As the son of the Head Chief, Mion was used to tracking animals through the Red Forest and setting traps; so it struck him as extremely odd to see Noki sitting next to the river in a meditation stance. Why had she taught a Null any sort of meditation breathing? “Baira, you really taught that trash.” It was bad enough that Noki had somehow gained the ability to use Tera, but now he could potentially use arts and ascend. He’d still die of course, Mion would make sure of it, but it angered him to think that Noki would even attempt to walk a path that could make them equals; there was a natural order to things, those on the bottom exist to support those on top, and Noki was trying to leave his rightful place. When he caught him, Mion would beat the lesson into Noki, not enough to kill him, and make him give up on being a Divine Artist…then he’d kill him.
“Mion, why are we stopping?” Mion jerked his head back and saw the curly haired girl take a few steps in front of his lackeys. “Have you located Noki?”
“Yes..it’s at the ravine near the eastern exit of the forest, two miles out.” With the extra lessons from his uncle and his Earth Aspect, Mion is able to extend his senses by sending his Tera through the ground and allowing his Divine Sight to follow suit. “I thought I told you that, Kila.”
“No, you’ve said nothing this entire time,” Kila said before giving him a questioning look,”in fact, you’ve been standing there for the past five minutes, right?” She looked back to the others and they nodded in agreement, “See? So what gives?” Most people wouldn’t address an Okari like that, but Kila was also from a vassal family, though a much more recent and smaller one.
“It’s nothing, let’s just hurry up and get Noki. It’s almost night and the scourbeasts come out to feed.”
“Noki? Since when do you call him by his name?” Kila asked, and it stunned Mion. When did he use his name? Sensing something was amiss, Kila used her Divine Sight on him. Through her eyes, she could see a tether of black and purple Mental Tera attached to the top of his head. “ Someone’s marked you.”
Mion and the others immediately went on guard, circulating Tera through their Iron Soul Bodies. “ Where are they? I don’t sense anyone else nearby,” Mion said.
“Give me a moment, I’ll trace the technique back.”
Kila’s speciality lies within using Mental Tera to confuse the senses, which is why she chose the Waxing Moon Corporeal Art to compliment her. Her Mind Kulda is denser than most Artists and by connecting a bit of her spirit to it, she can see far beyond the norm. She closed her eyes, dropped into her meditation stance-White Orbital Breathing-and began circulating her Tera and spirit. A stream of white and purple extended from her forehead and connected with Mion’s own. It pulled her in like she was a leaf in a whirlpool. Mental strength far beyond that of an Iron Soul enveloped her and dragged her through the abstract plane at dizzying speeds. When she finally stopped, she saw herself standing in front of the image of a seventy-foot tall woman.
“Who dares intrude upon my space?” The woman’s voice shook the very foundation of the space and threatened to rip Kila’s own spirit apart with nothing but a word.
It took Kila a moment to remember how to mentally communicate, she needed to choose her words carefully. In the Abstract Plane, thoughts and intention were power and if she made the wrong move, there was a good chance it would be the end for her. “ Pardon the intrusion, I noticed a Mind Tether attached to a companion of mine and wanted to ascertain where it came from. I meant you no harm or disrespect.” Kila made sure to get her intent across when she said disrespect.
“Oh, you’re with Mion then?” The seventy-foot woman shrunk down to an acceptable height of ten feet and stared her in the eye; or where the eyes would be if they were both in their physical bodies. “This is actually a good turn of events for you, Kila of the Ziri Clan.”
Kila tried to suppress her shock, but she wasn’t as nearly as adept at that as she needed to be; this was her first time inTeracting with a non-family member in this space. “Forgive my asking, but how did you know that?”
“I’m already teaching two other people how to use their abilities, I don’t really have time to teach another…but your spirit hasn’t been strengthened and you’ve only guarded your mind from close range infiltration.” The construct of Amani winced for a moment before continuing, “ I’m also currently being interrupted by one of those students, so I’ll make this quick. I know what your true intentions are and they just so happen to align with my own…so let’s make a deal.”
