[MA] 191. Today was Today (Patreon)

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[A/N: Merry Christmas!

You all keep gifting me every week with your support, be it reading my novel or pledging on Patreon (or both, I guess =P).

So, thank you, and God bless.

This chapter is almost double the length of a normal one. I didn’t want to cut it midway. Another very dense chapter, though in a different manner from the previous one.

Next chapter on Tuesday. 

And this time, it shall have grand revelations on how stuff works and why!

Chapters this week: 3/3

Late chapters: 3

Next release: Tuesday]

They spent three days fixing base positions like standing while holding a spear, thrusting straight ahead, and running with the weapon. That was double the time it could've taken, but Liya was only half as rigid as previously because she couldn't push his emotions too far.

He did get good enough, though.

"We can move ahead and get to the meat of it," she said after they were done with that. "We'll start with the drow basic spearmanship. It's a C-tier Lawless and Conceptless technique like the unarmed combat style I taught you. After you get good enough at it, we'll get to more advanced and specialized use cases."

Feng Shen was surprised that she would tell him what was coming. His anger was decreasing, but his anxiety peaked. He feared what the change in the training style might mean.

Fortunately, he seemed to have a much better grip on worrying about the future than being angry. He kept doing his best regardless of what might await him at the end of the road. It didn't even take long for him to use his experience with anxiety to help him control his anger.

Liya held multiple sighs back as she saw that happen.

If only she had known about that personality trait...

She didn't dwell on that for long, though. Things got much easier and faster once they entered proper spear training. Teaching the spear to a first-class D-rank True Path Walker talent with three core Spear-based Concepts and peak learning ability was its own reward. Feng Shen learned fast; it usually only took him a single example to understand and do things properly. It was the polar opposite of his struggles with unarmed combat—partly because he had solved many issues in that phase.

Whatever spear techniques he had learned before assimilating them into his Path were also not too shabby. They gave him a solid foundation and helped him understand the basic drow spearmanship even faster.

A mere one month later—four months and three days into the training—he was already ready to move to the next phase.

Liya waited for him to finish a routine to ensure things were as they should, then said, "Good enough, I suppose. Now we move to more advanced techniques—"

She was interrupted.

"Feelings," he said, and powerful ripples ran through his entire soul. "You were teaching me how to control my feelings."

His mind had just reached enlightenment, which was reflected in his soul. It was left stronger in the wake of each ripple. Seconds later, it reached a state of almost absolute stillness.

When that happened, his body also just stopped. He breathed, but his robe barely moved. All signs of emotions quickly faded from his posture, face, heartbeats, irises, smell, skin, and temperature.

Liya still saw a few indicators of wonder and quickly decreasing rage, but that was only because she knew him so well and he was so new at it. In a few days, his emotions would only affect him if he let them, and he would no longer show anything he didn't want to.

"You didn't kill Marzia," he continued with absolute confidence. "If you had killed her and wanted me to suffer it as much as your actions and words suggested, you would've let the system remind me about it by reading whatever message it gives when a Maiden dies. Reading it wouldn't assist me in any way. You keep taunting me with her death; why would you block a message about it? You wouldn't.

"You blocked it to stop me from finding out there was no message about the Human Maiden's death."

Liya stared into his eyes.

That was... annoying.

Feng Shen's willpower could've benefited more if he had taken longer to control his emotions. He was too talented for his own good. She would try to salvage the situation, but it would be tough.

Physical punishment wouldn't work, not while he was controlling his emotions so well. It would only make him surer of his assumptions.

She had to argue with him.

Liya rolled her eyes. "I knew you were stupid, but even I didn't expect such high levels of imbecility." He was getting so good at controlling and hiding his emotions that she almost didn't feel his surprise at her words. "You said I had no reason to take system messages away from you? I can give you a simple one that is the absolute truth: I do that to everyone I train to remove external distractions. Not everything I do is about you and your unique circumstances, o Chosen One. You're not special."

Feng Shen's surprise quickly turned into calm consideration. He pushed each of his emotions wherever he wanted instead of letting them cloud his judgment.

He didn't even acknowledge her words as he kept talking through his enlightenment. "You don't want to kill me. You said I need to make an oath to learn about the importance of the mind in a Path, which suggests I'll be outside your watch at some point, which means you expect me to live."

That was easy to counter. "I might expect you to live after you conclude and survive the spear training. That's when I'll require an oath."

He let himself smile slightly. "If you wanted me dead that much, even if you need an excuse like you suggested, you could just make me fail while doing something. The things you're teaching me are so beyond anything I have ever touched that I wouldn't have been able to detect all the pitfalls you might've hidden in your lessons."

