The training battle with Leowynn was… intense seems like an understatement..When she said that she was going to be forcing us to adjust to different flows of time, she was serious. In a training battle that seemed to last for hours, every few minutes one or both of the avatars she used to fight Tsubaki and myself would randomly change their flow of time, and we had to immediately adjust our own while never losing our perception of each other.
In a way, I could see Dana being incredibly powerful in this regard, because her domain could cut off an opponent’s perception entirely. Once she did that, she would just have to accelerate her energy to the extreme, and most enemies wouldn’t be able to match her. Tsubaki, similarly, had the Stealth domain to prevent people from spotting her, though she couldn’t use that in this training exercise.
The one time she tried to use it to take advantage of the situation, the avatar of Leowynn fighting me immediately slowed down. I didn’t find out until afterwards, because my perception of Tsubaki had been cut off.
After we were done with the ‘time’ training, the two avatars of Leowynn disappeared again, only her main incarnation left behind. “Okay, that’s step one of your training done… for now. I want to repeat this training at least once every Standard week until the invasion, that way we can make sure that those reactions are instinctive.”
“Now that you’ve gotten the hang of adapting to your opponent’s flow of time, and creating a void barrier for yourself, I’m going to teach you the basic combat tactics that have been developed for fighting in the void. Naturally, these tactics are easier for a Fallen God, but it is completely possible for a regular god to perform them. For instance, Tsubaki has already mastered this next step, so this is just for you, dad.”
Tsubaki blinked at that, tilting her head in confusion. To answer her questioning gaze, Leowynn held one hand out at her side, a black swirl of energy forming to create a longsword. “Ahh… manifesting items from the void.”
“That’s right. I know you learned how to do this already, though you find it easier to do simple items like staves that you can make as solid constructs of a single material. However, the method you learned to do so is specialized to work inside of a world, which forces the technique to become more complicated to draw in the raw void essence. You should have an easier time of doing so when you are within the actual void.”
After saying so, Leowynn turned to look at me again. “This is just like when you created your void shield. Since you’re practicing the method of treating the void as an alternative to natural energy, you can do the same here. Give a series of commands to the void energy to construct a simple iron longsword. We’ll get to more advanced techniques once you can do that in under a second.”
I blinked, hesitating for a moment before asking. “You say that I’m using this ‘method’… what other methods are there?” I asked, wanting to make sure that I wasn’t making this more complicated than it had to be.
Leowynn smiled at that. “The void is information. It is the source of all powers. Any method could work, so long as you believe that it should work. You believed that the void was similar to natural energy, so you became able to command it as such. There is one god who sometimes patrols the void, who shapes the void with his bare hands, molding it like clay.”
When I sent a questioning gaze to Tsubaki, she nodded her head. “I use imagination to resonate my will with the void. I imagine a weapon in my hand, and…” A black vortex formed above her palm, immediately turning into a curved dagger resting in her hand. Even Tsubaki seemed surprised by how easy it was.
Leowynn, meanwhile, seemed to catch what I was just starting to think, and shook her head towards me. “Don’t feel like you have to use Tsubaki’s method. Her idea of visualization isn’t bad, but it will make it harder to do the more advanced steps. On the other hand, your method of issuing commands is suitable for the advanced steps, but has a higher requirement to get started.”
“Right…” I closed my eyes, thinking. If copying Tsubaki’s method wouldn’t work, perhaps there was a way to merge the two ideas. I could create preset concepts in my mind via visualization, and then issue commands with those concepts.
First, I imagined a sword, a straight blade with a sharp, pointed tip. The crossguard was kept simple, with the handle having a black wrapping to help with the grip. Finally, there was the pommel, which looked like a small, steel lotus flower. In my mind, I defined this as a ‘longsword’, visualizing its total length as just over a meter long.
This must be why it’s so much easier for Fallen Gods to fight in the void. I muttered internally, recalling that they could simply ‘save’ void commands to use again in the future. Meanwhile, other people had to manually draft those commands each time they were used.
Once I felt that the image and material of the longsword had solidified in my mind, I held out my right hand. Within my right hand, create the item pre-defined in my mind as ‘longsword’. I sent that thought out in an instant, and another black vortex appeared. The wrapping of the hilt felt light in my hand, and I opened my eyes to see the longsword as I had imagined it.
“Very good, dad!” Leowynn smiled, nodding her head. “Now, keep practicing like this. Like I said, you need to be able to summon a sword like this almost instantly.”
I pursed my lips, thinking. I couldn’t save the command like a Fallen God would. However, I could save the mental concept of a sword, thanks to my abilities as a Scholar. That would save me the steps of visualizing it again in the future. First, though, there was something else that I wanted to try. It was, admittedly, a more complicated weapon, but also one that I was more familiar with. I just had to solve some innate problems that came with this particular weapon type.
