[Bird-Goat-Rat-Tiger-Dragon-Horse-Pig]-(Air-Temperature-Gravity-Fire-Lightning-Light-Fusion)
Bringing their hands together, all the clones calmly spoke.
““Sage Art: Inferno Palm Tribulation””
Volkarin looked at the hundred flaming thunder palms coming towards him. Some of the palms disintegrated midair while some collapsed on themselves due to being unstable. Out of the hundred palms, only a few dozen were able to maintain a solid-looking appearance, keyword being “looking”.
Being the master he is, Volkarin could already tell that even though Uehara executed the hand-signs correctly and even had more than enough chakra for the technique, he was lacking in experience when it came to the deviant element of gravity and the conceptual element of light. Just these two elements weakened his technique considerably.
Watching the now forty-palms descend on him, he knew a very simple technique that could destroy it.
Aiming his right hand towards the palms, he used his left hand to weave hand-signs.
[Dog-Rat-Pig]
A giant waterball started forming in front of him. When the palms were just a few metres from him, he spoke.
“Water Shotgun.”
BANG
Using the power of gravity, he made the waterball explode like a shotgun pellet towards the palms, utterly eviscerating them.
Uehara’s clones that were planning to stab him with flame lances were also caught within the blast radius and were destroyed by the thousands of water droplets travelling at high speeds.
Out of a hundred clones, only ninety-four were left.
[This is…sigh.]
Uehara dispersed the rest since they wouldn’t help as much anymore. The only benefit was that he could see where he went wrong with his inferno palm technique due to having the experience of the hundred clones being returned to him.
Quickly analysing his thoughts, he started planning.
[First, a fireball-]
When he was about to weave another set of hand-signs, Volkarin immediately appeared in front of him with his fist clenched.
“You’re still planning!”
Uehara was so surprised at how fast his father reached him that he couldn’t even put up his guard in time. This allowed Volkarin’s fist to land squarely on his chest.
CRUNCH
He was sent flying right towards the previous spot where they fought. Before Uehara could even recover, Volkarin appeared behind him and elbowed him so hard that Uehara felt his eyes were about to burst out of their sockets.
With a quick scissor kick, Uehara was scent crashing into the lake below.
…
Cough Cough Cough
Uehara was on his knees again by the lake, coughing his lungs out after accidentally breathing in water again. He was out of his sage transformation and his coat was torn all over. There was a modest puddle of water in front of him that was slowly sinking into the ground.
Volkarin finally landed in front of Uehara with his arms folded. Uehara stood up and looked at his father, waiting for his guidance.
Volkarin saw that he wasn’t releasing any negative feelings this time and was truly willing to listen.
“Let me tell you where you went wrong. It began from the moment you entered your sage transformation. You had got it right for a moment but in the end, you completely messed it up.
What Volkarin was talking about was when Uehara’s aura was red for a moment before turning gold.
“I thought you’d really accept my advice but it seems that you really can’t willingly let yourself go. I really can’t be bothered to spend years teaching you how to rely on your instincts.”
Uehara had complex emotions. He wanted to listen to his father but deep down, he really couldn’t let himself relinquish control to his instincts. He’s afraid of what would happen, completely missing the point of what Volkarin said when he should “Go with the flow”.
Stolen novel; please report.
Volkarin held a hand to his head in defeat.
[I really underestimated how hard it would be to teach this brat of mine. Assuming he would discover the secrets of the sage transformations himself was a fault on my part.]
Removing his hand from his face, he looked straight into his son’s eyes.
“Here’s what will happen. I’m going to teach you everything about sage mode and sage transformation from scratch. I’m no longer taking any chances in hoping you’ll figure out how to do it since I’m not willing to wait decades or even centuries for you to realise where you went wrong.”
Although Uehara’s mouth twitched at his father’s words, it was soon replaced by a look of determination.
“Yes father. This son is willing to listen.”
Volkarin nodded.
“Good. I’ll begin with sage mode.”
And so the lessons began.
The way sage mode worked was simple. Demons are already in a semi-state of sage mode all the time. So by drawing in more nature energy, they fully enter sage mode. If the demon is in their humanoid form, features of their original form will emerge. For Uehara, draconic features will appear on his body. The benefits of sage mode include a large increase in power and enhanced vitality.
