Savage Divinity

Sitting in the void which is my Natal Palace, I shut out the world at large and reflect on my training progress. Martial Warriors are kind of a big deal in the Empire, especially considering the admission process is so straightforward. All you need to do is close your eyes, reach for Balance, and draw the first wisps of Heavenly Energy into your body. Follow these three easy steps to naturally form your Core and officially join the ranks of other Martial Warriors in training. Although it doesn’t sound difficult, 99% of the population never make it this far, a tangible barrier which separates plebeians from high society.

It’s kind of a bum deal for ordinary peasants, the backbone of society who are never properly appreciated by their superhuman overlords. Without them, Martial Warriors would starve in the streets since they require two to five times more food than a normal commoner. In some ways it’s a good thing everyone can’t become Martial Warriors, but I’m not convinced economic viability is the reason most people fail to form a Core.

I’ll never forget when I first became a Martial Warrior. Six months into training, I found Balance for the first time while sitting on a cliff overlooking the village which took me in. It was as simple as closing my eyes and breathing, something I’d done countless times before yet never truly succeeded in. This world was a complete nightmare when I first arrived, but Baatar and Sarnai, Alsantset and Charok, Taduk and Mei Lin, they all took me in, gave me a place to call home, and filled it with people to call family. They showed me I belonged in the village, that I was safe and more importantly, I was loved.

In comparison, Tali and Tate found Balance at the tender age of six, a mere four months into training, which is part of the reason I feel ashamed whenever someone gushes about how talented or gifted I am. All I do is pick up new things quickly, there's nothing amazing about it. Still takes me forever to master them.

Finding Balance was like discovering someone loved me, only this ‘someone’ is the world. The hell-hole of a planet opened its metaphorical arms and welcomed me with a loving embrace, which brings up a few conflicting emotions. Either way, I had a Core. It wasn’t a foreign object lodged inside me but a natural part of my body like any organ or muscle. I even developed a sixth sense which allowed me to perceive it, and though I lack metrics to measure it by, I always know whether my Core is empty or full the same way I know whether I’m hungry or tired. When I meditate, it’s like sitting in the cool shade on a warm summer day as the Heavenly Energy rushes into my Core, making me feel safe and loved. I became a part of something bigger than myself, more in tune with nature around me as my mind processed a myriad of details I’d never noticed before. I could see farther, hear better, feel, smell, and taste more, all because I’d taken the first step on my Martial Path and joined the 1%.

Whoopdy-do.

While forming a Core is a fundamental first step to becoming a Martial Warrior, you might as well celebrate learning how to breathe because that’s essentially all it is. It’s not air you’re breathing, but Heavenly Energy, passively converting it into Chi for your use. Sure, your prospects improve significantly upon forming your Core, allowing you to find work as a hunter, guard, mercenary or soldier, but a peaceful life is forever denied to you. A Martial Warrior treads along the Martial Path on a journey to the peak of the Martial Way.

Calling it the Martial Path is something of a misnomer. A path implies a trail or track laid down for others to follow. Whether it be well-worn dirt walkway in a dense forests or a paved avenue through the heart of the City, a path facilitates the movement of traffic and make things easier for those who follow it.

The Martial Path does none of those things.

They call it a path because it's the route you take to strength, one you forge through overcoming adversity and hardships. Before you is a mountain of infinite height and your life’s purpose is to scale it by carving one step at a time out of its adamantine surface. Advice helps but only to a certain extent, because no two people walk the same Path using the same tools. Every person is born unique with differing aptitudes and capabilities, which you use to shape your Path. For example, Baatar’s Martial Path suits Baledagh’s personality well, a hyper-aggressive, overbearing approach to combat, reliant on instinct and reaction. Thing is, Baledagh can’t do what Baatar does because even though they’re similar in personality, they’re not the same person. They have different thought processes and instincts and will come to different conclusions. While certain things can be taught, it’s always better to find what works for you instead of following someone else’s Path.

The Empire does things differently with many families or factions adopting a particular style, like BoShui and his uncle BoHai. As much as I’d like a rigid guideline to follow, Baatar and Akanai’s ‘free-form’ teaching style seems to work pretty well for the People, so I’m giving it my best shot.

As usual, things aren’t going great.

