In the front room, Heron was still just lying there. A long time had passed and he had long consumed lunch and was filling his time reliving old memories. Something he found to be the only decent method of passing time in any quick manner.
Eventually, he heard Hugh enter again. Sitting up to look over, Heron decided to comment before Hugh said anything himself, “That one took a while.”
Hugh had a pensive look on his face as he asked, “Have you heard of a pattern, or lines helping with cultivating?”
Heron was a little surprised. He could vaguely guess that Hugh had finally looked more in-depth at the method on the object he had given him.
“Took you long enough. You finally looked at that object? Or whatever it put in your head?”
“Yeah. But I don’t get what the pattern means. What do I do with it?”
Heron sighed, “That’s why I don’t think you're in condensation. While reaching mist can be done just by taking energy in and trying to fit more inside your body, condensation needs a method to bring it all together. You know, to condense. Or something like that. That’s about all I know though from others talking about it.”
Hugh furrowed his eyebrows as he thought about the path the most visible line took. As he tried to reconcile it with the idea of it somehow making the energy around and inside himself more dense, he couldn’t see how one would lead to the other.
For a brief moment, he felt a faint chill pass over him, like the faint brush of a shadow across his consciousness. It was gone as soon as it came, leaving him with an unsettled feeling he couldn’t quite name.
Heron saw Hugh's face change several times before he added, “I don’t know what kind of pattern you're thinking of, but I’ve heard of a few so I can give an example. As long as you don’t try to practice this one since it’s one of the other methods, it should be fine.”
Hugh was thankful for that, as for right now, he was more confused than anything else. The path he had traced just seemed like a child doodled all over the ground with a stick and overlapped it with the surface of a three-dimensional object.
Heron continued on, stating what he thought would make the most sense. It was close to what he had been told the first time he had asked about this in particular.
“One person said they had to move the energy inside them in a circle, adding more and more until it started to spin upon itself. Another path was kind of like a winding trail circling a hill, ever closer to the center as they went until they eventually turned back around and reached the beginning. I’ve even heard some of the better ones use more than one path, each one somehow helping the other.”
Heron shrugged as Hugh was listening to him.
“That’s all I got, just move your energy like the path shows you.”
Hugh thought about what Heron had said and felt like it made sense. Even though the path didn’t look anything like that, he thanked Heron before grabbing some food and went to his bedroom to sleep on it since he had made all the progress he felt like he could make at the moment. He was feeling pretty tired and felt like sleeping on the whole idea before trying it.
The next day when he awoke, Hugh stretched lightly before eating a large breakfast and heading back into the training room once again.
After getting comfortable on the mat in the middle, he slowly began tracing the pattern in his mind before trying to envision it inside himself. The only question now was whether it should be around the core, or would it work as long as it was somewhere inside himself.
Briefly considering it, Hugh decided to just go with making a fairly large version inside himself separate from his core. If it worked, then Hugh figured that he could just push the condensed energy to his core once it was done.
Slowly, Hugh took in a breath and began trying to move the energy in the same pattern he had seen. It was a lot more difficult than he thought it was going to be and it kept slipping off track, causing his path to falter before it was even a tenth of the way finished.
Hugh was determined though as he tried over and over again, sometimes making progress, and sometimes messing up early.
Hugh spent about a week before he completed one full cycle that barely resembled that path. Along the way, the energy slipped several times, but he had wanted to finish it first so he just continued where he left off.
As the days passed and Hugh got better and better at following the path with the energy he took in, he finally had one revolution of energy that seemed to lock in place.
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It had been long enough that Hugh felt accomplished for such a simple thing. He immediately felt and watched inside himself as a small bit of energy seemed to follow the path he had been trying to force for so long. It took almost no effort at all and he just watched it for quite some time.
It was like a door opened from that moment on. A sensation was growing inside himself that stemmed from the path he pushed that energy to follow. The first noticeable effect was that the energy he took in with each breath no longer bled out slowly through his skin.
Just that alone made Hugh happy. He was progressing again and the time he spent trying to push that energy along a certain path felt worth it, even with how small the amount was in total.
Hugh remained still with paced breaths and he watched it circulate inside himself. Its ease of movement simply amazed him.
Soon though, the novelty wore off and he began to push more of the energy onto the same path. To his joy, it seemed to easily fuse with the other energy already following the path, extending the total length of the line that slowly shifted around like a train on railroad tracks caught in a complex endless loop.
