The lamia was fuming inside, trying to find some logical inconsistency in the man's reasoning, but to her disappointment, she found none.
"And you're sure that's how it is? You don't know the exact answer yourself," Minoru finally muttered, almost conceding defeat.
"Yes," Stas agreed. "I'm not sure. But as you understand, the stakes are too high, and we can't afford to make a mistake. If this poison is as strong and dangerous for the yokai as we suspected, there is a risk that an epidemic will sweep through all spiritual beings without exception. That's why the Great Serpent hid after the battle. He wanted to heal himself in solitude, but he was unsuccessful."
"And what then do you plan to do? You definitely have a plan since you started this whole conversation," Minoru noted perceptively, calming down and putting two and two together. "Otherwise, you would have continued to keep silent, guarding this secret."
"Heh-heh, you're right, I do have a plan, and it's simple. Since chaos is very difficult to defeat, we will need something that is just as powerful energy-wise. And in our case, there are two suitable types of energy."
"Natural and ether," Minoru finished.
"Exactly. So the plan is that you will teach me absolutely everything you know about ether and natural energy. In particular, how ether can heal and restore vitality. In turn, I promise to create something from this knowledge that will help your master heal. As you can see, everyone's satisfied, and everyone wins."
"Don't act like you're doing us a favor!" the ancient yokai grimaced, irritably lashing her tail. "You think I've forgotten about your desire for immortality? All this talk and plan is just so you can be sure I won't withhold any knowledge. You're blackmailing me with my master so that I'll give you all my techniques!"
"And that's the beauty of the plan," Stas chuckled softly. "You honestly fulfill the promise you gave for your liberation, and I can be assured of receiving all that is due to me, while also achieving my own objectives, and your master receives the proper treatment. Isn't it splendid?"
"What a pity that the master chose someone like you," Minoru concluded with a note of dissatisfaction. "I dare not criticize the decisions of the Great Spirit, but I swear by the universe, it seems that someone better could have been found."
Ordyntsev said nothing, continuing to watch Minoru, who was fuming with her own helplessness, with a merry smirk.
"At the same time, the knowledge gained will help me survive if the World War starts," Stas summed up. "According to warmasters' estimates, it should begin in about three to four years. This time will be used by the clans and daimyo to gather as much power as possible and stockpile food supplies."
Stas fell silent, calculating something in his mind.
"Unfortunately, I doubt we will be allowed to devote all this time to mastering the directions I've indicated. That's why we must first focus on what can bring the most benefit in a short period of time. Thus, I believe that mastering techniques that absorb and transmit prana is the best choice."
"You got your way after all," Minoru snickered almost joyfully. "You've been pestering me about them since the day we met. Fine, you'll have your prana transfer techniques. But for that, we'll have to move to more suitable conditions."
*****
"Sensei, Shiro, are you all right?" Kaede, who met them a little later, was deeply concerned. "I thought you had killed each other there..."
"Don't worry," Stas smiled slyly. "Your sensei couldn't have done anything to me..."
"Indulge yourself in that illusion, human. Someone like you simply cannot understand the insurmountable difference in our power," Minoru retorted, proudly moving on.
Stas caught Mari's piercing gaze. There was nothing special about it, if not for some new emotion in her eyes.
After all, what could Rinako think when her master and the water spirit asked not to be disturbed and secretly went somewhere, after which the whole shelter began to shudder rhythmically?
Ordyntsev said nothing, shaking his head and hurrying to follow Minoru.
He didn't quite understand why Mari was acting this way, but the feeling that he was misunderstood grew stronger with every second.
The gaze drilling into his back was palpable until he turned the corner.
*****
"First, I need to explain the workings of advanced prana-absorbing techniques," hearing the yokai, Stas nodded silently, showing keen interest.
The lesson took place in one of the lamia's personal rooms, which she had adapted for her own experiments.
Minoru sighed. When it came to learning, Shiro the Serpent seemed to lose the few human emotions he had, turning into a stern and imperturbable golem.
As much as Shiro sometimes irritated her, she enjoyed their arguments. In those moments, she felt alive.
The spirit forcefully pushed away her distracting thoughts and returned to the lesson.
"As you already know, ether inherently strives to absorb any energy it has access to. Its craving is so strong that it can even revive its hosts so they can continue the devouring process as vampires. However..."
Minoru theatrically waved the tip of her tail as if it were a pointer.