Inside my Natal Palace, it’s like I have a seventh sense which allows me to visualize the flow of Chi in addition to sensing it. It’s an incredible diagnostic and testing tool, but the problem is everything I learn leads to more questions, which gets confusing after a while. I’ve been working on defining the rules and properties of Heavenly Energy, and by extension, Chi. Assuming Heavenly Energy is a natural phenomenon and not something esoteric like an all-powerful entity lending us power, then it stands to reason Heavenly Energy follows a set of rules and behaviours, like how water flows downhill or wind blows from high pressure to low pressure. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to properly define what those rules are.

Complexity of the task has no bearing on the difficulty of Chi use. Take Honing for example, the first real skill I learned. I want to cut, I visualize the cut, and Peace shears through metal like butter. Simple, easy, effective, except it’s none of those things. When I Hone, my Chi flows around the blade like a chainsaw, but Baatar describes Honing differently. His Chi solidifies on his sword and forms an edge so thin you can hear it cut the air instead of part it. There’s no moving chain for him, which means we’re doing two different things to achieve the same results and calling it Honing. Since we’re both capable of replicating the other’s methods, this tells me that Chi is highly dependant on visual imagery. That doesn’t mean I can do anything I imagine, but if I want to succeed, knowing what to visualize is important.

Except it isn’t.

Case in point, Reinforcement. It’s not a passive strength increase like I initially believed, but an active technique which you sustain indefinitely. The outcome is the same but in practice, much more difficult. Instead of flipping a switch for extra strength and forgetting about it, it’s more like keeping a basketball spinning on top of your head at all times, assuming the basketball gave you superhuman strength while spinning. Difficult, but you get used to it after a while and the results are worth it. When I Reinforce my body, Chi flows to all my muscles and organs to support them. I can punch harder, jump higher, and run faster because Chi is augmenting my body’s basic abilities. The augmentation is multiplicative, so the stronger your body naturally is, the more benefit you get from Reinforcement. This doesn’t necessarily mean bigger is always better, but a 700 kg punch Reinforced at 1.5 times effectiveness is equal to a 1-ton punch Reinforced at 1.05 effectiveness. Unless you feel like wasting all your focus and Chi on Reinforcement, then it’s best to hit the gym.

Point is, sustaining the skill aside, Reinforcement is one of the easiest skills to learn despite being an exceedingly complex manipulation of Chi. The human body is an intricate machine with millions upon millions of individual parts all working in concert to keep you alive. To breathe in, your diaphragm contracts and abdominal muscles stretch, pulling your rib cage upwards and giving room for your lungs to expand. Guided by a muscle in your throat which keeps you from inhaling food or filling your stomach with gas, air rushes in through your nose or mouth and into your lungs, where your blood picks up this precious cargo for delivery. Then, your heart sends the nourishing blood through a network of arteries and capillaries spanning across every millimetre of your body, distributing the life-giving air to where it’s needed and picking up waste products. Moving through a second network of veins, your blood returns to the lungs and dumps the waste to be exhaled before picking up a new load of precious air.

All that just to do something as basic as breathing, which you can augment with Chi by concentrating really, really hard. Even moving my arm up and down requires a multitude of muscles to work in a coordinated, push-pull effort, and Chi somehow magically knows exactly what to do when Reinforcing. It’s like wearing an invisible, intangible suit made of Chi which sinks into your body and augments everything it does. Reinforcement might be easy to learn, but the process of Reinforcement is anything but simple. I’d wager Ral knows next to nothing about how his body works but he’s incredibly adept at Reinforcement, if nothing else, which effectively disproves my theory of visualization being important to Chi manipulation.

My current theory is that Chi performs based on intention. I want to cut, my Chi helps me cut. I want to be stronger, my Chi makes my body stronger. I want to run up a steep slope, my Chi lightens my body and helps me up. The problem is, I also want to soar in the skies like a bird and shit fire and lightning on my enemies, but that’s not happening, which means there are limits to what Chi can do, like the inability to graft or create bear arms for myself.

Except again, not true.

Ancestral Beasts totally rework everything about them, going from rabbit, rat, bear or whatnot, to animal-eared humanoid. Truth be told, I kind of want to cut open an Ancestral Beast or half-beast’s head to see how their animal ears work. Realistically, they shouldn’t since they’d have to burrow through their brains to connect to the ear canals, or make room for a second set of ear drums. Lin’s ears twitch in response to sound even when she covers her human ones, which is mind-boggling. Not only that but Mila’s tail flicks around when she’s nervous or lying, Baatar’s ears seems permanently pressed against his head with Sarnai in a coma, and the crown of Tate’s skull is thicker and sturdier than normal in order to support the curling horns on either side of head.

