[MA] 195. Frame of Reference (Patreon)

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[A/N: Chapters this week: 2/3

Late chapters: 3

Next release: Saturday]

Almost three months later—eleven months and thirteen days after the training started—Liya finally witnessed Feng Shen use his aura to thread nine needles, then work them simultaneously to produce a serviceable floor cloth. Fine aura control was challenging, but he had been much worse than she had expected.

His Path was a blunt warrior's one.

"You pass," she said quickly before he could mess it up somehow. They were way too late on the schedule. "Congratulations, you've concluded the drow introductory elite course. Here, take this."

She took a ring from her Inventory and threw it at him. It was a thick black band with a crystalized crimson thick drop of blood in the middle. "This proves I taught you if a drow ever asks. Don't sell it, or I'll find you and kill you."

He grabbed it with his aura. "Should I put it on?"

"If you want to. Only a drow would know what it is, but many might be tempted by my drop of blood. It's not blood essence, but it's still mine, and magic can do all sorts of interesting things with it. Just make sure to keep it on you all the time."

"What is blood essence, after all?" he asked. "What kinds of interesting things?"

"You'll have to find it by yourself," she replied.

Feng Shen sighed while juggling the ring around his fingers. "You mentioned an Inventory," he said. She had done so in the past three months. "Is it where you store the things you keep materializing out of nowhere? Like a spatial treasure?"

"The Inventory subsystem is part of the Guardian System," Liya explained. That knowledge was widespread and irrelevant. "You can unlock it at C-rank or get it for free at B-rank. Speaking of spatial treasurers, here, take this too." She took a spatial ring from her Inventory and threw it at him. "The inner space is small but better than nothing. The ring can only resist attacks up to peak C-rank, so be careful."

She looked him over. Was it it, then?

"Oh," she said as she realized he couldn't go around wielding the dreadful training spear that was stuck to the ground nearby. "I wouldn't release a naked baby upon the world." She took a spear and also threw it in his direction while pulling the training weapon to her and storing it away.

Then, she had an idea. An incentive. "More importantly, as a Master Spearmaker, it physically hurts me to see you destroy so many spears. If you use only this one and it isn't destroyed before you reach C+ in a stat, come find me with a lot of SC, and I'll craft you something nice."

As with most things she had given him, he would take a long while to understand the value of that offer. But when he did, she knew he would do his best to upgrade a stat to C+ as fast as possible.

That drive might help him overcome an eventual bottleneck.

Except for the Drow Token ring, the other two items she had gifted him were meant to be as nondescript as possible. People like Feng Shen always needed powerful equipment but weren't strong enough to flaunt their riches. The thin C spatial ring was plain silvery. The C+ spear was made of a dark gray shaft, a black metal spearhead, and a white tassel.

Liya would've made the weapon even more nondescript if she could, but finding C+ materials that could take the right C+ enchantments and not become eye-catching wasn't easy. She wouldn't waste an enchantment to make it look dull, though.

A C spatial ring and a C+ weapon were par for the course for an elite drow being thrown into the wild. They were, however, priceless treasures for a new race's D-rank.

But that wasn't the reason Feng Shen was left awe-struck when he grabbed the spear. His entire body shook for an instant, and his eyes widened despite his emotional control. The unexpected was still a bit beyond his absolute authority.

"E- and D-tier items might have a core Concept," she explained, "but it's seldom worth the effort. C-tier items and above are the opposite. You lucked out in your Path's simplicity. One of your core Concepts comes from a popular Law in the Laws of the Spear. I used it as this spear's core."

The Concept of Sharpness usually came from either the Law of Cutting or the Law of Piercing. More often than not, Cutting. The spear in his hands had both Laws at its core, but he didn't need to know that yet.

"This..." he said in quickly fading shock. "A weapon with a core Law. What does this mean, exactly?"

Once more, she elected to share inconsequential common knowledge. "It means many things. The three relevant to you are: first, it has four enchantments instead of five because it has a core Law; second, the spear's enchantments will effectively be only as good as a D- one until you touch on its core Law; and third, when you do touch its core Law, the enchantments will be as strong as C++ ones."

Adding a core Concept or Law to an item was challenging, but she mastered it.

Which reminded her; modifying an item after it had been crafted was something she had yet to master. Doing it without negatively affecting the item was a work of art. Accomplishing it twice was proof that the crafter had skills beyond her understanding.

Therefore, Liya had taken great care to hide Feng Shen's little medical pod for him until he was strong enough to protect it.

Even she would be very unsafe with it in her Inventory after leaving Earth—even if she ranked up. She doubted the other Observers hadn't felt the item, but only she had been bold enough to snatch it. A few had certainly ignored the communication blockade rules to send word to their races, though.

But well, Feng Shen was her charge, thus treated as a drow. If her people were still around, she would bring the B++ coffin to them until he became B-rank and was allowed non-essential private property. If they were gone, she would sell it as soon as possible, at a loss for extra safety, and give him the profits the next time they met.

