[MA] 278. Setups (Patreon)

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[A/N: This is last Saturday's release.

Sorry for the delay. I got stuck rewriting a Lost in the Future chapter while I was undergoing a change of medication (for my ADD). It messed things up.

I'll release all late chapters this week (including this week's chapters).

Next chapter: In a few seconds]

Shen prepared himself as the timer went down. If Uya weren’t lying, she would come fast and hard at him. That gave him two options: do his best in another short exchange that was doomed to fail or try his best to lengthen the encounter and, maybe, just maybe, win.

The latter was less likely to work, but if it did, it would give him time. With more time, his opponent had a greater chance to make a mistake he could capitalize on.

Yet, Shen would've picked the former if not for the limits First Lieutenant Zyn had placed on Uya.

Shen believed he had a good reading on Staff Lieutenant Uya and that she wouldn't hold any grudges even in the unlikely event that she lost to him again, but acting on said belief would be unwise. His wrong assumptions about her reactions had caused her to instinctively break her own sparring rules.

His reason told him he was overthinking things because of the anger she had shown right before she used her Law on him—a horrible experience—but he would rather not lean too much on it. He wanted to ask the witnesses for their impressions first, maybe even get a copy of the system's recordings of the unlawful event. Speaking of which, a very low lethality probability wasn't the same as a nonexistent one. His life had been at some risk, and he would rather not die in a spar.

Shen wanted to go out with a bang in that last bout, and he could accomplish it in another short exchange. He hadn't used his Laws at all yet, not even internally. His Path was always in effect, of course, but he hadn't drawn from his Laws specifically. Using them all in an all-out attack from the beginning would achieve something, though he wasn't sure what.

Unfortunately, First Lieutenant Zyn disagreed with that approach. He hadn't directly ordered Shen to do his best, but limiting Uya was no different from telling Shen he wanted to witness something exciting.

Shen wasn't officially compelled to obey such an indirect request, but he guessed he had more to gain than lose by displaying his full potential.

It was still risky. Uya might do something stupid and kill Shen. Actually, he might not even succeed in gaining any time and lose pathetically.

But Liya had taught him that progress seldom came without some risk. Walking a Path was also about weighing risk and reward.

And wasn't Shen a first-class talent?

He chuckled as he realized that might be another reason talents lived less. They knew they could grow faster by risking their lives, which affected which risks they were willing to take. He, himself, might also die like this one day.

Shen didn't plan for that, but he was okay with it to some point. His Path of Omnipotence wouldn't accept a coward.

In fact, he felt almost compelled to take risks that he believed were worth it, and this one was.

It wasn't an actual compulsion. He could hold back. More importantly, it wasn't something external. It was just something his innermost self, his Will, himself, asked of the part of his mind that made decisions. Shen was absolutely sure—without ever being told so—that acting according to his Will would greatly benefit him if he didn't die while at it.

In fact, he suspected that deep contact with his Will, that understanding of where his Path should go, was the primary purpose of a Baptism of Self. Taking him from his apathetic state had been just a side effect.

All those thoughts went through his mind in a couple of seconds. They were important because when he finished it, he felt more himself than ever before. Choosing to go the extra mile here was the right decision.

Everything that made Shen himself aligned into a single goal: doing his absolute best to defeat Uya.

* - * - *

Shen used the remaining seconds in the countdown to fill his body, armor, and spear with qi.

His qi was his entire Idealized Path. Whenever he used it, all Laws that made his Path were immediately applied to something. However, just like he could use his willpower to control his Laws out of his body, so could he do it to his qi. Liya had been the one to theorize that—mana had no equivalent—and help him develop the ability.

Qi Attunement, as they had named it, was about making one or more Laws stronger in his qi. It didn't weaken the other Laws, which was great, but it was much more complex than controlling the surroundings with his Path. It also significantly increased his qi expenditure. Each Law he used to Attune his qi made everything exponentially more costly.

Theoretically, Shen had infinite qi and could push however much he wanted into his body. In reality, he had to use his focus to keep his qi expenditure beyond a certain point. He didn't want to sacrifice too much attention during combat.

Also, he couldn't cheat the willpower requirement by using fewer Laws on multiple qi particles—say, make one qi particle Attuned to Shaft and another to Extremity. It was the total number of Laws he was heightening simultaneously that mattered. His example would cost him as much willpower to main as making all his qi Attuned to two Laws at once.

