After about a month Naath had condensed his second True Void Membrane in the palm of his left hand as well, but in doing so he wanted to cry after he realized something. When he started he noticed it seemed to require more energy than the first, when he was done he noticed it was exactly double the amount of energy that he needed for the first one.
When he tried to start the third as a test he screamed out loud and started to curse wildly. Every single True void Membrane required double the energy of the last!!! He had to create 257 of these things!!! Naath lamented and cursed wildly for a full hour, he even lashed out and took down every tree within a hundred feet except for the one Brutus was attached to. He huffed for breath after doing so and slowly started to calm down, he was beyond words with the fact that he needed that much energy!
Well at the very least in this month Brutus had become slightly more friendly. Meaning Naath could approach him and hand him food without being attacked for doing so. However, the progress for this was still rather slow so Naath began to randomly talk at him while he did various things. Over time the wolf's resentment seemed to slowly be whittled down and fading away. If those other wolves had been seen as a family then that would never happen. But due to the fact that they were only seen as subordinates and tools for getting food Brutus held no serious long-lasting feelings of hatred towards Naath.
As Naath talked at Brutus the wolf slowly started responding here and there with barks or growls at various tones. In this manner, they had small conversations although Brutus could only really answer yes or no questions and or give a general sense of how he felt about something it was conversation nonetheless. Finally, after another week Brutus actually let Naath get near him without harming him, now even letting Naath come over to pet him. After another three days, Naath trusted Brutus enough and let him off of the leash attached to the tree. Brutus was calm and didn’t seem to care that Naath had his hands near his own throat, an area wolves would protect fiercely.
Seeing this Naath was even more sure that Brutus at the very least wouldn't attack him. After letting him off of this leash that indeed proved to be the case. But before Brutus could run off back into the forest Naath asked him.
“So I’ll give you a choice, you can go back to the woods being the apex predator and we go our separate ways and won't really meet again. Or You can follow me out of this damned forest and see a bigger world and grow stronger with me. What do you think Brutus?”
Brutus stopped for a moment and thought to himself. This human in front of him had been the one to trap him for over a month and killed his subordinates. He should be angry, he should be furious so, why wasn’t he? The human had given him food and made sure he wouldn't go hungry this entire time. The human had even talked to him and not treated him like a dumb animal. The human aside from having him tied down to a tree the whole time seemed to treat him at the very least like an equal. After thinking things over for a minute Brutus howled lightly in agreement and walked to Naaths side.
Naath celebrated internally, he was ecstatic! A magical beast, he had successfully made friends with a wolf magical beast! On the outside, though Naath kept calm and simply smiled as he said.
“Brutus, you will not regret this choice at all, I promise you I will raise you up with me. When we suffer setbacks, hardships, and benefits or gains it will both of us doing so together.”
Brutus nodded when he heard this and felt re-affirmed that he had made the correct decision. He felt like this human was different from the others, he seemed kinder somehow. It was also clear to him that this human respected him for some reason or other. He felt like following this human would not shame him at all nor would it diminish his pride. Also as much as he hated to admit it the human was better at hunting than him. That tool that he used seemed to make it exceptionally easy for him to take down deer. It seemed like they would never run out of food as long as this human was in charge of hunting.
After seeing this nod of approval Naath smiled wider and then said.
“Alright Brutus, we’ve wasted wayyy too much time here. I need to be at the nearest city and I only have 10 months left because of this whole thing, you really set my time back by quite a bit, Brutus. Were going to travel forward at a pretty decent speed for the next couple of days, okay? After that, we will rest for a full day and then continue on like that.”
Brutus lightly barked his agreement and then the two set off after Naath gathered his things. Like this two months passed by in a blink as they progressed forwards. On a particular day when they were resting though, Naath was deep in focus and was drawing in energy to attempt to make a breakthrough. He had put it off for a while because of the sheer pain it caused. He was also waiting to feel like his bones were stable and strong enough to support his next breakthrough. If they weren’t he would simply be disfiguring himself. Even after a breakthrough, the bones of a cultivator couldn’t be considered to be instantly adjusted.
It took time for the bones to fully adjust after a breakthrough and be even remotely ready for the next one. This time varied for everyone, for some it was a matter of weeks or months. For others, it could be years or even a decade. The primary deciding factor in all of this was the cultivation method and energy used to break through when cultivating. Since last time his true void arts were simply in the first stage, and the early part of the first stage at that the time between his breakthrough was a bit long. Now though with his being in the second stage of the True Void Arts this would be lessened.
Not only this, the two new True Void Membranes that he had made also made gathering energy in order to break through that much easier. The membranes pulled in massive amounts of energy and put it through the cycle of true void. Inside of the membranes it was like small worlds being born and destroyed over and over again. Soon the energy seemed to reach a critical mass and caused a change in the cycle. Once it reached the end of its last cycle and the membrane had nothing left but the energy of nothing. All of this energy suddenly flooded out of his membranes and into his bones, where it continued the cycles. Soon enough the energy was more than his bones could handle and pushed passed the critical point and then.
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*CRACK!!!!!!!*
Naath bones and cartilage shattered apart and then turned to dust under the pressure of all the energy. This caused a sound wave to sweep out that even caused a light breeze to rustle the nearby leaves. Brutus who was laying nearby recoiled in pain and let out a howl. His eardrums may not have ruptured by the sound, but his hearing that as a baseline higher than a humans by a factor of 20 it was agonizing. Naath was also recoiling in pain for a very different reason, tears were streaming out of his eyes uncontrollably as he sat completely still. It wasn’t that he didn't want to move and thrash about from the pain, it was that he couldn’t. All of the energy that had broken and and turned his bones to powder was also locking his posture into place, like an immovable skeleton, forcing him to be still.
