Chapter 20

[Since the world has bullshit people that can escape my current senses, I just have to sharpen my body's instincts. As long as I can feel the displacement of air, I can react quickly enough.]

He continued lifting, that momentary revelation bringing a confident grin to his face.

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|DxD|

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Time Chamber: 3 Years Later (4 years after entering)

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"Times four!"

Gruuuu Su Su Su Su Su Su Su

Three years have passed and Igor was making massive progress, especially with his Kaioken. The learning speed of the Kaioken helped him to shorten the learning curve of one of the most difficult techniques the blonde has learnt and is still learning to date.

On the last volume of 'Basic Ki Techniques For Survival', the blonde was introduced to the concepts of spirit control.

…

'Volume 3: Spirit Control

We've now covered advanced ki-manipulation and aura sensing. Now, it's time to move on to spirit control. To put it bluntly, spirit control could be described as the ultimate form of ki-manipulation.

To briefly touch upon how it works, it is relatively simple. Spirit control, is ki-manipulation aided/enhanced by the power of the soul. No, this is not magic. Magic is the cheaper form of spirit control because magic uses the spiritual aspect of chakra, also known as Yin and is closely related to the imagination or the mind. The soul, is NOT the mind. 

Well, it is, but not in that way…not completely. 

The mind as you know it, are only the 'emissions' of the soul. Every human's soul is equal, but not their emissions. The mind and consequently, intelligence, are affected by the amount of emissions their soul releases. The soul itself can be viewed as yin and by association, its emissions are also yin. But whereas spirit control deals with the soul itself, magic can only interact with the soul's emissions. Those emissions gather in the mind, which as I've stated previously, affects a person's intelligence, willpower, empathy, and so on. 

Magic users can also use these emissions to fuel their magic attacks. This is why magic users have high soul emission and consequently, 'FEEL' more than normal people. I haven't went through this but I want to explain to you how magic works so that you can further understand how spirit control works.

As I've stated in my first book, magic is the combination of ki and the spiritual/yin aspect of chakra, which in this case, is the mind. Combining ki with your soul emissions or imagination, leads to the creation of magic and a new sub-form of energy called mana. While there are cases of people who can switch between mana and ki, those cases are rare. But I will not delve into that right now. What you need to understand is that combining your ki with your soul emissions is the same as DECREASING the quality of your ki. Using magic once or twice is fine. Maybe you'll create some new clothes, or dry yourself of water. That is fine. The problems start when you incorporate magic into your fighting style. Now listen to me when I say this. Soul emissions are called EMISSIONS for a reason. 

Ki users harness the passive energy radiated by lifeforce. Do not start me with wordplay. I know that can be considered emissions as well. What is important here, is that soul emissions and ki do NOT work well together. Bluntly, their relationship can be described as one of toxicity. Soul emissions decrease the quality of ki and eventually turn it into mana. That is the same as gradually turning a fully-fledged warrior into a bottom boy. While mana has both the traits of ki and chakra (man and woman), it can be considered as neither and can be dominated by both.

That is enough for now about magic. Now it is time for spirit control and how it works. Spirit control is harnessing your soul itself and using it in tandem with your ki to create spirit ki. Spirit ki is simply a purer, more powerful version of your ki.

There are different stages to spirit control but for now, we will focus on harnessing your soul force into your ki. There are different ways of doing this since all of this relies on your state of mind. I will be biased and state that the best method to draw soul force into your ki is through extremely danger-fraught battles, where the emotions of desperation and will are at their peak, but instinct runs prevalent. 

But, meditation can work as well since my method poses too much of a risk.

So let us begin. (Read all the following paragraphs in advance)

Find somewhere quiet to meditate. We will use the feelings of peace and sanctity to channel your soul force. Remember, peace is a state of mind, not an action. You can be fighting, sleeping, working, or anything. As long as your mind is clear, you are at peace. 

The second thing to do is clear your mind. You can sit down and calm yourself, or go through your techniques. Whatever makes you stop thinking for a minute or two.

From here on out, I will be delivering instructions for those going through their techniques. Yes, this is bias.

If you are going through the motions of your techniques, keep doing them while focusing within yourself. Don't rush to find your soul. You have already learnt how sense it so drawing it out will be easy. Since you are not in a state of great need, you will draw your soul force into your ki through the state of great peace.

So, slow down your ki while going through your motions. Your mind must be free of all thought in order for this to work. It may be hard and somewhat tedious, but you must have patience and persistence. Once you have emptied your mind, you will enter the realm of one mind-one body. That will be the key moment when you will feel a refreshing feeling all over your body. That will be the result of successfully drawing your soul into your ki and taking your first steps into mastering spirit control.