That was a fair point, but only in the greater picture and mixed with other signs that all pointed in the same direction. Therefore, Liya had to counter each thing he said to bring him down to a lower level where she could beat him.

She scoffed. "While you might be too stupid to see any pitfalls I hide in the techniques I teach you, my superiors would investigate your death. As you might expect, any random drow is better at figuring out such things than you are. We are better in everything, really."

Her taunt fell on deaf ears. He didn't even reply to her weak argument. She obviously could foil a supervisor if she put her mind to it.

"Speaking of techniques," Feng Shen moved on, "you didn't demand I swear an oath to learn the drow basic unarmed and spear styles. You said they are C-tier Lawless and Conceptless techniques. My clan's spear art was at the C- tier before I integrated it with my Path. My clan treasured it dearly, and it wasn't even Conceptless. I understand the actual value of such outstanding techniques. Sharing them with humankind will elevate them to heights I can't even imagine."

"I thought you were less dumb than that," she rebutted. "You studied the subject, you imbecile. Human biology can't use drow martial techniques."

"Human biology doesn't match the techniques perfectly," he conceded. "Yet, humankind would still immensely benefit from them, and you didn't forbid me from sharing."

Liya was failing. Everything was piling up against her. But she had to keep trying. "Do you really think I won't force you to make an oath before letting you loose?" she mocked.

Instead of answering, he asked, also mockingly, "Do you know whose body is perfectly compatible with those techniques?" He went back to his calm tone as he replied to his own question, "Mine, thanks to the liquid you force-fed me. You also said it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It ignored my soul resistance, and only B-tier power can do that. So it was at least a B-tier treasure. And you spent it on me."

"As my superiors commanded me to do," Liya lied. "Otherwise, how could I train you? I'm a drow; I only know techniques for my body, not the garbage humankind has. You don't really believe I would waste time learning how to train humans, do you?"

"Do you insist on talking about techniques?" Feng Shen replied. "So be it. You taught me basic C-tier techniques and said you'll teach an even better spear technique now. That would make it invaluable. Once more, you requested no oath of me."

Liya shook her head. "I already said I will demand an oath if you survive what is left of spear training."

If that was all he had, she might yet convince him of a few lies for his own good.

But he wasn't done.

"I felt you were familiar when I first saw you after leaving the Void Incubator," he said. "I didn't pursue that line of thought, though. You were good at distracting me with my own emotions. But do you know what I can feel now that I'm not distracted? Your domain.

"It's surrounding me, touching me, pushing me into standing better even now that I'm merely standing still. Now that I can feel it, I recall why you're so familiar. I felt you with my aura in the rift for a split moment."

Liya had messed up back them. There was nothing she could say against it.

"You saved me, Drow Maiden," Feng Shen continued. "And now you're making me stronger. You're even indirectly strengthening humankind through the techniques I shall share with them."

Liya didn't give up. "Biology notwithstanding, do you think you can teach anyone as well as I taught you? Do you think it would make a difference even if I don't force an oath from you, which I already said I am going to do?"

She was almost tempted to do it now, but it would look like she was doing it only because he had pointed it out—which would be true. No, if she wanted to keep the pretense, she had to maintain the original plan she was pretending to have. In said plan, she would only request an oath after he was done learning the spear.

That wouldn't happen, of course. She had decided to come out in the open after the spear training. But she had to keep the farce.

Feng Shen ignored her repeated argument, cupped his fists in front of himself, and bowed a perfect ninety degrees.

"Thank you for saving my life and teaching me so many things, from how to use my body to fighting better to controlling my emotions," he said with a tone so respectful it was akin to ritualistic.

Liya stared at his inert form, then sighed as if she was dealing with the most absurd piece of moron she had ever seen.

"What was my first lesson, pathetic fool?" she said tiredly.

"Never underestimate someone's willingness to act against what you believe to be their best interest," he quoted.

"Let's pretend some of your assumptions are correct," Liya reasoned. "Why are you ignoring the very first thing I taught you? Wake up, idiot. No matter how valuable you believe two drops of water are to me, I might still kill you. Yes, even if it's supposedly wasteful for me to go against my supposedly best interests of gaining something from my supposedly high investment. Stop underestimating my ability to act in a way you would consider irrational. Stop jumping to conclusions." She paused. Feng Shen didn't counter her argument. She assumed she had finally gotten him and pushed harder. "What's the rest of the first lesson?"

He replied at once, "Information can always be wrong or outdated, and living beings can always just act stupidly."

