Chapter 9: Warrior Cultivation Techniques

Aion could not wait until night to see the techniques his teacher would show him after waking up, so he ate his breakfast quickly and decided to do something time consuming. Thinking about what would be a good way to spend his time this early, Aion decided to run to his grandpa’s study and take a couple of books on arrays that he could not yet understand.

As far as arrays went he could understand any arrays at the third rank and bellow as for fourth ranked arrays they became much more difficult and their complexity raised to the extent that Aion was bewildered just looking at them.

But these where exactly the books he was going to take as a means of trying to distract himself. Ban saw Aion's excitement and impatience and thought that it was because of the spirit test that was soon to occur and couldn’t help but chuckle softly to himself.

“Aion what has you so excited? It can’t be that you figured out how to start deciphering those fourth rank arrays?” Aion stopped right before the door to the study and turned to look at his grandpa, he thought about his answer carefully before speaking.

“Teacher’s going to show me different books for elements tonight.” This was the reason Aion had to think before answering, because if he didn’t give an appropriate amount of information to his grandpa he would be asked the same questions over repeatedly and conversations could last hours before advancing to the main point.

Ban hearing this nodded in satisfaction after two years Aion had finally started to speak properly if only to him.

“Hm it would be around the time to show you those wouldn’t it, then have you decided on whether you want to be a warrior or mage?” Aion resolutely nodded his head while answering.

“Un, warrior.” Ban already knew aion’s decision, it wasn’t something he crept a secret and he had said it multiple times, but Ban still sighed And thought to himself.

“Seven children, twelve grand children and only two have been mages while only one of those is a necromancer who followed in my footsteps.” Shaking his head to get rid of those thoughts he once again looked at Aion.

“Aion listen carefully your teacher will most likely has an amazing warrior cultivation book but I also have some, so fist take a look at the ones I give you but never show or speak of them to anyone, similarly the ones your teacher shows you, you are not allowed to give to anyone without his permission. Understood?”

“Un.” Aion answered with a strong nod of his head, as these cultivation books were the guarded secrets of any warrior, even late clans would make a full attempt to hunt them down for the one Ban was giving Aion. With a wave of his hand Ban took out two large books and began to explain.

“These are two books which contain very profound arts, what makes these books special is that they contain forms and breathing techniques that will help you advance all the way to the master stage’s primary rank, one is of the water element and the other is of the wind element. If you chose to use these, reaching the primary rank of the master stage is possible, with some hard work any higher will have to come from your understanding of elemental energy and natural law.”

When he was finished speaking he handed the two large books to Aion and couldn’t help but smile seeing the excitement in his eyes, he was also extremely confident in these cultivation books as he didn’t think that David would have more than one equal to these or possible didn’t have any, after all these were books he took from two clan leaders at the intermediate rank of the master stage who had tried to kill him for no particular reason.

As Aion looked at these two books he read the covers one was Falling Stream’s Sword and the other was Raging Wind’s Breath. Before Aion could run off to his room to begin studying these books Ban spoke once more.

“Read these carefully but don't make any decisions until after you have seen what your teacher has to offer, also have you made your choice on what kind of warrior you want to be?” Aion thought about it but had still not made his choice between being a berserker and assassin.

“No, but I will chose berserker or assassin.” This was not the first time Ban had herd this but nonetheless he would always be amazed at how his grandson chose this himself, after all assassin were generally raised from orphans and had no choice but to kill to live while berserkers were what people called savages.

But what Ban didn’t know was that as time went on and Aion heard more stories about valiant Knights and the more he heard about them the more he thought of them as weak because he would hear that they would charge into battle with their much more powerful mount, indestructible armor, or sword that on its own would cleave a mountain in two, but he never heard that the Knights themselves could fight off powerful enemies without these things.

“I won’t stop you if that's what you want but you will have to choose an element that fits for what combat style you'll use. Now go on to your room and study these books.” Hearing this Aion ran towards his room while holding the books and thanked his grandpa before entering his room and closing the door.

Once inside the first book he opened up was Falling Steam’s Sword and began reading, the first two pages were simply the creator of the techniques and forms writing about his life and how he came to creat the warrior cultivation technique, following that the methods for the primary rank and intermediate rank of the human stage were fairly simple just have elemental energy flow into your pores and expel the bodies impurities while forming your core in order to have a strong but flexible body.

It also continued with some sword forms that would advance and become progressively more difficult throughout the ranks and stages that would help naturally gather water elemental energy and martial skills for each rank and stage.

Raging Wind’s Breath was similar but instead of sword forms it focused on breathing techniques and its main weapon was a long staff. It had taken him four hours to completely go through the two books but had not understood most of their content as most of the book would be understood as one progressed in the cultivation of these techniques.

