9 - Essence

Claire finished her Zeal construct training. She managed to keep the triangle and square rotating in different directions for 5 minutes while also using the body reinforcement technique, this whole time still barely using up any of her Zeal. This showed just how great her control over Zeal truly was.

Next up Elijah focused on her. "I know the last few days we haven't trained as intensely as before because of Arthur. So now, go all out. Fight me with your Essence and output your entire power." Elijah instructed his daughter.

She smiled towards him. "Got it, Dad." She immediately created 7 clones of herself while her main body just disappeared into thin air. 'As usual.' Elijah thought. He knew the 7 clones couldn't hurt him, so instead he focused on feeling the disturbance of Zeal in the air to pinpoint the location of his daughter.

All seven clones attacked him, Elijah made no effort to block any of them, letting their hits pass through him. As Claire appeared behind him, Elijah simply moved out of the way and dodged her hit. "Too predictable, try again." Elijah said.

Claire looked at Elijah with a determined expression. She pulled out her sword and sent a flying slash towards him. He jumped over it, avoiding it entirely. During this jump, Claire had once again disappeared into thin air. She appeared a bit further away, sending a flying slash towards her father. Elijah once again jumped over it. Claire took that opportunity, appearing right above Elijah and sending a slash downwards onto him.

Elijah managed to barely dodge it and smiled towards Claire. "Good work. The first slash was from a clone forcing me into the air, causing me to drop my guard and giving you the opportunity to attack from above." Elijah praised her, which caused a smile to appear on her face.

"It would've killed most people, however in a real war, you will encounter opponents far stronger than you. If you met someone at the Savant stage he could've seen it coming and used your surprise attack against you. You need to become undetectable while invisible, try again." Elijah poured water over her victory.

"I understand." Claire said, once again creating clones and her main body disappearing. 'Same attack?' Elijah asked himself if she had truly listened to him. 

He focused on finding her main body but noticed that all the clones were creating disturbances in the air. This meant that the Claire that went invisible was a clone, the real body was inside one of the visible clones! Truly if he couldn't feel her presence, he would've been at a big disadvantage thinking her main body was hiding somewhere while invisible.

All of the clones circled around Elijah and stepped in a certain rhythm. The Illusion of just one person walking around him was being created. 'Just what is she planning this time?' Elijah questioned. He let her make the first move, waiting to counter her attack. 

A minute passed and that one Claire clone just kept walking around him in a circle. Elijah finally had enough and moved to attack the clone. As soon as he stepped once, clones from all sides appeared and jumped towards him. He quickly dashed forward, gaining distance from the clones.

Slash! A flying slash moved from in front of him, the clone that was circling him was the main body the entire time! '?!' Elijah had a shocked expression at just how crafty his daughter was. If this was any normal person they would've been severely injured if not dead by that slash. Elijah used body reinforcement and his Essence, coating his body in lightning and letting the slash simply hit him. 

'This shouldn't even leave a scratch.' Elijah thought. And he was right! Instead of even hitting his body, it passed through him. 'What?' Elijah was shocked. He turned around only to see a flying slash hitting him square on the neck. Of course, it didn't do any real damage to him.

It took a moment for Elijah to realize he had been outsmarted. The 'main body' was also a clone! The actual main body was in the clones behind him! Elijah clapped. "Well done. You truly deserve to be my daughter! Haha!" Elijah was very proud of his daughter.

"YES! FINALLY!" Claire jumped up in joy, her bright smile shining. Of course, Elijah was going incredibly easy on her, if he had used any real power he would've ended the fight before it even began. However, in simple mind games and battle intelligence, he got outdone by Claire. It was a huge victory for Claire. 

Arthur who was currently meditating with the recharging technique opened his eyes and saw Claire celebrating. He saw just how happy she was and had a little smile on his face as well. The day slowly came to an end, they all moved back to the house to eat dinner.

"So, what did you get so happy about today during training?" Arthur asked Claire teasingly. "I outsmarted my dad." She said, sticking out a tongue from the side of her mouth. Arthur chuckled at her antics.

"Really? Tell us about it." Emory said, looking at Elijah. Claire of course boasted about how she had tricked her Dad and won against him. They all made fun of Elijah, joking about it in a fun way. Elijah stuck his tongue out and everyone shared a laugh. 

