Congratulations, you have created a new Ki Technique

Please name your new Technique

I pondered for a moment on naming my new visual technique. It has aspects of energy, sight and microscopic vision. I pondered for a few minutes, the prompts flashing in front of me every thirty seconds. It was getting annoying. Gods, I hated naming these things. Fine! I’ll just keep it simple.

Technique Name: Microscopic Vision

Rank: Rank 1

Type: Visual

Ki cost: Variable, Max 10 ki for 400x magnification

Duration: n/a

Effect: Increase the magnification of your vision to observe structures and energy too small for the human eye to see.

If I want to see things down to the cellular level, it’s going to cost me quite a bit of Ki. Even if I was completely full and I used my Ki battery, I could only maintain this new technique for twenty-five minutes, and that’s using no Ki while crafting. Hopefully, as it increases in rank, the cost will eventually go down.

I pulled out my steel spear and activated my new technique. I carefully went over the wood structure of the ash handle, even going to its cellular structure. There were no residual forms of energy within it. So, it would be a lot easier to infuse it with Ki, since it didn’t have to fight against any pre-existing mana.

The steel head was solid, no micro fractures that I could detect, and it also didn’t have any residual energies held within. Going off of my first spear, this one should hold up to twenty points of Ki, but I never tried to infuse its very structure with Ki.

I released my technique and focused on refilling my Ki pool. Once I held all the Ki I could, I would try to infuse the structure of my weapon instead of just having it hold the Ki.

I went slowly at first. Barely trickling my Ki into the base of the shaft. My inner twelve-year-old giggled at that phrasing. I shook my head and continued with my experiment. Every so often, I activated my Microscopic Vision. The first couple of times, I didn’t see any progress. The Ki flowed around the cells but didn’t penetrate and fill them. After seeing this, I filled the spear with twenty points of Ki, the most I was willing to try for now. I didn’t need it to explode in my hands or something.

I let the spear soak in the Ki. I held the Ki in for about half an hour before I examined it again with my new technique. And got bupkis for my results. The Ki just sat there, not infusing the cells, not permanently strengthening the base materials.

It was time to be more active. Ki responds strongly to intent and mental images, so I focused my mind and will on the Ki I held in the wood. With my visual technique active, I focused on the motes of Ki entering every cell. I visualized it merging with the cellulose of the wood, becoming one with it. I imagined a giant tree, the soil and the surrounding air saturated in Ki.

The tree sucked up the Ki through its roots. I imagined it taking in the Ki through its leaves along with the carbon dioxide, and spreading throughout the tree from the top. I imagined the tree growing harder, stronger and able to hold more Ki than ever before without it creaking, groaning, or cracking from the energy it was taking in.

I opened my eyes and reactivated my technique. I could still feel the Ki within the weapon, but I didn’t have access to all of it any more. When I zoomed in my sight, I could see the wood coming alive with the energy. The cells were absorbing miniscule fractions of a full Ki point. It was working. The wood was becoming infused with Ki, becoming more like a branch cut from a Spirit tree than one of plain wood.

The process took a long time. I kept topping up the Ki in the spear as the wood slowly consumed it. Eventually, the ash stopped consuming Ki. I was mildly surprised by how little actual Ki it consumed. Only ten points of Ki went into the structure of the wood, but when I considered it, I could see why. When I opened up a meridian, twenty-five points of Ki were consumed to strengthen the system it was tied to. Using my Bone Meridian as an example, there are an average of two hundred seven bones in the human body, and that Ki saturated each bone. This was one small piece of a greater tree. Ten points of Ki should have a dramatic effect on it.

The next step was to infuse the spear head. And this is where I failed completely. Nothing I did would cause the Ki to bind with the metal. I had a feeling that since it wasn’t biological, I would have to infuse the Ki into it during the forging process, when the material was more malleable and more accepting of change. That was fine. The spear had already improved. I used Identify so see exactly how much.

Steel Spear

Quality: Exceptional

Rarity: Common

Durability: 55/55

Damage: 15

Weight: 4lbs

Traits: Piercing ignore 10 points of light or medium armor

Special Properties: Ki infused Haft- +100% base durability, +30% Ki flow, +100% material Ki capacity, +1 Binding slot

My jaw hit the floor when I saw the improvements. The item quality went up a full level, the durability almost doubled, and the special properties… just wow. The material capacity doubled, so even without having a spirit beast core to use, it would still hold more Ki than my first spear. And the real prize, one extra binding slot. Between the quality rating and the bonus, I can put four bindings into this spear.

Before I stopped for the night and got some sleep, there was one thing left I had to do. I needed to put a formation into this spear, and it had to be a good one.

Without having another Spirit Beast Core, there was no need to put in a Socket Binding. I wasn’t sure if I could insert the core later or not and didn’t want to risk it. I pulled out my book again and went over the Bindings it contained before making my final decision.

The Impact Binding wouldn’t be very effective unless I put it at the butt of the spear, but I would definitely use the Sharpness Binding to increase its damage and armor penetration, the Ki condenser so it would refill on its own, the Protection Binding would only give me half its benefit, it increases defense and durability, and since the spear isn’t armor, I won’t get any defense bonuses. This leaves me with the Projection Binding.

The projection binding is supposed to focus and concentrate techniques channeled through it, making it more stable and powerful. It should hit harder and shoot further without costing more Ki.