But he decided that these where not meant for him as the Falling Stream’s Sword relied heavily on the use of a sword and while Raging Wind’s Breath didn’t solely rely on the use of the long staff not having an appropriate staff would drastically reduce the effectiveness of more every technique to about seventy percent of the martial technique’s full potential.

To pass the time Aion decided to follow the sword forms and memorize them not because he intended to practice this warrior cultivation method but because it included very similar techniques and concepts to what his teacher told him about parrying and diverting the force of attacks that would normally be to much to take head on, but that also ended rather quickly as he tired fast, this was after all not inside his soul where he would not feel fatigue.

Once he had tired himself out he decided to eat and replenish his strength, return the books to his grandpa, and finish the day by studying fourth rank arrays. Ban knew Aion was greatly excited for tonight as he looked at his sitting seemingly having a staring contest with a fourth ranked fire storm array and he also knew that Aion most likely hadn’t even figured out what element the array belonged to.

When Aion had returned the books to him Ban knew that neither one grabbed Aion's attention enough to distract him for long but he did notice that Aion had begun to practice Falling Stream Sword’s sword forms.

The only thing he hoped for now was that the young knight David had a good warrior cultivation book of a different element than what he had given Aion, little did he know that David didn’t have one but three warrior cultivation books and one that while questionable it held great potential.

That night Aion went to bed extremely early and was fast asleep at dusk, inside his soul he saw his teacher sitting not far from Alexander and ran up to him.

“Teacher grandpa’s books.” When he said this the images of his grandpa handing him the two books and telling him not to show the content to anyone was rapidly played for his teacher.

“Your grandpa has a point, I will show you the ones I have then compare them and chose the one you feel is best. Well this is all on the premise that you don't have an elemental affinity.” Aion stopped and silently thought about what his teacher said as this was the first time he thought about it, if he had an elemental affinity then the choice would be made for him. Seeing his pupil worry David began to speak once more.

“You shouldn’t have to worry to much about that, you can sense all the elements after all. And while that gray energy is particular to you, you have said that moving the other elements is possible.” Hearing this Aion was relived as he would most likely be the one to chose the path he took.

“I'll give you the first, second, and fourth book in the collection and the third one last as it’s somewhat strange and dangerous but will work in case you don't manifest a spirit.”

“Un”

“Listen kid, I found these books while roaming the underground sewers of the holy sword kingdom and stumbled upon a tomb, who’s I don’t know, But it had two books written by him and two that came from somewhere else, I've confirmed the strength of these first hand by using one so think carefully about your choice. ” As he said this David began to concentrate and focused on his hand as a book slowly appeared, when the book was fully formed he threw it towards Aion.

“Read it silently as I have to concentrate in order to maintain the book. This first one is a bit dark but if practiced to a high level it should be extremely powerful” Aion nodded and sat down looking at the cover this one was Bloody Hyena’s Methods.

The bloody hyena was a seventh ranked elemental beast who would use its mastery over the water element to control its opponents blood and eat them alive while keeping its pray breathing for as long as possible, this warrior cultivation method was similar in that the creator of the technique was unlucky enough to be attacked by a bloody hyena.

But having survived the attack he made similar techniques and through understanding the various liquids in living creatures it was possible to raise to the primary rank or the master stage.

As soon as he finished reading this Aion completely dismissed it thinking it pointless to keep your enemies alive for longer giving them a chance to retaliate like a wounded beast, instead of finishing it quickly.

Reading the book took about thirty minutes as Aion had just skimmed it, so he walked to his teacher and received the second book after he told his teacher that that one wasn’t for him.

The second book was Lightning Tyrant’s body this one was greatly appealing to Aion as it focused on strengthening the body with the Lightning element and attacking with extreme speed and precision using condensed lightning weapons. He greatly considered this one and had all but made his choice as this would make him a deadly assassin, but his teacher had four books and Aion wanted to see what else his teacher had so he walked towards his teacher and told him that he liked this one.

“Okay then the next one is the fourth book in the collection and the one I personally used it is called Gaia’s Embrace and is of the earth element, here.” As he said this he handed Aion the book he was most familiar with so it took less effort to materialize it, Aion receiving the book went back to his spot and sat down once more to read.

After two hours of reading the book carefully Aion had understood why his teacher chose this among the other warrior cultivation methods. It simply didn’t rely on anything as long as the earth was near your feet one could make extremely powerful armor, a golem mount, and weapons, this was the perfect way to always have all the equipment necessary for a knight while not relying on luck to find a formidable mount, armor, or weapon like all the Knights in the stories.

But Aion had no intention of becoming a knight because while he respected his teacher who didn’t act like the ones in stories he had a bad impression of Knights deeply rooted into him from his earlier misunderstandings.

Finally he told his teacher that Lightning Tyrant’s Body was still his preferred choice before receiving the fourth book along with a stern warning not to use it unless he was one hundred percent sure he did not manifest a spirit. The book was much thinner than the others and was titled Soul Rune.