After dinner, Arthur retreated back into his living quarters. He sat up on his bed and trained the true mental training method to improve his Zeal. He wanted to test out his Essence but decided to do it tomorrow instead with Elijah present. After two hours of meditating, he finally went to sleep. 

~~~

Arthur was back on the training grounds. After his morning sword training, he moved on to practicing his body reinforcement technique. His spar against Elijah went similar to yesterday, however, he felt small improvements such as less Zeal being wasted during the use of the technique and the usage of it becoming more efficient. His reinforced strength and speed also increased a tiny bit. 

Due to having more control over his Zeal today, he managed to have enough of it left after an hour of recharging to train his Essence today. "Time for you to use your Essence huh, kiddo?" Elijah said. 

"I'm ready." Arthur answered in a determined tone. "Good. Now, since you have awakened your Essence you should already know some basic techniques that you can use it for. After all your Essence is 'imprinted' onto your soul. Even freshly awakened you should know some techniques. You just need to 'will' it." Elijah explained.

Arthur thought about it. He focused deeply on using his Essence. He even sat down and closed his eyes, pure determination on his mind. 'Essence. Essence. Essence.' was all he thought about. Then suddenly something happened. It was like a 'click'. Arthur opened his eyes and what he saw surprised him. Everything had slowed down. He stood up, noticing his own speed remaining normal while everything else had been slowed down. It was as if he had entered a separate dimension, everything felt too surreal.

'So...I'm slowing down everything around me?' Arthur thought. He took a few steps, looking around himself. The falling leaves were traveling at about half their speed. The clouds have almost completely stopped moving. It all felt so foreign and weird for Arthur. As if even the atmosphere itself had changed.

Arthur kicked a rock, seeing it move at normal speed through the air. He was quite confused on how exactly it worked. He took a bit of dirt from the ground and simply opened his hand, letting it fall. These moved at half their speed, disproving his previous theory that everything he touched moved at normal speeds again. 

"Interesting." Elijah said with lightning coating his body, who could apparently move completely fine. Arthur looked at him, suddenly becoming dizzy. "Wha-" Before Arthur could finish his sentence, he felt something drip down his nose. He wiped it, looking at his hand and seeing blood. 

"Deactivate it, now!" Elijah quickly instructed. Arthur did as he was told, suddenly experiencing major backlash. "Argh...fuck." Arthur said while holding his head. Massive pains assaulting him and causing a major headache. Elijah disappeared and reappeared with a glass of water in his hand. 

"Here, drink up kid." Arthur did as he was told. Elijah quickly moved behind him and healed Arthur's head with his hand glowing green. "Haaa...what was that?...I slowed time down?" Arthur asked, the pain slowly calming down but still hurting him a lot. "No kid, you sped yourself up by twice the speed. Including your thinking process. This made you double as fast but also made you gain double the amount of information than your body is used to handling, therefore causing damage to your brain." Elijah explained after seeing Arthur use his Essence. 

"What?! Isn't that like...really bad?" Arthur asked, concerned about damaging his brain. "Well, not really. It should be similar to overdoing it while drinking and getting a hangover. It's not going to cause any permanent issues just from this time. However, if you repeatedly use this ability for prolonged times without increasing your proficiency at this technique to not damage yourself, you will certainly cause permanent damage." Elijah made it clear that the technique was dangerous, while also not destroying his motivation and letting him know there was a way around it.

"How do I increase my proficiency?" Arthur said, his headache now mostly gone. "Simply by using your Essence over and over again." Elijah said. "But you just said that if I do that it's going to cause permanent brain damage!" Arthur responded.

"I said only if you overdo it and use it for too long at a time. Think of it like a muscle. If you lift something too heavy at once you will cause irreparable damage to your muscle tissue and maybe cause a massive tear. However, if you lift something that is pretty heavy for you but still with reason, it will cause small tears in your muscles which your body will recognize. It will then repair those tears with stronger muscle tissue, allowing you to lift heavier things next time." Elijah explained it all in a simple manner, making sure Arthur understood it. 

"So I just have to use it without going overboard and doing too much?" Arthur asked. "Exactly!" Elijah answered, causing a smile to appear on Arthur's face. After being healed, Arthur got back to training his Essence, this time activating it in shorter bursts.