Ikrei P.O.V.
I was eating the delicacies Hazu brought to my room, orgon infused food and a lot of Thurskan. The door opened, Yun Hee appeared wearing a pure black Hanfu, same inviting key hole at breast level.
“Lord.” She sat next to me in my bed.
“How long have I been out?”
“An hour and a half, my lord.” She was being very respectful.
I could vaguely feel an emotion of danger.
“Please don’t ask if you don’t want to die. That was a one off, provided by your Andurin brother.”
“Krigsain did what?”
“He gave me a concoction for an episode like yours.”
Without the need for further explanations my emotions were all over the place.
“Sometimes we need to get burned to realize how close we are to the fire.”
A more than obvious statement that freed me from my delusions.
‘I guess the order is truly protecting me from something terrible.’
“What can you tell me, paramour?” I wasn’t happy with her methods either.
She could feel it. Several grains of sand later, she spoke.
“You have a chaos root like me. Yours is larger than mine.”
The feeling of wariness was felt easily. She exhaled in relief.
“I don’t know what that is, you know.” I told her.
“And it better stay that way. Whatever was done to you is from the realms of the awakened not from the cultivators. This a loophole, let’s not test our luck any further.”
Her smile was welcoming. She started serving me food with the utensils very delicately.
I ate in silence for several minutes.
“What’s next, then?” I had to ask.
“We will go nonstop training your consciousness with the chaos root and the seed of Malgrun. Two hour breaks in between.”
“The blackouts and the headaches are massive.”
‘Is this part of the hate training?’
“Getting knocked out every time you get punched is no good. You need to slowly temper yourself and overcome the restraints you have. Practice makes perfect, right?”
Yun Hee explained patiently as she imitated me with a smile.
“We are in the break time I believe?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Ok. You want to play some music?”
Her eyes lit up like the concert lights.
‘Yeah, I felt it back then, you vixen.’
“Teach me how to play Me.” Her emotions were strong and not on the good side.
‘Caught you off guard with my proposal, huh? Your mask is slipping.’
“Lead the way.” We walked together towards a newly refurbished music room.
“Say paramour, I sense strong feelings about the song. You jealous or something?”
She opened the door to the room.
“Rock is nice but I like your style better. And the answer is something. How can you write a song about a woman you met in passing first and not about the beauty from whom you took her precious first night?”
She was clearly displeased.
“It wasn’t just her, it was my own memories that are gone and my mother.”
“Sorry my lord, please be kind and show me.” She could tell I wasn’t lying.
We spent break time stroking keys and joking about Hazu’s multiplicity for a change.
“I heard that patreon.”
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Yun Hee P.O.V.
“This exercise is far more gentle but not less difficult. Allow me to demonstrate.”
With Hazu supervising we were once again standing inside the training circle wearing cultivator cloths, Hanfus. This was the Heavenly Demon’s place, everything revolves around his tastes and tendencies.
I placed a cloth over my eyes. I was going to fight blindfolded.
“You can sense other people’s energy or Qi to detect them but we are connected through Malgrun. More than just core energy, I can sense you, you can sense me at an incomparable level. You feel, I feel, deep. Pun intended.”
Ikrei laughed for several breaths.
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‘Good, you need that.’
“You are trained in pure martial arts, grappling techniques and the like, right?”
“Don’t know about mastery but yes I am.”
“Good lord. Attack me. Try to pin me down or put me under submission.”
“Heeyoh!”
We were at a three-cubit distance. Little lord charged in for a grab.
Of course I read his movements easily and with a stylish parry I immediately put him under a double leg take down. He wasn’t expecting that.
Thud!
He was perplexed.
“Lord, our connection is more than thoughts and feelings. You can feel my energy, the energy of the blessing. Wherever it is cruising inside my body, meridians and all. You can sense it if you want to. It isn’t easy but you can. Undeniably, I can do it too.”
I signaled him to attack me once more.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
He fell to the floor. This was repeated three more times, kneebar, ankle lock and finally a playful omoplata.
I had time to speak softly in his ear too.
‘Cute little thing.’
“I’m really using open guard and butterfly guard. I’m the shorter one here. Seems you have trouble reading my energy.” I detailed as best as I could.
“It’s amazing really. I can’t feel your core energy.” He was gathering himself.
“Soul contract pairs are scarily powerful. They can truly fight as one, my lord.”
I let my blessing’s energy explode all around the circle. That is in comparative terms, I had just recently reached Foundation Establishment stage six.
‘The environment here is excellent for rapid development.’
“Let’s start with basic blocks and parries. Feel the energy, I’ll gradually decrease the external Qi, just follow and do your best.”
We started trading punches. A fast pace. He was more used to feeling the Qi than an internal blessing.
“I’ll teach you Makgi while we are at it. Try to parry and counter my lord.”
A couple of hours later he managed to predict a punch that used no external Qi, he detected my faint.
‘Descent pick up speed. Good.’
“How was it lord?”
“Ha! It feels like detecting the fall of a water droplet inside a cup with water on it.”
We went at it for another couple of hours. Hazu started serving the special vegetables and orgon infusions. We had a small meditation break too. A phoenix and a phoenix raven mesh quite well if it weren’t for our very different ideologies and applications.
“The Singing Phoenix is closer to an Andurin than to a Malgrunian.” Ikrei said.