The more nature energy the demon draws in, the more powerful they get. This makes sage mode work like an almost unlimited power booster where the physical strength of the demon is the limit. The only flaw with sage mode is that the more nature energy a demon draws in, the more they’ll surrender to their bestial or primitive instincts.
The demon won’t necessarily lose their rationale but they’ll be more susceptible to doing certain things. They may be more prone to lust, rage or even positive emotions like joy. In short, their emotional instability will increase the more nature energy they draw in.
Sage transformations are an upgrade to sage mode. Gaining a sage transformation is a bit more complicated but once a demon knows the basics, it becomes simple.
To gain a sage transformation, one must have high control over a particular element. Uehara has high control over fire since it was the element he needed to use the most during the first years of his life in Aokigahara.
To enter the flame-sage transformation, Uehara must increase the ratio of fire chakra in his body and combine it with the nature energy he draws from outside. The nature energy will amplify the fire chakra, causing the user to not only gain the power boost from sage mode, but also enhanced attack power and defensive capabilities for the element of fire.
Normally, the flame sage transformation aura should appear red but due to Uehara being unable to properly balance the fire chakra and nature energy, the aura appears golden. The reason for the unbalance is because there isn’t proper cohesion between the two energies, making them slightly unstable. So by default, the nature energy which is golden in colour will be dominant.
That would easily be remedied by Uehara not actively controlling the two energies in his body since demons by instinct, will be able to balance the energies.
Finishing the explanations, Volkarin watched his son furrow his eyebrows in confusion.
“Listen to me son.”
He pointed to the slow-moving stream nearby.
“Imagine that the water flowing in that river is your sage chakra, the combination of your fire chakra and nature energy. That is how your energy flow should be in your body when you’re in your sage transformation.”
Volkarin then waved his hand. A gust of wind formed, causing the gentle flow of the stream to become unstable.
“This is what happens when you’re in your sage transformation. You try to control the flow but all you’re doing is making it unstable. This causes your transformation to be incomplete, making it weaker than it should be.”
Volkarin made the water stabilise again before looking at his son.
“Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”
Uehara was quiet for a while, his gaze lingering on the stream. In the end, he looked at his father with a fierce determination in his eyes.
“I understand, father. I’m willing to try again.”
Volkarin’s gaze lingered on his son for a while. It brought back memories of when they first met.
A hint of a smile appeared on his face at that moment.
“Good. Now sit down and enter your sage mode. We’ll move forward from there.”
“Yes father.”
Uehara sat down in the lotus position and began increasing the rate of nature energy that was entering his body. Slowly, his body began taking on draconic features. Short wings, each one around twenty-centimetres emerged from his back. Short horns started protruding from his head while black tear marks lined his face, reaching down to his skin.
Volkarin monitored the flow of energy in his son’s body. Uehara was still an infant so there was only so much nature energy he could hold in his body.
“Good. Now concentrate on how the nature energy flows through your chakra network. Don’t do anything to it. Just observe how it flows.”
“Yes father.”
With his eyes closed, Uehara began focusing on the energy, focusing on the flow. Feeling the energy smoothly flow through his body, Uehara was surprised how gentle it felt. It was the first time he sat down and actually completely immersed himself on feeling the flow of nature energy.
Using his advantage of having complete control over his body, he fully focused on the flow, even feeling how his cells were greedily devouring the nature energy, which would result in a power boost. He even observed how the nature energy flowed through his brain, boosting the efficiency of it.
Right now, a faint dark aura emanated from him, covering him like a blanket. This was a manifestation of his dark-attribute chakra caused by the influx of nature energy. Due to the increase in the amount of nature energy in his body, his body started to increase the production of chakra, leading to some of it leaking out and manifesting as an aura. Since Uehara is a demon with darkness affinity, his chakra automatically changed to black in colour because the element of darkness takes up a slightly higher percentage in his chakra composition.
(AN: Remember that chakra is a manifestation of all four basic elements gathering together and cancelling each other. The two conceptual elements are not added in the circle since they are concepts and are present within the four basic elements.)
Volkarin noticed how peaceful his son seemed as he focused on the nature energy.
“Good. You’re finally getting the hang of it. Now, I want you to slowly inject your fire chakra into the stream of nature energy. Don’t try to control it. Just inject it.”
“Yes father.”
Inwardly, he thought to himself.
[This time, I won’t disappoint.]
(AN: Sorry about not updating this past week. Funeral preparations took much longer than I estimated. Also for the past three days, I had a lot of work I had to catch up on.)