122: Parai The Ancient (Patreon)

NOTE: If you're in the mood for something very very stupid, consider checking out my litrpg satire comedy, Big Rick Energy: Number Go Up [RPGLiteraturd] on RR:

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/67840/big-rick-energy-number-go-up-rpgliteraturd

- -

Vir awoke to a forest, but not the one he’d just left. A thin haze hovered just off the ground, giving the forest an ethereal, serene feeling.

Peaceful, but also eerie. None of the trees in this forest had leaves, nor even branches. Bare trunks stood tall, piercing the mist-hidden sky high above.

Where am I?

Confused, Vir stood up and checked himself over. No wounds to speak of. Either some god had healed his wounds and spirited him away to this forest, or…

Ash Prana populated the air. There was only one place Vir had seen such a phenomenon.

So, I’m experiencing another memory.

But if it was a memory, it was unlike all the others until now. Those had all featured one of his predecessors, usually embroiled in a battle of some sort. There was never anything so blissful.

Vir walked through the silent forest in a daze. So silent that the crunching of his boots sounded loud in his head. Before he’d realized it, he’d started softening his steps to avoid disturbing the peace.

He didn’t wander for long. The ferocious prana signature emanating from the clearing ahead was hard to miss.

Vir cautiously wandered into the small meadow. At its center sat a being dressed in pure white. With a flowing white beard, Vir initially mistook him for Janak. But his facial features were different. Wrinkled and old, where Janak’s had been taut and powerful.

The gray-skinned man sat barefoot in a lotus position, with his arms resting on his knees and his index fingers pressed against his thumbs. His eyes were closed in apparent meditation.

“Um, hello?” Vir asked, approaching the figure. But there was no response. Though Vir hesitated to interrupt the man’s meditation, he needed to know what was going on. He reached out to shake the man, but found that his hand went right through.

Of course… I’m in his memory, aren’t I? I’m not really here.

After pacing around the meditating man, he took a seat opposite him, crossing his legs. When Vir had asked for help, this wasn’t exactly what he had in mind. But he knew little about how his ancestors’ memory fragments functioned. Could they choose which one they showed him? Or was it random?

After his vision with Narak the Destroyer, Vir had learned that the older his incarnation, the less transmitted. The first to go was will and awareness, leaving these memories far less useful.

While it could be mere coincidence, Vir wanted to believe there was a reason his ancestors had shown him this memory. Shardul and Ekanai generally intervened when his life was in danger, and it was little wonder why.

They’d made it abundantly clear that he had some ‘destiny’ he was supposed to fulfill. One that lay in the Ashen Realm. It was in their best interest to keep him alive. He’d even tried abusing that, back in Daha, but help was not forthcoming.

Which likely meant they knew more about him and his thoughts than they let on.

But why are they helping me now? Or are these memories of older incarnations beyond their control?

Or… were Shardul and Ekanai recognizing his journey south as progress toward the Ashen Realm? They weren’t wrong—one of his goals was to collect as much information on the Ash as possible—but whatever it was, Vir wasn’t going to question it.

He had so many questions about how this all worked, but he feared he wouldn’t find the answers anytime soon. Not until he ventured into the Ash.

For now, all he could do was to learn what he could from this bearded old man. And he couldn’t converse with him, he could at least watch him. Maybe he’d glean something.

Vir flared Prana Vision to its maximum… and gasped.

Prana flowed through the man in ways Vir had never seen before. Now that he was close, he could see the details of the streams and the eddies. The tributaries and the raging currents. The man manipulated prana in a way Vir could only dream of.

What’s more, prana was bound to blood, which meant the old man’s blood was moving in these strange ways as well.

Vir immediately thought back to his first foray into prana manipulation. Twice, he’d blacked out, teetering on the edge of death. And he’d only tried to grab the prana in his neck. What his ancestor was currently doing was in another realm entirely.

How is he not dead? Moreover, how did he ever attain such mastery without first killing himself? The path to such great skill was fraught with peril. If Vir attempted it, he was sure he’d kill himself. The body liked to maintain its natural blood flow. Altering it was not only risky, but could cause adverse effects as well.

And yet, proof existed right before his very eyes. It was… mesmerizing. The flow of prana was unbelievably complex, and Vir didn’t rightly know why.

Thus far, Vir had skirted around the edges of prana manipulation; the most he’d ever done was for Empower, widening his pathways to allow more blood to flow through his body. He now realized that this was mere child’s play.

But why? What’s the point of manipulating prana like that? What’s it doing for him?

There was something different about the man. Something that spoke of great power, but Vir couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

With nothing else to do, and no obvious way out, Vir focused on the various swirls and flows of the man’s prana. After half an hour of pondering, a name came to him. Parai the Ancient. It came with vague memories, but they were all disjointed. All he knew was Parai had forsaken the path of the Primordial to cultivate his own prana. He’d been an ascetic, renouncing worldly desires and material wealth.

