Asriel

I walk through the village from our little house through the paths, up the lanes of houses each surrounded by manicured ground used for sparing and practising forms, it has a nice ambience to it, this village. The nightingales are singing as are a few other night birds and bats flapping around. The sound of a flute can be heard echoing in the night from somewhere.

It must be the 88th hour but people are about doing their things though sound and energy are always muted at these hours of the night.

The lute player seems to be trying and failing to find a rhythm that matches the natural sounds of the mountain night though his or her failure is not unpleasant to listen to. At least people here mind their own business at night as opposed to all the greetings and gossip throughout the day. I find it tedious having to greet every person I pass during the day but I guess when everyone knows each other it becomes inevitable.

The walkways are paved with bleached stones that are then painstakingly arranged in a decorative pattern yet one that is practically minimising the need to walk on the beautifully arranged grass field, flower beds and streams. Most of the trees are groomed and pruned but some are allowed to grow wild enhancing the beauty of the wilderness, I really like the ambience of this village. I need to get another sketchbook made to capture more of the life here, I haven't spent so much time in one place in years.

It's nice but I'm starting to itch for the road.

The entire village is a work of art, all the mountain villages I've seen are works of art. These people have been here for close to two thousand years and they don't rush except in battle.

The entire Hito population is full of perfectionists that painstakingly try to perfect every pursuit they choose to follow. It's as if they have all the time in the world. This is the type of society I could attribute to immortal beings but all the people here are as mortal as human comes, but close to 70% of them have an expectation of Awakening because of their lifestyle if not their training and in that way I guess they do have all the time in the world to perfect their various pursuits.

I greet the people I see greet me with a succinct finger signal. And the children, even in Tiba I have never seen such serious children but I eventually reach the dojo with a sigh not sure what to expect.

I've never dealt with vampires before. The most dangerous humanoid creatures I've ever dealt with are the mermen. Mermen are bad enough, vicious creatures that have been preying on humans for centuries and no one even knows why anymore. No one members where all their hatred stems from but no human sailor is safe on the open ocean if mermen are around.

But everyone knows that if you see one and you’re in the water you get out fast, or you're dead. The Undine I spoke to during my crossing claim there are neutral mermen deep in the Panthalassa Ocean, I had a nice chat with them and got to know a little of their ways.

If I had a water talent I'd seriously consider checking that out, capture a mermen society on canvas.

I walk through the gate doors and into the courtyard where all my fellow disciplines are seating on mats as the vampire speaks. I take the time to study him and discover a glaring weakness in my charkra based examine.

It doesn't seem to work on vampires and I can't tell anything about any of them magically. I notice there are samurai here from other villages, some as old as 80 years most unAwakened.

Few Awakened but not a single soul-samurai, some warriors as young as 20 years of age, the youngest looks 17. There are both men and women in abundance in the group, I've known matriarchal and patriarchal societies but the Hito is not strickly either-or. Usually, there is a historical reason that causes the shift from one side or the other but here it all seems balanced warrior wise, by my estimate the heads of families are primarily men even if the warriors are evenly split between the genders.

That's something I like about this continent. Most societies here show very little if any social distinction between men and women at all from what I've seen. Even the martial society of the Barbarian Tribes seem to have some women as head of the families, some women even have more than one husband so polygamy can go both ways, not something I've ever seen before on Pangaea.

I walk to the back and grab myself a mat to sit and listen. Studying the vampires with my eyes and spatial-awareness.

I assume the one currently speaking is Khan Watanabi, big brought strangely coloured being. They all look intimidating all towering over the average Hito with the shortest at about 190cm each. So about as tall as Sachihiro, they have long silky manes of hair tied in braid that go down their backs. Khan has raven black hair while another has white hairstyles in a bun, completely bleached white like bone.

Their skin is different tones of light blue. Nothing unappealing or vastly different from humans, in fact, they look quite attractive and surreal like some creature you would dream about instead of actually meeting. I wonder why they are blue though.

"The soul doesn't always heal into the same form it was before the forging so you should be very careful. Any change to the soul has a direct effect on the personality and sometimes the physical appearance of the person and their descendants, which is why soul curses are so taboo even in Daarkan.

"But the soul heals. If you are alive long enough your soul will eventually heal from any injury. It might not heal the same but it will be just as powerful as before if not more so," the attractive alien being says to a captivated audience.

My heart rate is strong with excitement even. Finally we get to the topic of souls not just swords, spears and staffs.

This is why we have been waiting for Khan Watanabe. A person that apparently visits the surface world to come to this village every 25 years or so. Each time bringing different apprentices in soul magic, a type of magic that is supposed to be very powerful, rare and quite unpredictable.

"Last time I was here I remember two people didn't survive the forging process. Souls are like that, seemingly strong at first but as the pain continues they quickly fade. But there is no turning back or changing ones mind for once started we have to finish," he looks at us to convey his point.

"One of those young men was named Koji, and I ended up making his sword using his entire soul. Some of you are old enough to remember him. He is a katana now and his soul is permanently changed into the deadly weapon we made it into.''

Pfff, or the soul is still human but trapped in the blade.

''The soul affects the body and the body affects the soul, like water the soul adjust to the vessel that houses it.''

Did he just read my thoughts or what? Taking a breath, I let my chakra energy collect in my crown then release it in a pattern that cloaks my mind from the collective consciousness.

I'm going to kill you Watanabi, I'm going to wait till you give me power and kill ever last person in these villages.

...