Like this, he added more and more energy until the entire path was dimly lit up. He could see a sort of pattern to the whole thing though he knew not what it meant.
Still, he kept adding to it, and at some point, he stopped as the path seemed to react to something. There was enough energy along the path that it seemed like one long continuous line.
Unknown to him, he had finally added enough to connect the head to the tail with no gaps, completing something most would think impossible this early.
As Hugh felt the path inside, he seemed to sense something strange as it suddenly began to give an entirely different feeling. The pattern began to pulse, and each pulse radiated strongly within. Hugh felt a searing pain inside himself.
That wasn’t the only problem though as a sense of power washed over him the instant after the path inside himself was completed.
This sensation was completely different from the others he had felt prior. Unlike a feeling of pressure and confinement, filled with antagonistic undertones, this felt closer to the sensation he got when his father or mother watched over him as he struggled with something new.
-
Inside his own training room in the main house, Diosk sat serenely focusing on his own cultivation. With every breath, he grew stronger slowly adding to his already powerful strength among others of the kingdom. Having made good steady progress over the past twenty years, he felt he was finally nearing the next step and was working toward accumulating enough energy with a secondary path to assist his main with breaking through.
While he was sitting there, he suddenly stopped everything as a sense of dread filled his entire being. It wasn’t the normal kind like the killing intent of somebody much stronger than him like he is more familiar with feeling. It was more ephemeral than that and somehow detached at the same time.
His eyes shot open and he looked up like he could peer through the roof above. The feeling seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere, but the strongest sensation came from above him.
Not one to back down, he imbued his energy into his breath, “Come out!”
It didn’t matter if there was a roof above him or not. He had long familiarized himself with surveying his surroundings with a pulse of his energy at a very low rate.
Everybody in the surrounding area heard him call out and each one of them heeded his words, stepping out of their buildings and rooms. They hadn’t felt a thing so they were all confused at why and what would cause Sir Diosks tone to sound so forceful.
The only ones who didn’t were Hugh and Heron. Heron was too pressured by the surrounding auras to move, once again cursing his own helpless situation. Hugh was lost in his own little world, and couldn’t feel the slightest effects from anybody, perfectly shielded from it all.
Soon, Hatia approached Diosk, who seemed like he was about to fight somebody as his body roiled with his energy, all compacted around himself as a thin aura buffering his skin from a possible attack in any direction.
“Master?”
Diosk didn’t look down at her, only continuing to look up like the roof wasn’t even there. He commanded her, “Stay there.”
Hatia froze on the spot. Diosk had said it loud enough that the others nearby did the same.
While Hatia and the others could not feel the sensation, they trusted that Diosk could. They knew all knew something was happening as only Diosks full unsettling power encompassed them all while the frown on his face deepened.
As the sensation grew more intense with each passing moment, Diosk furtively looked around. He couldn’t even place who or what was giving it to him. He had already sent out probing waves of his energy in every direction, finding nothing out of the ordinary. He told Hatia to stay while he exited the room and the building.
A split second after he reached outside, a light so bright flashed that Diosk ignored his eyes and sent some if his energy to them so they would take less damage. In the next instant, he heard a sound completely foreign to him. Only to realize a moment later, it matched descriptions he had read before.
A cold sweat dripped down his back as the thoughts linked together in his mind with the sensations he had received. Although the feeling of dread had suddenly disappeared, he knew that a terrifying strong senior, probably from beyond this world had just struck something.
The sound replayed in his mind, or rather what he hadn’t heard.
As he stood there in a daze, Hatia rushed out and shouted toward him, “Master, what was that?”
Diosk turned to her, just thanks she wasn’t the one who was targeted. With a frown, he sent his energy out again, checking on all those around him.
Finding nothing amiss, he remembered the boy he took with him here a month or so ago and peeked in on him and his servant. He saw the servant collapsed but still breathing on the ground.
When he looked at Hugh, he couldn’t help but widen his eyes in surprise because of his progress. Then his eyes narrowed in suspicion for just a moment before dismissing it as ludicrous.
Despite the surprise of Hugh’s progress, it didn’t matter much to what had just happened. Although Diosk felt that whoever was emitting that pressure could easily annihilate himself and his entire surrounding area, he still gave out his command.
With a loud shout, he bellowed, “Everybody stay inside. Activate the protective array.”
After that, Diosk flew into the sky with uncertainty in his heart.
