Path of the Berserker

I avoided Shen Ju and headed directly for the library. It was after dark now so his authority over me had supposedly ended anyway, but knowing him, I didn’t want to take any chances. Plus, just the sight of that prick would bring back memories of that basement that I just didn’t want to relive.

I got right to work instead, focusing on the hard part first and pushed out another ten pages of bullshit for Hong Feng to read in the morning. It took me about an hour, but I added a few more techniques and exercises to keep him busy for at least a few more days. With that done I cleared my mind and sat in lotus position on the prayer mat to focus on what I needed to accomplish next.

Creating solid Frenzy was still my ultimate goal. I was certain that if I could do that, creating an actual spark from my Flame was possible. But so far, no matter the amount of Frenzy I gathered out in the field I couldn’t solidify it just yet. If gathering more Frenzy wasn’t doing it, then perhaps I truly needed a breakthrough to the next realm to succeed. And that meant facing certain death, but what did ‘facing’ certain death actually mean?

Would just heading out into the wild and fighting an S-Class monster work? Of course, I wasn’t sure if I could defeat it or not, which was maybe why it didn’t resonate as true certain death to me. But maybe that was the point. When I meditated on the idea though, something just didn’t feel right about it. What was certain death then? Threja had ventured to face the Bloodmoon at night. That was certain death for sure and the idea of spending a night in the wild still shook my insides with fear.

That seemed suicidal.

But that was the stage Threja was at then, I supposed. She was seeking death.

The Death Wish stage, she’d called it.

Still, what was the different between facing an S-Class monster and just jumping off the top of a ten-story building? Both could kill me equally, but neither idea seemed to stir my Flame. Was I missing something?

Going deeper into my thoughts, I cycled my Frenzy to bring about a crystal-clear recollection of the orb. There were no specific instructions on how to achieve advancement via a breakthrough of realms, but there was one technique at the heart of it all. I focused on the segment involving the [Death Mastery] technique and brought it to the forefront of my mind.

[Death Mastery] – the fear of death grows only stronger the closer one gets to immortality. Power over this fear defies not only the Heavens, but mocks it to its face. Consider it no small wonder then, dear kindled, that your path shall be blighted with misfortune, for the Heavens are not lightly mocked. In exchange for this rebuke, you shall enjoy the bounty that is clarity of mind, body, and soul in places where others falter and fail. Your words and actions will instill fear and respect in others and your Flame will burn yet brighter with each evolution, heightening the potency of all your abilities.

The words never rang more true to me than now. I’d felt their power when I fought Yin Chu. I didn’t think of it consciously, but my [Death Mastery] ability must have kicked in and saved my life when he had me pinned to that floor. This was indeed the key. The next hurdle I had to overcome. But if my fight with Yin Chu didn’t trigger my ascension, then what would?

I searched through the orb for more clues and then after about an hour I found something significant. Something my Flame clearly knew deep down but my mind could not comprehend until now.

Shura 254

Beware, kindled one, for the Struggler is not mocked. Thy path shall be filled with affliction, and by affliction shall thou gain strength. But if for strength’s sake alone, to cause such affliction is only vanity and the Frenzied Flame shall have no respect. Therefore, deceive not thy Flame nor thyself, for it will turn from you.

I must have skimmed this same passage countless times before, its words cryptic to me then, but now they were crystal clear. I couldn’t force a breakthrough by choosing to fight an S-Class monster, the same way I couldn’t trigger it by jumping off a building. That would be like cheating the system, deceiving the Flame. It was the same reason I couldn’t advance my body hardening by simply cutting myself. My pain and struggle had to come from without, not within.

Thinking back, every leap I’d made in my progression had come from some major calamity I’d survived. Facing death when I first fought those Fire Birds while saving Mu Lin, my first fight with Zu Tien, being nearly eaten alive in the jaws of that broodmother. I’d faced death, and each time my Flame had grown stronger through my survival—my Flame’s stubborn unwillingness to die.

Even my last encounter with Yin Chu, I’d been the closest to death I’d ever been, but my focus was never on using that battle to get stronger. It was the conviction of staying alive long enough to reach my ultimate goal that spurred my Flame to bring about my victory. Maybe this meant it couldn’t be any one event. Like everything with my progression, new levels of power came at increasingly harder barriers to break. My first breakthrough had been easy. A single fight. But perhaps to break through to the next realm it would take facing death multiple times.

