Timeless Prominence

“Long left this world…?” Rein’s heart was in turmoil.

“Either his body no longer breathes or he is no longer here in Fusion Realm…” Master Yirn directly and bluntly stated the obvious. “The fallen devils reside in the twelve hells. Or the fallen heavens. Depending on your perspective.”

Or perhaps some expert had used high ranked magics to hide Jein’s presence. Ignoring the fact that with Master Yirn’s skills in illusion, it is likely difficult to dupe Master Yirn… Rein found this possibility much more comforting.

He recomposed himself and steadied his heavy heart. There was no reason for the fallen devils to rapidly kill a young seed, he reasoned.

After a moment of silence, Rein moved on to his second query, doing his best to banish and suppress his uncomfortable feeling of impending doom.

“Master. Yesterday, you stated that the advancer world is ruled by might. That seems wrong to me.”

Rein himself, his family, and his town were destroyed by a higher power. Surely, there was some force that would right this sort of injustice!

Master Yirn, without even a twitch of an eyelid, corrected Rein. “Enduring might.”

Does the additional description of ‘enduring’ change its meaning?

“A murderer may have the might to strike down many. Yet they will become hunted, such that even one weaker than the murderer, isolated in an unknown cave will outlive such a murderer. The murderer would only outlive those that he struck down.”

Master Yirn then waited patiently, giving time for Rein to ponder the meaning within his words.

Since Master Yirn has placed an emphasis on enduring, that can only mean one thing. In his eyes, the one isolated in the cave, though weaker in strength than the murderer, would be the mightier.

For he has outlived the murderer, who would undoubtedly be eventually hunted down by those related to the ones the murderer had killed.

But still, the murderer would have lasted longer in life than the ones he had killed…

“To have might, one must survive?” This was the conclusion Rein had derived in Master Yirn’s words.

Master Yirn nodded. Rein did not like the implications behind such an idea, but he also could not deny it. A dead man… can pursue nothing.

“Would this not mean that one must tolerate injustices? Are there not things worth dying for?”

Master Yirn shook his head, causing Rein to feel confusion. Master Yirn provided another example.

“A village where its elders would die for its young against another village where its elders would not. Which village will be more likely to survive?”

Rein instantly knew the answer. Obviously the village where its elders would fight and even sacrifice their lives for their young. If the young died off, then where would the next generation come from?

He quickly realized a difference between the two examples Master Yirn had brought forth. Master Yirn valued survival. Yet that survival was not solely isolated that of the individual, but potentially a group, a society.

He had understood that Master Yirn’s emphasis on ‘enduring might’ was about survival, not necessarily just that of the individual. Though he had yet to discern the specific deeper underlying meaning, his intuition told him that Master Yirn’s words, at the very least, contained an unfortunate element of truth within.

He had plenty to ponder about already, but an additional question then came to his mind.

“Master Yirn. Is this not true in the mortal world as well?”

Master Yirn seemed a bit confused by the question, and his confusion caused Rein to believe that he might have very well asked a foolish question.

“A mortal murderer will eventually die even if he is never captured.” Master Yirn answered slowly in his gruff voice. “An immortal murderer, on the other hand…”

His question was indeed embarrassing. Rein berated himself. Advancers have much longer lives, and gain an essentially undying lifespan if they climb high enough. That was obviously a source of difference. Yet Rein quickly realized he had never thought of how that could make a difference.

The only conclusion he could draw right now was a simple one. A mortal serial murderer would eventually stop spreading misery through the rotting of his mortal body. But an advancer, if not forever buried under the ground… those of truly twisted minds, would they ever stop?

Yet how does this connect and play a role within Master Yirn’s ‘enduring might’ view in the advancer world?

Rein silently contemplated as Master Yirn vanished into thin air yet again, leaving Rein to his own devices. He soon picked up his five additional meditative arts scrolls then traced his way back to his little hut.

