Chapter 6: first steps
Sechs sat in front of Nixie, watching her as she went though and repeated fifteen sword forms. They were now eight years old and Nixie matured quickly under power of the [Ice Jade Blade], [Snow Fairy’s Wings], and [Snow Fairy’s body] techniques.
The latter two where techniques Sechs created after a year of pondering the perfect way to integrate the ice element into the [Six Winged Angel] and [Undead King] techniques. Although she was just eight Nixie looked to be at least twelve.
These techniques would not lead her to creat an aura and instead focused solely on the body. In term of strength she was comparable to an early mortal realm cultivator. If the tribe were to know that an eight year old girl could match some of their trained warriors in strength they would be shocked, but what was even more impressive was her skill with a sword.
In the [Ice Jade Blade] manual there were three levels of sword comprehension perfect feeling of the sword, sword and body as one, and sword body and world as one. About a month ago she reached perfect feeling of the sword giving her deadly accuracy with the wooden sword she held in her hands.
Sechs on the other hand only made progress in the [Six Winged Angel] technique which slowly strengthened his mind and soul but even that had limits without the aid of the pure energy he required to cultivate.
But that would no longer be a problem as starting today he would be helping Nixie kill livestock and in exchange for every three that he killed and dismembered he would receive a portion.
That portion would obviously be the raw heart of some of the livestock he killed. While lost in his thoughts Nixie shook him to get his attention.
“Sixth, we need to talk about something important.” Sechs detected nervousness in her voice and decided to hear her out as trying to guess what she was thinking was rather hard at times.
“What about?” Seeing her face turn slightly red Sechs was puzzled.
“Um… There’s a wired feeling when I simultaneously practice the three techniques like you said... and for the last month I haven’t made any improvements in anything but sword arts.” Sechs was startled as he would be using similar techniques and it would be very troublesome if they couldn’t be used to go any higher than the early mortal realm.
“Um… I saw how Shaman Lumi inscribed a rune on Tekone and what happened to her is what I felt, but I felt natural like the world was inscribing the runes… But the elemental energy around was not sufficient and I can't gather enough ice elemental energy… Can you help?”
Sechs still didn’t quite comprehend her nervousness but ignored the reason why, as for helping her gather elemental energy it would indeed be possible for him to do so.
“Yes I can act as a container for elemental energy, but I can not gather it myself so you will have to gather the ice elemental energy and send it to me. I will hold as much as possible and release it as you need it.”
When he said this Nixie had a delighted expression but grew even more nervous as her face turned bright red. Sechs was now truly at a loss for words as he could not comprehend why she would act like this. While he was puzzled Tekone began laughing.
“Young master you are puzzled as to her red face correct?” Nixie noticing that Tekone would say something about her condition quickly bolted in front of her and dragged her outside. Over the years they spent together seeing Tekone laugh was a rare thing as she had a serious personality.
After a while Nixie returned but Tekone stood outside waiting for Nixie to tell her young master what she was going to tell him before being dragged outside.
“Sixth, when a rune is inscribed… The body of that person is… Bare.” Immediately sechs understood her troubles, girls would normally not be shy about these things at the age of eight but those of the savage lands matured fast and Nixie matured even faster due to the techniques she cultivated.
As for how to answer her statement Sechs was at a loss, in terms of attraction he had none for the eight year old girl so seeing her bare wasn’t really an issue for him even if she looked older than her age she was still a child and had no appeal for Sechs who had previously lived to the age of thirty.
“Well we can proceed in the method I spoke of if you so desire or you can continue to attempt to gather enough elemental energy on your own.” Nixie then thought about it and had a resolute look on her face.
“Please help me gather elemental energy.” Saying this ice elemental energy began to flow around her and directed at Sixth. When the pure elemental energy entered his body Sechs had some desire to keep it but quickly let go of that thought as seeing a rune naturally form would be interesting and important to him who would use similar techniques.
After having gathered a large amount of elemental energy in his boy Sechs began coughing, unable to hold anymore.
“Sixth are you okay?” Nixie stopped the transfer of elemental energy worried that she could hurt him, the amount that she transferred to him was more than what she could circulate in her body and keep control of.
“I'm fine but this is all I can hold. Let's proceed.” Nixie then felt nervous as she began to undress, when she was done she coved her important parts with her hands and looked at Sixth. But his lack of reaction slightly disappointed her, she knew he was more mature than her or any of their generation but she didn’t expect him to have absolutely no reaction to her naked body.
