“Master, where are we travelling?” Asked Lute, it had been nearly two days since leaving the valley and at the moment, they seemed to be wandering around aimlessly.
“Shut up and keep walking until there is an area that I take an interest to.”
Sheesh, why is she in such a cranky mood. Is she still annoyed that I managed to do something she couldn’t…
Upon a planet of eternal sunset, Lute continuously walked towards it. With no thoughts in particular, he simply walked. There was no need to stop, with his current strength reserves, walking for a day was of no problem. However, this didn’t mean he wasn’t amassing power. No one else would be able to sense it, but Isla who was merged with Lute was clearly able to feel the worlds Qi gravitating towards him, as he was cultivating at a speed an average cultivator would be able to if they were meditating.
If Lute earnestly cultivated like anyone else, the speed would increase exponentially. But right now, simply walking and absorbing the worlds Qi kept him on par with anyone else. This allowed for more free time to travel and temper himself. Travel and train during the day, and cultivate at night. He was still at the fifth level of the Foundational Qi Realm, however after two days, his cultivation was stabilized. What would take an ordinary person more than a week to adapt to, had only taken Lute two days, such was the benefit of having a strong foundation.
All of this was apparent to Isla, just the fact that Lute could nonchalantly do anything else and still manage to cultivate Qi, that wasn’t something which should be feasible.
“Lute, out towards the northwest, there is a small lake. Set up camp there, we shall finally start, you are ready to begin learning how to formally fight, and not use the brutish methods that you have grown to adore.”
Huh? Adore? Since when have I said that I like the way I fight. Those stances are simply something I did from instinct. Will she ever let up on the passive-aggressive verbal abuse?
Despite the annoyance he felt, Lute did what his Master instructed without error. Sure enough, out to the northwest there was a small lake. In the direct center was an island. The way the land was, it was almost as if a dome shape had come into being, with the lake and its small island as the center, surrounded by the green foliage of the forests and encased by the mountains.
Not fearing Vicious Beasts anymore, Lute took the initiative to make a small lean-to shelter. It was simple enough, trees tied together by vines and a small roof made from the left over coarse fur of the wolves. Inside of it, there was simply a small bedroll of wolf fur and left over smoked meat. Lute held nothing else of importance.
“Master, what is it that you wanted us to stop for; there are quite a few hours of daylight from the sunset on the horizon left. It shouldn’t take that long to learn the proper way of combat, so why’d we stop so early.”
Isla manifested in her spiritual form, a smug, yet serious look prevalent across her face. Just one look at her, and sensing through their connection, Lute had a feeling he was about to be done in by this foul woman.
“I must apologize; I have committed a grave sin. It’s not your fault, but as your Master I shall rectify it with due haste.” Isla said in a malignant manner.
Lute silently swallowed, he clearly saw a sadistic look in her eyes. Her bewitching smile appeared evil and dangerous to him, others might faint from the beauty, but he knew better, she was an extremely dangerous contrary to her appearance. So, rather than try to talk his way out of the situation, silence was definitely the best course of action…hopefully.
Isla narrowed her eyes, “Oh, you’re not going to challenge my words or ask me anything. Perhaps you are finally starting to become a filial disciple and learning to not question my actions which are above your comprehension. But alas, that will not save you from what is about to come, for I need to change your behavior and thought processes on a fundamental level.”
“W…Why, I thought my thoughts and behavior already did change after our soul contract.”
“Yes, yes they did. That isn’t the problem though. You have mistaken luck with cultivation. Cultivation has not nor will it ever be… easy. Just because it may appear easier now, that attitude of yours needs to change. The only way to advance is with your body, soul, and very existence on the line. That is your conviction, I will not have a disciple who believes in anything less.” Isla said harshly, there was no room for argument. Whatever Lute’s conviction had been, apparently it wasn’t enough.
“Fine, you want conviction! Throw it at me, I’ll take anything that you shall force upon me to train, I shall not fail. I will not falter. I shall not shatter into nothingness. My body, soul and existence on the line! People who only have that are nothing in my eyes; I am prepared to give up more than that. If there is such a thing as reincarnation, I would put my chances at it up for wager!”
Isla’s mood quickly became elated. This was what she was aiming for. The typical child who wasn’t prone to outbursts of emotion had just done so. This conviction, in truth it was abnormal, very few people thought along the lines of Isla and wagering everything for power. You’d have to be a bit insane to say such things.
