《Atonement of an Immortal》Chapter 7: Training - 2
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In the past two years, while Michael grew up in all areas including both his body and soul cultivation and martial arts, his greatest gains were in soul arts. Mubal Khafka after seeing his talent decided to accept him as his legacy disciple. In Aterna, the concept of legacy disciple was the greatest relationship between a teacher and student. A legacy disciple was someone you taught all your techniques to without withholding anything in hopes that the student would carry your legacy after your death. Mubal was already a hundred and eighty. He was an early level saint in body cultivation. Thus, he could live for around 50 more years at most. Then, his lifespan would come to an end and his vital force would dry off. As soul cultivation geniuses were extremely rare in the kingdom, he decided to teach Michael everything he knew of soul arts.
On the day Mubal accepted Michael, he had shared with him the results of his hundred and eighty years of study.
Mubal : Michael, you have divine talent in learning the way of the soul. Usually people think that soul arts and cultivation is useful for battle as you can directly harm the opponent's soul. While that is also true to an extent, it is not very practical. After all, the soul is present inside the body. So the power of your attack is already offset a lot by the power of your opponent's body. Also, all the powerhouses that you can find these days at least learn how to guard their souls form an attack. Your soul force is comparable to the peak stage viscous soul realm. But if you want to defeat a saint in battle, you would not be able to. As long as the person focuses on defence, you will not be able to ovepower him unless you hold massive advantage in soul strength. Also, when you meet powerhouses of other races, they might even have soul-guards : artefacts with the sole purpose of guarding the soul. Therefore most top experts do not value soul cultivation as much. You might be able to crush any saint at my level, but a perfect realm expert will not be possible. Even a saint with soul-guard would be a terrifying opponent. Therefore soul cultivators also cultivate their bodies. I think you already know all this.
Michael : Yes master. I have been learning martial arts as well with full diligence. If I get in a situation where soul arts do not work, I would rely on my divine strength and martial arts.
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Mubal : Child, I would not ask you to only focus on the soul because that is not the path of an expert. But, today I must correct your misconceptions. While almost all people in the world think that soul arts are limited, I will teach you the advanced applications of soul-arts. You should mark my words that my legacy in soul arts is not of a lesser level as compared to the light tower and might even be on a higher level. Let me first teach you the first of all advanced soul-arts. This is known as sight. You have to rotate your soul energy rapidly in a whirlpool and send out wisps of soul energy circularly outside your body. Keep in mind to keep the wisps extremely thin. The thinner the better. But there is a catch, you must maintain your control on the energy even as it is out of your body! Then using this method, you would be able to see all objects your soul energy interacts with. This is the first advanced art known as sight. I shall show it to you once. Then you will have to practise it by yourself. You are only allowed to ask me if you have exhausted all your options.
As soon as Mubal's words ended, a thin layer of soul energy spread around in the training room. Initially, Michael could feel the distinct presence of energy. But, gradually the presence became thinner and thinner till it vanished entirely. Michael knew that the energy was not gone, it was just too thin for his perception. This was like opening a whole new world for Michael. Even in his past life, he had never seen an art like that. Besides, looking at the density of energy, as long as one was proficient in using this art, the energy required would also not be much and one would be able to see very very large distances. This was really incredible. Micael observed the entire process with extreme attention. Then, he left Mubal to practise on his own. Even with all his previous talent and perfect persona blessing, he had a very hard time mastering the art. It took him an entire month of practice to maintain soul energy outside his body. Also, thinning the energy made not losing contact with it even more difficult. It took him three months of training to take his sight to acceptable levels. Gradually, he also learned to do it without his blessing. All in all, it took him four months just to learn the first technique!
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Mubal : Very good! At this level, as long as you don't run into a soul master at the perfect soul realm, you should be fine. Very well, I will teach you now, my second legacy technique known as observation. You already know that soul energy can pass through solid objects though it suffers a bit of obstruction and decreases in might. Otherwise it would have been impossible to attack the soul through the body. So here is what you do. You make your energy go inside the body of your opponent but do not touch his/her soul. Then, with sight, all their internal movements are known to know like that. Your opponent would not be able to hide any secrets from you! But, you must not let them discover your energy. So keeping the energy thin is the key. If it is sufficiently thin, even perfect realm experts would not find the trace of your actions. From now on, you will practise this on me and the day you get my approval, I will teach you my next technique.
This was another cheat technique that was extremely practical. The more time Michael spent with Mubal, the more he understood how terrifying this old man was! Mubal's legacy techniques were not combat-techniques that would use soul force in different ways of combat. These were all practical techniques that could be used in the real world even without combat. In truth, Michael had already mastered several soul based combat-techniques in his previous life and with his perfect persona blessing, he could hold his own against anyone in soul combat at the same level. What Mubal was teaching Michael was something he needed to learn as well. After all, experts would have to go to adventures to hone their powers. Outside the confines of the kingdom, Michael was too weak to properly protect himself. Then, these skills would be lifesavers. As such, he again set out on learning observation. This was even more difficult than sight as one had to make the energy enter another's body without the other person noticing. This was easier said than done. Michael took a full seven months to get Mubal's approval. Then, Mubal taught him the third technique: prediction.
As the name suggested, it was based on predicting the events through sight and observation. To use the sense from your soul to process and predict things before they happened with the slightest of a clue. The applications of such a technique were tremendous. In a battle, you would be able to predict the moves of your opponent. You would be able to do all this even in the dark. There was no way you would fall for ambushes or sneak attacks! This truly was a practical technique even an immortal expert would find helpful. Never had Michael expected Mubal's legacy to be this formidable. Michael took another 5 months to gain Mubal's approval. Then Mubal said:
Mubal : You have learned the technique. All that remains is to polish it. Most importanly, you have to keep it running at all times. After all, what use is a detection technique if it is activated after the ambush? So, you will practice to keep this art activated at all times, even in your sleep! Then you would have mastered the creation I am most proud of : All Seeing Eyes!
Michael truly thought that it was a perfect name to describe the technique. Thus, he started to keep the technique activated at all times. In the next few months, all-seeing eyes was no longer a technique but something of a habit. In fact, he could hardly believe he ever did not have it. It was as if it was meant to be this way.
Mubal, on the other hand, was also shocked at Michael's progress. The All Seeing Eyes may sound easy to execute but it required extremely precise and fine control on one's soul energy. It was a technique that could be ranked to be one of the hardest to learn among all soul techniques in Aterna! For Michael to learn the technique in little more than a year was the proof of his heaven-defying talent. Mubal was truly happy to have found someone who could finally inherit his most precious technique.
By the time Michael had fully learnt this technique, his time before the entrance test was also almost over. He also learned several other ways to use soul energy from Mubal. Mostly, in terms of engineering with energy crystals among other things. While Mubal did not teach Michael any combat-techniques, Michael knew that All Seeing Eyes was much better than any combat-technique could possibly be. Thus, his two years under Mubal's tutelage came to an end and he went to the capital of the kingdom with Mubal and Collins to go to the tower from there. Even many years later when Michael became an expert respected and revered across multiple planes, he would fondly remember his first master who taught him such a powerful ability.
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