He held up a special metal orb that emitted light through its inscriptions, powered by an embedded gem. Rein had yet to develop his ability to bring his aurae to the surface of his body, and thus was unable to supply a normal light orb with his own source of aurae. Although the metal orb was bright, its body was as cool as the night.

This gem-powered metal orb was given to him so that Chenhr did not have to take him everywhere in the dark. Rein felt great joy in this-- this granted him momentary reprieve from Chenhr’s condescending speeches.

He did not bump into any of those ‘bandits’ on the way back, as the stars were already out and the moon high in the sparkling sky.

He returned to the hut to find another demonic--no-- beastkin core with a pestle and mortar set. Luckily, this time, it came along with a proper normal meal that could be used to obscure the taste of ‘sand’.

Inside the little hut after the quick meal, Rein only heard silence around him. It felt eerie, as he had gotten used to the sounds of his parents and Jein’s shouts back in the Hehr Mansion.

Feeling small and lonely, Rein could not help but take out that dagger again. Though the inscriptions lining the hut walls lit up to warm the interior, Rein only felt a bone-seeping coldness as his hands started trembling.

He tried to still his hand, yet the chilliness took hold, and the dagger slipped out of his grasp, making a small cut on the palm of his hand as it dropped onto the ground with a reverberating metallic ding.

The tinge of pain cleared Rein’s mind as he remembered Master Yirn’s teachings just a while ago. He reached for the meditative scrolls to occupy his mind.

He needed to keep active in my pursuit and survive… There is still hope for Jein… surely...

He rolled open the scroll, and as he chanted the phrases within the scroll inside his mind, his tremblings gradually disappeared into the night.

_________________________________________________________________________

Six months later

Autumn in the Minhr Nation had turned into a cloudy winter then a chirping spring. Rein had endlessly occupied himself with mastering the staff and the adapted-to-human dragon style created by Master Yirn, as well as additional knowledge of various areas of the advancer world.

Surprisingly, he made rapid progress. The draconic metamorphose bead that had transformed his body allowed him to absorb the energies of the beastkin cores, while his body was being remodeled. The continuing absorption of what remained of the draconic metamorphose bead had further increased his elemental affinity to wood and lightning.

Master Yirn had most recently inspected his body to find that three quarters of the bead had already been assimilated. This went against Blacksmith Tiehr’s claim that Rein might feel intense pain during the remodeling of the body. Master Yirn explained that this was because Rein’s original body had close to non-existent elemental affinities. Thus, he was nothing but an empty shell waiting to be filled.

Regardless, his strength had risen to that of an upper inner advancer, thoroughly improving his ability to process information with his mind, as well as control his body. This had certainly contributed to the accelerated rate at which he had mastered the staff and the adapted-to-human dragon style.

He had also gained much experience with the ‘aura restraint’ skill. His training consisted of attempting to hide himself from Chenhr within the forest in the underground cave paradise. He had gained further understanding of this skill. One such unique method contained within the advancer art was to imitate the aura of another being, which worked rather well in the forest.

On top of that, he attempted to practice the aspect of the skill that diverted attention from himself. Unfortunately, that could not be practiced against Chenhr-- that aspect of the advancer art had little-to-no-effect on those who knew what they were looking for. Chenhr quite naturally had a very clear idea on Rein’s appearance and his aura.

Another skill that Rein was forced to train himself in was using the so-called ‘Spear of Heaven’. The tower had one of these weapons stored within. Supposedly, its manufacturing method was thoroughly monopolized by the Hall of Heroes, but Master Yirn had managed to obtain one of these weapons. The Hall of Heroes occasionally gifted these weapons to their allies, even if sparingly.

After Rein had learned to force his aurae to the surface of his skin and gain some minor inroads into becoming a shell advancer, he had also gained the ability to inject his aurae into this ‘Spear of Heaven’ through touch. He was subsequently trained in the basics of manipulating such a weapon. Supposedly, the Hall of Heroes welcomed those trained in manipulating these weapons.

