Masenia: Chapter 24 Establishing A Routine (Patreon)

Chapter 24

Establishing A Routine

Sparring.

Move and counter move were taught, exchanged, and refined. The partner of this exercise, of this vaunted experience was Maria and her now fully subjugated rabbit. A rabbit that more resembled a full-size dog from the time before the integration.

The daily routine for the two, master and subjugated, was simple, as it began when the two felt comfortable enough to rise from their meditations and begin their katas first thing, when it was still dark out over the realm. From there, the two had an unspoken agreement that there would be no strikes made, until the first rays of the sun glowed brightly and clearly showed both combatants. There were very few exceptions to this, as most used the morning to work though kinks in their movements, also being so close it was not unexpected that the two would watch and learn what the other was doing, so that they themselves might be able to counter.

Once the rays of light showed the two remaining combatants in the major nexus node, the two would immediately begin a series of light sparring events. Only breaking once one of the two suffered a dangerous strike, these breaks, the damage was almost always received by the rabbit, who always seemed to be just a little slower, just a little weaker in form.

Then once the initial spars were complete, the two would break, and meditate. At first the rabbit didn’t understand the process, only to see that Maria had sat down and exposed her back to a strike. There was only one time when the rabbit was daring or stupid enough to take advantage of Maria, who had been holding back in her spars with the rabbit. On the one time that the rabbit had broken the unwritten rule of not striking someone while they were meditating, Maria broke bones, and used her glowing fists to shave bald patches in the fur of the rabbit.

The event proved to be both humiliating and humbling, for after the one attack, the rabbit began sleeping next to Maria. This was something that rabbit would soon learn was very important, for when she arose in the afternoon and gestured with her hand for the rabbit to once again begin their sparring sessions, the rabbit eagerly joined, only to be mercilessly struck down, time after time.

From there the two would duel until evening, where a break was made where Maria once again sat down to meditate in the last rays of the sun. Once the sun went down, the rabbit was safe, at least at first, it wasn’t until a year had passed in such a way that the two began fighting at night as well. This was around the time that Maria began her blind fighting techniques, or fighting with her eyes first closed, and then completely covered.

The once proud rabbit was angered by this, at first thinking that Maria was mocking it, but over time it began to realize that Maria was expanding her knowledge and learning to grow and adapt at an exceptional rate.

Maria for her part did not choose to bestow any wisdom towards the rabbit, especially not at first. Her mindset was that the two were enemies who had made a momentary pact of convenience. She found that having the rabbit around at first was a great boost, as she gained many skills and abilities from keeping the wild animal close.

Skill Gained: Detection: Detection allows you to identify when a sentient creature is in the area and has noticed your presence. This is a passive ability that can be improved through constant use.

Skill Gained: Notice Killing Intent: Notice Killing Intent is the ability to notice when an enemy wishes to kill you. This is a passive ability that can be improved through constant use.

Seeing the notifications was enough to let Maria know that keeping the hostile rabbit around was worth the hassle of being next to a potentially wild animal.

Her meditation times were when Maria grew the most. At first, she used the time to refuel her personal reserves of energy. Then as the rabbit began to improve its own tactics, Maria began using the time to analyze her own movements and counters to those taken by the rabbit. She focused on her movements from one strike to the next, always trying to be like water and being able to flow into any attack or defense as needed. This was why she made it a point to never use her powers, unless the rabbit tried to strike her during non-designated times. The first time this happened was the exact moment she gained the Notice Killing Intent skill.

Maria was in her meditative pose, making sure to keep half of her focus on herself, so she could improve her own personal understanding of the world and how she could move within it. Then the other half of her focus, she spent on being aware of the restless rabbit. For what had ultimately been a dumb creature before the integration, Maria had to give the rabbit credit for learning and adapting so quickly. The rabbit hadn’t used the first day of their new training regimen created by Maria to strike, nor the second, or the third. Nearly a week went by, before the rabbit made its move to strike Maria from behind.

Of course, the intent of the rabbit was easily guessable by Maria, as the rabbit seemed to be more and more panicked during their simple sparring events, particularly with how much faster Maria was growing and becoming. Maria always held back in her light sparring matches with the rabbit, choosing to hone the movements of her new body with how she remembered moving in her past life. Focusing on just the basics, Maria could easily handle the rabbit, especially with the fact that all of her movements were enhanced by the fact that she was so much stronger than the simple beast. The rabbit, after nearly five years of training, was nowhere near as strong as Maria was, who had not had the benefit of training in a time dilation chamber that provided unlimited energy to the owner. Thus, the inevitability of betrayal was expected.