Whatever it would take, one thing was for certain.

It could not be forced.

No matter how much I needed to create solid Frenzy to solve my problems, it wasn’t an event I could just synthesize by picking a fight with an S-Class monster. It had to be organic—a byproduct of the strife for trying to reach my greater purpose.

I felt something open up inside of me, as new knowledge caused a deeper understanding of my Flame, its strength increasing slightly in my mind’s eye. I opened my real eyes then and realized I’d been meditating for nearly three hours.

I let out a sigh of defeat and exhaustion.

So much for brute forcing my way to frenzied lightning, I thought. I comforted myself in the Struggler’s embrace. My Flame knew my path. I’d just have to trust it to lead me to ascension when the time was right. But damnit if I hadn’t just shoehorned myself into a time crunch with this damn Iron Bracket tournament.

I needed to focus on something else, something to get my mind off of everything.

Perhaps something a bit easier to accomplish.

Like the [Devil’s Shadow] technique, I thought.

I still needed to test it to see if I’d truly mastered it or not. But to do that I needed a way to detect Qi. Or the help of a person who could detect it. Slipping away from the library, I ventured to the front door and luckily found Du Mak and Ju Gong still on duty.

“Brother Ju Gong,” I said, bowing to him respectfully. “Do you mind if I borrow Du Mak for a moment?”

“Why the hell are you asking him?” Du Mak spat. “He’s not my boss. And borrow me for what?”

I grinned. “Your expertise.”

Ju Gong laughed. “What expertise?”

“Shut up, Ju Gong!”

“It’ll just take a second,” I said and gave him a smile with [Struggler’s Resolve]. “Come with me to the library.”

It didn’t take much more convincing for him to leave Ju Gong on duty all by his lonesome. When we got to the library, I sat on the prayer mat and prepared the meridian sequencing for the [Devil’s Shadow] technique. The last step was the wildcard symbol on the instructions, the character that resembled the Jing meridian which Du Mak had said meant elemental core.

“Okay, Du Mak,” I said. “Tell me if you can sense my Qi.”

He sighed, irritated. “You really think you mastered it in only a day? You’re wasting my time.”

“We’ll see,” I said.

I focused the [Devil’s Shadow] technique on my Flame and then cycled my Frenzy.

“Sense anything?”

Du Mak chortled. “Nothing of course. Like I said, there is no way you could have mastered it already.”

I smiled. I had pretty much expected that result, but I had to try anyway. I would likely need to focus on the new meridian Jing that I had opened to perform the lightning technique, but I wanted to test it on my Flame first just to be sure.

Resetting the technique I started again, and this time focused on that space I had opened up before, the target meridian where I would eventually toss solid Frenzy one day to create lightning. Engaging the technique, I cycled my Frenzy once more.

“How about now?”

“Nope, still nothing.”

I furrowed my brow at that. That Jing meridian should have been where the equivalent of my element core was stored. I wasn’t able to create lightning yet, but it should still be giving off the element of fire. Shouldn’t it?

I thought a moment more.

“Just a second.”

Maybe I had to have actual fire being produced for it to sense it, I thought. That made sense. After all, until it reached my Jing meridian, my Frenzy was still just liquid Frenzy. I held out my palm and with the [Devil’s Frenzy] technique still engaged, triggered my lightning technique, funneling concentrated liquid Frenzy to the Jing meridian core.

A small flame ignited in my palm and Du Mak jumped back, surprised.

“Damn!” he said. “You’ve learned Qi manifestation already?”

“Does that mean you can sense it?”

Du Mak continued to look at the flame, his brow creased in a furrow. “No…I can’t sense anything. How are you doing that? Maybe you’re doing it backwards, masking your Qi with nothing. Where are you focusing your absorption?”

“My absorption?”

“Yes, what are you focusing it on?”

“What absorption?”

Du Mak sighed, shaking his head. “You still have that paper?”

Releasing the flame, I dug in my robes and handed him the technique he had scribbled down earlier.

“You sure you are doing all of this correctly?” he asked, waving the paper at me.