Throughout this period of time, Rein had received an uncountable number of barbs from the third disciple Chenhr. However, Chenhr stopped short of any action. If anything, Rein had gradually started to feel somewhat sorry for Chenhr.

He had quickly noticed that Chenhr’s insults would more often than not contain some kind of reference to the other unnamed missing disciples.

He only felt slightly sorry, mainly because he found out quickly that psychedelics are a mainstay in the human advancer world. Frankly, nearly all advancers used them to break through key advancer bottlenecks.

To Rein’s current best estimation, Master Yirn’s no-psychedelic rule undoubtedly pushed these disciples all away.

Chenhr promised him that it was worth it. Without the use of psychedelics, any breakthrough Rein accomplish in the future would provide a much stronger foundation, if he successfully gains an understanding of each realm and their relation to his own self. The price was that if he lacked that internal insight, he would never ascend the advancer ladder.

Thwack Thwack!

It was the sound of repeated contact between wood and bamboo. As of now, Rein was sparring with Chenhr. Well, it would be inaccurate to describe it as sparring. Rein was in fact, performing an absolute beatdown on Chenhr, making him feel extremely satisfied. He had long yearned to give his dear half-senior a good smack across the face, both figuratively and literally.

However, there was a caveat here. The rule of this spar was that neither Rein or Chenhr could activate their aurae outside their physical bodies. Naturally, it was impossible for Chenhr, with his short bamboo folding fan, to do anything about Rein’s long-reaching staff. Chenhr’s best was making sure he at the very least blocked every staff strike.

But Chenhr was completely unperturbed. Rein, though dominant with his range, had yet to truly get a clean strike. His black hair, which had grown to shoulder length across the winter months, was now combed back with a messy look that fitted his current struggle to get a final proper hit on Chenhr’s body.

Master Yirn, sitting on the side while chewing on a strand of grass, finally impatiently ordered the two to stop.

“You’ve mastered the mortal arts.” Master Yirn then looked at Chenhr, indicating for Chenhr to take over the teaching.

“Master Yirn has indicated that it is necessary for us to progress to the next step. Mortal arts have a limit. Come. Let us have a proper spar!”

Rein instinctively felt nervous. He had seen Chenhr wave his fan and expel a blast of aurae through the weapon on the first day he arrived into this hidden paradise within the Bleak Mountains.

Rein sighed. Such a statement had, in fact, instantly made him feel rather defeated. It could best be described as a rude awakening. He was still a weak inner advancer despite his strengthening over the past six months.

In his heart, he was already prepared for a total whooping from Chenhr, with the limiting rules on their spar removed. Chenhr’s origin ability, to his understanding, allowed the man to have a bountiful amount of aurae, vast to the point where Chenhr could blast aurae out of his body repeatedly despite being only an inner advancer himself.

“Do we really need to do this?” He groaned. “Half-senior, the result under such rules is obvious.”

Chenhr frowned at such a statement. “The previous time was six months ago. How can you admit defeat so quickly? Come!”

Rein half-heartedly rushed toward Chenhr with his staff angled low to his side, before twisting his hips as he swung the staff.

Chenhr opened his fan and with a flick of a wrist, the yellowish aurae that Rein had seen before burst forth. Unlike last time, this time, the yellowish aurae covered an even larger area, and its intensity considerably thicker. It was likely that Chenhr had yet to bring forth his full strength previously, nor now.

Rein even found his own limbs turn sluggish midswing as the burst of aurae suppressed the flow of his own aurae that was key guiding his movements. He found himself skidding backwards in the face of Chenhr’s yellow aurae blast.

A burst of rancorous laughter rang out.

“I suppose you were right, Half-junior Rein.” It was clear that Chenhr always knew that there was no way Rein could do anything about his suppressive burst of aurae. Chenhr simply wanted to ‘slap’ Rein across the face.