Tali’s horns aren’t as big or curly, but her forehead is also a little broader than normal, which makes her all the cuter.

Either way, we all know Heavenly Energy allows for some pretty insane modifications which Chi cannot. Except it probably can, and we just haven't figured out how. The biggest wrinkle in the ‘no-bear arms’ philosophy is Sanshu’s resident psycho cannibal Gen. Fire-throwing aside, what’s the deal with his hands? Somehow, Gen transmuted his regular, human hands into metallic, shape-shifting sword hands which should be impossible, but isn't. Conventional wisdom says this means he’s manipulating pure Heavenly Energy (or its demonic counterpart), but Gen went from common hunter to elite, flame-flinging, soldier killing, Demon-controlling, sword-hand having Defiled in a matter of weeks, if not days. There’s no way he became an ‘Ancestral Human’ so quickly, which means there must be a way to replicate his success as a mere mortal. I’m not saying I want metallic, shape-shifting hands or even permanent bear hands. For one thing, they’d make it a lot harder to do... certain activities, but I’m curious how Gen managed a feat which was only previously accomplished by Ancestral Beasts, and only after thousands of years of practice.

My best guess? He didn’t know it was impossible, so it worked.

Maybe that’s why everyone regrows teeth, even commoners who can’t control Chi. They’re born toothless, grow a few baby teeth, lose them all, and then their body naturally replaces those baby teeth with permanent adult teeth. Then, when someone loses another, supposedly permanent tooth, they don’t realize it’s not supposed to grow back so the Heavenly Energy obliges and out pops a new tooth. It’s a shaky theory at best and of little to no use at all if true. How am I supposed to will myself to disbelieve a fundamental truth like man’s inability to fly?

Regardless of all my questions, my Chi skills have improved these past few months, though I’m nowhere closer to using Chi externally. Mila never got my Sending back in Sanshu and Deflection isn’t an external use of Chi. It’s using Chi internally to displace objects outside my body, an explanation which left me staring like a deer in the headlights. Worse, in the process of learning more about my skills, I’ve also learned about their limits which is never fun.

I always believed there was more to the world, a veil behind which all the wonderfully fancy Chi manipulations and uses were hiding. I mean, there are skills which I’ve yet to understand much less try, but the majority I’ve heard about are fairly... bland. Most Chi skills are almost mundane in nature, things like Sending, Speaking, Watching, or Listening. Almost anything a human can do, Chi can help you do better, which while useful, doesn’t hold my interest. Not to say top experts can’t do awesome things like run across water or create shockwaves with a clap, but they don’t because it’s ‘inefficient’.

So disappointing. Where’s the romance?

I see where they’re coming from though. When we’re working in tandem, I can Reinforce Baledagh until he hits like a truck, which is pretty effective at killing things. Admittedly, there’s a limit to what our body can endure, but even keeping well within them is sufficient to turn us into a killing machine.

At my upper limits of Reinforcement, punching air is enough to tear the ligaments in my arms and pop my elbow from its socket. Physical repercussions aside, putting so much into Reinforcement requires a minute long ramp-up time during which I need to concentrate wholly on the task, meaning I’m useless for anything else in the interim. It doesn’t last long either, blowing my load of Chi in a few heartbeats which leaves me ashamed and my Core empty and flaccid.

The trick to Reinforcement is to keep it on all the time at a setting you can sustain indefinitely. This way, not only does the skill become second nature, it lets you get used to the extra strength. It makes sense, babies and teenagers are clumsy because they’re adapting to their rapidly changing bodies, so it stands to reason a warrior wouldn’t want to deal with a sudden change in strength mid-fight.

Realizing I haven’t blinked in what feels like hours, I bring the world back into focus around me. Rubbing my temples eases my discomfort despite not having an actual physical body, my mind creating the illusion of relief brought about by my actions. With a long sigh, I gaze around at the empty void, where Blobby floats about like the tiny drop of water he is.

