Chapter 74: Duels Above the Water

“Well, if you must, don’t hurt them,” Ele’Azar allowed while moving to the outside edge of the platform and pulling a chair from his Soul storage.

Pneuma, looks like it’s on, you want to fight separately or try combined? Trint mentally asked his friend.

I didn’t know you liked pushing little old ladies into the water, Pneuma laughed. Let’s try separated but you should try combining your Spirit control along with the Soul enforcement you used when blocking that punch this morning.

I’ll give it a shot.

“This will be your first lesson, try to pay attention. So come and don’t hold back,” Bitain’La said. As she spoke her eyes glowed light blue and her clothes and hair snapped like a whip to the side from right to left. All the water from the river that had pooled at her feet and soaked into her belongings was snapped away from her and floated in the air to the left of her body.

The water formed into a replica of size and shape of her but in water form. The woman and her water clone took fighting postures. They seemed to both move independently and the water wasn’t mirroring the woman.

Trint already stood much taller than this woman but going along with Pneuma’s suggestion, used Spirit to shroud his form and cover himself with the black void-like Spirit substance. He gained almost another foot in height by adding to his legs and feet. Now standing approximately eight feet tall and with the addition of his tail, he felt he was almost cheating. Size alone was never the decisive factor in battles when speeds beyond Earthly comprehension were involved but he felt stronger than ever.

Arneala, gasped as she stepped further back, being guided by Ele’Azar to sit next to him near the edge of the stone platform. “What kind of monsters are they?” She asked unable to take her eyes off them.

The old woman remained in place, preparing for a battle she bent her knees and took a defensive stance. Then she waved Trint over, offering the first strike to him. While simultaneously the water doppelgänger went on the offensive toward Pneuma. Pneuma wasn’t waiting around though and met his enemy halfway. The water woman’s punch met Pneuma’s fist, which was nearly the size of her chest, with a boom. Pneuma possessing the size advantage didn’t equate to winning the exchange and he was sent flying back to the edge of the stone while the watery fist remained aloft where it had impacted him.

Getting to his feet, Pneuma looked at his fist. He had broken a couple of knuckles but quickly reformed his hand and jumped up to reengage. As he was jumping to his feet he jumped into his Soul.

Trint, I need you.

Trint jumped into their Soul space and appeared before a frustrated Pneuma.

“How do I use Soul to hit her?” Pneuma asked. “That water fist hit like a truck.”

“Honestly I don’t know, I thought we were going to learn the details today,” Trint pled his ignorance with a note of frustration.

“Great, this isn’t going to be fun then,” Pneuma said then disappeared from the Soul space.

Trint too returned to his physical form and began his fight. Taking a fast step, even for him, towards the old woman, he arrived, with his body squared in front of her, feet staggered. He twisted at the hips and chopped with his right hand towards the right side of her neck. Simultaneously he sent his long tail around his left side and tried to sweep her feet. Before either hit landed the tail and hand slowed and felt like they were in thick mud. But then the density slowing his effort turned to frozen stillness. After the stillness came a focused explosion of Soul. Trint’s Spirit forged tail and clawed right hand, closest to the woman, was pulverized into dust. Trint felt a painful rebound from the Spirit forms being shattered. Even as he began to rapidly heal his damaged hand and recover it with Spirit, he asked Pneuma, what was that?

Still undeterred, he punched his left hand down at her face. Just as he was within an inch of smashing into her nose, Trint felt his left side grow hot just before he was blasted over the edge and began falling toward the water. Trint caught himself using Spirit to hover in the air.

Then suddenly his command of the Spirit was cut, and he fell into the river.

A moment later he jumped up to the platform. Frustrated and now wet, he bowed to Bitain’La. “Thank you for the lesson in humility, mentor. I have been overconfident and have much to learn.”

“Yes, you have. But your confidence in Spirit can lend itself to a new confidence in Soul if you can master the latter, it will grant proficiency based on the former.” She said as he waved at the water form pinning Pneuma to the ground. It released him, flowed to the edge, and splashed into the river below.

“Please teach me how to harness Soul as a force in my attacks,” Pneuma shook out his wrist that had been locked behind his back, as he too bowed in respect.

“Arneala, dear, join us as we meditate and consider what happened in this brief exchange,” Bitian’La directed, sounding like a kind old grandma, despite having just demoralized two warriors that each stood two feet taller than her.

Sitting in a semicircle facing the female mentor the three disciples were directed to pause and breathe. Not to think about what happened but to mentally sit at the edge of their Soul. Not in Spirit, not in Soul but someone in-between them, at the very edge. None of them were able to achieve what she asked.

“Where is your Soul? Is it inside you?” She asked.

“Yes,” Trint answered, “It is the deepest part of our inner self.

