63 The Truth 5 - Findings and Investigation (2/2)
*
***
Techniques:
Phantom Limb (I) - 0%
Shadowless Waltz (I)- 0%
*
Skills: Throwing (II) 39 %, Knife Mastery (II) 51%, Hunting (II) 32%
[Cooking, Farming, Hunting, Blacksmith, Glasswork, Masonry, Sewing, Calculation, Riding, Archery, Wood Carving, Animal Breeding, Herbalist, Pottery, Brewing, Dancing, Musician, Alchemy, Fishing, Penmanship, Butchering, Decipher, Spear Mastery, Ax Mastery,Wind Rush, Tracking]
Skill to learn: [YES] [NO]
***
When Stigma looked at his stats, along with reviewing the Demon's imprinted knowledge and memories, it all made sense to him and filled all his unanswered questions like why can't he learn the skills from the beast yet he can learn the deceased one.
Up until know, Stigma had not tried to use any of the energy in fear that there was no way for him to resupply them. When he tried to form the energy in the inner world, he found out that he can't form it correctly, after trying about fifty time from each element with a hundred percent, he stopped for a moment and started with other basics.
From the Demons' knowledge, the inner world would circulate all energy he had released, so he can relax with the thought of replenishing his finite reserves of elemental energy.
When the difficulty for elemental energy was discovered, he moved on to molding his Zen energy, his initial goal was to make a suit of armor made of aura. But his reserves at that time could not fully form properly and was more like a paper thin armor.
With that in mind, he took a different approach and made armor for one part of the body, in other words his hands all the way to his arm like a glove. Unlike in the real world, where he had to rest before retrying, the inner world helped him refuel quickly and restart from the beginning.
Eventually he had more or less created a technique which he named Phantom limb, the technique not only allowed him to strengthen his arms, it also allowed him to stretch it or summon it in any part of his body like an extra limb.
He once tried lifting a rock with the hand, but the result was that when he applied to little strength and the rock slipped passed his fingers, too much and the rock cracked under the pressure then got destroyed when he fully clasped it. Not only that, he had used almost all his reserves to properly form it, and it was only possible within the inner world.
But his intuition told him that he can't really on his physical speed all the time, so he made a skill that would boost his speed, even for a short time. So with his limited reserves, he focused a little of his Zen energy on his feet and propelled him in any directed he faced, leaving no shadow behind, Shadowless Waltz.
The same logic applies like the Phantom Limb, the more he uses the more distance he gains and vice versa.
Nevertheless, Stigma's experience with fighting the Demon made it very clear, even if he made those technique and fully formed, it doesn't change the fact he was merely a glass cannon[1]. And if not for the inner world, he would have only stayed in that stat for more than ten seconds when he used up his reserves.
Moreover, Stigma couldn't say that he won the fight, he was only stubborn and used the inner world to his advantage eventually leading the demon give up. If he ever fought an opponent as strong as that, he would not survive head on and resort to using cheap tricks just to escape.
If he hadn't thought about the Demon's mode having a time limit, Stigma fighting it would be for naught, but in the Demon's memories the mode didn't had a time limit and it wasn't serious in fighting him, so it only let Stigma win as a freebie.
Though the thought frustrated him, it still made him realized he lacked training and time to practice, he was also rash too realize he is far too weak to even consider the standards of strength.
'To survive in the world of the strong, one must sharpen their fangs; to survive where the enlightened are abundant, one must polish their wisdom....right father.'
Stigma or Cheng Xuan had lived in the modern world where they needed academics to make the rule, the one who used might can only influence and were few in numbers. So Stigma had to sharpen his control and polish his technique through experience and constant repetition.
”Fear not only the one who can make a thousand kicks at once, but also fear the one who had practiced a kick a thousand times. Right...”
”That's a good philosophy of strength Master...” When Stigma turned his head he saw a rusted broadsword leaning against a chair. When her master was always surrounded by people, Hilda had keep quiet for her master's safety. So her giving a comment was something she allowed herself to do, when they were both alone.