"Exactly. You acted stupidly for four months and on the wrong information. You even had the gall to get angry at me when I called you stupid. Now, you're acting stupidly again based on the limited information you believe you obtained, the truth of which you haven't even asserted yet. You got control over your emotions but not your impulsiveness."

That was, ironically, the opposite of what he had shown at the beginning of their training. Back then, he had second-guessed himself too much. Now, he was too eager to act.

It showed his emotions had been the issue. At his core, without feelings holding him back, Feng Shen was quick to act. That was good news, at least. Tempering impulsiveness was easier than the opposite.

He kept quiet again. Liya continued, "What's the second lesson I taught you?"

"Never keep yourself open for attacks," he said, slowing down as he got to the end of the sentence. To his credit, he thought the appropriate amount of time before realizing he had to stand up and acting on it. "Like I was just doing."

She looked him in the eyes. "Let's assume everything you said is correct. Here you are, ignoring my lessons that you believe are good for you. Here you are, licking me like a beaten puppy. Me, the one who kicked you in the balls supposedly to manipulate your emotions. And you thank me for it."

He opened his mouth to reply, but she slapped him using her domain.

"Goals matter and sacrifice is often needed, but if you let anyone roll over you for the greater good without your prior agreement, you won't last a day in the multiverse. One day, you'll let someone do as they see fit out of wrongly assuming they want your good, like now, and you'll end up enslaved or dead, like soon, if you keep at it. If you're going to be such a moron, I might as well kill you already and spare someone the effort."

"I was enslaved by someone claiming it was for my good," he retorted. "And you saved me from it."

"So you're saying that the exact same emotions I was supposedly teaching you to control are the ones you're using to draw conclusions? That it's okay for me to torture you because you feel grateful?"

Instead of letting himself get sidetracked, Feng Shen used the topic to change the subject back to what he felt comfortable with.

"Do you know how I developed my domain?" he asked. "I recalled how you moved to leave my aura in the rift. You used emotions there. Your domain has feelings.

"Emotions aren't useless.

"Controlling them means they won't taint how I see the world, but ignoring them can also hinder me. Feelings are also a way for my body to talk to my mind or for my unconsciousness to point out things my conscious mind is ignoring.

"I feel attracted to you. Yet, I let another emotion, anger, stop me from noticing why. Heeding my anger above all else was stupid, but so was ignoring said attraction. Now I can calmly parse my memories and realize why that is important: you have been changing your looks to affect me.

"That is another lesson on controlling my emotional impulses, and one that I doubt you would impart on someone you're as disgusted about as you claim I make you. You have shown too much pride in yourself and your race, and you would never accept an inferior, stupid, and pathetic human getting more and more attracted to your body if that persona was true.

"And that is all it boils down to: you pushed me into controlling my feelings on multiple fronts.

"That is the one thing you didn't deny because you can't, not without making a fool of yourself.

"Looking back at it, you always pushed me exactly the amount you wanted. I cannot believe you only coincidently always stopped mocking me when I was about to explode. You were subtle enough that I couldn't notice it when I wasn't aware, but hindsight gives me an advantage. Keeping me away from such realizations is one of the reasons you worked me so hard, isn't it?

"Once I realized most of your aggressiveness was a ruse, every other lie fell like dominoes.

"Now, your best defense is convincing me that you are too stupid to act in your best interest? I might be an idiot, but not that much.

"I've already concluded you're a liar. I've already decided not to trust anything you say or do but judge everything based on what I believe is your end goal, which I concluded based on my experiences these last four months.

"You want to make me stronger. I don't know why. I'm not sure I believe the tale about the orc blood drop. But I believe you'll do your best to accomplish your goal."

New ripples ran through his soul, strengthening his mind and Path even further.

Liya made a last, feeble attempt to turn things around. "So I can torture you as long as I save your life beforehand and there's a greater purpose behind it," she insisted.

Shen gave a straight answer this time. "No. You can torture me because you're overwhelmingly stronger than me. I still resent your methods, but what purpose would complaining about them fulfill? Would you even understand what I'm saying?

"When I'm strong enough, I'll find you and hold you accountable for your actions. Until then, I can only do my best to absorb what you teach me."

So he had still been hiding his anger and was bidding his time. Good. At least he wasn't so soft.

Liya snorted and tried another weak approach. "So I'm too smart to be stupid but too stupid to understand you."

He smiled slightly once more. "You're too smart to use such a feeble argument."

She slapped him in the face with her domain. Hard. It wiped the smile from his face. "So you don't mind a little pain?" She slapped him again. "So all that talk about honor was just empty words?" She struck him a third time. "You're just a spineless coward?"