“This is the limit of mortal arts. At the end of the day, swinging around a weapon won’t do you much good if a higher realm advancer can completely negate your weapon with a protective layer of aurae, or have some advancer magic that you are unaware of or lacking an understanding of.”

“Tell me. Do you think these advancers that have been around for god-knows-how-many years wouldn’t have had the time to master their crafts? Do you not think that they too, wouldn’t have long sharpened their minds and honed their bodies?”

Rein nodded his head. It was safe to assume that most advancers, with their long lives, would have mastery over their weapons as well as magics.

“Hmph. I’m glad you at least are aware of that. Thus, there is only one conclusion. In the advancer world, it is about taking the enemy by surprise through ambush or an unknown skill. It is about elemental weaknesses. It is about strategy, and more often than not, psychological manipulation.”

“Mastery of an advancer art is just a starting point to eternal survival.”

Rein heard a few coughs from Master Yirn to the side. He turned his head to find Master Yirn holding a new staff in his hand. That staff was chucked it over to Rein. Unlike the first day, this time, Rein easily caught it with no difficulty.

He could hear Chenhr groan in protest to the side. This was no surprise. Chenhr had a habit of complaining whenever Master Yirn gave Rein a bit, in his opinion, too much assistance.

The staff in his hand had only two inscriptions. This was on the low end quality. A large surface area was required to etch such inscriptions, and a staff, with such a long body, should in theory be able to hold four inscriptions if made by a skillful blacksmith. Five was a possibility with a top-end grandmaster.

This was basic knowledge about inscriptions that Rein had absorbed in the last six months. Upon closer examination, he further recognised that one of the inscriptions was of the wood element, and the other of water element.

Chenhr forcefully continued his teaching role. “What quality are these inscriptions of?”

With furrowed eyebrows, Rein tried his best to half-guess the nature of the inscriptions. This was an extremely challenging task, particularly because the difficulty of the inscriptions was based on the etcher themselves. Rein, an upper inner advancer, was in essence trying to understand the inscriptions made by likely higher ranked advancers.

“The wood element inscription...seems to contain some sort of quality of vitality…? It should be to strengthen the body of the staff itself and perhaps even the user…? It’s probably at least a shell level skill since the magic mainly functions within the body…?”

“The water element inscription…” Rein was unable to discern anything about the water inscription on observation. He racked his brains for an answer. The sight of the many etched lines swam in his sight, and he could recognise a few symbols and patterns here and there, but not enough to gain any true understanding of it.

He attempted to gain an understanding through indirect methods. Water-based skills have properties of either healing, a softness to absorb raw power, the ability to encourage and facilitate growth… or unique abilities related to the natural phenomenon in nature such as whirlpools, rain, waves. What would work well with the vitality of the wood inscription…?

He took his best guess. “The water element inscription is probably that of softness and power absorption, to further ensure that the staff does not break. Any damage received can naturally be recovered through the wood inscription as long as the staff is intact.”

Chenhr rolled his eyes as he snorted, before flicking his sleeves in disgust.

“Pathetic. The wood inscription is of vitality, and indeed, it is to both strengthen the body of the staff as well as the user. However, it is of specifically early outer advancer-ranked quality. It has the ability to reach into the environment, especially heavy wood aurae environments, to grant itself and the user increased strength and recovery.”

“The water inscription? Its combination is to counter fire based advancer skills. The wood element provides fuel to fire. As for the skill itself, the water inscription gathers the water aurae in the world, from the air and ground, to create a water blast in all directions. Naturally, that makes it an outer advancer magic ranked inscription as well.”

Another cough attracted Rein’s attention to Master Yirn again. The mysterious expert was still sitting there, observing the lesson. This was odd, because Master Yirn came as he pleased and more often than not, left with nary a word.

Master Yirn only said one word with his gruff voice that echoed in the yard in front of the tower. “Fight.”