Burning lasers, that is what the glare of killing intent feels like on the skin of an aware cultivator. Still, Maria did not move or act as if she was aware of the act in any way. At this point Maria knew that a simple glare would be more than enough to stop the brazen attempt, but Maria knew this would only be a minor reprieve, another momentary armistice, until the rabbit felt brazen enough to try again. Thus, she waited patiently like a coiled viper, then when the rabbit finally made its move, she pounced just as a viper would against a rabbit.

Rustle, rustle, tail twitch, lunging-strike.

The rabbit was so noisy in its approach that Maria figured the rabbit was trying to get her attention. Almost as if it was trying to see if she would be aware of its approach. Almost like it wanted a reason to back down from this foolish chain of events, Maria offered none of these things, as it was better to get this all taken care of in one go.

Of course, the rabbit made the ultimate mistake, as it took to the air to make its first strike.

Glowing hands struck out, grabbing the rabbit that had been floating, or at least that is the way they appeared to Maria’s enhanced senses and reaction times. Suddenly the speed and power that Maria had been holding back all this time were on full display, as she rose up from her sitting position, spun around and grabbed the flying bunny.

As her hands contacted the dense fur, there was the intense stink that only comes from burning hair, the unmistakable mixture of wet dog and sulfur that was almost too pungent to fully absorb. Still, this was good, as it meant that her powers were working properly. Even here, even with the act of betrayal so prevalent in the rabbit’s thoughts, Maria held back in her powers. Had she wanted to, she could have killed the rabbit easily. But the revelation that skills could be practiced from essentially exposing herself to the rabbit was something she could not resist.

Similarly, she knew that if she did not have a constant reminder of the stress that followed her, she would eventually grow complacent with her own dedication to improvement. If the world was a chess board, and she was a piece, she would consider herself to be the weakest of queens, one who could go anywhere and do anything, but the mere act of moving would expose her to countless dangers. There were after all the Gods to worry about, those beings that were momentarily held back by bureaucracy and red tape. Though she had no doubt in her mind that the Gods’ first act would be to come into these nodes and take over the source of power.

Remembering her fight against the seven remaining Gods made her shutter, at first there were hundreds of Gods, but they were whittled down. Humans weren’t the cause for why only seven Gods remained, in fact, humans were little more than a fun anecdote of the events that transpired. No, in the end only seven Gods remained, for they were the ones that survived their own battle of the Gods. A few had chosen humans to act as their pawns, but the humans used in such cases were often minor distractions at best. No, everything had been pointless, the whole existence of humanity had been pointless.

Not this time though, this time Maria would push herself, and she would do so by always keeping the lesser of two enemies by her side.

Whimper!

The rabbit let out a pain filled scream, as its flesh began to glow with the deep purple markings of her power rending the flesh of the beast. During this time, she locked eyes with the beast, making sure to get both black mounds full attention. With the beast’s undivided attention, she stared menacingly at the beast, a fact that was once again proven by the system.

Skill Gained: Intimidation: You have found a way to infuse your aura with your own killing intent, enhancing the overall effect and making it so others are more likely to be cowed by your presence alone.

Seeing that, Maria had thought she earned that the first time she made the rabbit submit, but apparently now was the first time she had gotten such a skill. Also, it was odd that she was getting so many skills. From what she knew about her past life, there weren’t many skills, and of those that did exist, they were personal in nature, thus Meditation, and a few others that were very hard to get. One thing was for certain, she would not get skills by interacting with other humans, or at least not by killing other humans. That or her personal awareness of her surroundings was so minimal that there was no way she would gain more than just the basics, Meditation, Focus, and Analyze. Those were the three skills that she had managed to unlock after a lot of diligent work in her last lifetime, but of the three, only Meditation came easily. Then just like that, the idea for why Focus, and Analyze took so long to develop was because she was battling monsters at the time. This led her to believe that she was onto something that might forever change the course of events, gaining skills by being surrounded by hostile enemies would do wonders. There was one other thing to consider why Maria had suddenly begun gaining skills so easily, and that was the fact that not only was she a node owner, but she was doing these intense actions within her personal node of power.

Realizing that this was a moment of insight, one that would likely change not only her own personal development, but the development of the world. Maria opted to end this beatdown early, thus why she threw away the now cowering and half bald rabbit.

Skid.

With the simple snap of her wrist, she hurled the two-hundred-pound bunny away with ease. The rabbit landed and slid for a few dozen feet, tearing up the grass before grinding to a complete stop.

Once the rabbit was seemingly at arm’s length away, Maria nodded to herself and sat down in her meditative pose. Then realizing all that had happened, she began trying to internalize her own understandings of this new world that she found herself in.

