Chương 28: Chapter 29: Fire Shaping

The third sword form, Walking Mountain, was by far the most complex form among the three. It consisted of nine movements, most of them defensive, building up towards a full-blown swing. That didn't sound all that complicated, but the difficulty lay in seamlessly moving between defensive and offensive stances to perform it. The form was also more intuitive than the others, requiring one to leverage over the opponent's flaw.

"Remember," Father said, "in a real battle, your opponent will not let you perform any of these moves as you are practising now. You have to interchange between the forms seamlessly, and sometimes in mid-form, to be able to inflict damage. However, none of that is possible if you have not mastered the moves to their purest form." Walking Mountain required a lot of dynamic movement, so much so that it was inefficient to practise in the yards.

Thankfully, the Stonecutters owned dozens of acres of farmland, and some of it remained unfarmed for most of the year, courtesy of the ashen storms. The only issue training there was the bystanders loitering. They were distracting, to say the least. Thankfully, Father's presence was as unapproachable as ever, saving us from a lot of small talk.

"A sword shouldn't be highly effective against a monster that towers over twelve feet," he said, "but it is. Do you know how?"

"Because of essence," I answered between swings.

"Because of essence." He nodded in agreement.

"But even essence could not save you if you failed to take large strides on the move and escape from its range in time. A battle with those blighted creatures requires more movement than sword swings, and a true master knows the simplicity and complexity of movement as well as he knows his sword." I charged with huge, exaggerated movements as the sun peeked through the cloud cover. The days had grown cloudier, the wind wilder, carrying traces of warmth and dust, giving the telltale signs of the storm gathering.

But it was still days ahead. For now, I lost myself in the training. My augmented attributes did help in enduring the constant lunges and strides of the form, but they didn't assist as much compared to someone with an Enhancement-type essence. All three types I had awakened were either geared towards artificing or shaping the elemental powers to my will. I wondered how Mum did it. I had seen her carrying boulders or large frames of logs without breaking a sweat.

Yes, her telekinesis helped, but she still seemed to have more brute force than your average Awakened. Taking a mental note to ask her about that, I decided to make my training a little more interesting. Splitting a large part of my focus, I released my Influence. Essence threads flowed through my palm—one going forward, the other backwards—along with my Influence. From then on, I began alternating between balancing my Influence and Weight. Mum had taught me a neat trick of offsetting Influence with Weight.

For example, if I only wanted to extend my Influence forward, I could preserve the balance with some weight in the opposite direction without having to utilise symmetry. This exercise made extending Influence in a single direction far more effective. I could extend my Influence in a foot-wide straight pathway forward for six metres, but of course, it did take away some of the weight from my essence. Fractal Sight didn't help at all in distributing Weight, but my Split Focus did.

It was still difficult and a bit uncomfortable as I constantly felt a slight pull backwards in my Essence seed, but the challenge kept me motivated in the practice. [Congratulations! Way of Balance II (1000/1000) is complete.] [+4 Body Coordination.] [Way of Balance III (1000/10000) is now accessible.]"About time," I croaked. Balance was one of the oldest Ways I had gained, and the slowest to progress since the beginning.

Although any kind of balancing work counted towards its progression, it measured in hours, making any improvement in it a crawl. Considering the third layer required me to work nine times what I had achieved, I was looking at a timeline of at least a decade before its completion. Yeah, I wasn't going to actively pay attention to it.

I had a discussion with my parents about how to approach the Ways the other day, and we unanimously agreed that training the early layers took precedence over the later layers, which needed more time to complete. Yes, the increase in rewards almost made it worth it, but considering the sheer amount of time it took to complete them it wasn't practical. Unless they were Ways related to my Shaping skills or artificing, I wouldn't pay them much attention.

I would probably cut some of my swordsmanship practice after I completed the second layer. Perhaps I would only focus on sparring, though all of it would depend on whether I picked up any other physical training to build up a lean frame. Nothing against fat people, but I wouldn't want to have a portly figure. One could argue that a Shaper's power came purely from their essence seed and how much their mind could utilise it, that their physical shape was of little consequence. But it didn't hurt to be in shape.

Well, that was an issue for a later date. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. My Will was the first to wink out, leaving me no choice but to dismiss my essence training. To be fair, my body was on the brink of giving out too, even though there was some time left before finishing our practice. I had done a lot of lunging around, which was making my legs feel mellow with every jump. Eran was only managing with his sixteen points in Fortitude.

As if noticing I was physically incapable of more practice, Father called it a day. Immediately, I collapsed to the ground and entered a meditative state. My Will needed restoring, and so did my body. Approximately an hour of meditation recovered my Will completely, though I did not plan on sitting cross-legged under the naked sky for long. I guessed I would be progressing in the Way of Meditation more than I intended. Unless my Will grew dramatically in the coming days.