To understand the reasons for why I said you must have an empty mind, imagine that your soul is like water and your mind as well as your body are like stone. Neither of the two can mix together. Your soul will whittle down your mind through soul emissions like how water whittles down rocks. That is how 'maturity' comes about. But in order to fully meld with your soul, you must take the initiative to turn your mind and body into water. You achieve that through a state of emptiness. Once that happens, your soul force will flow into your body, enhancing your power and increasing the quality of your ki.

There will come a time where you can fully integrate your soul into your body and achieve a state of unity. But that is too far into the future. However I can guarantee you, that the explosive level of power in that moment, will be beyond your imagination.

Now, GET TO IT!

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With the Kaioken active, Igor had learnt how to incorporate a small amount of soul force into his ki and the changes were drastic. The quality of his ki had increased to the point that instead of blue, the aura was now pale white. Even the aura of his Kaioken had adopted a richer, more liquid flame appearance. This was due to feeding his strand of divine ki higher quality ki, which resulted in a higher quality "excrement" of demi-ki.

Right now, the blonde had just woken up and was about to go through his morning excercises. A pale aura of semi-transparent pale-white film of aura was surrounding his body. His moves weren't strenuous or even fast. He performed his katas slowly and each move seemed to flow into the other. 

There was no break and no misalignment. Even with his eyes closed, Igor continued to perform his movements with peace of mind. It was only when the blonde performed these movements that his mind became clear. 

Not once had he slacked off over the years. Every single day without fail, he would practice how to channel soul force into his ki. The result was that the quality and even colour of his ki rose respectively rose and changed over the years. 

From his original ocean blue, the colour gradually changed to normal vibrant blue, then light blue, and finally, pale translucent white. Each change in colour came with an increase in quality and also, a cumulative increase in strength. With higher quality ki flowing through him, everything in his body from his muscles, tendons, and nerves became stronger, more elastic, and more responsive.

Although his power didn't increase to the extent that it multiplied twice-over, the rise in ki quality "cleaned" his foundation and strengthened it. Any and all hidden injuries Igor had or gained during his times as a human with no ki were erased completely. This allowed his foundation to be made anew and increase his talent and potential even higher.

If before, his talent and potential were as high as the 100th tallest mountain in the world, then now it was equivalent to the tallest mountain in the world. Ever since his ki turned pale-white six months ago, Igor was easily able to notice that he could milk more benefits from his training sessions. Furthermore, the healing quality in his ki that had repaired his foundation also shortened the rest times needed between his training sessions. 

This meant that for the past six months, Igor could train almost twice as hard, gaining the progress of nearly two days in one. Of course, the amount of food he needed to consume also increased as well. But the time chamber seemed to come with the feature of scaling up with his power-level. 

When the blonde began training four decades ago, he could barely consume the entire thigh of a cow in a day. Now, consuming the meat equivalent of one cow was the bare minimum he needed to make it through the day. 

When outside the time chamber, the blonde was able to satiate his increasingly ravenous appetite by "lawfully" relinquishing liquid assets from less than savoury people and then drain supermarkets and butcheries of their products. Since he was outside the time chamber, the blonde would require less food seeing as he mostly focused on meditation during that single month outside.

As for during his time with Baraquiel and his family, well…there was a reason why the cadre was extra harsh during their sparring sessions. With the blonde deep-digging his pockets, Baraquiel would obviously be unhappy.

But regardless, the blonde's progress was monumental and his power was ever-increasing. With only six years left, Igor would milk his body of potential until he would revert to his original plan of migrating to the Himalayas.

Spending six years in the outside world would not only rebuild Igor's potential, but it would also allow the blonde to finally grow older and enter his body's period of intense physical growth. Although his nonexistent identity card would label the blonde as a ten-year old, his body might just have a drastically different opinion.

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AN (This will be long but there will be no spoilers)

Moving on, before I am criticised as scum who can't keep their promises, I have a good reason for uploading three days later than stipulated.

1. For those who don't know, we have a house in town and a farm in the countryside. When my parents and I were on our trip, we got a call that the cattle were missing. Long story short, I've gained some sweet leg muscles from traversing the mountains trying to find the cattle. It did take until today to round up all of them. All of this could've been prevented if some idiot (not me) didn't leave the gate to the enclosure open.

That's…about it. While I do wish to say I'll be happily uploading for the next few days, I got bad news. Today is Wednesday. On Friday, my father and I will go to the farm to "deparasite" the livestock. I'm not sure what's the proper word but, that's what's happening.

But like I said, I'm not dropping this anytime soon.