“A logical conclusion to the experience of entering your Soul Space for a novice,” She snickered, “But no it is not.”

“Soul, unlike Spirit, is not internally located,” She began to explain, “Our Souls are but infinitesimal islands floating in a separate and vast plane or dimension. No one knows where it lies. Only that the connection we form to Soul is but a window or door from here to there. The measure of Soul our people use has helped us understand the potential of a Soul Master. The potential has to do with the ability to bridge the plane of the Soul with the physical world around us. If the Soul is strong enough the limit to the connection could be limitless. It is thought, and there is great evidence to believe, that the Soul Plane is magnitudes vaster and richer in resources than all the Iterations and the Subsystem combined. We believe that it holds the mysteries of True Ascension and is necessary to find success beyond the Iterations and Subsystem.”

“When I summoned the water image to fight with me, I was simply bridging my Soul Space with the water and granting it substance and thought. That was a relatively simple use of bridging the Soul to the physical. But I haven’t explained that I also have several minds in my Soul. Over the years I have built my Lineage to encompass three minds. Formed from two of my own and one from my husband and one partial form of a pet I raised. My connection in the Physical is given importance in my Soul and that significance and connection form a mind in my Soul. They are independent of me, but I can control them as if they were me. At my full capacity, I can fight with my body and two additional forms. The water was a simple medium to manipulate but seeing the use of Spirit you two displayed, I recommend using Spirit as your medium for additional forms. You will likely, struggle to develop additional minds to manipulate. But to run the constructed Spirit, you need to fuel it with Soul rather than only the Spirit you used in our fight. Spirit should only be the scaffolding that the Soul fills and surrounds.

“This is all new and helpful and extremely appreciated,” Trint bowed his head. “Could you explain how we fuel our body or constructed Spirit with Soul? That seems to be crucial in accomplishing any Soul application in the physical world.”

“Right you are, but you needed the basics, and don’t interrupt, I was getting to that,” the female mentor’s smile thinned to a line, but her eyes were not hiding her smile.

“The method for each is unique,” She continued. “We don’t have a single method that works for everyone, but most can bridge the plane with their mind and visualize part or all of their Soul space with their mind while not diving into their Soul. When you visualize the Soul in your mind, you can picture it around you in the physical world, and while using enough force of will, you can inject Soul to materialize it or fill in your medium’s scaffolding.”

“The better you can conceptualize your Soul in your mind, without needing to enter it the better you can bridge the two places. I for example visualize my Soul as a small series of rooms within a cave. I grew up among a people who sheltered in the caves of a mountain. So, my earliest concepts were of caves. When I enter my Soul space I am inside those caves and I have a room for each of my Soul constructed minds, even one for my leopard.”

“Enough teaching,” She stood but indicated for them to remain seated. “Now close your eyes. Remain in your seated position and place each hand with palms up on your knees. Begin by imagining your Soul space shrunk down to a globe and resting between your two hands.”

Trint attempted the visualization while fighting the pull to enter his Soul. Striving to pull it through a bridge he couldn’t feel.

“Remember this is just to help, it won’t be how you accomplish the act. Everyone is different. So, think and let your mind and Soul mingle while staying present. We will stay here as long as it takes.”

Already excited, Trint had to relax his tensed body and settled in for a long session of focus. After a half hour of failed attempts, he leaned forward to stretch his back and neck. Eyes still closed he slowly sat back up straightening his spine when returning to his starting position. Suddenly he was aware of an aperture to his Soul. When he leaned back from his bowed forward position it was like an eyelid partially opened. Extending from his feet forward ten feet from each side and forming a semicircle in front of him. The circle formed and three-dimensional wedge from ground level to his knees. It was a glowing slice of light in his mind’s eye. Like a virtual reality hologram in front of Trint. He kept his eyes closed and his focus on the aperture. With his will and focus he tried to open the aperture wider. Slowly he pulled and willed the nondescript crescent of light glowing in a half circle in front of him to open.

With patience and effort of will he was able to push the crescent further. Time passed but Trint was not sure how much had physically passed while his mind experienced a week of sleepless exhaustion. His attention flickered to the world around him and his system time. A week hadn’t passed but about an hour had.

The aperture to his Soul was now a half dome from the ground spread in front to 90 degrees straight above him. As he opened it higher it also spread wider and was now wider than the entire stone platform they sat on. No one else seemed to notice the current expression of his Soul. He seemed to be the only one aware of its presence.

It took another hour for Trint to get the dome to fully cover him and reach the ground behind him. The effort thankfully became easier once he reached straight above him. He felt like someone was helping him and a growing desire like hunger or a primal urge, to protect and fight for what was his, grew to a nearly deafening crescendo. Then he focused on the source of the hunger and nearly jumped out of his skin when he realized what it was.