But that was all. Who he really was, when, where, and why he lived… These details were all lost to Vir. As his name suggested, the man must have existed long, long ago. What was life like back then? What did the world look like?

“Excuse me?” Vir said again, but again received no reply. It seemed he wouldn’t be getting those answers.

After one hour, Vir began to have an inkling of what the man was doing. After three hours of intense scrutiny, he was sure of it.

The prana in his body flowed in patterns. Patterns that initially seemed complex and useless… on their own. But then he began to notice things. Like how the same pattern repeated itself in places, except inverted, or flowing in opposite directions.

And at their intersection… something was formed. The closest analogue Vir could think of was how sucking prana from his legs created a ‘suction’ effect, like a straw would. In a similar manner, this prana current attracted nearby prana. Ash prana populated both the air and the ground in this memory fragment, just like all the others.

The knowledge struck Vir like a Grade A Lightning spell. That prana could be pulled by methods other than simply starving his extremities of prana led to several interesting conclusions. For one, Parai’s method seemed vastly stronger than his own. It was just a hunch, but based on how rapidly the prana flowed through the man’s body, Vir suspected his vitality had improved greatly.

Similar to how Vir accelerated prana and blood flow to heal injuries quicker, moving that much prana through his body would no doubt have significant restorative effects. It reduced the restrictions on where in his body he could create that attractive effect. But there was something else, too.

The Ash prana in the air coalesced around Parai’s body, enveloping him. Unlike with Vir’s suction, the prana didn’t enter the man’s body—after all, why would it? Parai’s body was in equilibrium with its surroundings. Instead of entering, the prana formed a thin layer around his skin. A layer Vir had seen before.

Every Ash Beast he’d ever fought had a thin layer of prana coating it. While it hadn’t been dense enough to protect them from him, it had made the task of penetrating their skin much more difficult.

“Prana Armor,” Vir whispered, doing his best not to get excited.

Because while Parai’s techniques were impressive… they were too impressive. Vir was looking at a grandmaster. An expert who’d spent years, if not decades, honing his technique to the very apex of perfection.

It was art. But like any finished product, Vir had no clue how it was made. How did Parai learn this art? What was the first step down this road?

The patterns were far too complex and many for Vir to memorize. There must have been dozens, if not hundreds of patterns. Some small, others large. And it wasn’t like he could experiment blindly, either. That was a sure path to accidental death.

What can I do? What can I take away?

Vir wracked his mind. At this rate, he’d learn nothing of consequence. Only that Prana Armor was possible, and that cycling blood produced incredible results if done right.

Attempting to absorb it all was futile. So instead, Vir focused on one single pattern.

But which one?

The patterns at Parai’s arms and legs likely enhanced those parts. But what Vir really needed was a means to heal himself. Something to boost his vitality against the acid that was eating its way into his body.

While time must function differently in this memory fragment, Vir knew his time wasn’t unlimited. He’d be forced to return, and if he didn’t have a means to stop the acid, he’d surely die.

Vir searched through the many patterns, looking for anything that might help solve his problem. He’d no doubt the answer was there, buried in the myriad of flows, but which was right?

Unfortunately, his wound constrained him. Vir wasn’t about to experiment or modify Parai’s patterns, and right now, he needed something for his back. That limited where he searched. But even on the man’s back, there were several.

One pattern looped in a very convoluted, complex figure eight, while another looked more like an oval, circling around Parai’s entire backside. Another was so complex, Vir didn’t even know how to describe it.

Lacking a reference, Vir picked the oval. Not only did the blood in that pattern move the fastest, but it was also the simplest, and the least likely for Vir to mess up. For all he knew, they might all boost his vitality, or perhaps none of them would.

Vir focused inwardly and attempted to replicate Parai’s pattern. Though he braced for the pain, it still made him reel. And because he’d attempted to move so much blood, he nearly blacked out.

Luckily, it seemed like blacking out was actually impossible in this space. In fact, he doubted whether he could die here.

Vir grinned. “If that’s the case…”

Then all he had to deal with was the pain. And Vir was no stranger to pain. If it meant he could experiment in a safe environment, he'd grin and bear it. Such an opportunity would likely never come again.

And so he practiced. He mimicked Parai's cycling pathways, only to find discrepancies. Issues that should have killed him, rupturing blood vessels in his body. Except nothing of the sort happened. Vir felt pain, yes, but nothing he couldn't handle.

Vir pressed on, unrelenting. Rather than be demoralized by the pain, he thrived in it. Where most would shy away and fear the pain, he used it as a guide to correct his errors. A brutal instructor that pointed the right way.

And slowly, he made progress. His cycling pattern mirrored Parai's closer and closer, and details he never even knew to look for initially were now mimicked near-perfectly.

An agonizing hour later, his time was up.

If only I had more time...

There were so many more patterns to learn. So much power to obtain here.

Yet whatever rules the memory fragment operated under had determined that he must leave. The fragment dimmed, and the man seated across from him grew hazy and incorporeal.

“I don’t know if you can hear me, Parai. But thank you. I owe you one.”