As expected, her fate temper tantrum didn't work. He had already become so good at controlling and hiding his emotions that she didn't even feel his anger, though she was sure it was there.

Feng Shen's voice didn't change even slightly despite his split skin and broken teeth. "The same honor that demands I hold you accountable when I can is the honor that demands I acknowledge the good results of your actions and thank you for them. Love and hate aren't mutually exclusive; neither are gratefulness and hate.

"But you are right. I misspoke. You could understand honor if you cared. Four months of lies and physical abuse are evidence enough that you don't.

"And even if you said you understood, I wouldn't believe you. I shall never believe you without overwhelming evidence. And the only evidence I have until now is that you're training me well, that your brutal method is effective, and that your techniques are high-quality. I trust nothing else."

Liya had to admit that was solid reasoning. He wasn't so impulsive after all. He had thought things through fast enough that there had been no noticeable delays before he had bowed.

She approved of it.

Now was the moment a drow would get indoctrinated into obeying the Triarchy regardless of trust. They had to believe intrinsically, instinctively, with or without conscious thought, that the Triarchy knew better. Liya had gone through it and saw the wisdom in that.

The drow obeyed their leaders. The drow did their best for each other. And the drow still distrusted everyone else. Even among themselves, they trusted but verified.

For they knew betrayal was the Alliance's multiversal language.

At least Feng Shen was now slightly better prepared for that. She couldn't indoctrinate him, though. Doing so to other races was highly illegal.

But she could keep turning him into a useful Guardian.

Liya let go of all pretense and sighed. "No point denying it anymore. Yes, I was also training your emotional control. However, you just threw a lot of other carefully laid training methods and plans through the window. I'll have to compensate."

His emotional control meant his emotions couldn't pressure his mind as much as before. That significantly decreased the pressure on his willpower and thus negatively impacted his improvement. Without that tool, which was the best the drow knew of, she would have to do with the most common method in the multiverse.

Liya used her domain to slam her mind against his, and Feng Shen grunted under the weight of her will.

He knew she was only training him instead of trying to kill him, significantly decreasing the training's effectiveness. Alas, there was no better alternative she could use now.

She was surprised to find his will was more potent than she had expected. It was still a far cry from hers, though. She pushed until he was barely awake. It wasn't much different from a heavily inebriated human. Hopefully, that would make him occasionally forget he wasn't at risk of death, thus honing his willpower slightly better.

Keeping him in such a state also risked him forgetting he was human, but now that she was in direct contact with his mind through the attack, she would quickly notice it happening. She still wouldn't read his mind, but there was a fine like she could walk.

Liya genuinely hated that he was forcing her to use this method. It was so crude and unreliable, the results only one step away from being left to chance. Not to mention how challenging it would be to ensure he kept learning the spear despite his mind being that muddled.

She went ahead with it anyway.

Feng Shen had realized many things about their training but lacked a crucial piece of information: what being a drow meant.

The drow considered any official charge as drow regardless of their race. Therefore, Liya would go to great lengths for him. She already had; while there were no Observers to call her out on interfering with humankind by training him, she would be judged and fined later. Together with the drops of Pure Yin-Yang Water, he owed her much more than he could possibly conceive.

Being a drow also meant she wasn't bound to human rules of ethics and morals. The drow bred warriors for a war-ridden multiverse; they bred fighters so they could keep existing. Their race had no space for individuality, and she wouldn't lower their standards for him. Adapting to cultural differences was different from coddling him.

Feng Shen would learn through her methods whether he trusted her or not. If he couldn't, if he died, she would mourn his death, learn from it, pass her insights to the Triarchy, and move on.

That was the drow way: care for each other because it was them against the multiverse, but understand that caring wasn't the same as spoiling someone. The drow did things in specific ways because those ways had proven to be effective. Personal feelings didn't matter.

Maybe individuality would matter one day. Maybe their children would be allowed to grow as soft as humans and as pampered as high elves. Today's warriors sacrificed themselves so their descendants could eventually not need to.

But that would be then; today was today.

Liya was a warrior; she trained warriors that could take whatever shit the Alliance or the Void threw at them and fight back.

Liya was always ready to sacrifice herself; she would sacrifice however much of Feng Shen's well-being and their "relationship" as she deemed necessary for his own good.

"We've wasted enough time with this useless chat," she said. "Let's get back to training."

[A/N: This chapter finishes flushing out Liya and the drow. It also shows what interacting with Feng Shen (when he isn't cowering in fear) is usually like.

This training mini-arc should end in three chapters or so.]

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