I glanced at it again just to make sure. “Yes, very sure. What did you mean by absorption?”

Du Mak pointed to that same character again that closely resembled Jing. “This here.”

“That’s my core, right?”

“Yes, but did you use absorption on it? That’s what the extra stroke means here,” he said pointing to a fine detail of the character. “You do not open this meridian, you absorb from it.”

What the hell was he talking about?

He must have caught the confused look on my face because he stared back at me like I was an idiot. “Master Hong Feng did not already teach you the [Absorption] technique? How the hell can you expect to do [Devil’s Shadow] then?”

“Um… Wait, yes,” I said, thinking quickly. “I remember him mentioning it briefly, but I might have forgotten to write it down.” I grabbed the pen off the desk. “Do you mind?”

Du Mak huffed out another sigh, snatching the pen from me. He began scribbling down a very brief sequence of only three characters. One of them I recognized as the word for demon.

“What’s this?” I asked, pointing to it.

“He did give you a demon seed, right?”

I had no idea what that was, but I just nodded.

“Maybe it hasn’t taken hold within your Dantian as yet. I know for me it took a full week for the demon’s soul to manifest within my own.”

Holy shit, I thought. I did recall Hong Feng mentioning something about them needing a demon’s soul to use their cultivation, but I didn’t think it was so literal.

“It’s no wonder I couldn’t sense anything,” he said. “Your demon is yet to take root in your Dantian. The technique must be masking your Qi with nothing.”

“Yeah,” I said quickly. “That must be it.”

Damn it. Maybe this wouldn’t be as easy as I thought.

“Anyway, once the seed takes hold and spawns your inner demon, you need to use it to focus on your Qi source and absorb the essence of it.” He pointed to the Jing-like character again. “Right here. Then you can use that to mask your own Qi within your Dantian.”

“Isn’t your Qi source and your Dantian the same thing?”

“Yes,” he said. “Well, sort of. Not in this case though.”

“What?”

“You need to sample something pure for the perfume. You can’t take shit and spray it with more shit and then expect it to not smell like shit, understand?”

I chuckled at his crude analogy. “Yeah, I get it. So where do you get the perfume?”

“A splinter of course. Didn’t Master Hong Feng give you one?”

“A splinter?” Did he mean the splinter of a core? “I don’t think so.”

Du Mak shook his head again. “I suppose not. You are not yet ready.”

“What’s one look like?”

“See here…” Du Mak reached into his robes for a thin chain and showed me a golden pendant on the end. It was flat and lined with a thin strip of what looked like ruby from top to bottom. “I keep mine hidden in plain sight. Too small for officials to detect, but potent enough to flavor your Qi.”

Well, I’ll be damned, I thought. These guys were rocking fake cores just like I was.

“So you absorb the perfume of this ‘sliver’ of fire core to mask your Qi?”

“Yes,” he said, tucking it away again.

I nodded.

“You should ask Hong Feng for one,” he said. “Or he may be waiting for your inner demon to spawn first. Who knows?”

Inner demon? No way in hell was I infecting myself with something like that just to pull this technique off. I then laughed inwardly. What the hell was I thinking? I already had a Demon raging inside of me. A Struggler too. I looked at the [Absorption] technique again. It was very simple. A focal point linked through the “demon” focus and then directed to a target.

I pondered some more. Using my Flame as a substitute for fire had worked for the lightning technique, maybe the Demon within my Flame could work for this too. “Let me try once more, Du Mak, using your splinter.”

“You’re wasting your time,” he said with a sigh, but pulled the pendant back out again. “It won’t work without an inner demon.”

“Trust me,” I said with a grin. “I’ve got plenty of Demon in me.”

His face twisted with confusion as I opened the meridians for the [Absorption] technique, focusing on the small sliver of Lightning Core in my stomach instead of the sliver on his pendant. Then, reaching out to it with my Flame, I felt some kind of connection take hold.

Holy crap…did it work?

I used the [Devil’s Shadow] technique once more, substituting the source with the energy now streaming from the lightning core through my inner Flame. I cycled my Frenzy and Du Mak’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.

“Nine saints in hell! What was that?”

I stopped cycling immediately and Du Mak seemed to calm down some, but was still breathing heavily, holding his pendant against his chest.

