Chapter 843 - The Bottom of the Mountain (Patreon)

It is a weird feeling that I have a difficult time describing. I think my state in the mental space is locked, so I am stuck at the same energy level I was when I found myself here. I do not feel refreshed after rest, nor do I find myself getting tired or sleepy.

Instead, there is that ever-present feeling of… growing thin? It is as if something is close to slipping out. It is similar to when you bleed a lot and feel lightheaded, and your heart palpitates in that weird way as fear threatens to take over.

But this is a great opportunity, and there is so much I need to do in the future. It is not just a necessity or something forced on me, there are many things I want to do. I refuse to be swayed by external factors. I continue to find things I enjoy, like my hobbies, interests, and the things I have fun doing.

It might be selfish. So what? I’m selfish, and I think everyone should be at least a little bit.

We also stopped the training for enduring 50% of Lissandra’s presence. It seems that I have passed, as we continue onto different training, though she grumbles and calls me lacking, she does not find me so pathetic that she would drop it all.

Lissandra refuses to tell me how much of her presence I actually endured and simply switches to saying that enduring the presence of others is the basics. After all, how can you even attempt to fight if just feeling your opponent’s power makes you pop like a balloon?

For the next training session, we pick up on body strengthening based on mana. There is a limit to how much I can do with my low constitution, but she does not trash me on it that much. I think she finds my idea interesting: making my body weak so my stronger active skills can influence changes within it faster and at a deeper level.

Still, by using kinetic energy to absorb some of the impact and strain, and then using a combination of Lioren’s techniques and proper body strengthening methods from Lissandra, I improve quickly.

Even though I prefer mid range attacks, when I get annoyed, I have a tendency to slip into close quarters combat. I have plenty of experience with that, and thanks to my eyes, I have been able to observe many people using mana for body reinforcement.

Lissandra’s technique, on the other hand, is similar to the Mana Cycling she taught me. It is something I suspect many modern Champions or Absolutes would call obsolete and old-school. Yet, I like the simplicity of it, I like the output, and I like the danger of destroying my body that forces me to continue to improve. In exchange for harder handling and the danger, I get a higher output than usual, modern techniques.

I think the one she teaches me is also specially made for me, taking the tendencies she observed into consideration. There is not a speck of doubt in my mind that there would be Champions willing to sell their firstborn just to have a custom technique from The Absolute.

I really want to tell Deva about it. My thoughts stop there as I imagine the face of Sophie’s Thylarin disciple, and I chuckle.

That moment of inattention makes my body break, but I manifest it again, though it takes a few seconds longer this time as I gather myself together. It has been getting harder as of late.

Swiftly, I go into overdrive again and circulate mana through my body to strengthen it the way Lissandra showed me. I boost myself ahead and slam my fist against the stone pillar in front of me. Being as tall as a telephone pole and as wide as my arms spread from fingertip to fingertip, it cracks and breaks.

I watch it slowly slide down and crash against another pillar nearby.

Currently, I’m surrounded by dozens of them growing from calm water. It seems like I am in the middle of the sea, though the water barely reaches my ankles. Each of these pillars is impossible to destroy by any way other than the body strengthening I’m being taught.

I tried it, and not even my full power lance put a scratch on them. I wonder if Lissandra is really able to make pillars like this, or if it is an advantage of training in mental space and-

My body explodes as I lose control of the mana I circulate for reinforcement.

As I remanifest myself, Assholethaniel appears for a moment. Tall, wide-shouldered, and muscular, he is the combination of close combat, body strenghtening and movement subminds and the part of me usually dealing with this kind of stuff. Meanwhile, Nerdthaniel is the submind taking care of stored arrays, Preeminence Eyes, and more delicate uses of mana, among some other things.

Before he can say something, he disappears as I put my mind together.

My hand closes into a fist, and in a burst of movement that does not ripple the water, I reach another pillar. I hit it with all my force, and it cracks and breaks, as does the row of a dozen pillars behind it.

I move ahead, leaving a forest of broken pillars behind me and heading toward thousands more.

Assholethaniel sits near my thermal cube, wearing his school bully jock jacket. There is so much snow around us that it almost forms a wall, leaving only a small cleared space around the cube. It is surprisingly cold, and the blizzard constantly washes over us.

This part of the training is oriented toward using only mana to endure a harsh environment, in this case, the cold. The thermal cube provides little more than emotional support and a nice light.

Another of my subminds stands nearby, the one that usually takes care of using primordial energies. This Nathaniel is a bit taller than me but slightly slimmer. He has white hair, red eyes, and two tiny pointy horns similar to Vega's. Over his shoulders, he wears an imitation of the mantle, the mid-pristine item that the vice guild master placed on me during my coronation as guild master of the Primordial Knights.

Both subminds are unusually quiet, but I am the same. A lot of my effort goes into not freezing, so I suppose it manifests this way.

