Chapter 59

Chapter 59: Awakening

(MC POV)

Dust was raised as I hit the ground. My body faded and another took form next to it.

'Good as new.' I thought inspecting my body. Hoping to not be fried by lightning for a second time.

Seems the dust was a perfect screen to hide my death. Being seen as a member of the walking dead won't do any good to my already shitty reputation.

Before the dust cleared I quickly took off the burned armor, replacing it was a fresh set I had lifted off a corpse on the way.

Stepping out again, I aimed the anchor towards the massive rift. As the rift was being sealed, the anchor emptied my magic reserves. Without wasting a beat, I drifted into unconsciousness...

I opened my eyes to a familiar surrounding of my ship cabin. From the dust I could see I realized that I was probably out for the entirety of the three weeks. As I was stood to stretch out my body, the ship shook violently, followed closely by a loud clap of thunder, causing havoc upon my Enhanced senses.

The smell of smoke and seawater quickly became clear. Taking a moment to enjoy the power coursing through every mustle and energy pathway in my body, I derected it towards my eyes. My vision swiftly Pierced through all obstacles giving me a perfect view of everything within a few kilometers. I was right on time to see Iroh redirect lightning, a light chuckle slipping out at his current electrified appearance.

As I continued to look around, I saw something truly weird. In the distance was the avatar heading towards a certain boat. And the thing that weirded me out was fishes that would swim close to the ship, do an action that most likely could be interpreted as bowing before swimming away. An idea of forming a school that would put aquaman to shame popped into my mind, but quickly shelved as I would only spend about a year in this world.

I quickly decided on the best course of action, Ignoring what was happening around me I took out a Giant tub, and prepared a blazing hot bubble bath for myself. Putting up a kido barrier to silence the world, I entered the tub, and quickly began reflecting on today's events.

Looking back at the situation I faced within the Dragon Age world, I realized that my Hakuda as well as my Zanjutsu are not as helpful without Reiatsu to back them up, and my only other fighting styles, one is made for killing humans(Zoldyk assassins arts) and the other needs Chakra. My previous life's training is all I got, and in a world ruled by magic, I'm not taking chances. It seems it was time to increase my repertoire, however that's for tomorrow, as off now I would spend time with my princesses. With that I exited my body, entering the soul world without hesitation.

I ended up breaking my own words as the entirety of the following day was spent with the little girls. I had gone out of my way to spoil them that day. To my surprise Matatabi had joined us. As for the others it seems they spent the three weeks learning the ins and outs of torture, courtasy of Keiser giving them my interrogation manual and Vaatu who had so graciously offered himself up.

Seeing the state of the spirit of chaos that seems to have been broken, I could only wish none of my female zanpakuto spirits develop any sadistic tendencies, as that would make my future quite bleek. I was curious what they had done to him as Vaatu wasn't a being who could just break, but on second thought, I decided to simply leave it be.

Vaatu simply merged himself with my soul, this time however he didn't even try anything. I even thought I saw him shiver when he saw the smile of Katen. With the day coming to an end I tucked the little ones into bed along with Katen before joining my two favorite battle maniacs in an all out life and death brawl.

It was only on the second day that I returned to my body. After cleaning myself and getting dressed I immediately put my plan to action.

'Keiser Intergrate the Ancient Strengthening System, and open its starter pack.'

{comencing system integration:

1%.....40%......100%}.

{Ancient Strengthening System starter pack opened, you recieved:

-Ancient Strengthening Technique.

- Yin-Yang Pendant ×1.

-Arhat Rosary Beads ×1.}

The information of the Ancient Strengthening Technique was quickly implanted into my brain.

'Thanks Keiser'

I continued to look at the discription of the other two items. The Pendant turned out to be 'The Realm of The Violet Jade Immortal'. As for the 'Arhat Rosary Beads' they were truly an unexpected treature.

{Arhat Rosary Beads.

-A set of Prayer Beads

-A sacred item of the heaven and earth, only transferable to a new owner when the current one has passed away. It would recognize the first person to hold it as its owner, matching the person's spiritual sense.

-Increase its owner's spirit energy by one fold

-Increase the rate of cultivation spirit energy by one fold

-Increase spiritual attack by one fold

-Increase spirit energy recovery by one fold

-Reduce spirit energy depletion

-Fend off half the damage of spirit energy attacks, ignore all pressure, effective only towards spirit energy.}

It's like this thing was tailor made for me. Taking out the prayer beads I immediately felt the connection form as soon as I touched them. I put them around my neck.

Taking out the pendant, I created a knife using Reishi and cut open my wrist bathing it in blood but not a single drop was allowed to touch the ground as it drank it all. Turning into a streak of light, it shot into the spot between my eye brows.

With a thought, I entered the realm. The landscape of the realm had a circumference of roughly 50mu (50mu = 33,000 Square Meters or 8 Acres), inside, there is a small pool of water, which has a circumference and depth of about 10m. The water in it seemed to sparkle with the shine of crystals and it looked pure and pristine, devoid of any pollutants.

The realm was currently in the first layer, Giving me a few benefits.

(-Strength Enhancing Fruit Tree

- 100 Years to mature.

- Produces 10 Strength Enhancing Fruits every 100 years.

- Increases strength by 500 jin.

- Maximum of 2 consumption per person.

- Can be used as an alchemy ingredient.

- Time flows at a rate of 100:1.

- Entry lasts for a total of 2 hours per day.)

The realm only allows entry to the sovereign of the realm. Other than the sovereign, no other human beings are allowed in here, unless they are already dead (Or have, a spiritual connection to me.)

Having Keiser buy me the 'Basic Sword Techniques', I got to work. The Basic Sword Techniques was devided into 8 forms, they are, Iaido, Hooking, Hanging, Pointing, Parrying, Piercing, Slicing, and Hacking.

On the last page of the book it was written that the essence of the sword could be summarized into four insights, in a single sentence of four realms in swordplay. [Application of Knowledge], [Profoundness within Simplicity], [Swiftness equates Invincibility] and [Back to Nature].

For the first realm, [Application of Knowledge], essence of this insight referred to knowing when was the right circumstance, when was the right place, and when was the right time to execute which of the basic attacking sword forms. Simply put, to execute the correct moves at the correct time.

For the second realm, [Profoundness within Simplicity]", the essence of this insight referred to not pursuing perfection of form. Form is secondary and intent is primary. Swordplay that looks beautiful and dazzling looks good, but is nothing in comparison to true power. In fact, the more profound the sword art is, the more ordinary it would look when executing the techniques within. Upon stepping into this realm, the techniques executed by those who understand the dao of the sword might even looked clumsy and sloppy.

For the third realm, [Swiftness equates Invincibility], the essence of this insight referred to, under the vast domain of heavens, the same philosophy holds true for all martial arts. As long as one achieve sufficient speed, he would be able to defeat anything in the world. With sufficient speed, one might indeed achieve the realm of invincibility. What a pity that this was just a theory. After all, who would dare to say that they are the swiftest in the world?

As for the fourth realm it was never clearly explained. I began training, unaware that I had already began the journey to comprehending sword heart.