Yes, I’ve decided the amorphous blob of water is a he. There’s no way I’m comfortable with Blobby being female even if he was birthed from the tear ducts of an otherworldly goddess, which I’m still not 100% convinced of. I’ve also decided he shouldn’t pretend to be bigger than he is, swirling all around me and Baledagh while we’re inside our Natal Palace. He’s a droplet, so he should act appropriately.

Summoning the droplet to my palm, I watch Blobby... be water. he doesn’t do much of anything these days, sluggishly drifting about day and night with the room I crafted for Baledagh embedded within. My little brother likes the watery surroundings, says it makes him feel warm and safe, so I let him be. I could fancy up my surroundings, but I find the complete and utter lack of distractions necessary to train in, since I have the attention span of a six-year-old hopped up on sugar and cocaine. Like now, I should be practising but instead I’m reviewing all my failures because I’m a closeted masochist.

Well... considering my training regimen, maybe not so closeted. I, Falling Rain, am openly masochistic. I mean, Mila broke my hand in our first passionate encounter and I can’t stop smiling about it. I love how flustered and apologetic she got afterwards, gently and diligently helping me wash and splint my injured hand. In retrospect, she was probably trying to get rid of the smell so Lin wouldn’t realize what we were up to, but I digress.

Pulling back from my distraction, I refocus on Blobby. Maybe it’s the lack of food, but after serving as inspiration for my Beyblade Aura, Blobby hasn’t responded to any of my attempts to plead, cajole, or blackmail him into paying more rent. There’s nothing I can do. Tainted are hard to come by, which means either they were more prevalent in Sanshu than normal or the Spectres have all upped and left, presumably with the army of Defiled who disappeared from our doorsteps. Maybe they figured it’d be easier to take the long way around to the Western Province, but nothing in my experience tells me Defiled would ever retreat from a fight. I’m expecting the war to resume any day now that winter is coming to an end, with spring mere weeks away. Blobby is my best chance for a massive leap in strength, a requirement if I want to have a bigger impact in the war.

Fighting Defiled is the least I can do for these people who took me in and gave me a family. I’d rather contribute in other ways, but ever since those first few days after I returned, Sarnai has shown no signs of improvement. If anything, her body’s health is deteriorating as expected from a long period of inactivity, the lack of Tainted or Demons really putting a damper on my Heavenly Energy collection efforts. The cleverest housewife can't cook a meal without rice and the greatest healer can’t bring the dead back to life. Maybe Taduk was right, maybe Sarnai already passed away and we’ve been caring for a living corpse these past months. Even Baatar can’t remain hopeful for this long and it’s killing me to see him in so much pain.

I wanted to be a hero and accomplish the impossible, but I failed.

Story of my life.

The rest of my practice goes by without significant accomplishments or insights. Unable to bear the mental strain from the complete detachment from my physical body, I break my self-imposed seclusion and reconnect with Baledagh. “Hey little brother,” I say with a mental smile. “How was tea time with Lin and the twins?”

“Please stop sending me on these dates Brother,” he answers, not the least bit grateful. “I find them exceedingly uncomfortable. Also, we ran into a problem.”

“Oh lighten up, they’re not dates. I explicitly told Lin she’s not allowed to be clingy in public or in front of the twins and you had both. It’s an afternoon snack in a tea house, not a sunset stroll on the beach.” I figured seeing the adorable twins eat to their heart's content would be good for Baledagh, and if not, at least he could try some delicious desserts. They have this almond jelly that is to die for which I cannot for the life of me figure out how to duplicate. Frowning as his words sink in, I ask, “Wait, what problem? It’s a public tea-house, what sort of problem did you run into?” Please don’t tell me he started another feud...

“The problem came after. You know the delivery of slaves you were expecting?”

“Yea, from Yazhu. I figured you could check if there were any Tainted and sign off on the shipment. What happened?” Yazhu came highly recommended by Rustram’s dad and seemed like a decent enough person for a slaver.

“The guys who delivered it tried to kill us. Not Yazhu, unless that’s the guy I stabbed in the face. Two assassins, both dead. I tried to take them prisoner but they weren’t having any of it. Anyways, I’m just waiting for the guards now. Oh, and what happened with our hand Brother? It would’ve been much easier to fight with my right hand.”

This time, massaging my temples does nothing to ease my suffering.

Only Baledagh can turn an afternoon tea-house trip into a double homicide.

Chapter Meme