But that wouldn't happen without the number of my Aether Roots growing. It was all about finding a good balance between meditation and essence unification. When I finally opened my eyes, I found both Father and Eran in a meditative pose, seated on either side. Father usually meditated after leaving the training to us, but since my awakening, Eran had also been paying some attention to it. It had taken a lot of explaining about its benefits and how it paved the way for my awakening to convince him.

But of course, Eran was far from making strides in the Way. He had only completed the third layer a few days ago. Soon, his eyes fluttered open and found me watching.

"How's your meditation going?" I asked.

"Any luck sensing your essence?" Eran shook his head, his lips sullen.

"Perhaps I have no gift in this aspect," he said wistfully.

"I'm all but sure I won't awaken as a Shaper like you." I hated to admit it, but there was some truth to that. My mum somehow knew my path would be that of a Shaper. There were some telltale signs. According to her, Eran didn't have those. He would likely awaken a brute path. Eran didn't seem all that distraught about it, as I would have been if I were in his shoes. But then again, his dream was to become a Knight. And he could become one without having to awaken as a Shaper.

"Still not giving up on meditation," he told me, jumping to his feet and back into the stances.

"Now I kind of understand why you preach it so much." I nodded before turning my gaze towards home. Eran was investing more time into his swordsmanship as he approached his awakening. The time wouldn't be far when he would surpass me in pure swordsmanship. Returning home, I meditated, submerging myself in the stone bath. I could finally glimpse the intricacies at play that kept the bathwater clean, prevented it from drying up in summer, and stopped it from freezing in winter.

The design didn't look all that polished to my Fractal Sight, but it didn't need to be, considering the space it occupied. A little bit bigger and I could have completed Way of Swimming in it when I was smaller. When Mum built it, she had outdone herself, implementing all kinds of runes for features that none of us ever utilised. Only Father liked the icy cold plunge—he said it kept his blood pumping—but with a little prod, I could also warm the water, make waves, or have bubbles rise from it.

There were even runes to add medicinal properties and perfume, though I never used either of them. [Congratulations! Way of Fractal Sight III (50/50) is complete.] [+8 Unallocated Points.] [Way of Fractal Sight IV (50/100) is now accessible.]"Hmm," I hummed, coming out of the water. If I could gather all the unique essence constructs, I could easily complete the entire Way of Fractal Sight within the week. Unique because examining something twice didn't count towards its progression.

By now, I had examined all the intricate details of all the fabricators we had at home, including the ones in Mum's workshop. Many of them shared similar designs, which didn't benefit Fractal Sight much anymore. I supposed it was about time I started looking at people, and the weave within them. Hope they don't find me creepy. Father had returned home by the time I arrived at the dining table. As always, we broke our fast together, exchanging bits of small talk. Then, finally, I went to practise my shaping skills.

Mum had taught me the basics, even though she lacked mastery over them. It wasn't anything complex to begin with either. Just to make sure I didn't burn anything down, I did most of my fire-shaping practice in the workshop, sitting before a lit candle. I imagined the flickering flame in my mind's eye as vividly as possible. Shaping required visualisation just as much as it required understanding the element. Fire burns. Fire incinerates. It was perhaps the easiest element to grasp.

Maybe there were higher laws to it—how forest fires started, how volcanoes erupted, or how the sun burned with impossible flames that make life possible. But those thoughts weren't for an elementary study of fire. For now, my task was to meditate on the flickering candlelight, weave my essence trying to imitate its form, and finally use my Transformation Essence to conjure a similar small flame. Wisps of wavering fire manifested before me as I bent it to my will.

The task was far easier than it looked and took far less of my attention than Telekinesis did. Slowly, I began to raise the intensity of the flame, but even then, it was no larger than a torch fire. Mum was watching me practise from her seat. We had been practising artificing a lot these days, spending over four to five hours a week in the workshop. I had finally tried my hand at elementary designing, and it was quite fun—like solving math problems.

"You know," she said, "you could laze around and rest. Nobody would blame you."

"I am lazing around," I replied, bending the fire into different shapes.

"With this training, I'm killing… well, more than two birds with one stone. It counts towards the Way of Flame Shaping, Influence Manipulation, Weight Distribution, and even Essence Weaving."

"I thought your enthusiasm for this would have waned after a bit," Mum said, shaking her head.

"Finding out how unimpressive your skills are at the beginning usually discourages people. But I guess I was wrong." [Congratulations! Way of Influence Manipulation I (10/10) is complete.] [+2 Unallocated Points.] [Way of Influence Manipulation II (10/25) is now accessible.] I noted that the other three Ways I had just mentioned were only one or two points away from completing their first layers.

"Well, continue your practice," Mum said with a meaningful look, unaware of the progress I just made.

"You can check out the gift I prepared for you later."

"Gift?" I cocked my head towards her, the conjured flame faltering at my lapse in focus. Mum smiled, knowing exactly how to get my attention. Without wasting any more time, she brought out a small rectangular box and presented it to me.

"I'm confident you'll like it."