Shen could currently only Attune his qi to one Law without sacrificing his combat ability. He could temporarily add another Attunement for an attack or defense in certain situations, but only if things were advantageous or desperate.

For now, he Attuned all his qi to Lightning's Conductivity.

He planned to win by exploiting Uya's mistakes. He couldn't do that if he weren't fast enough. Conductivity was his fastest Law and would help him feel and take the Path of least resistance to dodge, defend, and attack.

Using Conductivity in his spars with Liya sometimes made his attacks cause more damage than going for the Spear's Extremity or Killing Weapon, which were supposedly more lethal. Sometimes it wasn't how hard you hit but where. Not always, though. Liya had taught him how to assess the best Law to pick but said it would all come down to experience in the end.

Shen's training and admittedly limited experience told him Conductivity was the best for his qi right now.

Water's Stream, on the other hand, would be perfect for slowing Uya down.

An Ethereal Harmonization realm cultivator without an aura wouldn't be able to use the low air moisture to draw from Stream's might, not unless they had mastered Stream. However, when an aura made Reality heighten some Laws in an area, it also gave those Laws a foothold. Shen's aura was still deployed, letting him use any of his Path's Laws even if the environment lacked that Law's physical manifestation.

When he found it out, he had already considered that a cheat, but Liya had taken it to the next level. During their training, she had Shen attempt many things that only someone with a mastered Law was supposed to achieve. One was materializing their Law even if the physical environment was utterly devoid of it. It even worked against the Void, another reason B-ranks were highly valued.

It was a trick of perspective, like walking his True Path or making himself immune to mana-made materials. Getting in the right state of mind had been challenging, but he had managed in the end.

So, when the countdown reached zero and Shen willed Stream to stand between him and Uya and push her away from him, a body of water materialized out of nowhere. It was instantaneous. Reality bent to his will as soon as he ruled that a Stream should be there.

It looked like a humongous water jet coming from Shen's surroundings and striking Uya. No matter how fast she was, she couldn't dodge it. That Stream existed between him and her; he had "written" that in Reality. She could only destroy the Stream using her own Law, but the First Lieutenant had forbidden her.

So, Uya was limited to strengthening her body with her qi and Laws and withstanding it.

Unlike mana-made materials, that water couldn't be unmade with a True Path. The Stream was real. Reality had created it with a slight push from Shen. The extra water didn't dissipate but spread around like ordinary water. If he stopped the Stream, the spilled liquid would remain.

True Paths could ignore someone's Concept-based aura but not Law-based. Unfortunately, an Idealized Path could ignore Law-based auras. Shen couldn't use his aura to attack Uya's innards directly. It became a mere launching station of sorts for his external Law attacks.

That said, he wasn't limited to a single Law.

Shen added Extremity to the Stream. It made every drop of water as sharp as the very tip of his spear. Then, he added Killing Weapon to it, giving the water an extra punch. It would hopefully increase Uya's troubles.

He didn't use Conductivity because Conductivity would just make the water avoid her to take the path of least resistance. A Law's fundamental truth mattered. Streams had predefined origins and destinations. Their path might change, but even then, they would flow according to the newly set pathway. Since Shen controlled it, the path would always lead from him to Uya. Conductivity, however, was about the path of least resistance.

For that same reason, he didn't create lightning around Uya. It was elementary for her to make herself a poor electric conduit. It only took a twist of her will, and her qi would change her accordingly.

He would be able to prevent non-qi Conductivity from acting that freely after mastering it, just like how he could control the Law in his body and anything connected to his qi. For now, though, mixing manifested Laws wasn't as simple as throwing everything he had on a problem and hoping it worked.

Which didn't mean he was out of options.

Next, Shen willed Reality to change to have Killing Weapons always manifesting against the Staff Lieutenant. Killing Weapons existed to kill, and he could set her as the target.

No spear materialized out of nowhere. Things were different between elemental and other sets of Laws. The elements were a more intrinsic part of physical reality and simply came into existence, but other types of Laws manifested more conceptually unless one used qi or mana. His new perspective couldn't change that.

