While John had battled with Steve many times throughout the course of their friendship, the number of times he had sparred with Yustina was significantly fewer. That had little to do with Yustina and her value as an opponent, but more to do with the way Steve tended to challenge everyone every time they met.
John’s intention was to use a technique he had been working on, but he hadn’t been able to deploy it against Steve. Perhaps he still should have tried it knowing it likely wouldn’t work just to get experience, but John was also trying to win. He felt he should at least try to trust his own judgment about whether or not it would work.
Of course, he might fail to use it properly against Yustina as well, but the difference in style and temperament would hopefully work to his advantage. John didn’t actually have a huge variety of codified techniques, generally relying on his free flowing elemental style.
He was once again facing battle on the slopes of Zolvolj, but as the battle began John appeared to do nothing except wait for his opponent to engage. He had considered how he might make use of his particular technique, and ultimately settled on a combination of air, water, and fire. Earth would make it more stable, but that was counteracted by the element of his opponent. It also wasn’t appropriate for the particular technique. Darkness, as always, kept his true intentions hidden.
With his apparent hesitation, Yustina took advantage of the opportunity to gather her own spiritual energy. Flames rose around her, then rushed forward in a wave that covered John, clinging around him.
Said flames ate away at his spiritual energy, but John didn’t simply sit idly and allow himself to be assaulted. His prepared elements worked together, mixing in among Yustina’s spiritual energy and dissecting it.
While that took place, John launched his own attacks, throwing daggers keeping her off guard while he charged forward with a flurry of blade strikes. The daggers were serious threats in their own right, though they could only carry a certain amount of spiritual energy with each attack. Yustina deftly avoided his swings, only occasionally requiring her spiritual energy to deflect his attacks. When she did so, a sheet of flame came to meet his blade with the gentle style of water worked into her technique.
The dismantling of the energy clinging to him relied on one key component that John had used throughout his career as a cultivator- Spiritual Energy Absorption. For the first time he was actually able to take more than a modest amount of fire element into himself, as he properly had his own totem now. John’s efforts absorbing the flames around him ended up near a net neutral, but that meant he came out ahead by about as much effort as Yustina spent on the attack.
John also had his own combination of techniques that could produce similar results when attacking his opponent. Clinging Affliction combined with Spiritual Energy Absorption to create a longer lasting assault on his enemy, feeding off of their defenses to fuel the attack. Most of the time, his opponents would divest themselves of a portion of their spiritual energy to be rid of his assault, but the particular nature of his fire totem gave him an advantage here.
His fire totem was the Ethereal Flames, practically invisible and almost undetectable through other means. Of course, if his attacks looked like nothing then Yustina would undoubtedly be more cautious. Instead, the other elements infused into his attacks seemed as if they were intended to break down Yustina’s defenses on contact, so she wouldn’t be surprised when she found some of her spiritual energy missing.
Not that John expected such a strategy to last forever. His allies were all aware of his totems, after all, and so John did his best to display some more obvious uses of fire element.
As usual during a battle, he circulated the five elements within himself to feed into each other, strengthening with each cycle to the limits of his control.
Wave after wave of flames from Yustina targeted him as she did her best to avoid his attacks in turn, the instantaneous damage beginning to wear down John’s defenses even as the clinging flames did little. In turn, he secretly carved away more of her spiritual energy with each assault. The hope was that by the time she recognized how much damage had been done, it was too late.
John had a high assessment of Yustina’s ability, which was why he had planned the battle as much as possible. Obviously he’d taken Steve seriously as well, but he also knew that in-depth plans were useless against the man. His main plan always had to be expecting Steve to overcome whatever was thrown at him. And John hadn’t quite been able to endure.
Against Yustina, however, he had an advantage in raw power. Though her experience as a water cultivator in her previous life meant she could easily compensate for her elemental weakness, John made use of all of his elements to wear her down. That included earth, though he didn’t use it for any direct offense or defense. Instead, he used it to mess with her footing or to bolster his own movements rather than clashing with her fire element.
John was aware of the state of Yustina’s defenses, perhaps slightly more than even she was. When he found the perfect opportunity, he lunged forward, his sword slicing through a weak point where his Clinging Affliction had managed to wear down her flow of energy. His weapon came to rest against her textile armor, making it clear he had the ability to follow through.
“I surrender,” she said, stepping back. “How disappointing, I’d hoped for both of us to beat you.” She closed her eyes for a moment, assessing both her own spiritual energy and John’s. “I see. I thought I was the one wearing you down, but the opposite was the case. How problematic.”
“Thank you for the match,” John said. “I learned much.”
“Myself as well,” Yustina admitted. “Perhaps next time I will be the one to defeat you.”
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“Only if you properly train. I still have two more opponents to test myself on this journey.”
-----
“I found something.”
John’s return to the Tenebach clan after the tournament and the first segment of his training journey was met with an immediate declaration from Ereli, missing even the introductory elements such as ‘welcome back, grandfather’.
Perhaps that simply showed what was important to her. “What did you find?” John asked.