Kila’s eyes snapped open and she dug her nails into the soil. “There, you should be able to think more clearly, “ she said as she attempted to catch her breath, “ but to be safe I strengthened your mind temporarily.” Kila gestured for the others to come by so she could do the same for them.
“Well,” Mion said, “ who infiltrated my mind?” He rubbed the base of his head and twisted his face into a scowl, “I’ll make sure they never do it again.”
“It was a trap by a wolfspider scourbeast. You should let me take point, I saw dozens of them laid out in this part of the forest.” Kila looked Mion in his scowling face for a moment and added, “Their webs are different from a wolfspider since they are composed solely from Mental Tera and ensare victims mentally. I’ll be able to steer us clear of them.” Mion begrudgingly agreed and stepped aside. Relieved, Kila took the lead position and guided the party down the hill towards the ravine.
Baira threw another rock at her sister and once again, Amani reflexively batted it away while maintaining her meditation. She couldn’t tell what Amani was doing, even with her Divine Sight active, so she took in all of the facts and meditated on the answer; when she came up with nothing, she decided to leave for a bit and clear her mind. Baira’s ascension to Iron Soul gave her a stronger sense of confidence in her own abilities so even if she ran into scourbeasts, she’d be able to take them.
“But, what if Noki runs into one? Or a pack? I should be looking for him.” Baira stamped her foot on the ground and nearly put her entire leg through it. “No, Amani said she’d take care of him and she’s never broken her word before. Besides, there are bigger things happening than him right now.” She walked next to a black tree with a crevasse in its trunk and sat inside it. A quick scan with her new spiritual senses told her nothing else was inside, so she decided to make herself comfortable; which for her meant overanalyzing everything without being interrupted.
Baira wasn’t always as compassionate as she is now, especially when she first arrived in Watercliff some nine years ago. Her original plan was to do her cultivation training here until she hit Iron Soul, then return home for her real training…but then she saw a kid that everyone avoided and wanted some of that. Growing up as a Monsari made her famous everywhere she went and she always hated the attention so it made sense to attach herself to someone undesirable. She wasn’t supposed to actually care about Noki and for the first year she hadn’t; she only told him her name and would sit next to him outside of lessons, but then one day she told him to write something down and he had refused it. It was the first time that someone outside of her family had refused her and when she pressed him on it, he told her he didn't know how to write anything.
“If I did know,” Noki had said, “of course I’d do it. Friends do things for each other.”
That was the first time anyone had called her a friend and from that moment on, Baira did her best to make sure that her first friend could become her lifelong friend…which meant making him acceptable for her family. “If he dies here though, then none of that will have mattered…and I’m doing it again.”
“Hey, you in the tree, I got a question for ya.” A man with unkempt auburn hair and a scraggly beard stood thirty-feet away from her. He had the look of someone who was more accustomed to sleeping in piles of dirt instead of beds. “You’re a Divine Artist, aren’t ya?”
Baira shot out of the crevasse and used her Divine Sight. “This doesn’t make any sense. His Tera is the strength of an Earthen Soul…but his Spirit Kulda isn’t in his body.” Tapping into her own spiritual core, Baira saw a thin strand of whitish silver extend from the man’s body and followed it to the weapon at his hip. Underneath a thick, red sash was a blade sheathed in a scabbard segmented by red and gray sections. Baira began circulating her Tera and drawing in her aspect of water, preparing her Rushing Tide.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“I’ll take that as a yes then.” The man drew his sword–a thin, white blade with silver bleeding into it– and the color drained from his hair, leaving it a stark silver. His eyes became as red as his hair previously was and his entire demeanor seemed to change. “I see now,” he said coolly, “ you’re Baira Monsari. As a member of the Silverbloods, I, Heran, will be taking your life.”
“Jahn went so far as to hire a Silverblood? How would he even have the resources for that?” The Silverbloods were a powerful clan of Blade Artists–a type of Divine Artist that trained the weapon and spirit instead of the body–that could topple empires; in fact, the founding members were instrumental in maintaining the current royal family’s hold on the lands. Their methods and techniques were a mystery to everyone, but one thing was clear: their targets never survived an encounter with them.