Yet, Uya felt it physically. Millions of invisible Killing Weapons started existing on whichever part of her body faced Shen, trying to reap her life. They constantly pressured her armor and head's skin.

Shen added Shaft to it to give the invisible attacks a sense of depth and pressure her more. His goal was to slow her approach, not hurt her, which was also why he wasn't surrounding her with the attack. Uya was still not wearing a helmet, but Liya had been sure his non-mastered Laws weren't strong enough to pierce C+ energy-enchanted resistance. From how the lieutenant's face remained unhurt, she had been right.

On the other hand, the more potent Shen's Law attack, the more focus Uya would have to waste on defending herself. So, he also added Extremity to the Killing Weapons.

The tricky part was having both types of pushes, Stream and Killing Weapon, occupy the same physical space without interacting with each other. That took a bit of concentration and only worked because one Law was elemental and the other not. He was confident it was worth the focus he was investing.

Lastly, Shen felt a little smug as he set Wind's Gentle Breeze to softly keep blowing on Uya's back—relative to his position—then added True Boundlessness.

True Boundlessness acted erratically when out of his qi's control. It could make any Law it was mixed with stronger or weaker, deadlier or harmless, go in any direction or halt.

Yet, he used it anyway; it was an impromptu mind trick.

Shen believed his sudden insights about people came from his Laws' truths matching people's personalities. Uya's personality was at least partly close to True Boundlessness. He could read it on many of her actions.

So, he would have True Boundlessness constantly blowing on her back, a constant whisper on her senses. Shen himself couldn't identify most Laws, so the trick would be less effective if he were in her place, but she had more experience than him. She probably could identify more Laws or instinctively guess what they were better than him. He would use that advantage of hers against her.

He didn't even mind that True Boundlessness might randomly push Uya to act against Shen. Instead, he found it almost perfect. The Law's randomness would be a constant annoyance for Uya.

That was it for his initial setup.

All that took almost no effort. The willpower he allocated to his external Law usage was not spent unless someone erased the Laws he was using. If he stopped using his Laws, he would be able to use the recovered willpower elsewhere. He also didn't need to use too much focus to keep Stream and Killing Weapon existing in the same place at the same time.

He did everything in an instant. Uya kept coming. He detected her surprise but no hesitation.

Shen's Conductivity-Attuned qi and improved footwork made him faster than ever before. However, he was still greatly limited by his C- agility. Qi and Laws were enhancers. They could only work with what they had.

So, Uya was naturally still faster than him.

The lieutenant took the water on her face in stride and approached without bothering to improve her body's hydrodynamics. Even so, she came faster than Shen had ever seen her move. He suspected she was at the boundary of becoming a blur if she moved sideways instead of coming at him.

That wasn't to say she was that faster than him. His perception was determined by his mind's rank, Path, agility, and perception training. His agility was at C- and only let him perceive so much speed, even though he had improved his body to focus on speed during his breakthrough and third demonstration. His improvements would put him at C-++—yes, minus-plus-plus—if such an absurdity existed. It was still far from C, but much faster than C-. That didn't matter for his perception, though.

Fortunately, it counted for combat. After his Qi Attunement, his speed was at least at C. He wasn't sure how much he was slowing Uya down, but he was confident he wouldn't be seeing her at all if his manifested Laws didn't inconvenience her.

Shen's final setup was one of the two things he wouldn't do if he went for a short bout. He took his seven spears out of his spatial ring and let them float around. He didn't need to use his qi for that; his Laws sufficed.

He wasn't good at using spears like that in combat, but Uya had already revealed her readiness to disarm him when she aimed her sword at his hands in their first fight. He would keep the weapons around just in case. The spears would also be in place for potential opportunities to change weapons or even to use them to attack or defend from where they were floating. Just because he wasn't good at using floating weapons in battle didn't mean he didn't know how to do it. It would merely take him more attention than was wise to spend in almost all situations. As long as he found a good opening, he would take it.

Finally, Shen did the second thing he wouldn't do in a short bout doomed to end at a loss: he rushed straight at Uya.

In this fight, the initiative had to be his all the time. The moment Uya felt comfortable or set the pace, he would lose. He depended on her to make mistakes; she would make none if she didn't feel pressured.

It worked at once. Her previously relaxed stance tensed ever so slightly.

Shen grinned as he prepared to crush whatever remained of her price.

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