"After a series of observations, a remarkable fact was noticed," she paused, looking triumphantly at Stas. "It was long believed that ether strives to turn a person into a mindless vampire. But in fact, ether wants the absolute opposite!"
"Really?"
"That's right. It's not hard to guess if you look at it from the right angle, but few thought to do so. A vampire's body can't exist without absorbing energy. Thus, much of what the ether absorbs goes to simply maintaining the host's functionality. And the ether certainly dislikes this."
"What do you mean dislikes?" Stas tilted his head. "I thought it doesn't care where the absorbed energy goes. We already discussed that ether, by its nature, is just an element, and it's non-sentient, right? Or is that not the case?"
"Well, yes and no," Minoru got carried away with the topic and began to explain fervently.
In those moments, she seemed to return to the past when everything was good, and they were loved and revered.
They were guardian spirits, all advancing together to new heights of magical artistry.
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Unfortunately, the former Kuchisagine had died, and their descendants had nothing in common with them.
"Yes, ether is non-sentient, but it follows a number of rules very diligently. And one of the main laws is that ether absorbs energy not just for the sake of it. Do you know, Shiro, that energy cannot just disappear? In fact, energy only transitions from one form to another. Back in the day, this became a fascinating discovery."
Stas, not trusting his voice, silently nodded. Hearing the last idea from an ancient spirit of this world was unexpected.
"For a long time, it seemed that ether ignored this law. Yet, in fact, ether does not 'digest' 'energy,' but transfers it to another plane of existence."
"And where or to whom does this energy go?" Stas couldn't help but ask. The concept raised certain suspicions. "What entity is it feeding?"
"We couldn't find out," Minoru shook her head negatively. "The channel is so long that it's impossible to determine where it ends. And, as we understood then, there are a great many such channels, and they come not only from our world. To be honest, I don't think this 'someone' is sentient. It's more like a peculiar force of nature. But you've distracted me."
The yokai collected her thoughts.
"As you can see, ether's goal is to send energy somewhere else, not to waste it on maintaining dead bodies. Therefore, a living ether user is much more preferable than a dead one. Using this knowledge, we were able to, let's say, force ether to restore living flesh without turning the host into a vampire."
"And since ether is poorly suited for pure healing, you used someone else's prana, right?" Stas nodded in satisfaction. He was beginning to understand.
"Exactly. At first, to work out the theory, we had to inflict wounds on ourselves so that ether would later heal them using the stolen prana of a donor. Without wounds, ether refused to transfer the stolen prana, absorbing it by itself. However, at some point, we managed to trick it."
Minoru smiled broadly, remembering their moment of triumph.
"Ether 'honestly' stole prana from the donor, but since it didn't find any wounds, even though it 'knew' there were, it infused the prana into the host's channels."
"By the way, I have a question," Stas attracted the youkai's attention. "As far as I know, infusing someone else's prana is quite a dangerous business. Known clans of absorbers practice something similar, but have serious limitations on volume. How did you solve this problem?"
"Good question," the water spirit agreed. "It's important to understand that any prana carries two components, life energy and the emotions and intentions of the warmaster. It's the latter that has a harmful effect. We only needed to cleanse the prana from traces of its former owner, leaving only pure energy that ether could easily pump into its host."
Minoru clapped her hands.
"Now, let's move from theory to practice. Prana absorption and transfer techniques are quite complex to master, so maximum concentration and attention are required from you."
"I'm ready," Stas was utterly serious.
"Then let's begin."
*****
"Ether technique. Absorbing Grasp!" The purple projectile flew from Stas's hand and hit the body of a man secured to the stone floor. It trembled with unpleasant sensations but uttered no sound, having long been unconscious.
As soon as Ordyntsev felt the influx of prana, he immediately canceled the technique. He did not want his new subject to pass away even faster than the last one.
Since warmasters had greater value for his experiments, he did not want to waste them on absorption techniques training. Therefore, ordinary bandits caught by Mari and Kaede were used, but they had too little prana to be subjected to absorption for long.
It took Stas a whole month to master the methods provided by Minoru. And as the surprised yokai said, it was an exceptionally good result.
After that, he habitually adapted the "grasp" technique in a couple of days, changing the black glow to a camouflaging purple.
Another two weeks went by as he incorporated the prana transfer function into his stone serpent technique.
Now, his "little ones" could not only self-sustain but also send excess prana to their master on command.
Moreover, it must be understood that while Stas was fiddling with his techniques, he was not limited to them alone.