Only now, only once she had unlocked her third skill in such a short time, did she feel that her body was partially converting the energy around her into the basis for these new skills she had acquired. These new skills seemed to be both a blessing and a curse, as they made it so she would be able to answer known short comings in her future development, particularly with being blindsided by potential enemies. But they clearly had a cost, and that cost came with the amount of energy she could have available to advance her Mind, Body, and Soul. Having already lived through this and having seen the way that people who do not balance themselves ultimately reach a bottleneck in their advancement, Maria did not want that. Thus, she made it a point from the very beginning to harness all three forms of advancement together, in one comprehensive package.

Rather than looking at it as a bad thing, Maria instead took it as a new way to improve herself. Using the fact that she now had multiple skills to Detect sentient creatures, and Identify Killing Intent, she focused her mind on those two concepts and began meditating. Only after a month, or what Maria assumed to be a minute of existence out in the real world, she finally grasped the concept.

It helped that in the mornings and evenings, while she sparred with her rabbit, she made sure to anger the rabbit, taunting it, making it so it was never even close to striking her. While her past self would see this as a form of animal cruelty, Maria knew that this was important as it was becoming easier and easier to detect the killing intent posed by her personal training rabbit.

The rabbit also used its killing intent, to all but telegraph where it would strike out next. Realizing this, Maria became extra elusive in her attacks, always managing to move out of the way of an attack at the last possible second. This made it so the rabbit fully committed to their strike, while also giving her enough time to move out of the way. Only when she first began this process was she hit, but even then the sharp claws of the rabbit didn’t pierce her toughened skin, but they did tear deep holes within her clothes. Still, this was but a minor inconvenience for a true cultivator, and while Maria didn’t truly think she deserved to be called a true cultivator, she did feel confident enough in herself to say she was on the path of becoming a cultivator.

Thus she trained, and eventually feeling confident enough to determine the appropriate actions and reactions of the rabbit based on her now enhanced Detect Killing Intent, or DKI, as she liked to call it, she began closing her eyes while sparring with the rabbit.

Sadly, all that Maria saw these events as, were sparring events. They were little more than chances to improve and get better, on concepts she was personally trying to develop and focus on.

As she focused and Meditated, she noticed that her skills would improve, and after a certain threshold they could evolve. For instance, after a year, or what Maria took as twelve minutes, but was actually just one minute due to the changes made by the Gods who were observing and regulating the integration, Maria had the option to awaken a new form of Meditation.

Skill Gained: Moving Meditation: Your understanding of Meditation has improved to the point that you can do so while moving.

The skill was not wholly unexpected, as Maria had been trying to get something similar to it for quite a while. During her spars, she had gotten into the habit of calling forth energy, circulating it within her body, and then releasing it just before impacting the rabbit. There were multiple reasons for this, the most important reason was that she did not want to actually injure the rabbit. The second part was, she knew that only by constantly depleting her energy reserves and refilling them as quickly as possible would she be able to force her core to grow faster.

Thus, she worked tirelessly on draining herself during her sparring matches, making sure to drain herself dry before dropping down and entering her Meditative pose.

The minute she unlocked the Moving Meditation skills, that was the moment she never sat down. For close to a month, she moved constantly, despite how tired she was, despite how much the lack of rest tore her muscles apart, she pressed on. Focusing through the pain and exhaustion, she pushed herself. Each step caused a burning sensation to flare up through every muscle of her feet, legs, and hips. Every thrust and counter thrust in her spars was agony, but she continued pressing forward, realizing there was something there. She had heard about it, a battle mindset that would make it so she would be set up for life. This was the same mindset she had instilled in her during her past life. Of course, in her past life she had never had the privilege of earning the Moving Meditation skill, making it so only the basic Meditation was available to her. This impeded most of her progress but given how weak she was to the affinities she had chosen, her lack of having the evolved Meditation was not seen as a game changer, as she was already seen as a waste.

After five years of constant training together, after which Maria had entered the third realm for all three categories and her rabbit had entered into the second tier for all three categories: Mind, Body, and Soul, Maria turned to her rabbit and gave them their first task.

By now the fur on the once pure white rabbit had fully grown back. However, rather than just having white fur, the fur that grew back was a dark black purple in color, a sign of how much damage Maria had done to the skin of the beast. The markings were also a reminder to the rabbit of how close it had come to true death.

Today, after sparring, Maria pointed and spoke clearly, realizing that the rabbit could understand commands, particularly after reaching the second Tier of Mind. “Go north to the linked node point, conquer the node and its boss, and link it to this node so that our powers and resources can grow.”

The rabbit nodded its understanding and exited the node as commanded. This was a long shot by Maria, the fact that her rabbit was well into the second Tier for all three specializations helped dissuade Maria’s fears, but still she worried and waited for word of her rabbit’s fate.

During this time of waiting, Maria was still diligent in her trainings, never letting a moment go to waste. Though she could not help but feel slightly lonely given that she was now all by herself in this node of power.

Just when she was thinking about possibly leaving her one true advantage, she got a message informing her of the outcome of her minion.

Success…