Closing my eyes once again, I focused on the weapon that I wanted to create. This time, it took me roughly ten minutes to create the item in my mind, as I had to adjust certain aspects. Then, when I sent out the command to the void, I felt the familiar grip of it resting in my palm.
Leowynn blinked, looking at the item. “A… gun? I was going to warn you once you mastered the sword, but projectile weapons aren’t very popular in void fights. They operate under preset rules, so the projectiles are pretty easy to dodge by simply adjusting your flow of time.”
I couldn’t help but grin when I heard her critique. “I thought that might be the case.” I lifted my hand, the weapon feeling almost hot in my palm, and fired a bullet into the void. The gun did not produce any noticeable sound… or rather, the sound came and went too fast for us to take note of it.
Leowynn quickly grasped what had happened. “You accelerated just the time of the gun itself?”
“Yeah…” I gave a small nod, looking down at the gun. “The gun I imagined, as well as its bullets, would be vibrating at a frequency a thousand times faster than normal. If this were in a world instead of the void, it would most likely break apart as soon as it was made. But… like you said, this is the void. If you can accelerate your energy, why can’t I accelerate my gun? Then, when I accelerate myself as well, the gun will get even faster by association.”
Leowynn blinked, before letting out a light laugh. “Dad, you can’t do this! You’re skipping steps in the lesson!” When I looked at her in confusion, she had one hand on her stomach, holding in her laughter. “Setting advanced parameters for your weapon was going to be what I went over next.”
Shaking her head, she grinned at the two of us. “Alright. Since you can make that gun, keep practicing until you can make it as quickly as you can. Tsubaki… since dad skipped ahead, I’ll go over what you need to know.”
As I focused on training the speed at which I could create and dismiss the gun I had ‘saved’, Leowynn spoke to Tsubaki. “Like you just heard, you can create weapons with complex effects. In dad’s case, he accelerated the time of the weapon. However, you can do all sorts of things. The example that I planned to use was a flame blade. Imagine that the weapon you created had a blade made of fire, yet was still as sharp as steel.”
Tsubaki nodded her head, starting to focus. It didn’t take long for her to create a weapon with a flaming blade… but it was obvious at a glance that it wasn’t ‘sharp’, more like fire was just gushing out of the crossguard. With her brows furrowed, she dismissed the blade to try again.
“Like I said, dad’s method works for more advanced concepts like this, because he is communicating directly with the void and issuing commands. With your method, you need to visualize everything you want your weapon to be capable of whenever you make it.”
This advice seemed to help her, as her second attempt looked more like a sword with a red blade, flames licking off of it. “Good. Now… something more complicated. Every swing of the sword directly doubles the intensity of its flames.”
Tsubaki’s eyes went wide, as if thinking how she could visualize that. She pursed her lips, dismissing her current weapon, and taking her time to focus. Meanwhile, I overheard the talk and began to think about what effects I’d like to add to my gun. Tracking bullets weren’t necessary, because I had the homing effect from my Martial Intent.
I focused on refining the image of the gun in my mind, adding a dial on the side with icons for ice, fire, poison, light, darkness, and chains. I imagined a scenario where the gun was fired in my mind, each setting on the dial releasing a different type of bullet when it was pressed.
Once again, I created the gun once I had the mental profile for it saved in my mind. I had been practicing rapidly creating items already, so now that I had this, it was easy for me to continue to do so. Of course, after creating it, I had to test each of the different bullet types.
Leowynn looked over, offering a nod of approval when she saw the flaming bullet being fired from my gun. When she looked back at Tsubaki, the kitsune was clearly struggling. Most likely, it was the idea of visualizing the intensity of the flames multiplying with every swing. For the first two or three doublings, it might not be so bad… but once it gets higher and higher.
“Tsubaki.” I spoke up, causing her eyes to open as she lost her train of thought. “Don’t try to measure the intensity of each level in your mind. Just imprint the concept of doubling. You can do it.”
Leowynn blinked, as that seemed to go against how she had instructed Tsubaki previously. However, only a few seconds later, Tsubaki had created another red blade. With one swing, the embers on the blade grew. With another, the blade was completely wrapped in fire. On her third swing, the fire began to pour out around the blade.
“Okay, seriously?” Leowynn arched a brow, looking at Tsubaki.
Tsubaki tilted her head. “My Keeper said that it would work.” Leowynn held up a finger, opening her mouth, as if trying to find the words.
You know, having such utter faith in someone makes teaching like this really hard! Leowynn complained in my mind, causing my lips to twitch.
Like you said, it’s all about whether or not she believes it should work. Knowing her personality, if I tell her that I believe she can do something, she will go beyond any sense of reason to accomplish it… Which is really handy since the void is precisely beyond any sense of reason.