His everyday life was clearly divided, incorporating several different types of training.
Firstly, this included physical activity such as running, squats, push-ups, and other exercises. The example of the now-deceased Jirobu Sansa was a reminder of how important it was to be able to fight up close.
Secondly, understanding and deepening his knowledge of ether and how it works.
Thirdly, he did not plan to abandon training with the earth element and healing. The techniques given by Goro Sumada had to be learned at all costs. If only because no one would understand him if he didn't.
And finally, the natural energy held too many opportunities to be forgotten.
He practiced an average of two items per day, leaving the remaining two for the next. Sometimes, he alternated and shuffled them to diversify his leisure time and try out new ideas.
And such an approach indeed yielded results.
Thus, in the second month after modifying the devouring serpents and the seventh since he had asked Jishin for leave, Ordyntsev's mind conceived a truly unique development.
"You did what?" Minoru, rendered speechless, looked at the whole pile of various papers on the table, where creative chaos reigned. One sheet contained facts about natural energy, another had a schematically sketched diagram of a human's prana channels, and yet another had statistics on the time it took ether to absorb prana.
"I've come up with a technique that allows the user to remain in relative safety when using vast volumes of ether. No more fear of turning into a vampire!" Ordyntsev was proud and wanted to show off to the "person" who could understand him like no one else.
In these months, the relationship between Minoru and Ordyntsev had grown even closer. The yokai and the human found immense pleasure in arguing for hours about the intricacies of ether techniques.
It added spice that the water spirit often was the very creator of many of these techniques. And every critique of her inventions was taken by Minoru with maximum sensitivity.
And her intelligence, sarcasm, and self-esteem were not at all inferior to those of the healer.
It was in these verbal battles that new paths of this world's magic were born.
And now, Minoru skeptically looked at the scroll, where Stas briefly listed the main points of his new technique.
"Look," Stas began to quickly fill her in. "The main problem with ether is its accumulative effect, which fades very slowly. Natural energy operates on a similar principle; only deactivation goes even slower, and the consequences are worse."
Ordyntsev inadvertently introduced a number of new terms into their conversation that explained various phenomena. Some words were adapted to the new language, but in some, the roots of the earthling's native language were quite recognizable.
And although Minoru grumbled about it, she still started using the new expressions, finding them useful.
"The principle is the same as what I've already done to cleanse myself of natural energy. We take ether and mix it with natural force, collapsing both in mutual destruction. Or making ether send all the natural energy somewhere else. But I thought, why not limit this process to a certain area and not completely destroy both energies? After all, in that case, we will have two types of energy that will mutually restrict each other without affecting the organism itself."
"Wait," Minoru looked closer at the diagrams and quietly cursed. "You're crazy! Why did you place this sphere near the heart?! If it suddenly loses stability, you won't even have time to scream before you die."
"Everything is calculated," Stas dismissed her concerns, shifting papers and pulling out a small sheet with calculations from underneath. They were rough, as it was not yet possible to make prana measuring tools, but they could be used as a basis. "Being near the heart and the prana core will make the flow of spiritual energy and prana incredibly steady, which will stabilize the ether flow."
"Alright. Fine. This is pure madness, but theoretically, it should work, but where and how will you get natural energy?" Minoru pointed out the weak spot in his plan.
"Yes, so far, I can't properly draw it in by myself," Stas conceded. "But I don't need to."
When Stas had been wracking his brain over this question earlier, he was accidentally distracted by Leviathan.
The snake had just finished her own training, so she decided to share with her master the images of her achievements.
And then it dawned on Ordyntsev – their bond with Leviathan was something incredible. And he had already determined that it transferred natural energy, which changed his body.
So why not increase this flow, taking control of it?
And he did just that.
Yes, during intense transmission, Leviathan lost a small part of her strength, but in turn, Ordyntsev's might, according to the calculations, soared by an order of magnitude.
"Have you tried this technique already?" Minoru asked sternly, looking suspiciously at Shiro.
"Of course not. I wanted you to assess it as well."
"I'm glad that you, human, understand that without my keen supervision, you risk dying at any second," Minoru declared with a boastful flourish, her smile sly.
Stas wasn't offended by her words, just smirked in response.
In fact, Minoru was touched that Ordyntsev had invited her to test and experiment with his new technique. This made her a part of the project, if not as the creator, then certainly as someone who participated in the development process.
Knowing the yokai's love for ether and studying the new, it was hard to measure her gratitude.