Get Moving

Ma Sa awoke next to Kurama a couple of hours later. He'd have to gently introduce the idea of taking a bath the next time they passed by a body of water as he didn't want to constantly have to shut off his sense of smell. Since the fox seemed to be sleeping peacefully, Ma Sa decided that it would be a good idea to reflect on anything he could learn from his encounter with the Bu clan's tamer. At present he didn't really feel like there was much to take from it since he had wrapped things up pretty tidily. Still, self reflection was a good habit to get into.

He slowly eased himself out from behind Kurama before taking a seat by the base of a tree. He tried to recall the events of the previous night as clearly as he could. The thing that stood out most was that he had 'popped' a couple of the tamer's limbs though that could be put down to his shallow understanding of the slave mark. He should definitely take the time to study it in depth in the future. Next, it had taken him a little bit more time than he would have liked to enter and exit the camp. He recalled his Uncle Ye Zhu's ridiculously quick kidnapping of Ye Zhen back when he first visited the Ye Clan with his teacher. It was definitely time for him to learn a movement technique of some sort. The moment that he had the thought, MS 1.1 provided him with a list of all the movement skills he had in his inventory. Ma Sa was once again extremely thankful that he had learned the Split Soul Immortal Manipulation Art. Though he did feel like using MS 1.1 as his personal assistant wasn't really what the technique was designed to achieve...

There were a couple of movement arts that stood out to him. First was the "Empreyan Phoenix Flash Steps" which was another extremely complex art. Complexity didn't always mean that an art was better than another however it was a good indication that its creator was a Martial Artist of a high level. The next art that had caught his eye was "Divine Gate Transposition Art." This art was completely different from any other movement arts he had seen. It was more like magic than Martial Art! The practitioner would bend Space Laws with their Qi in order to create portals. Ma Sa couldn't help but envision creating orange and blue portals to the sound of singing turrets and TTS abuse...

That particular image was just way too enticing so Ma Sa was definitely learning to throw portals. He hopped into his inventory to read the manual for it right away. It was complicated but actually not as bad as Ma Sa had expected having struggled with the Spear Law Scripture previously. Since the Divine Gate interfered with Space Laws, Ma Sa had expected the worst. It turned out that the technique only used a few aspects of the Space Laws rather than their entirety. It also was written articulately enough that the abstract concepts within it didn't seem so far out of reach. The essence of the technique was to create a barrier field with Qi and imbuing it with certain properties. In particular, the 'portal' had to transposition every particle that it came into contact with to its paired Qi construct. The mind bending stuff came in when one realized that the desired configuration of particles already existed at the target location and that the portals merely shifted the bias of their quantum superstates in a predetermined fashion. It was a good thing that Ma Sa had MS 1.1 and the rest of 'the boys' to back up his mental abilities...

Ma Sa closed his inventory and gazed at the peacefully slumbering fox. Well, since he had time, he may as well try to get a handle on his new technique. The benefits of the console space could not be overstated as he was able to condense hundreds, if not thousands, of years worth of thought into an instant. This ability to mentally simulate complex Qi constructs before even attempting to form them gave Ma Sa an absurd advantage over other Martial Artists. Even with all his advantages, Ma Sa's first twenty eight attempts culminated in failure. His twenty ninth barely managed to form the minuscule portal core before flickering out. However, it was progress! Now that he had an indication of success, Ma Sa had something to work with. He immediately hopped back into the console space to draw up a sequence of likely permutations for his upcoming experiments.

Attempt number one hundred and thirty four fizzled out of existence as Kurama awoke from her sleep. Ma Sa's mastery over the Divine Gate had barely brushed against the threshold of being a usable technique. He only needed to make the portals a little more stable and energy efficient before he would be able to attempt passing through them. He had already had success in transposing a pebble. He would try putting a few other things through before he tried with his own body, of course. Very little appealed to him less than accidentally bisecting himself with his own portals...

Now that Kurama was awake it was time for them to move on. Ma Sa was navigating for Mt. Ginyan but the Ye Clan's encampment was on the way. He would call by there and check in with Ye Zhu before, hopefully, testing his limits against the famed beastwaves of Mt. Ginyan.

"Shall we move on? Let's pick up the pace a little!"

Ma Sa actively tried to treat Kurama in much the same way he would treat a human. She may not be able to communicate with him through speech but she certainly demonstrated that she possessed a decent level of intelligence through her actions alone. In confirmation of his thoughts on the matter, Kurama nodded her head and trotted over to him. Even though Ma Sa hadn't yet completed his training in the Divine Gate he still wanted to compare his speed with the fox. She may still be under the effects of undernourishment but she was built to be a huntress. Surely her speed through the forest would be formidable? Time for a race!

Ma Sa kicked off the ground as he eliminated wind resistance and a large portion of gravity. He had taken a little too much off on the gravity front and narrowly missed flying into a tree. He turned around and looked towards Kurama with a tinge of red on his cheeks. She looked back at him with a peculiar expression that Ma Sa guessed would be how foxes smile?? Anyway, best not dwell on the idea that his foxy companion may be mentally ridiculing him...

The pair dashed through the forest with Ma Sa holding a comfortable lead. Not having to contend with air resistance and gravity was a rather large advantage after all. He succeeded in training his reflexes to a fairly high level during the race. This was due to necessity as, if his reflexes hadn't markedly improved throughout the run in the dense forest, Ma Sa would have collided with a lot of trees. Whilst he wouldn't have been injured by mere trees, the thought of massive linear deforestation didn't appeal to him either. The ninja like agility that he gained from the experience made him feel pretty badass. What better feeling was there to pursue in life other than the feeling of becoming a living embodiment of badassery??

Kurama had started to flag so it was probably a good time to stop and refuel. Ma Sa produced a few steaks and let the smell reignite the fox's dwindling spirit. It worked as planned and soon after, a heavily breathing Kurama sped into the clearing where Ma Sa had set up camp. Ma Sa decided to use the time while Kurama was eating and resting to work on his portals some more. This time, after a lot of experimentation, he managed to send a steak through with no noticeable changes to its temperature or structure. The next step up should be a body part... Scary!!

Ma Sa would have to be careful with his next series of experimentation. If he set the bias incorrectly on his secondary Qi construct the matter that entered the primary Qi construct would be obliterated. It should be fine if he just took his time and confirmed it was working first. He decided he would definitely throw a steak through before his own hand and contemplated catching a rodent or something as the final test before his own body. Actually, could he spawn a lab rat with the console??

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Yup! Lab rats were classified as Creatures by the console system so he could spawn as many as he needed!

After some refinement of his 'steak-capable' portals, Ma Sa moved on to his first lab rat test. There was a weird moment where two lab rats existed in both Qi constructs simultaneously with their seemingly confused movements in perfect synchronization. This was due to Ma Sa forgetting to immediately adjust the bias of the primary Qi construct after placing the rat inside. He had made to separate material instances of the same entity that were inextricably entangled. Unfortunately, the mental strain of having two separate sensory inputs made the poor rat extremely confused before it started seizing. Ma Sa hastily adjusted the bias on the primary Qi construct and was left with only the catatonic test subject at the secondary construct. Well... Lesson learned! He must absolutely NOT make that mistake with himself!

He hopped into the console space to mull over the results of that experiment before he tried again. It had generally been successful but his timing needed to be tighter. A few million mental simulations later, Ma Sa was finally ready to try again.