”Not really, I just followed a quote I remembered...along with personal experience...”
”In anycase Master, there were others that had lived a thousand battles so don't be reckless like that. When you hit him right below the belt, it would be bad if the little girl took the advantage to attacked you while you focused.”
”....Well, I never intended to attack him 'there'....”
”Pardon?”
”....I meant to slam my foot on his legs behind me, but he shifted his weight and my foot landed on his 'family jewels'. After using his leg as a foothold, I would appear right behind him and do the say procedure, with things not going my way I panicked and tightened the rope too far and well, you might say that was a fluke on my part.”
”They would obviously be stunned from what you said, so it's not your fault, and when you attacked the man's privates it was his fault for not being prepared for the worst outcome. Just be thankful that you met would not harm you, but don't rely so much on luck. That will never happen every often, just take your time and experience everything before you can doubt yourself.”
”I know, but I still lack so many things to worry about before a fight.”
'Now I know what gamer's feel like when they are turning pro....Haaa....so much to think about.'
He also found something interesting about the inner world, from the Demon's knowledge; anything he made or learned in the inner world will be a form of a memory or a type revelation, so he can't have a complete skill and had to remake it in the physical world, because he was considered dead in the following standards.
Stigma defeating Heavenly Beast on the other hand, was a way for him to make the caged beast submit to him and gain their natural talent of combat, since they are considered dead without an ego, they only respond through their feral instincts.
Following that, Stigma examined how a soul functions when it passes on and what are the effects when he absorbs them.
Humans souls need to be cleansed of personality for the sake of rebirth and judgement, but majorityof their memories would disappear overtime. By absorbing them, Stigma would gain memories or experience from their skills that belonged to them, slowly merging with Stigma's own memory. Unless something that correlate to their death or events is triggered, Stigma would have a random episode or recall them.
Heavenly Beast souls on the other hand, are considered kin of a powerful being, so they have powerful life force even in death so Stigma cannot absorb them unless he subdued them by force. Those in the lower Tiers would have no level intelligence and he guessed the Higher Tier are more intelligent like the wolf leader.
Therefore even if they followed the process of rebirth, Stigma absorbing them would lead to him housing them, and they would 'reside' inside his body, following their feral instinct like guarding their new territory.
Stigma learning and using technique of the deceased humans would correlate to him learning to create a skill or technique in memory, but him gaining animal like reflexes was like him learning to be the beast within his soul.
There are some more about the soul, but it doesn't seem to relate to his current situation so he'll stop for now.
”So much to look into and so little my lifespan can take, but I have nothing to lose since I have all the time in the world.”
”Arf! Arf!” Out of nowhere Kirin started to bark at him, not only that HIlda started to scold him about him.
”Master, your horrible, we are here for you, don't say something like that!”
”....You're right, I'm sorry, just that my wandering around with all that just happened today.”
”Stigma, is something wrong? Kirin started barking?” From outside the elder sister called Stigma out, when Stigma took his bath she wanted to join in but Stigma refused, he can't handle 'those' yet.
”Nothing, just put on too much soap.” Grabbing a bucket he doused himself and Kirin. Eventually he got out to bath to dry himself, while Kirin was pulled out and shacked off the water, which lead Stigma to wipe off the still wet fur.
”Careful know, we were going to go find out about our lottery chances, do you want to come with us?”
”Sure why not, I have time.” Before buying the ticket, Stigma was informed from the seller that the lottery event would start around the afternoon, when he heard some drums are beating. When he was about to get out from his bath, he heard a very tempting offer.
”We still have time so do you want to learn how to cultivate properly, it will affect your future growth. You may not know this but basic are still the same, so you interested?”
”Alright.” When Stigma got out of the bath he saw himself in the mirror, with the dirt gone his pale skin was now clean and his hair was still white with a tinge of black, along with the smell of soap he felt completely clean.