“He’s young,” Baira thought to herself, “most likely only a few years older than me. I have the advantage in terms of physical prowess, at his level he shouldn’t even be able to see my movements…but…” Her spirit was screaming at her and she channeled some of her spirit power to her Divine Sight. Heran’s weapon was lit up like a hundred spiritbulbs and gave off the force of an Iron Soul. “That sword of his is the problem, if I’m not careful, he’ll slice me in two.” One of the advantages of being an Iron Soul is the general increase in power of both the Mind and Body Kulda, which for Baira meant she can examine, contemplate and react to her environments with only a few seconds passing in real time. That was good news for her because by the time she had finished her thoughts, Heran’s blade was already aiming to sever her head clean off.
Baira, enforced by her Rushing Tide, ducked the blade and delivered a double palm strike that was intercepted by Heran’s scabbard. The sheathe took the full brunt of the blow but didn’t crack, instead it only forced Heran thirty-feet backwards, which struck Baira as odd to say the least. She was sure that he was only an Earthen Soul, but that was the reaction of an Iron Soul. “No time to think about that, I need to keep the pressure on.” Baira closed the distance in an instant and feigned a right jab. Heran saw through it and immediately swiped his blade in the direction of her real attack, a low leg sweep. Baira was cut on her shin but managed to move before the sword could do any serious damage; her Iron Soul Body would heal a wound of that size in an instant. “I don’t know how, but he’s able to read my attacks...wait, it might be-”
“Your reaction time is commendable,” Heran said as Baira landed , “ especially for someone of your level.”
“Obvious provocation,” Baira thought to herself before saying , “I take it you have some ability that lets you keep up with those of a higher rank than yourself?” She needed to keep him talking to buy her sometime to figure out her next move. “ I’m guessing it has something to do with that sword of yours?”
“There’s no need to tell you that.” Heran sheathed the blade and reached for a pouch attached to his side. He pulled out a red shard and placed it on the side of the scabbard, wrapping it in a skin of red and orange fire. Heran unsheathed his blade and it had bright flames running from its base to the tip.
Baira could feel the heat from the blade as if she were standing next to it. “That has to be a Flame Aspect, but it’s only affecting the blade…is it because of the Spirit Kulda?” She drew a bit more of her spirit into her Divine Sight and saw that the core inside of the blade was a mix of red and orange. “I see, so that shard changed the Spirit Kulda to align it with Flame Aspect.” Baira sent the rest of her spirit energy throughout her body, allowing for her Water Aspect to flow freely inside of her. The feeling of heat dampened and her Tera started to take on the properties of water. Without saying another word, she rushed towards Heran.
“ I gotta say, Noki, you’re more resilient than I thought you would be,” Amani said as Noki was once again batted away by the Mion construct,“ this is the two-hundredth time that’s happened and you’re still going for it.”
In truth, Noki had no idea how many times he’d done it but two-hundred felt like too much. His initial anger had subsided, but his drive to want to fight hadn’t; if anything, with each attempt his desire to fight grew even more. It was a feeling that felt alien to him, as if it were someone else’s wants, but it felt…right. He threw himself at Mion again and the construct’s arm blurred before him. Noki just managed to get his arm up to partially guard when Mion’s blow struck him, sending him into the ground.
“I’m truly impressed,” Amani said, “ you were able to guard–albeit poorly–against his attack. You probably don’t know it, but a movement from an Iron Soul, even a lesser one, is nearly imperceptible to Earthen Souls.”
“Yeah, I figured as much,” Noki said while eyeing the Mion construct, “ back in the village, it always seemed like no matter what I did, Mion would just appear in front of me. I was helpless then, but now–even if it’s just for a second– I can follow his movements.”
“Really? Then would you like to put that to the test?” This caused Noki to take his gaze off the construct of Mion and focus on Amani. “ Mion is on his way here,” the younger Amani said, “ in fact, he should be arriving any second now.”
“What? Then send me back, I can’t protect myself like this.”