None of us notice him before he appears, but Sneakythaniel is suddenly there as well. He has a bright smile on his childish face as he takes the tattered red blanket off his shoulders, places it on mine, and puts his hands on his waist in a heroic pose. He disappears the next moment, but the blanket stays around my shoulders.

As if in reaction to that, the cold increases.

Both Demonthaniel and Assholethaniel disappear. The blanket around my shoulders becomes more transparent and threatens to vanish, but I grab it and hold it there. Shuddering in the cold, I close my eyes to maintain the required difficulty of the technique I’m using.

Soon after, the thermal cube fades away, leaving me in the dark and the ever present, bone freezing blizzard.

My next training objective is different. The area has changed once again to a single enormous mountain that I must climb using mana reinforced body movements to reach the top.

In this place, I can feel my wounds, which are emphasized to hinder me more. Sometimes an attack comes out of nowhere, blowing a hole into me to force me to modify the way I circulate mana to keep my body strengthened. If the overall stability is breached, I break apart and remanifest at the bottom of the mountain to start over.

There is also a limit on the amount of mana I can use. Though the amount is generous, it is far from my usual reserves. Instead of constantly keeping it active, I have to switch it on and off as I need to leap higher, avoid stone avalanches, or maintain the speed required to run higher and higher.

It has been a long time since I saw Lissandra. I only occasionally hear her voice as she explains the training or the techniques she is showing me. It has also been a long time since I last wondered how much of this training I will actually be able to remember.

A few minutes later, my mana control slips. My leap proves to be too short, causing me to miss my mark and begin rolling down the mountain. I flail my hands to bury them into the rock, tearing my skin and fingers as I stop myself. The gravity here is much higher than anything I have felt so far, making it difficult to get up on my feet. I manage to stand only to watch an avalanche of huge boulders rolling toward me, caused by my mistake. It is simply punishing like that.

I do not give up until the last moment. I try to dodge the stones, move to the side, and leap over them, but they just keep coming. Each one moves at a high speed, impossible for me to break in this setup.

Once again, I find myself at the bottom of the mountain, turning my head to look toward the summit hidden high in the clouds where a storm rages.

Shrugging my shoulders, I move toward a huge boulder with a flat side nearby. With the tip of my finger, I scratch a short line into it and look to the left at the dozens of similar lines already carved there.

As I start thinking of a new pathway toward the top and try to remember the route, the distances, and other details, Mapthaniel manifests near me. He is as tall as I am but has no Preeminence eyes. Instead, all of his skin is covered in drawn arrays like dense, delicate tattoos, and the scars I carry are even more visible on him.

We speak for a while as I plan the route. Once I concentrate further, he disappears, and I head off to climb the mountain.

The slope of the mountain turns nearly vertical, and the rain crashes against me. I notice my reserves expanding slightly as Lissandra stops suppressing me as much, but it is not meant to ease my burden. Instead, it is because I now have to constantly maintain a defensive layer of mana on my body to protect myself against droplets of rain filled with mana that pierce my skin.

The wind and rain press harder against me, causing me to squint. The rock is slippery, it is dark, and flashes of lightning occasionally pierce through the air. The rumble that follows sends out disruptive waves that I must defend against.

My fingers no longer stab easily into the rock, and the gravity is much higher than before. Often, the holds I use break, almost causing me to slide down.

Another gust of wind presses against me, and the rain intensifies. I cannot simply create a single layer and keep it up to defend against the rain, every time I try, the droplets pierce right through. Instead, I must maintain multiple smaller zones, and I’m sure that soon I will be forced to defend against each individual droplet, forcing my brain to keep up with thousands and thousands of calculations.

It is so ridiculous that my face twists into a smile.

Reinforcing my body, I pull myself higher and higher until I reach a point where lightning begins striking the area around me. I try to form an orb of mana to serve as a lightning rod, but I’m too slow. The lightning breaks through the defensive layers I create, hurting me and damaging my hold, causing me to fall.

Instead of flailing my hands or wasting mana, I keep my eyes wide open even as I bounce off the rock. The rain stabs into me as I fall for a few seconds through the darkness. Only when I notice a good hold, my hand shoots forward, and I grab it, hanging by only one hand.

The intensified gravity pulls me down, causing the muscles in my arm to tear, but I still maintain my grip.

Yet another lightning strike shoots at me just as I throw a modified orb in front of me to redirect it. I can feel the heat and power of the strike as it passes right by me. I swing my free hand to grab the hold as well and begin pulling myself up.

Then, that hold breaks, sending me tumbling down even as I try to stop my fall, but fail.

Once again, I remanifest at the bottom of the mountain. There is no rain here, it is so incredibly peaceful and quiet.

A bit of my mana glows at the tip of my finger as I draw a line into the flat side of the boulder next to the thousands of its siblings, and then I start climbing up once more.

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