Chapter 93

Lykan

Learning to Fly, Again

  Finally given a chance to rest Lykan did just that. He ate, meditated, and tried to internalize what Qi was. As far as he could tell it was something that seemed to be anathema to the planet. Yet, Qi was clearly here on the planet for some reason.

  There was also obvious power in Qi, far too much power.

  Still, he pondered these thoughts and more. His mind raced with possibilities of what could be. What could he do with Qi that could not be done with mana? Could he do similar attacks? Like for instance could he eventually strike opponents with torrents of elemental forces like one could with mana?

  Somehow he expected that some attacks could be made, but they would need to be performed differently. For this he realized Qi was a matter of switching his perception. Rather than going from the inside out, as was the casting spells with mana. He would need to go outside, in, to out. Though this was entirely correct. After a few moments of contemplation, he realized he was missing a key step when it came to mana. Mana always started outside, in what could only be described as the personal mana well of the user. From that mana well energy followed the meridians inward to the body, then out. Finally realizing the full process, he began to see that there were more similarities in the two forms of energy than he originally thought. Though given their volatile nature towards each other it was hard to distinguish the full nature of the two power structures. When he thought about it, it almost seemed like it was a matter of them being so similar that they clashed, that or maybe there was some fundamental law of the universe that caused the two forces to attack each other so violently.

  Whatever the case was, Lykan was still trying to figure out what Qi could do to his body. He easily felt the power of the cores within his body. He could easily feel the very flow of energy along his meridians that was like the flow mana often used. The only difference between Qi and mana about flowing around the meridians was that Qi was denser, and thus seemed to take more energy to push through his channels.

  Mana on the other hand was light and vaporous. Thus, learning to fly with mana was simple, all one needed to do was circulate mana throughout their body at an exceptional rate of speed until it created lift.

  When it came to Qi, Lykan knew there was a way he could fly. He felt it, the weightless moment during training. Then the crashing back down to the ground. He wanted to fly so badly, especially since it had been close to a year, if not longer since he last flew.

  He missed the feeling of freedom that flight gave him. He also wondered what the maximum level for his two-flight skills Aerial Combat and Aerial Maneuvers would allow him to do. They had both been maxed out when he promoted King Philipon to be a true king of the land by enacting the third old-world law. That act had likely saved Lykan’s psyche as he had been in an impassible bottleneck at that time. Up until that point those two skills were forever stuck at the Sage tier. Now they were maxed out, which meant the next stage of skills were unlocked, but it was a close call.

  Lykan still had his personal promise to himself. The one that stated he would never put all his skills into one basket, to be centered around one set of actions. In fact, Lykan felt he had too many combat skills and was soon going to try to diverge away from those as well. After his unarmed combat mastery and bow mastery were completed, he wanted to pursue other avenues. People often got skills related to their classes, merchants got skills related to haggling and evaluating goods or materials. Craftsmen often got crafter related skills. The closest Lykan had to a crafter related skill was his Master Crafting skill, though he had not used that skill enough for the gods to see that he was ready for a change.

  Again, he needed to first show the person he wanted to become. Then let his skills evolve to the next step to help him change. So far too much of his life had been spent on fighting, on surviving. Thus, by extension all of his skills were about fighting, about surviving. Ambuscade Mastery was a sign of this, a skill designed to determine when he was about to be ambushed. While highly needed and a skill that could likely save his life at one point. The skill itself was also one that showed just how dangerous a path Lykan was traveling. If he wanted to change the way he was to develop, he had to first show the gods and himself what he wanted to become.

  With that in mind, a stray thought came to him. He wondered if he could call forth more training scenarios. Then if he could call forth more training scenarios, could he call forth a scenario that forced him to fly?

  Before he focused on the task, he put away his food and water reserves. Most of the food was stale, but still good. Though a bit of the water had to be poured out as it had algae growing on it somehow. He discarded the water skin that allowed algae to grow, thinking that it was something to do with the skin itself. The food too was also discarded.

  Fortunately, the discarding was simple. As soon as he made a pile for garbage a cleaning cylinder came from the wall and cleaned up the mess of water and of debris that Lykan had set aside for himself. To his shock he saw that it was also going to take the tube away. The tube with the instructions in high wood elven.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Instructions that still seemed like they held some clues that he seemed to miss. Then he saw the words on the wrapper that were scratching at the back of his mind with missed meaning.

  Intermediate Terraforming Qi Supply.

  He looked at the wrapper once, then twice. Then a third time to make sure the word Terraforming was still there. In each glance the word was there, though the word itself made no sense. He knew that Terra was high wood elven for the world or planet. Did that mean that Terraforming was meant to be for forming planets? If so, then how? What did that even mean?

  Lykan set down the wrapper for contemplation, only realize a short time later that the cleaning cylinder had taken away the tube that had served as a container for the Intermediate core, which was also apparently a heart of a Titan.

  So many thoughts raced through his head, but in the end, he was not able to make heads or tails of anything. Sighing inwardly, he went about his next trail of thoughts. Namely the scenarios. He knew he called up a training scenario by saying “can you see me,” in high wood elven. But he wondered if he could do more than just the one scenario. Now that he had satiated his thirst and hunger he no longer needed to rest. With that he tried to bring up a flight training scenario.

  “Flight training.”

  Nothing.

  “Flying.”