Feng Shen was truly blessed that she was around.

Speaking of which, she had to address the mark that had indirectly brought her to him.

"You have a drop of the Orc Rising Star's blood essence inside you," she said. "A drow elite would keep it inside themselves. It'll rebel against your Path as soon as you touch a Law—violently so. Surviving the ensuing willpower battle will improve your resolve."

She left out that only one in five drow made it. If he were stupid enough to risk his life before researching the odds and ended up dead because of that, he could only blame it on himself.

"You could also sell it," Liya continued. "It's a C+ resource."

She also didn't explain the consequences of selling it. The orcs might go to war against humanity for it. But once again, that was his problem. She couldn't coddle him; if his race's best warrior was stupid to go around showing it to anyone, it was on them.

"How much is it worth to you?" Feng Shen asked. "Just so I have a frame of reference."

Good. The boy wasn't a lost cause yet; he had some sense in him. She would even make her offer in a didactical manner.

"A peak C-rank drop of blood essence is around 7 million SC," Liya replied. "The drow and the orcs are at war, so I'll give you an extra 500 thousand to 1 million for an enemy Rising Star's blood essence. It was also provided willingly by Uk'Gaar, which makes it more valuable, so let's make it 8.5 million SC."

It wasn't a bad offer, but not an outstanding one either. Although Liya was willing to buy it because she had the opportunity, she didn't need it. In her hands, it would become nothing more than a slightly better-than-average C+ crafting material. The drow didn't care for blood essence like some other races.

"Make it 9 million, and we have a deal," Feng Shen countered.

She sneered and used her domain to grasp the blood drop from his body. It had entered him softly, merging with his body and soul. She made it come out from his glabella like a bullet that had been nested inside his brain. She wasn't subtle about it, either. It left a big hole between his eyebrows.

| Feng Shen (D) — 180 / 300 | -120 HP

A D-rank with over 200 HP wouldn't die from that. It was still not pleasurable or healthy. His mind was injured, and he lost control of his body so long that he fell to all fours. Only then did he get a hold of himself.

It was only instinctive control, however. His mind was still half in his brain and half in his soul at D-rank. His HP regeneration, 1 per minute, healed his brain in an hour and a half, and the Alliance's Laws of Life ruled that it had been done quick enough for him not to lose any memory or sense of self. However, that was as far as those Laws affected the Expression of Sentience.

Feng Shen took another three hours for his mind to get entirely back in sync.

"Let it be another lesson for you," Liya said when his eyes could focus again. "Don't bring the goods you're selling if you can't protect them with personal power or by having someone strong enough behind you that would retaliate in case of foul play. And think better of negotiating with anyone overwhelmingly more powerful than you."

"You're not B-rank," the cultivator said without a hint of anger. "Yet you overcame my soul resistance. I had suspicious before—"

"I won't explain that," she cut him. He could guess it had to do with mastered Laws easily enough "I refuse your counter-offer. Will you sell it to me for 8.5 million?"

Feng Shen didn't reply at once. Good; he had learned the most recent lesson already. He was wondering whether she would just steal it from him if he said no.

"No," he eventually replied.

So he hadn't learned so well. Throughout their training, Liya had tried to instill in him the wisdom of bending instead of breaking, as ordered by the A-rank dragon who had come to help him in the rift. She had obviously failed. From her observations, he might only do so if he considered his loved ones in danger, which wasn't the case now.

She threw the floating drop back to him, and he picked it up with his aura.

"Can I buy another treasure that could boost my willpower as much as this drop for 10 million SC?" he asked.

Liya completely ignored the question. He was treating her like a search engine or something.

After thinking for a second, he let the blood touch his glabella and return to his skull.

"This is it, Feng Shen," she said after he absorbed it. "As I said, your training is over. I have a few extra things to teach you, but not here and now. We'll meet again when I come to bring you to the First-Class Talent Summit. Your presence is mandatory; Alliance rules. Until then, focus on your Rupture Pilgrimage."

"My what?"

"The last spear style I taught you is about using the right tools for the right job. You wouldn't use scissors to hammer a nail in. Yet that is precisely what you've been doing. When someone starts walking a True Path, their Concepts or Laws Coalesce. It's a side effect of understanding how intimately you are your Path to many levels.

"So when I tell you to use your Concept of Sharpness at the right time for maximum effect, you use Sharpness and all other Concepts. That results in inferior outcomes, but your mind is simply incapable of understanding it.

"To make matters worse, a Coalesced Path won't let you touch a Law unless you simultaneously touch the seven Laws that each of your Concepts comes from. That's possible but unlikely and a waste of time, even when it happens. So the solution is having you split your Concepts back. You won't lose any strength, only return to being able to use Concepts at will.

"The drow have done extensive research and concluded that the best way to accomplish it is through a Rupture Pilgrimage. It's not the fastest way, but it improves willpower slightly more than other methods and will help you with touching on a Law when you're done.