“A totem,” Ereli replied. “The moon.”
“The moon?” John pondered for a few moments. Depending on perspective, the moon could be many different elements. It could easily represent the element of earth- the one around this planet seemed to be just as much made of rock as the one around Earth. Likewise, it could be a water totem because of its effects on the tides.
Of course, Ereli was a light and darkness cultivator so… was that represented by the way it lit up the sky? It reflected the light of the sun, after all.
“I see,” John said. “Like the cycles of the moon, from new moon to full moon?”
“No,” Ereli said directly.
“Okay… can I look at your totem?”
“I can’t stop you,” Ereli said.
“I was asking for permission to look,” John clarified.
She nodded. “Yes. See it.”
John carefully reached forward with his spiritual energy, feeling the way Ereli’s new totem affected her spiritual energy. Confirming that she indeed had a totem was simple, but reading deeper took more observation. If Ereli had actively been using her energy to make use of the qualities of her totem, it would have been faster.
Slowly, John began to form a picture. The moon in the sky, shining bright. That was the light. He knew she wanted a totem that balanced light and darkness… so where was the darkness?
“Hmm,” John said. “I honestly can’t quite figure it out.”
“You will see,” she said. “Tonight.” Then she turned to leave.
Interesting. Would her totem change at night? That was one way to do it, though he wasn’t sure if that would help with her balance. But she was the one who chose it, so she should have had some reason.
-----
After Ereli wandered off, John found his way to outside Melanthina’s office. Not long after, the petitioner inside scurried out. “Come in!” Melanthina said.
“I didn’t intend for you to hurry your other guests,” John said, stepping inside.
“Nah, I was done with that woman anyway. You were just a good excuse to get her out.”
“I would be offended,” John said. “If I hadn’t taught you that.”
Melanthina grinned. “Did Ereli find you? She was excited to show you her new totem.”
“Excited… isn’t necessarily the word I would have used,” John admitted. “But I suppose she did come find me instead of the other way around. I don’t really understand her totem, even after trying to feel it, but she said I would see tonight.” John wondered if there was a special lunar event? He didn’t usually keep track of that.
“You’ll figure it out pretty quickly. I have to say it was a unique choice. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but I can follow where the logic came from. And for Ereli, there wasn’t really an option to deal with safe, traditional totems so I’m not surprised she ended up with something so unusual.”
“How are things here?” John asked.
“The clan is doing well… though Crystin wanted to speak with you as well.”
“Is she alright?”
Melanthina nodded. “She’s fine. How about you? How did your previous battles go on this trip?”
“Two out of three… were losses. But that’s not terribly unexpected,” John said. “I’m still getting a handle on the Ascending Soul Phase.”
“I’m still quite a distance away,” Melanthina admitted. “I’m barely in the Mid Consolidated Soul Phase.”
“Considering you reached the Consolidated Soul Phase younger than myself- after holding yourself back for the sake of Ereli- it’s not unreasonable. Ten years from the twenty-eighth to the thirty-second rank isn’t bad at all.”
“Yeah… but Ursel is almost in the late Consolidated Soul Phase.”
John chuckled. “Is that the problem? I’d think you should know enough not to compare yourself to others too harshly by now. You have more… responsibilities than Ursel does.”
“She mostly runs around crushing things with a stone club,” Melanthina agreed. “Still, her totems… they’re also amazing.”
“You know her third one was for you, though. She skipped an entire layer just to try to rescue you.”
“Yeah…” Melanthina sighed. “You know, we’ve been hoping to find a chance to return to the Prismatic Chambers the next time they open.”
“That might be a good idea,” John agreed. “Though I’d keep a close watch on any mischievous daughters or nieces.”
“Hey, I didn’t even go running off on purpose in there!” Melanthina complained. John just grinned.
-----
The reason Crystin wished to speak with John was pretty straightforward, and well within expectations. She was looking at trying to advance to the Ascending Soul Phase, and John had properly completed his advancement now.
“I’ve talked to the others,” Crystin admitted. “And of course there’s your previous advice. However, you know me the best. Maybe you can find what I’m missing.”
“Even without talking it over, I think there’s one thing I can say from my own experience. What you need most is a reason.”
“A reason…? Like, to advance to the next Phase? Obviously, it’s to become stronger.”
“Obviously,” John said. “But for who? Is it for yourself? For the clan? It can be both, or neither. Personally, my first attempt was jumbled up partly because of that. Obviously, it was also because I was missing insights into how things worked but if I had understood other things better that would have fallen into place.”
“So what was it, in the end?”
“I had a lot of people help me grow, and I wanted to show them their trust wasn’t misplaced. And on the spiritual energy side, I came to realize how serious the change was. It’s more than a simple bump in power. Renato hasn’t really gone into detail over his advancement, but Steve and Yustina… well, they were immersed in flames the entire time they were missing, more or less.”
“I think I want to do it for everyone. The clan. You. Our allies. And myself, of course.”
“Good,” John said. “Now just make sure you know that, and don’t just think it. And of course, we’ll consider the technical aspects of what transformation will occur.”