“Ha, there we go. I am holding your words to you child. Wager it all, I shall break you down, over and over and over again. Let us see where your breaking point is. Let us remove your limiters that hold you back, only those who truly have what it takes are allowed upon the path to cultivation. Cultivation is inevitably a place far worse than your mind can comprehend and it shall never be easy. For cultivation in its very essence is to go against the heavens, hells and universe itself!”
With a flick of her fingers, Isla began to slowly point towards the ground. All at once a pressure began to envelope Lute. Without a chance to react, he had begun to be forced down onto his knees. Fear slowly crept into his heart. A cold sweat almost as if it was ice clearly visible all over his body.
Then it clicked, understanding dawned upon Lute. This was his Master’s Slaughter Aura. It was so strong that it felt as if the aura was tangible and could be touched. The smell and taste of blood pervaded all of his senses. An indescribable sense of fear was beginning to well up within even more than earlier as the pressure slowly increased.
Finally Lute was forced to his knees, his body blanched in sweat. Fear was uncontrollably swirling around his body. His eyes glazed between being focused and unfocused. Conscious awareness of his surroundings began seem hazy.
“Is this all my disciple is capable of? How pitiful, you almost make me want to break our contract and extinguish both of our souls to nothingness. What happened to those words of grandeur that you spoke so valiantly a minute ago? Was everything for naught? Do you give up in the face of true adversity? Stand up, prove me wrong!”
Isla nonstop added insult to injury. Lute was already on the ground and listening to her ever sharpening tongue. However, her words were keeping him conscious of his surroundings and not blacking out. Even more so, they lit a small fuse, an almost imperceptible spark, but it was there. In the depths of his heart and soul, he began to question his predicament. Then all at once, that small spark erupted into a flame.
Yes, I can do this. Who am I to give up to something as trivial as this? If only someone who is mentally deranged can stand up to something like this. I shall become the most insane bastard there is. With undying resolve, I shall keep moving forward, even if my body and soul fail me in the end. Now move, get up, and come on my body, GET THE FUCK UP, YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO NOT MOVE WHEN I STILL HAVE THE WILLPOWER TO KEEP GOING!
It began with a twitch of the finger of Lute who was almost facedown upon the ground underneath such pressure from Isla’s Slaughter Aura. Then that twitch became a movement of the arm, then two arms. All the while his resolve kept growing. The fear had completely vanished. Instead, Lute had decided to look death into the face, and that was Isla at the moment. His eyes were full of insanity, clearly something within his mind that worked as a limiter had shattered.
This was all to Isla’s delight. She clearly knew from the look Lute was giving her, and that deranged smile he now had, that those limiters in his mind had disappeared. This was the conviction she was looking for. Slowly, ever so slowly and clumsily as he was, she watched Lute force himself up into a kneeling position.
His muscles were all bulging out and screaming in pain, it felt as if his entire body was being torn asunder. Blue veins were popping out all around Lutes body. The strain upon them was reaching near critical levels. Even so, he forced himself to stand upright in a perfectly straight position.
“There, I told you, I can take anything that you throw at me. This much is nothing…” Lute said forcefully, the energy taken to simply speak was enormous.
Contrary to what he was expecting Isla to look like upon seeing him stand, she had an amused expression. Her finger, once again began to slowly point and move towards the ground. The pressure once again began increasing.
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“Really now… That wasn’t even five percent of what my Slaughter Aura is capable of right now. And this is only my weakened Slaughter Aura, due to my soul falling to the initial stages of the Divine Path. If I had my body and former cultivation, forget five percent, even one percent of the pressure from my Slaughter Aura would be enough to flatten you to death.” Isla said mercilessly.
The pressure marginally increased in strength. It was taking all of his energy and Qi to simply stand. With muscles that had ballooned to nearly three times their size from strain and veins that seemed like they’d burst at any moment, Lute finally lost consciousness and fell to the ground. His body devoid of any Qi or movement, breathing barely perceptible, from an onlooker he’d appear to be a corpse. Thanks to the Divine Chronicle of the Primordial Way, the worlds’ Qi already began to be absorbed by Lute, the healing process of his body and refilling of his body with Qi was occurring at an average rate, but this was enough. Color began to return to his face and heart as well as breathing rate slowly returned to normal.