Eventually I could create the Ki channels and Bindings with just my Ki, but for now I placed my spear on my formations table and using a pencil, began drawing out the patterns I would carve and etch into the spear.

It took a few more hours to complete the design and form the Ki pathways. My design looked better than I thought it would. The spear looked like a Celtic artist carved it, well someone inspired by a genuine artist, anyway. The haft had a double helix wrapping around its entire length that connected to the Protection binding. Its head had a repeating pattern that looked similar to the triquetra going all along its cutting edge that connected to the Sharpness Binding. The Projection binding looked like a stylized sunrise just behind the point, but with loops instead of sharp points. The longest loop in the middle stopped just short of the point.

I was satisfied with its appearance, and now it was time to see exactly what my newly enhanced spear could do.

Ki infused Steel Spear

Quality: Exceptional

Rarity: Rare

Durability: 65/65

Damage: 24

Weight: 4lbs

Traits: Piercing ignore 13 points of light or medium armor

Special Properties: Ki infused Haft- +100% base durability, +30% Ki flow, +100% material Ki capacity, +1 Binding slot

Bindings: Sharpness- +30% damage and armor penetration

Protection: +30% durability

Ki Condenser: condense 1 Ki every 15 minutes (+50% condensing speed in current environment)

Ki Projection: +30% damage and range of projected technique and gain armor penetration quality.

Ki Pool: 40/40

Ki Abilities: Increase armor penetration 1 Ki per point ignored

Increase Durability: 1 Ki per 2 temporary durability

The base damage of twenty-four was nothing to sneeze at. With the sixteen percent bonus from my polearm skill, and my strength bonus, which seemed to be half its base value, my steel spear should deal out thirty-nine damage, more if I’m cycling my Muscle Meridian. Plus, being able to ignore thirteen points of armor or more if I use the spear’s Ki, it can tear some shit up.

The bonuses for Ki projective techniques when channeled through the spear were a nice touch, too. An extra thirty percent damage while costing no extra Ki. My twenty-point Ki bullet would go further, deal an extra twelve damage and gain some of the spear’s armor penetrating qualities. I couldn’t wait to try it out. I wondered if it would maintain the spherical shape; it had when used my finger, or if it would change. The next enemy we came across would have the pleasure of being my test subject.

The forty-point Ki pool was a lot better than my old spear, and while not as good as Magnus’s soul bound weapon, a regen of four per hour was pretty good. Ten hours would passively regenerate the spear’s pool, just under seven hours while in the dungeon with its higher-than-normal Essence density.

I had to stop for a moment and rub at my eyes. They felt gritty and itchy. I took a deep breath and realized just how tired I was. A full day of fighting, then the intense focus needed with the Formations practice. There was no way I was going to get any work done on our armor. It would have to wait for our next break. Hopefully, it wouldn’t bite us in the ass, literally and figuratively, later.

As I blinked away the slight blurring of my vision, I felt a welling of power from behind me. I turned around and saw Rowan sitting cross-legged on his mattress. I channeled Ki into my eyes and watched as a sphere of mana pooled just above his head. His eyes were closed and a look of fierce concentration on his face. As I watched, the blue sphere slowly increased in size and the color of the Mana deepened. There was a shit ton of power building up, and I grew worried when it quivered. The Mana struggled to break its bonds, and sweat beaded on Rowan’s brow.

After a few more moments, Rowan’s face relaxed, and the ball of Mana stabilized. It spun slowly over his head, looking like a smooth, brilliant blue sapphire. Rowan’s hands rose and began dancing in front of him, like he was making adjustments on a large touch screen. With a satisfied smile, he jabbed his finger forward one last time. The ball of mana streamed to a new spot in the air a few feet from his face. The outline of one of his dragonlings took form and gradually grew in definition.

It only took a few minutes, but once all that mana filled the draconic figure, there was a small pop and it fully materialized in the air before falling to the ground with a soft thump. Magnus opened his eyes and looked at Sparks with a satisfied smile. I used Identify on the Aeon.

Sparks

Lightning Dragonling Aeon

Level 9

Hp: 65/65

Stamina: 140/140

Mana: 220/220

His Aeon grew six levels. Damn, that thing should be a lot more effective now. It had been fighting as only a level three for a while now. It looked like Rowan could finally upgrade his summons. They are now at his own level, well one level higher. If I remembered right, Rowan can have one Aeon for every five points in his intelligence. I wasn’t sure where his stats were right now, but he should be able to create at least one more Aeon, if not two more.

“Grats on upgrading Sparks,” I told Rowan. “How much stronger will he be now?” I asked.

Rowan started for a moment, not realizing I was watching. “Oh, um, well, his breath weapon is three times stronger, but he can only use it once every couple minutes now. And he has a good bit more mana now too, so he can cast his couple spells more often,” he answered.

“Sweet. That should help out a lot. Are you going to upgrade Ember too?”

“Yeah, I’m planning on doing him next. I’m also trying to decide what to make for my next Aeon,” Rowan answered.

“How many can you make now?” I asked.

“With an Intelligence of twenty-two now, I can have four total. So, I can make two more. Just need to decide what to make.” Rowan said. He then looked down at Sparks, who was now cuddling in his lap, losing himself in thought.

“Well, I’m turning in. I can barely keep my eyes open. Night,” I said with a wave. I turned away and went to my sleeping area. I had to move Rukia off of my pillow. I mean really, she is so big now that it disappears beneath her completely, but she still thinks of herself as that little thirty-five-pound pup from before the System came to Earth.