When the breakthrough was finally over Naath collapsed and started to breath heavily and shudder while still sobbing as the residual pain shot through his body. The energy surge from breaking through was not simply limited to his bones though. Due to the special nature of the true void arts a surge of energy shot into his soul after his bones were reformed. After it did so Naath experienced yet more pain and collapsed to the ground moaning as he faded in unconsciousness. Brutus saw this and for a brief instant the thought occurred to him to finish off the human. But he shook his head and disregarded this thought almost immediately. Instead he tentatively walked up and nudged his muzzle against Naath’s side. After hearing him groan out in pain Brutus felt reassured and sat down next to him making sure no wild animals came nearby.
Falling unconscious, Naath’s awareness was drawn into his soul sea where King was now awake and waiting. When he felt Naath’s awareness he chuckled and started to talk.
“Young master, your true void arts are really something else I-”
Naath cut him off. “True Void Arts. Say it right, I can tolerate many other things but no insult to my True Void Arts will ever be allowed. I don’t care if your the worlds emperor or the king of the heavens. Or even if you are literally god. Do. Not. Insult. Them.”
“Ah, ahem yes the True Void Arts are truly miraculous young master. Not only is it capable of helping your cultivation of the body, it even conditions and trains your soul. That surge of energy just now even jolted me awake and washed away my fatigue instantaneously. I have enough energy to be awake and even help you a little bit with your soul cultivation. I will warn you though, my teaching methods have always been strict young master. Even with my existence on the line I cannot back down on the way that I teach and train others. It has been the same since… Well thats not important, just know that my training is harsh and strict.
Firstly we will discuss soul energy, the most basic foundation of a persons soul cultivation. Since you are stuck with me right now young master, being unconscious and all, I guess I have a captive audience. So then I’ll just jump right on into it. Soul energy is the energy that is produced and gathered by a persons central soul. Everyones soul does this and it forms the soul sea where memories are processed and stored before being preserved in the central soul. The difference between a normal person or cultivator and a soul cultivator is their ability or lack thereof to work with soul energy.
The vast majority of people cannot access their soul energy, only a rare few are able to access it for their own use and purposes. A soul cultivator has to do two things in order to progress through the stages. Increase the purity of their soul energy and increase the quantity that they can hold and store. The first part is pretty much made moot by your true void arts, the second part however seems to me like it would be difficult to do with just the True Void Arts. I have here a method that you could use though. It is called the empty soul method in fact I think it is rather fitting and in fact is similar to your true void arts. It requires you to completely empty your mind of all thought and focus only on the feeling of soul energy and pulling it in to expand your soul sea, cleanse the energy, and even compress it.”
After thinking for a moment Naath nodded his head and told King to go ahead and teach it to him. Instantly King shot a bright light out of his body and into Naath’s central soul, once this light touched his central soul new information came into Naaths mind. He now fully knew how to cultivate in the empty soul method. After processing the information for a moment Naath decided to start practicing the method. However, for some reason immediately after he started to clear his mind according to the method he felt a sharp pain. Confused, he tried to run the method a second time, and then a third. Finally he lost his temper and said.
“Ah you stinky rune! You gave a faulty cultivation method! Seriously your some great soul cultivation master?! Ptewey, your nothing but a scammer!”
King was completely stunned, his method absolutely worked, the empty soul method was even a four star silver method. He had no idea why it wasn’t working at all, he felt aggrieved, no matter what he did he only seemed to make himself look like more and more of a fraud. If he had hair he would be ripping it out of his head in handfuls while cursing up and down. It wasn’t that Naath wasn’t talented either, in fact his talent was top tier. Well the talent his True Void Arts gave him, but then again it was Naath who made them so it was absolutely his own talent. Then as King’s thought process reached this point he froze.
“Wait! Naath, your True Void Arts, that might be it! Haha such a powerful cultivation art, why didn’t I think of this sooner. Some cultivation methods as soon as they reach the gold rank they refuse to allow any other cultivation method to be used unless its stronger than it. This is strange though, normally it is only limited to the kind of cultivation method it is a body method should absolutely not restrict a soul method. Odd.”
“Bah, you old rune, its the True Void Arts as in a complete artform. It was designed to do everything, martial arts moves, combat techniques, cultivation of all kinds. A complete and full artform that can do everything! What kind of hack do you think I am? My True Void Arts are absolutely unrivaled. If that’s why then I need to alter this empty soul method a little bit.”
After saying this Naath focused and reconnected his consciousness to his body. Then, he drew the energy of nothing from his body into his soul. Using this he cleared his mind of thought and emptied his soul using the energy of nothing. Using the energy of nothing he was able to simulate the empty soul method roughly and soon the energy of his soul began to gather and compress. However after Naath had decided to threaten King with running his true void arts earlier he noticed that the empty soul method was light-years behind using his true void arts for soul cultivation.
However, he had made a promise and if he ran the True Void Arts in full to soul cultivate he would, without a doubt completely destroy King. Noting this Naath grit his teeth, he hated having to use some inferior cultivation method instead of his True Void Arts but he was absolutely going to keep his word and not break his promise. With this he continued to run the empty soul method and draw in energy to strengthen his soul.