"I would've had you go through your Rupture Pilgrimage before training you if we had the time, but we didn't. Not if you want to survive the First-Class Talent Summit. Yet, I firmly believe that it would be better for you to just die there rather than separate your Concepts using another method. You would lose too much."

The drow had perfected the effectiveness of mass-producing warriors. They also understood that when someone showed enough potential, it was statistically much better to give up on most of them to produce even a single true elite instead. Only enough said elites could protect the race against enemy A-ranks.

Statistically, that also decreased their chance of producing an A-rank of their own because they ended up with fewer B-ranks to get enlightened. However, survival came first.

Whether Feng Shen would agree with that way of doing things, especially when his life was on the line, was irrelevant.

"Explain to you what each of your Concepts is about would be useless," she continued. "Your mind can't separate them from each other. But I can draw." She willed mana to materialize a few pieces of paper.

Each page was dedicated to a Concept. It had a title, followed by many drawings showing more or less what the Concept was or what it was related to.

The "Sharpness - Spear - Core" page showed a spear. The edge and point of the spearhead were highlighted. It also showed spears cutting and piercing a body and a gray block.

The "Combat - Spear - Core" page showed two people fighting.

"War - Spear - Core" showed two armies meeting, a conquered country, and a commander giving orders to a battalion.

"Flow - Water - Support" showed a river and water flowing into new shapes and new pathways.

"Unidentified Gentle Breeze - Wind - Support" showed leaves and hair being blown by a soft wind.

"Unidentified Electric Arc - Lightning - Support" showed an electric arc going through a broken wire together with the resulting light and explosion. That was the best she could guess about it.

And finally, "Boundlessness - Spear - Support" was shown as a few arrows pointing outwards from a circle and a balloon blowing up.

Liya made the pages float to Feng Shen. "Be careful not to unmake the magic matter when touching it," she warned. "I'd leave Boundlessness for last if I were you, so you can Rupture it by elimination. It's the most complex Concept of them all.

"The goal of your Rupture Pilgrimage is simple: Rupture your Path into all its separate Concepts. You have seven of them. Until you accomplish it, follow the following rules.

"First, you must not communicate with anyone in any form. That includes the system. That should be easy for someone with emotional control like you, and I'll keep the system's comms blocked so you don't get tempted. Communication would taint the process.

"Second, don't try to learn anything you believe or even suspect might assist you with a Rupture. You must use only what you understand of your Path to Rupture it.

"Third, do not allow yourself to be recognized. In your case, that means not using qi or robes, and changing your face. I'll assist you with it. Moreover, don't use a spear where anyone can see it or deploy your aura where anyone can feel it. The exceptions are when you kill all witnesses. You must be alone with your Path.

"Fourth, and related to the third, I'll give you a new set of clothes. Afterward, don't get rid of any items on you or acquire new items. You must be you and nothing else.

"Fifth, you must stay in this world except when I take you away. You must not get tainted by other cultures or perspectives more than the aliens running around will.

"Now, the consequences of disobeying.

"If you are recognized and don't kill the witnesses, I'll do it myself. I'll also evaluate whether you had any fault in it. If I believe you did, I'll also remove a limb from a friend of yours. I'll do it so they can't regrow the limb unless a B-rank is willing to assist them with that.

"I'm not bluffing, but I'm not cruel. I'll do it in order of intimacy: Sai, then Marzia, and only then, Alicia. If all twelve limbs are gone, and you let yourself get recognized again, I'll kill them one by one.

"The same consequences apply to going against the other rules."

She willed her domain to change his face and eye color, remove his skin's glow, darken his skin color, make his hair blond, and forcibly grow his hair into a mohawk style. She introduced Annihilation's microfilaments into his body to ensure neither he nor the system could revert him to his original self. It would be painful, but he could deal with it.

"You'll constantly feel my domain. I'll use it to monitor you. You have twenty-seven days until I come to get you for the Summit."

She made herself invisible and got behind him. "Have fun," she whispered and teleported to the other side of the world.

Once there, she isolated herself in an illusion-protected area and laid down her smithy, building and all. The following twenty-seven days would be her last moments of peace, too. Finishing some spears and selling them to the system for extra AP might be the difference between life and death for her.

Contrary to her words to Feng Shen, she wouldn't monitor him. A Rupture Pilgrimage was about the Pilgrim and their Path only. The rules were guidelines for his benefit and maximum advance.

Liya herself had guessed at it instantly and obeyed for her own good. Whether Feng Shen would realize the truth and decide to follow the rules was his business. She hoped she had paid attention enough to detect her bluff.

Liya left her domain deployed for her own protection but stopped watching over him or his surroundings.

He was already entirely out of her mind when she stepped into her smithy.

[A/N: Things kind of got out of control, so another long chapter. Shen's first steps into freedom will be left for the next chapter.]

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