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Seeing him like this she gave a sigh and sat down cross legged no longer covering herself, and began to simultaneously cultivate all three techniques given to her. Sechs sat looking at her, waiting for the perfect time to release the stored ice elemental energy.
After some time passed the temperature in the tent grew cold, soon ice elemental energy began to circulate on Nixie's back. As it’s revolutions slowed five dim snowflakes appeared in the elemental energy.
Seeing the snowflakes grow dimmer Sechs released all the elemental energy towards Nixie. When the elemental energy mixed with what was gathered the outcome was far from what
Sechs expected. Instead of it being as simple as one plus one the energy multiplied, seemingly taking all the energy in a thirty foot radius and Turing it to ice elemental energy. The dim barely discernible snow flakes became radiant with a multitude of complex patterns.
These patterns slowly moved to Nixie two placed themselves on her upper back, two on her lower back, and one in the center of her back.
‘With five of these runes, if they can be called that, she has entered the first realm of a runic warrior. Could it be that the techniques I have are for naturally forming runic warriors and not aura warriors?’ With this she would be considered the equivalent to an early mortal real cultivator.
This world had aura warriors a concept that his previous wold lacked so naturally that was not the path that martial arts manuals from his world would lead to. Instead for the purity and effectiveness the martial arts manuals pursued it seemed the world would grant them natural runes.
Because of the sudden change in temperature his body could not help but shiver. Nixie saw Sixth shivering and called in Tekone together they were able to rap him up in some blankets as he fell asleep.
“Tekone, please don't tell anyone about this.” Nixie did not want anyone to know about the natural runes given the fact that this was something given to her by Sixth and without his permission she would not let anyone know.
Seeing Nixie sitting over her young master bare she smiled.
“Do you know what it means for a female runic warrior to be inscribed on by a male shaman?” Nixie didn’t know what Tekone was leading to but from her tone of voice it couldn’t be anything bad.
“No.”
“Then let me tell you, although the young master isn’t a shaman he assisted in inscribing those runes onto you. By tradition when a male shaman inscribed runes onto a female runic warrior it is a promise almost equivalent to marriage.”
Hearing this Nixie’s face turned three shades redder, she prepared ear self for being seen by Sixth she even thought of ways to have the two of them be together in the future but a sudden promise of marriage was still to stimulating for her young mind.
Because of her embarrassment she quickly got dressed and ran out of the tent heading back to her families tent. Sechs slept peacefully not knowing he had just been engaged to a girl through traditions he knew nothing about.
The next morning he walked to the area designated for livestock, greeted some of the workers and moved to a pen were some of the livestock were kept. Seeing the creatures he recognized from the encyclopedia, they were fire hens.
Fire hens looked just like chickens but were twice the size of one from Earth, they were considered early first realm beasts.
‘Finally this is the first step to my cultivation.’ Although they were much stronger that Sechs the hens rapidly retreated after seeing the hungry look in his eyes. Calming himself Sechs fed the hens some grains containing sleeping drugs so he could calmly kill the beasts. After ten or so minutes all the beast were sound asleep and ready to be killed.
Holding the first hen in his arms he immediately slit it throat and plucked all its feathers, next was the most crucial step with the knife in his hands Sechs began removing the heart of the beast. The heart was small only the size of his small palm but it contained what he needed and he threw it into his mouth without any reservations.
In total he killed six hens and took two hearts in accordance to the deal he made regarding his payment. With both hearts an their way to his stomach and his work done Sechs left he butchered hens with a worker and went back to his tent.
In his tent he began to dissolve the hearts into pure energy, the process was something he had long since mastered. First he refined the heart into elemental fire energy then continued to refine it into a pure energy.
This pure energy was much greater that what he previously received from the elder during the test some years ago. It was even comparable to the full amount he would have received from taking all the ice elemental energy from Nixie.
As he circulated the pure energy he could feel the frailness from his body leaving him, but two hearts would not be enough. If he continued eating two fire hen hearts a day then it would take him at least a tear to catch up to the current Nixie but that wouldn’t be a problem as long as he could convince Nixie’s father to give him more work.
By increasing his work he would also increase his reward. The strongest livestock the tribe kept were the fire hens but occasionally warriors would bring back some savage beasts at the peak of the first realm witch would most likely have great amounts of strength.