Heir of Lightening

Chapter 3. Lost Technique.

Sitting in a dark room, dripping with sweat and little lacerations surrounding his entire body, Kirin sat cross-legged focused in deep concentration, he gritted his teeth stubbornly trying his best to control the upsurge of energy within him.

A sudden bolt of lightning materialized from him, shooting out randomly in the room. The spot where the lightning struck remained blackened and burned, unable to persist even further Kirin finally gave up completely exhausted.

He crumpled down on the floor, his torso facing upwards towards the ceiling, sweat falling to the wooden floorboards while his chest heaved in and out.

He stretched out his right hand upwards looking at it with determination, he had finally broken through and had become a second-rate martial artist, he clenched his fingers. 

Grand Zenin had given him one more chance at cultivation, although he had nearly died trying to achieve it. He thought he had died and got revived again by the ominous power, but something still felt wrong with him.

The more he cultivated, the more he felt the imbalance of the energy within him, it was unsettling. There was balance in all things, light and darkness, good and evil, Yin and Yang. But this was something different, he felt it in the depths of his soul, something unfamiliar that caused an imbalance.

He had spent hours trying his best to maintain harmony between the two energies, one he was familiar with, his soul essence, the other was unknown, it was something he had always felt right from childhood, but he hadn't known how to express it to others and didn't want to be called senile or making excuses for his lack of strength.

He gathered the energy from within him, it came forth from his core, reaching out by his command, he guided the energy towards his hand, completely covering his right hand with lightning, he smiled at himself, he had been successful at materializing aura, his very own elemental aura.

The problem was that every single martial warrior could do this, even worse they could train in other elements and combine them, leading to a pool of limitless potential.

But he could only train in the lightning element, in actual battle he was seriously handicapped, being restricted to only one element meant he would have to think of ways to deal with all types of attacks with just the power of lightning alone.

Even if lightning stood out as one of the hardest and most powerful elements to train in, he didn't have much of a choice.

Kirin reached into his satchel, bringing out an elixir, it was a third-rate one, but he had made it without the help of anyone, being limited by his nature, he studied all kinds of knowledge, from cultivation to battle arts, magic, formations, strategies, name it.

He popped off the cork and drank its contents, he felt the liquid spread through his body, the warmth carried within it a rejuvenating energy, slowly healing his wounds and restoring his stamina and health, his fatigue faded away gradually.

Kirin had to know, he knew that he couldn't go further without first understanding what he was, Grand Zenin had said that during the war, in the Era of the lost, men kept faithful to just one element, perfecting their skills and abilities, reaching further to greater heights.

But after the war was won, The Hex decided to unite the realms under them, meaning one could also learn an element that wasn't from his clan.

He sat up once again, slowly breathing, he released his cultivation, gently guiding the energy from his core, the energy flowed in a spherical direction, and he felt the resistance towards the base of his spine, no matter how hard he tried to push it, it didn't flow past that point.

Gritting his teeth, Kirin gathered his soul's energy and compressed it into a sphere, as little as he could, just above where he felt the resistance, the problem was that, the energy must flow in harmony, and the spherical cultivation was the basis of Harmony, he couldn't cultivate properly if he couldn't do this.

With no other straws to grasp at, he made the energy move faster, and more viscous. He couldn't attain harmony, so would he give up? Of course not, Kirin was not such a weak-willed man.

The sphere began rotating faster and faster, it was an idea of his, never was it tested, neither was it safe but he was desperate, the rotation of the energy doubled with each cycle, and he felt the taste of blood slowly fill up his mouth but he wouldn't stop. This pain was nothing compared to the cycle of Death and Rebirth he had gone through.

He had to think of something. Anything right now. He had hit a deadlock and at a very crucial time. It was probably unwise of Kirin to take such a risk without considering the repercussions, but it was either he grew past this phase or he was crippled by his core, leaving him as one of The Shamed for life.

Abandoning everything he knew, everything he had read and learned, he abandoned in that moment, he began thinking subjectively, formulating theories, assimilating his thoughts as fast as he could. He had studied more than anyone in the clan.

A sudden memory popped into his mind, he was much younger then, sitting around a certain elder as he taught the semantics of Elemental Arts to us, Kirin remembered himself asking.

***

"Is there any other basis that could replace a Harmonious sphere?" Kirin asked, the elder looked perplexed but intrigued at the same time.

"A good question but a lost one indeed. There exists a method in which the Harmonious sphere can be replaced with," he said gently to the younger ones.

The young ones looked at the elder with excitement, feeling the anticipation the elder raised a hand shushing them.

"It's a lost technique and dangerous, it requires vast amounts of energy and has unknown consequences, the study was abandoned centuries ago," the elder said, the elder weaved his energy into light for a demonstration.

He formed it into a circle, with the yin and yang illustrations embedded in it, "This is the Harmonious sphere we're all familiar with and the basis of our cultivation that has the Yin and the Yang, the positive and the negative, the regenerative and the destructive, but..." 

The elder changed the shape into what resembled two spheres, attached at a singular point, the two spheres seemed to flow into one another in a particular way, "This is called the infinity loop, there are no records of it in this realm, neither do we practice this as the potential danger could be too much dire for us" he finished. 

***

Kayden's eyes opened, emitting blue light with sparks shooting out every corner of his body, his body burned as the energy was too unstable and was about breaking his vessel, grunting with all his might, he divided the sphere slowly and gradually into two parts of itself, it was a painfully slow process, he could feel the damage being done to his body, his veins bursting from the chaotic energy.

He didn't know what he was doing or how he was going to do this, but it was either death or survival and he chose survival.

After what felt like an eternity to stabilize both spheres that he had managed to separate, he could feel the two separate spheres, they were both calm and stable, not knowing what to do, Kayden took a breather.

He didn't change his position nor did he move, he simply enjoyed the sweet existence of air filling up his lungs, he knew he wasn't done. The most crucial part was yet to begin, and he didn't know if it would work or what happen. But he had gone too far to go back.

The effects of the elixir were long gone by now, he considered taking another bottle but decided against it, as much as elixirs were good the more you took them, the less effective they became.

Feeling the two separate spheres gave him some form of pride, he had been able to achieve something no one had in hundreds of years, or at least about too, the thought of him failing, instantly killing himself didn't appeal to him, feeling very hesitant, he took a deep breath.

He felt at the spheres, they weren't Harmonious spheres, they felt different, something similar yet entirely different, indeed it was an unknown power and he was about to risk his life for it.

"Well, here goes nothing."

He guided the spheres closer to each other by moving top of the bottom sphere and the bottom of the top sphere gently together, he had learned how to carefully manage his soul essence so this didn't prove too difficult, but immediately the spheres met...

Kirin's head shot upwards in shock, he wasn't in control of his body anymore, for now. The spheres rotated into each other with speed that defied reason, it felt like he was as the smithy grinding two blades against themselves repeatedly. 

Slowly his body was lifted off from where he sat, cracks began showing on his skin, and blue energy leaked from those cracks, breaking and reconstructing his body.

Kirin felt nothing but peace and was unaware of what was happening, he felt himself delve deeper into the calmness, evolving but he was unsure how he did it.

Slowly descending, Kirin stood on his feet feeling completely different from before. He felt firmer, stronger, more attuned to his element. He clenched his fists and smiled at himself deeply.

But unknown to Kirin, a certain god gazed down from the fifth realm, a descendant of his had broken the oath, his lips drawing into a devious smile.

"Interesting.”