Okay, so at least he can't read my mind when I do that. I release the held ability like a drowning man taking his first breath of air, slightly dizzy from greedy chakra ability. Can you really read minds you ugly corpse?

I catch the white-haired one's eyes glance at me with my spatial-awareness but otherwise, there isn't even a hitch in Watanabe's speech.

"The soul of a weapon is not the same as the soul of a main it shape, the zanpakuto Waylay is not the man Koji. You will make your wishes known before you start forging. If the process doesn't work and you are dying do we let your soul drift away into the ether or do we put the entire thing into the weapon?" Another pause.

You could hear the sound of a pin being dropped in this silence. We all take it in.

"This is not a process with false starts or one we can stop midway. The only thing we can direct during the process is how much of the soul is used during the forging. A very important question.

"Ask yourselves. How much of your souls are you willing to lose to forge your blades. The greater the amount of soul used to forge the weapon the more powerful it will be, eventually. But the more likely you are to die before the forging is complete.

"Also keep in mind that it won't be an immediate power boost, especially if more of your soul is used. You will take longer to recover but you will have more depth so it balances out somewhat.

"Well... the greater you will be diminished as well, that is up until your soul recovers. Soul healing can be encouraged but ultimately has to happen naturally, a soul artificially enhanced or mended is a very fragile soul. The greater the damage the longer it takes to heal. Take Kazimoto here for instance, your teacher and the greatest among you. He sheared his soul in two 1800 years ago and it's only now reaching full health.

"But his soul is now 4x stronger than what it once was, and to you that don't think that's a lot let me disabuse you. It’s a lot. The human soul is naturally very resilient and only the gods should be able to affect it in any meaningful way. But as we all know that's not the case, you are all here to have your souls amputed into inanimate objects, it the most foolish thing humans have ever done," he pauses and takes a cup of sake passed to him. Bowing as he accepts it.

The Hito don't have a servant class, everyone is a servant to a guest at their home and the children are allocated chores until they figure out what to do with themselves. The Hito have no servants at all and their society is thriving, odd people. I like them a lot.

"I know all of you here are hoping I will personally help to forge your weapons but I could not. It is a lengthy process and using my own soul to cast is very draining. That is why I have brought these five soul smiths to assist me. All under two hundred years old but proficient in the process of soul forging and eager for more experience in order to advance their craft," Khan Watanabi says placing his big hand on the shoulder of one of the vampires next to him.

I can see the effect with which they interact by their body language. At least these vampires aren't bloodthirsty yet and their drinking sake is a good sign. But then again Khan is a born vampire, according to Kuyoki. I'm guessing the rest are also born vampires, living vampires.

"Now we will look at your souls, and some of you may not have souls strong enough to survive the process. So you will be turned away. Remember, just because you don't qualify now it doesn't mean you never will. Awakening also strengthens the soul," Kazimoto says as he stands from Khan's left.

Khan Watanabi nods in agreement, "you will all stay seated and we will come to you." He says then gestures to the other five vampires.

"Begin."

The vampires walk silently amongst us. There are about 300 hopefuls here, I'm surprised there aren't more until I remember that these creatures will be here an entire year. Plenty of time for every hopeful to come eventually. These 300 are just the elite of the samurai from all the mountain villages.

They walk amongst us, picking off those who are likely to die or never fully recover from the process. Those that need to Awaken first or find some other way to strengthen their souls. There are already a few Awakened in the crowd besides me. I'm curious to see how much more powerful I will become after this process.

Before Malachi mentioned this I had never even considered acquiring a soul-weapon because I have never paid any particular attention during training to any single weapon. The staff and the spear are my go-to weapons when facing a serious opponent though.

I have always wanted to improve my body, my mind, my spirit, my soul. But even pursuing those high goals I now realize I was limiting myself. Why should I limit myself? What else could be out there? Even the weapons I chose over others is limiting myself to a certain path in a way.

The scary thing is I didn't realize I was limiting myself. I kept telling Mira and Hiro they shouldn't set limits for themselves because they had no idea what they were capable of. What is possible out there but I myself fall into the same trap, the heavens are not the limits of what I could achieve. The heavens are only as far as I can see. Having a soul weapon will open an avenue I couldn't even have hoped for before.

"Good. All that remain seated will attempt to forge their weapons. I'm sorry for the rest but your souls just aren't there yet," Khan Watanabe says with a a bowed head.

"Regardless of how peerless a warrior you may be, you will not survive this process. Some of you will insist on trying anyways, as is always the case. For those I can attempt to forge a weapon using much less of your souls.

"Your weapon will take much longer to reach full power, but you will be much less at risk also keep in mind the full power of your weapons probably won't be as strong as what it could have been had I used more soul, had you waited till further Awakening."

His intense eyes pin every standing warrior as his gaze sweeps the room

"I have spoken to the mine watchers. Tomorrow we will extract the ore. Enough for 500 blades. Then we will leave it in the capable hands of the sanders."

"Tonight you are to fast and meditate. Focus on self-awareness and try to know yourselves. From here on out none of you will leave these mats except to piss and shit," Kazimoto says then walks away taking the jug of sake with him.

The man is a drunkard, mean and a verbal bully. He curses abuse at all his students on occasion, he always has a jug of sake close by he doesn't carry a sword like everyother samurai else but a wooden practice sword, a bokken. Which he occasionally uses to bash us atop the head. Not once have I seen him touch a steel blade, but what little I have seen of his movements with that practice sword...

Anyways I should be meditating and self-reflecting.

I centre myself and breathe.