“Oh, but if I do that now, you’ll die in combat and all my work would have been for naught.” Amani raised a hand and both the arena and the Mion construct disappeared, leaving only Noki in the swirling mists. “I need you to transfer what you’ve learned here into your body.”
“I don’t-”
“I know you don’t, you don’t know anything so let me finish explaining before you interrupt.” The younger Amani stood quietly until Noki gave her a begrudging nod of approval. “Right now we are both in your mind and in another place entirely called the Abstraction. This is where thoughts and feelings are made and gain power and- actually you don’t need to know all that. All you need to know is that you can take what you’ve done here and transfer it back to the Physical Realm.”
Noki waited in silence for a moment before picking up on what the construct wanted him to do. “Oh, well how do I do that?”
“Same way we do everything, by circulating your Tera but in reverse. Just imagine that-oh looks like I have to go.”
“What?” Noki looked at the featureless construct in disbelief. “ Go, but I don’t know how to leave her or reverse circulation.”
“You’ll figure it out, bye.” The younger Amani disappeared into a fog that fell into the ground.
“How am I supposed to figure any of this stuff out? It’s so confusing!” Noki’s voice echoed throughout the Abstraction. The concept of circulation was hard enough for him to grasp until he had ascended to Earthen Soul, but this was something that was still beyond him, but time was running short and he needed to get back to the Physical Realm. “Wait, let’s go over what I do when I circulate. First I get into a meditation stance.” Noki dropped to the ground and entered River Circulation Breathing. “Normally, I’d just imagine Tera flowing from my kulda into my body, but now that seems wrong.”
Being in the Abstraction,and fueled by Amani’s augmentation of his mind, Noki reanalyzed his understanding of kuldas and Tera. It wouldn’t make sense for the Tera that goes to his Body Kulda do go into his Mind Kulda, otherwise why have different kuldas to begin with. “It must have to do with the Tera itself. Maybe it flows into my body and then goes into my core?” Drawing in Tera from the environment and then converting it into a form more suitable for the Divine Artists was the basis for cultivation; a fundamental fact that Noki was never taught but was quickly growing to understand. “If that’s the case, then I just need to imagine my Mental Tera flowing into my Body Kulda instead. Yeah, that feels right.”
The Mind Kulda at the base of his skull was glowing a pinkish purple, no doubt due to the alTerations made by Amani. When Noki started to move the Tera from his mind, it felt like emptying a large cup by placing a pinhole in it. There was too much information, too many thoughts to process, but he could feel something settling into his physical body and kept pushing. Bit by excruciating bit, he felt himself return to his body as the Mental Tera trickled into his Body Kulda. The world of mist started to shift back to the Physical Realm , but he could only see it as an overlay. Through his vision, he saw what looked like constructs of Mion and a few others rapidly approaching him.
“Co-come…on…”
The strain of transferring the experiences from the Abstraction to the Physical Realm increased as Noki could feel the last of himself coming back to reality. He gritted his teeth and forced the rest of his Mental Tera into his Body Kulda. The kulda swirled with white and orange energy and Noki instinctively dispersed it throughout his body. His muscles ached as the Tera settled in, almost as if he had been training with his physical body the entire time. The fused Tera kept traveling through his Tera pathways until his body had completely absorbed it.
Noki’s clothes stuck to his body and he fell forward, bracing himself at the last moment. “Oh..man,” he said aloud, “that was intense.” Noki tried to move but his muscles protested at the thought; he had drained his Body Kulda and needed to replenish it. He craned his neck to the left and saw that the scrolls and pills were still present. He ignored the pain in his arms and pushed off the ground, throwing himself towards the pile and landing face first onto a pill. Without sparing a thought, Noki grabbed the Tera locus pill with his teeth and swallowed it. It exploded like a bomb the minute he digested it and he felt Tera pulsing through his body like never before; it felt like his entire body was going to burst. The sensation lasted only a second and when it was over, Noki was on his feet and staring down the direction Mion and his group were approaching from.
Normally, the thought of just knowing Mion was coming would have filled Noki with both rage and fear; but this time the fear had been supplanted by excitement, and the rage was fueled by it. The moment Mion came into view, Noki attacked.