“Yeah, she is an odd one."
‘It is nice not to train with just Hazu or by myself.’
“Now the real training begins my lord.” I stood up readying myself.
“Yeah I felt it a while back. What’s the surprise then?”
“We are going back to blocking, parrying, submissions and grappling. You are not to use your demonic ring or the power of the soul contract. Remember the night you can’t quite remember?”
Ikrei stood up slowly, giving me an introspective gaze. He was sensing my inner feelings. I wasn’t hiding anything.
“Is this going to where I feel this is going?” He questioned.
“Rise above or succumb my lord.”
“Someone said to me, there are better ways to tell me you want some.”
“Prove yourself first. You are the one on the floor all the time and we are not using Qi. It is not my lips that are wet but the sweat from your shortcomings. We need to fix that.”
“That was cold, paramour.”
“Cold as winter, hot as summer. Up to you, lord.”
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Ikrei P.O.V.
POW! POW! POW!
Punch evasion, wrist grab, counter grab, side step and a charge for the leg take down.
Lift leg, let the weight of body push me down on remaining foot, roll right. She missed.
‘He, he, that’s better.’
“Try this, lord.”
An incredible fast dash and I was trapped in a Kimura.
“Again. Don’t just feel, know where I am.”
“How do I do that?”
“True witches call it the force, in our case, the Will and the Heart of Malgrun. Let the Will guide you to my heart. The gods are rivals but they don’t hate each other. You need to fight without your eyes.”
I grabbed a cloth that Hazu was giving me. Blindfolded thingy time. I set myself and breathed, back to basics.
‘Inhale. Exhale. Release.’
“Come paramour.”
Seven breaths. One more furious exchange of grabs, counter grabs, side steps, half turns and full body pulls. I was manhandled, my ass on the floor, somehow. Ending up in a bow and arrow choke.
“See, your eyes can deceive you. The eyes of the gods will not. No matter, it is a delicate dance.” Yun Hee explained once more.
I stood up once she released me.
“Are there cases when it is better to follow your own intuition rather than the whispers of the gods?” This was very important to me.
“There are times when your connections to the gods will be gone and even more, especially if you fight the elites of the empire. And no, the aid of the gods is crucial. In your case, the intervention of the Will maximizes your chances of success.”
The explanation gave me a lot to think about but that brought another question.
“What about the Magi, don’t they use mana and refuse to be bound to the gods?”
“Once you reach peak Nascent Soul your powers will start to change. Depending on your life, tendencies, blessings, and many more things, you will receive reality altering powers. Once an unbound Magi reaches that stage, well, they become extremely dangerous.”
“But then a Magi aided by the gods should be stronger, right?”
“No. In order to reach that stage as an unbound you have to be ultra-sheltered, ultra-lucky, ultra-talented or some strange compilation of circumstances. The one who walks alone is always stronger than the one who was helped at the same level of mastery. The unbound grandmaster Magi are amazing. They are the true fatebrakers. Your order is a pale imitation compared to that.”
‘So that’s why they were hunted, huh? They are still out there. The Dogran guy is proof that they are still born. Is Krigs an ancient Magi? Many, many questions.’
His plan started to come into focus for me.
‘I might get to meet one of them one day. Wouldn’t that be something?’
“Enough with the history lesson, ready yourself lord.”
Many more hours of practice followed.
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Yun Hee P.O.V.
I picked up the pace, it was time for the real test. Ikrei was holding up well so far. My Malgrun blessing expanding around the circle. Mostly focused on my little lord.
An attempt for a right handed grab on his upper torso cloth. He countered by grabbing my wrist. I let him. I felt his joy.
‘Poor little lord.’
I used the grab as a platform for a quick throw. I cheated a little, a small amount of Qi.
I landed on top of him, he immediately went for my hands and arms. I wrestled away his attempts to free himself from my hands. I let him get a piece again, not without playing a trick on him.
He touched my right bosom.
“You happy to see me up close, lord?”
He was having a really tough time dealing with a fully powered succubus energy blast in his surroundings. He was a little mad, though.
He quickly turned me over. His strikes had power, enough to hurt but not enough for bruises. I was blocking as fast as humanly possible without Qi.
‘So kind, little lord. You get a prize.’
I cheated again, using Qi I looped my leg in a lasso style trapping his right arm. Before Ikrei could escape I crossed my other leg into a lock. I had him. My Qi exploded wildly with all the power I could from my malgrunian blessing.
“What are you doing?!”
‘Testing you, big dummy.’
Of course his Qi exploded too and he got closer to get away from the lock. I just kissed his earlobe. My blessing enveloping us with the aid of my continuously extending hair threads.
I felt it, I was transforming. I didn’t care what form I was taking, only that it happened. The big kahuna appeared again.
“You fail my lord; you must resist the licentious call of your consort.”
He freed himself from the restrain. His eyes were a mix of many emotions. My body was already transformed into whatever he wanted. There was a reason the Hanfu I wore had a pronounced key hole, cleavage style.
I released the energy, no more succubus compulsion. It was time for him to decide.
Seven breaths. I remained transformed. Obviously our tongues intertwined.
“You require a lot of training my lord.” I spoke sweetly.
His eyes filled with passion, like a malgrunian.
‘Thank you for the music.’
It was going to be a long din.