Secret of The Elites?!(II)

Walking through the ragged dirty streets, a young man could be seen pondering with his hand up to his chin.

The streets were desolate like they have always been, rarely would you see anyone walking on them as even Lord stayed near the very edges so he wouldn't attract attention from muggers.

"Huh…." A sigh rang from his confused expression.

Lord had gone to find answers but only received more questions; truly the saying 'come to seek answers, leave with more questions' existed.

"What…..did he mean by that?…"

It was clear that the young man had received some sort of revelation that confused even his fast mind.

Thinking back, the now young adult flashed back to the conversation he had with the old man.

...….

"*Cough!*… Let's begin." The old man gave a short cough and became solemn.

"Mana, to this day is not fully understood, it's mysterious ability to accomplish feats simply absurd; B-rank strength can easily carry dozens of times their weight, and in general do things well thought to be humanly possible.." He said something fairly common-sense.

Silence came for a brief pause, the old man was organizing his thoughts.

"So, as it was important to at least have a basic understanding of power and properly organize them in categories to create structure; so as a C-rank wouldn't be mistaken as an A-rank or something similar, humans required tools or in this case something that would allow them to peer into secrets and slowly understand them," He said.

"Initial experiments began, these 'experiments' however were as crude as you'd imagine, barely any proper safety measures and almost no knowledge of where they were treading into. the apocalypse was not hospitable and many in these experiments died; even some A-ranks." Old man continued on.

"However….. Eventually, something sparked and what was thought to be absolutely fatal for the first few years, in rare cases showed different results."

"These different results were the first ever crude but yet successful attempts at peering into the technique." The old man said.

"I will tell you some tidbits of history and information about this technique." The old man said to Lord, it seemed he would be sincere as he spoke of information which was unnecessary to say for him, but indeed gave Lord a better understanding.

Lord only nodded in a silent gaze.

"Hmm, let's see...The technique, named [Observance] was the first and most primitive way of telling if an individual was an awakener during the Chaotic Era. The name of the technique isn't anything fancy but it worked and that's what mattered most.." He said in a dismissive tone.

"Hmm… But isn't that contradictory to what you had said about the requirements to use the technique?" The young man questioned; it was contradictory to what the old man had previously said about only the very high-ranking being capable enough for usage, and it was rather common knowledge that high-ranked awakeners such as A+ during the Chaotic Era were exceptionally rare.

Nobody would believe Awakeners of such might in an era where most of the populace considered them as god incarnates, would do something so menial and 'lowly' as performing an inspection role.

"Haha! That would be so if we were discussing the current [Observance]. The technique back then was far too primitive and required only a basic understanding and control; the [Observance] today is far more refined and polished, making its proper usage exponentially more difficult!" Old man Kasim chuckled in nostalgic reminiscence, he was older than he looked.

Time had passed and many things once new and unrefined now were developed and understood!

"However, as the Chaotic Era was near its end, many powerhouses realized that the simple technique they thought was only useful for identification wasn't so simple!"

The old man said in a sonorous voice, his eyes became dazed as his mind wandered back to those times long ago.

Kasim remained in reminiscence for a few moments before continuing on, "You see… Mana is like the two sides of the same coin; each individual has their own unique wavelength and 'way' of mana, however, in the grand scheme of all things, mana is universal and can be shared,"

"You can infer it as each person having a kind of tweak unique to themselves in the more specifics of mana but in the large and grand scale, mana is the same." He stated.

"Mmhmm.." The young man nodded in understanding, urging the old man to continue.

"So, using this principle, [Observance] attempts to 'connect' mana between two or more individuals, preferably between two. This technique naturally requires mutual trust and consent as 'connecting' mana between two individuals is naturally as dangerous as you could imagine."

"Hmm, can you please explain more about this connection and the dangers?" Lord asked for a more elaborate explanation on this 'connection' and even though he had a preliminary judgement of what the dangers this 'connection' had, he wanted to make full use of the rare opportunity; asking all the questions he had.

Old man Kasim came out of his reminiscence and narrowed his eyes on the young man in front of him.

"Huh…."

Old Kasim's face scrunched as he thought of a way to properly explain without sounding too complex for the young man and his own good. He was certainly a knowledgeable person and had years of experience to back him up, but he wasn't some cutting-edge expert regarding the field of study.

After a short while of deliberation, he finally seemed to have come up with what he would say.

"Cough!... I am getting old." With a hint of embarrassment, the old man realized his momentary lapse.

'Hehe' Lord gave a chuckle in his mind.

"Cough!....Let's get back on track!"

Coming out of his shame, the old man gave a fake cough and went back to what he was going to say.

"So in simple terms that you younglings can understand, imagine the connection as one individual lowering their guard on their Dantian and allowing the other person to have a safer chance of successful connection. The connection itself is basically one person allowing access to another's mana!"

"The Awakener using the technique will send a portion of their mana into the others Dantian, this is terribly risky as the Awakener using the technique must have control over their mana, blend in with another's mana, and enter the source of that person's mana itself!…Committing a single mistake during this could result in death or permanent injury for both parties involved!" Huffed the old man, he was far more solemn than before; even for an Awakener at his level, he couldn't afford being careless.

Taking a breath, the old man continued, "This is where the importance of control and rank of the Awakener comes. Mana can be easily volatile and get crazy if not handled with control, so to have an assurance of safety you need a certified A+ ranked awaken!"

"In practice, it's possible for B-rank or even C-rank Awakener to do [Observance], however the risk of death or fatal injury is so high that you may as well be signing a death warrant." The old man declared. Mana could be easily irritated and thus cause injury or death to its host and to the ones in near vicinity.

So performing [Observance] tested an individual's ability to handle their own mana, their control over mana outside of themselves, their ability to make their mana blend in with another's, and enter that other person's Dantian; the home of all Awakeners power.

Entering another's Dantian with your own mana is equivalent to jumping inside a mine field, one wrong step or misjudgment, and you'd be given a free ticket to the afterlife!

Shivers~!

Lord had shivers imagining that, although he didn't know much about Awakeners or how volatile mana was, he had the common sense to understand that dying through that would be excruciatingly painful for even the most hardened veterans.

"To maximize safety for both parties involved, many precautionary measures must be taken, even S-ranks and above can't overlook these precautions. Of the most important and basic precautions required is the physical contact between the parties involved; this physical contact does not have to be intimate and requires only the recipient party to sit in a position which lets them circulate mana better while the party using [Observance] must stand behind and gently grapple on to the shoulder to neck area." Closing his eyes, the old man explained some basic safety measures used for this horribly dangerous technique.

Hmm?

Lord noticed a contradiction.

"Wait.. Then if physical contact is required, how did you use it on me?"

He asked in confusion, Lord hadn't felt anything weird on his body and mind either so how?

The old man grinned, "Because you haven't awakened yet!"