“Was that you?” he said.

I shrugged. I didn’t feel a thing differently than I normally would.

Du Mak scrunched up his face. “You must be doing it wrong or something. No way you’re that powerful already.” Then he paused a moment. “Although, you did kill Yin Chu in a single technique.”

“So you felt it, right?”

“Of course I felt it!” he spat. “A Qi-less mortal could have felt that! I think you’d better practice more before you try to use it in public. You’ll give our secrets away drawing attention like this.”

“You’re right.” I nodded in agreement, but the satisfaction of success put a smile on my face. “I won’t use this until I master it like you, Du Mak. But it’ll probably take me ten to twelve months’ time. Nowhere near as quick as you.”

“Damn right,” Du Mak said, nodding back to me with a hint of pride. “Now, let me go. Before that bastard Ju Gong rats me out for leaving my post.”

After he left, I gave myself a celebratory pat on the back.

I’d actually done it—I’d found a way to simulate Qi in real time by mastering not one, but two demonic techniques. Although it did still require a piece of my fake core to work. I was surprised how simple the techniques were also, and how quickly they came to me. But then, not surprisingly most of the meridian points used were the same that I used for my Frenzy techniques.

There were definitely some similarities between the Frenzied Flame and demonic cultivation. Common roots perhaps? Who knew? But I was happy to have some success in something tonight. I made a point to get up early so I could see Mu Lin before she went out into the field. Testing with Du Mak was great for telling if the technique was simply working or not, but to finesse it to a level that seemed normal and natural instead of alarming would take someone of her keen training.

I was just about to call it quits for the night when a new idea struck me.

Just how potent was this [Absorption] technique?

Was it the same one Hong Feng had used to absorb what was left of Yin Chu’s core? If so, I had no desire to become a soul-sucking vampire like him. Not that I could make use of stolen Qi anyway. But could I absorb the lightning core and use it for something else?

I played around with the [Devil’s Shadow] technique some more as the idea steeped. Screw it, I thought. I had nothing to lose and all to gain if I could make this work. Grabbing a piece of paper, I sat at the desk and began scripting out the Lightning Technique.

I then scribed the [Absorption] Technique next to it and the [Devil’s Shadow] technique in turn.

The answer lay at some point in between these three, I thought.

The pieces that made sense, seemed to fit one another.

I rearranged the characters as if performing mathematics, substituting meridians with one another, until all three techniques linked like a chain. It seemed a hell of a lot to pull off at once, and with it involving Qi, I wouldn’t even be able to sense most of it.

Still, the logic of the characters made sense.

I had to try.

Closing my eyes, I stared deeply into the core of my Flame. I applied the [Absorption] technique and sent the Flame to gnaw at the lightning core in my stomach. I summoned the lightning technique then, cycling my Frenzy through the meridians, building up speed. I envisioned the Flame chipping away small fragments of the solid lightning core.

I was ready.

Palm out, I took a deep breath, and I employed my modified version of the [Devil’s Shadow] technique, bridging the gap between the two processes already cycling inside my system. I envisioned the fragments of lightning core speeding into the swiftly flowing stream of liquid Frenzy, my essence becoming a transitory fluid.

I targeted my Jing as the speed of my liquid Frenzy increased, an unknown amount of solid Qi mixed with it. My Frenzy surged as I directed the result to my palm and a brilliant blue light flashed against the walls as a loud pop filled the air.

A small walnut-sized spark of lightning appeared briefly within my hand before quickly disappearing again, leaving the aroma of something sweet lingering in the air.

Holy shit…

I sat staring at my empty palm for close to a minute, not believing what I’d just accomplished. I’d done it. I’d created lightning. But not in the way that I had planned. It felt empty in a way. Not a true progression of my Flame at all. Just another cheap trick, no different than my fake core.

Yet it took me another step along my path.

A huge step actually.

I gave a prayer of thanks to that poor old monk again. His lightning core was aiding me in ways I never could have imagined. I had just made another breakthrough. It wasn’t the leap of power that I had envisioned, but it was enough to prove the concept worked. A place to even build upon in the future perhaps.

But none of that was important at the moment.

There was only one thing that mattered now.

That small spark…was all I needed to convince Hong Feng.