he could already feel the effects of positively and negatively charged healing energies working at new sections of his body.

That had to be the absolute hardest task he had ever had to perform as a cultivator, but he had done it. Better still, the pillar, his impromptu trainer also let him know that it saw his success.

Stage one complete.

Unfortunately, Frank’s success was short lived, as the pillar began with the next set of instructions.

Now: Draw in negatively charged healing energies and once again rotate your cycles.

Seeing the message, Frank could only exhale with pain, as he realized this training session was just getting started. Still, he had done it once, which meant that he should be able to do it again.

Rustle.

Frank was so lost in his own thoughts and tasks, that he failed to hear or even sense the faint vibrations in the ground nearby.

Vibrations that all but seemed to stop, upon seeing the pile of monster and human corpses that surrounded a completely serene Frank. It wasn't until Frank's mind picked up on the unmistakable sound of Angels singing in the distance that Frank realized he might have more visitors.