  Nothing.

  “Flying like a bird?” Lykan questioned.

  “I’m sorry. I did not hear that. Did you say Flying like a ??@*?” The eerie feminine voice asked. While he didn’t know what the word was, it seemed that this was the word he wanted to use.

  “Yes?” Lykan said, a little hesitation to his voice. Fortunately, all hearing voice didn’t seem to mind that his response was more of a question than anything.

  “Preparing Scenario Flying like a ??@*. Please relax scenario will begin shortly.” With that the world around Lykan began to change. No longer was there a solid floor beneath him, but the entire room began to resemble one big cloud. Then he was met with an ominous message.

  Begin circulating Qi in flight pattern now.

  Seeing the message Lykan almost panicked. Then tried to do as the message stated, he circulated his Qi as quickly as possible, the same as he would for mana induced flight.

  Then the floor beneath him opened and he fell.

  Thud.

  He crashed into the floor about ten meters down. Fortunately, nothing broke, though Lykan was a bit sore from the whole event. As he was recovering the floor, he was on began to rise to be in the same training room he was in a moment ago.

  You have failed. Chances remaining 1 of 2.

  Seeing the alert filled his mind with dread as he realized this would not be easy. He was once again risen to the top. As soon as he stopped moving, he once again saw a message that caused nothing but fear to grip his mind as he had no clue what would was expected of him.

  Begin circulating Qi in flight pattern now.

  Seeing the message, he had half a second before the floor beneath him dropped away and he was left to freefall once again.

  You have failed. Chances remaining 0 of 2.

  Your Performance Rating: Poor.

  Recommended Actions: Focus on fundamentals.

  Would you like to go back to [Fundamentals] or [Continue Current Scenario]?

  Sighing inwardly, he once again chose to go the route of [Fundamentals].

  Then a message that he was now seeing even when he closed his eyes for a second appeared.

  Assume the meditation position.

  It was going to be a long time, but this time he swore it would be worth it as he would once again be able to fly. The best part, this training seemed to be free. Or at the very least there was no spirit binding contract that forced his indentured servitude once he learned how to fly. With that one thought in mind, he swore to himself he would suffer through any punishment. The chance to be free and the ability to fly, the two greatest gifts the gods ever gave to man. The first one was a right of birth. The second a gift granted to those who pushed themselves beyond the mortal limits.

  Finally, once he had managed the one hundred cleansing breaths of Qi, his next message came.

  Make your body a Qi Vortex.

  “A Qi vortex?” Lykan felt himself asking reflexively in high wood elven.

  Would you like a demonstration? [Yes] or [No]? Know this will cost you a portion of your Qi reward for this round.

  Shaking his head at his good luck, Lykan answered [Yes]. He half expected the Qi in the room to diminish, but that did not seem to be the case.

  Confirmation accepted. Demonstration will begin momentarily.

  This time unlike the others, the Titan master had his chest glow with energy depicting the Qi in its body. There was a bright core that held multiple floating stones. Instantly Lykan realized that his dual core was not unique and likely something he would need to improve upon. But that was a task for a different time. For this moment he was watching the Qi glowing brightly within the chest of the master. Then he watched as the cores slid out to join the meridians. Then the Qi particles and cores began to rotate violently around his body.

  Tornadoes. The motion reminded Lykan of tornadoes that randomly appeared and began wreaking havoc on an open field. The force was violent, with a strong base, where the heavier cores rested. Then like an inverse pyramid the lighter cores lined the walls leading up, until finally only dust particles remained at the top. Throughout Qi was used and cycled, but the force used to rotate Qi throughout the body was a mini vortex. The Qi provided the lift to the body it was in. Then the Qi particles began to rise, causing the body that was containing the particles to also rise. Seeing this Lykan was amazed at how easy the whole process looked. He also had to admit that he would have never come up with such a process on his own. At least not for a long time.

  The process of creating a vortex of spinning Qi within his body was both brilliant and stupid. Brilliant in that it worked and was so glaringly obvious. Qi was denser than mana, thus one would need to use different methods to create lift. In this case the lift came from where the wielder focused their vortex. Lykan realized that this method would only account for the initial lift. Any directing or movement would likely come from focusing the direction the vortex leaned. But that was getting ahead of himself. For now, he needed to create a Qi vortex.

  Just like the visual he had been given, he dropped his cores from their mental tethers and almost lost his lunch from the sudden drop in pressure. Worse, this time there was actual food and water in his stomach for the cores to seemingly push against.

  Focusing he began to circulate his Qi in a spiral formation first, which then slowly grew to a vortex that was wider at the top. Then he added more and more speed to the rotations. But something was wrong. No matter how quickly he rotated his cores, the smaller core could not create enough of a counterbalance in force and energy to match the Intermediate core that served as the anchor for his vortex.

  Lykan realized something was wrong, but for the life of him, he couldn’t realize what. Until he took a good look at the trainer and realized just how many cores were rotating. The master had close to a dozen or so cores rotating. While Lykan didn’t think he could manage to get that many cores, at least not with the ambient Qi currently available to him. He did feel that he could create a few more Basic Circulating cores. At least that was what seemed to be needed for this next step.

  Sighing inwardly, he focused on compacting the loose particles of Qi that he had floating around his body and began the long process of trying to condense them into tight usable spheres of power.