”Your new clothes are on the basket, so don't bother wearing your old ones.”
Grabbing the basket he saw a long sleeved blue robe shirt with some black pants, since he was still small, the clothing looked to much for him so he tied the ends of the sleeve to not get in the way and rolled up the edges of the pants.
”Alright, let's go Kirin. Hilda, I should introduce you properly, we can trust them so there won't be any problem.”
”Uuuu, but master.....alright!”
When Stigma got out of the bath, the rest were surprised to see he was more appealing when he was properly dressed and bathe, eventually he was showered with praises such as being handsome for his age. But when he introduced Hilda to the four, their reaction made Stigma laughed hard on the floor.
****
While Stigma's group were having their group meeting, other events were transpiring after his return from the forest.
From the inner markets a white tent was standing tall among five tents, each of the tents were guarded with different sets of guards but only one thing was clear, they all had eyes of experienced veterans who had joined the battlefield.
Inside one of the large tents four heavily armored men were standing behind a chair and desk, while a maid stood by the right side carrying jug of water. Nothing gaudy or eye catching was in the tent but simple furniture, everything within the area only emphasized one thing - efficiency.
Be it artwork, wine, servants or the writing materials, everything was meant for their uses. Clearly the owner of the tent would prefer an effective necessity over display pieces during work, even the owner would prefer wearing simple clothing during work hours. Though there was a space with extra clothing, they were left untouched for the purpose of greeting important guest later on.
The sound of a quill moving on top of paper can be heard, but none of the guards dared slack of, after all they were guarding one of the most important person in the market.
With another report done, the owner choose to relax and rest their eyes, but the sound of someone outside was reporting to the guards, thus making the nap short.
”Who's there?”
”A messenger with a letter.” Afterwards a messenger entered with two guards following behind, he then bowed and passed it to the maid. Eventually to the owners hand, after skimming through the contents the owner rolled up the scroll and looked at the messenger with a stern look.
”Is this true?” The owner knows about the rumors and incidents outside, so a search team was sent along with Cultivators to verify what they found, though most of the contents were written down, it didn't hurt to have a second opinion.
”Yes! The number of bodies equal to the number of people who had disappeared, after looking through their belongings at hand along with their clothing, about twenty or so individuals were identified as the customers who had left during the storm. We cannot verify for the rest without identification tags, but the numbers equal to about two hundred in the cave alone.”
”Are there any other places with similar finds?”
”Excluding the first one, four were found at the moment, but they all have the same clothing sold from the market. It only means someone is aiming at the market.”
”...Anything else?”
”Four of our guards were found bound, gagged, and hanged on a tree by the first discovered cave, none are dead but multiple laceration were identified on each guard especially the neck, by roughly measuring the larger wounds, the same tool was used on them like in the previous victims. A corpse was then found outside along with an opened rice mat from the identified bodies, we assume the perpetrator had returned to destroy any lingering evidence on the scene, but other than that we found a note in the victims hand; the words come 'find me fo help' was written, we suspect the one who planted this is the same person.”
'The guards that were posted are from less than a day, and why leave a note on the scene but harm the guards, it was contradicting the message.' Having remembered the order, it only narrowed down the list of suspects to be investigated.
”Find the list of people who had left until know, the ones who have repeatedly left and returned are suspects for now, along with any suspicious individuals who had caused trouble.” The maid made way to the bookshelf and grabbed a binder, in it was the updated list of individual who had left through the guards post.
It was impossible to enter around the guards without being spotted or jumping down the edges of a cliff and dying, so the only way to enter was to use the front gate were guards were posted.
Grabbing a blank scroll, the names of each person were then listed and one of the names were Stigma and Felix listed as potential suspects.
[1] Glass cannon - a term in gaming (especially online-gaming), refers to a character class that has remarkable offensive power, but has low defense.