Isla simply floated there looking at Lute, waiting for him to wake up. There was no fear for his life, she’d made sure to keep it at a level where Lute would suffer injuries he could heal within a day. But also, the pressure she emitted had made any beasts in the surrounding area cower in fear and avoid the lake.
With the limiter removed, I can begin in earnest, hopefully with this; he will understand that he needs to train at this level for the minimum. If possible, he should be nurtured in this way without any outside influence aside from real combat experience. However, this is impossible as there will always be unknown occurrences. The only thing I can do is train him so that the damage such variables cause will be minimized as much as possible.
Although he had fallen unconscious rather quickly, it took almost nearly six hours for Lute to awaken. At that time it was already past twilight, with visibility near zero. Tonight, there was virtually no moonlight, but this wasn’t a problem, with a body such as his Lute didn’t fear the darkness. His vision was severely hampered but in a diameter of about ten feet most things were visible.
“Bout time you woke up,” Isla sighed in dismay, “You seriously know how to disappoint me. With all your vows and violent emotions a while ago, I thought you’d really come to terms with what you must do. And yet… you stayed asleep for almost six hours. How lazy can you get…?”
Lute inhaled sharply, it was easily discernable from his body language that he was annoyed, “What do you mean lazy! You just forced me unconscious and almost flattened me to death, did you expect me to wake up quickly after that!”
An invisible pressure immediately slammed Lute against the ground face first, “Looks like I really need to instill loyalty within you. Already talking back to your Master, do you not understand that my word is law to you, any more outbursts like that and I shall really punish you within an inch of your life.”
Lute silently sat up, blood trickling down his forehead. He angrily stared at Isla, but that was all, he didn’t feel like being pummeled again.
“Finally, now listen carefully; I cannot impart techniques and arts to you without a price,” Isla paused to let the declaration sink in, “Each time I do, I permanently use some of my leftover soul strength. And at the moment it is extremely difficult to recover.”
Lute wasn’t surprised in the slightest, no matter what way he looked at it, there had to be a price for obtaining everything obtained. So he already knew from the moment Isla went into a state of slumber.
“I already guessed as much from when you slept for such a long period of time,” Lute narrowed his eyes, a vicious look appearing within, “So what you are hinting at is in order for you to impart things to me, I need to absorb the souls of things I slaughter for you, right?”
Lute was certainly not an idiot; reading between the lines was something he had always been able to do, even when he was still living as an insignificant villager a few years back. Just from the way Isla worded her statement, her tone of voice, and what he knew of her personality, it wasn’t hard to guess the implications behind her words.
Isla floated around in front of Lute, her demeanor made if feel as if the surrounding area’s temperature dropped a few degrees. “I am glad you could catch on so quickly, however, you are half correct.”
“Oh please tell, as far as I can know, you are using the Origin Soul Needle to gradually replenish the soul strength you lost. Aside from devouring souls that the needle lets you have, I don’t see how you can impart me with anything.”
There really was almost no ways to impart things directly into Lute. Under normal circumstances, this wasn’t a problem since when something was imparted, that usually implied both parties actually had bodies. But, Isla only had a spirit body so the present situation was understandable. This however, didn’t mean there weren’t loopholes.
“Yes, I shall no longer directly give them to you. Instead, how shall I put it, we are going to rely on imitation, or mirror imaging. I shall demonstrate and explain how to do it, and you will copy me. Every time, we shall practice like this from now on, since I share your body, it shall be incomparably easier to explain to you what is going wrong than if we didn’t share bodies.”
Lute cocked his head in puzzlement, “Isn’t that the same thing as imparting them to me? I am still learning them in the end.”
“Absolutely not, they are not going to be transmitted directly into you, so instead of learning how to perform an Art or Technique within mere moments, it will take days, weeks, months, even years to obtain absolute mastery. Even after achieving mastery there is…never mind, when you step into the Divine Path I shall explain it, but the steps after achieving physical mastery are beyond your comprehension right now.”
Isla cut herself off from continuing any further, but it hadn’t escaped Lutes awareness. There was clearly something else above the realm of absolute mastery with Arts and Techniques. And for whatever reason, his master was hesitant to talk about it, it must’ve been important enough that she wasn’t going to tell him beforehand because it would hinder him.
So she slipped up, what did she mean about a realm beyond physical mastery? Is there some spiritual difference between two people using the same Art? If so, does that make it so the same Art and Techniques can be executed in myriad forms depending on the cultivator? Perhaps I should strive to make the things I inherit into my own original skills.
“Ok, everything you have said so far makes sense, what is it that you wanted to pass on then? What way of fighting shall I learn, or rather will it be a style unique to you or easily replicate able by anyone for use?” Asked Lute, he was trying to probe for any information that she was trying to hide, his curiosity was really too great to remain complacent.
“Let me clear one thing up, there is no such thing as an unusable Art or Technique, they were all created for a purpose, whether they met with success of failure or if they were created for a single person or the countless masses. Even in the Mortal Realm I shall give them that much respect. If you can merge all that you learn into your own unique fighting style that is best.”
Isla’s demeanor then changed, she became far more stern, “What I shall teach you is the most basic of the basic ways of fighting, the Art may seem like a treasure down here on this filthy planet, but up in the Divine Realm although it is highly regarded as something created by a genius, it is the most foundational of the basics, it could be considered as the building block for all Arts and Techniques created in this era.”
“So it isn’t an inheritance of a God. Who was it created by then?”
At Lutes question, Isla’s face actually blanched a little for the first time since he met her. Her voice actually had the slightest tone of respect. “In this day and age, he is known as the Thousand Hand Martial Emperor. He is aligned to no power, he moves about unrestrained through the realms and no one dares block his path for fear of death. Since time immemorial he has stood at the pinnacle of the Age of Man. No one knows his true strength or dares to test it, but one thing is for certain, he is probably the closest to becoming a God and it is unknown what inheritances he has acquired.”
Lute sank deep into thought, to make someone as haughty as his master to show a slight amount of respect was impressive. But, could someone clearly acquire that much respect without committing sins along the way. Lute didn’t fear the strength of such a being; he feared what they were capable of in order to gain that strength. Rather than ponder on it any further, Lute buried the question in his heart and continued to listen.
“The Thousand Hand Martial Emperor has pioneered the path towards becoming a god, and occasionally, he has shared his insights. One such insight was the Thousand Ways Scripture. Although it is called the Thousand Ways, it is in reality infinite. You are able to infinitely change your way of combat. The thousand stances it shows are only a base, but once you have mastered all one thousand, they can be altered in any way you see fit, making styles unique to you. This Art has no techniques within and has been universally accepted to be something every single Divine Way cultivator must learn, whether they are a peasant or of noble birth.”
After hearing this final explanation, it finally clicked for Lute. This now officially put him at the starting line involving comprehension compared to other Divine Realm cultivators.
“So the reason it is a treasure down here in the Mortal Realm is because it is a concept that hasn’t been figured out yet. Does everyone use the same Arts here and there is nothing unique? In other words, I now only have my own comprehension to blame if I can’t create my own style?”
Isla clapped her hand slowly and in a sarcastic manner, “Bingo, you finally figure it out. Down here in the Mortal Realm, although there are Arts and Techniques created, they are stagnant and very few are original and tailored to one person. They are created in a way that everyone is able to use them. That is not the proper way. If I used the same Art as someone else, it would purely come down to power for the most part. Luck, battle prowess, talent, these would all be factored into the outcome even less. But if two people used the same Art however each one was tailored to suit them specifically, what would happen? If the cultivation and power output is similar, then luck, battle prowess, and talent would be all the more important. So…yes you can now only blame yourself if you fail at fighting in the Mortal Realm.”
“I’m in for a long night then aren’t I…?” Lute muttered dryly. Isla was now in a cheery mood, but that was when she was most dangerous. No doubt, he was going to start learning right now, and that meant she wouldn’t stop until he was within an inch of his life.
“Yes, without further ado, let us formally begin your combat training,” Said Isla in an elated voice, however her eyes were anything cheerful, they looked at Lute as if he was a test subject to be experimented and tortured upon. The in a cheerful voice, she made Lute dread his existence, “Don’t worry, every time you mess up, I’ll only increase the pressure of my Slaughter Aura upon you. But that’s nothing for you right? Didn’t you say that you can take anything...?”
This crazy bitch, she is going to be the death of me, I am seriously going to die before I can even fulfill my portion of the soul contract and make a body for her. Honestly, does she even want to be resurrected or will I be stuck with her torturous methods until the end of time…