Taku almost jumped in fright when he saw the shadow but then Chiwenga spoke. "Don't mind him. He is an old friend who does not want to leave me alone."
Taku calmed down a bit after hearing this. He stared at his Master and the shadow behind him silently, he could tell from his Master's expression that he was truly shocked by what Taku had told him. Taku could only imagine how he would take it if he told his Master the whole truth. It took a while but Chiwenga finally calmed down
"This world has too many mysterious things! So what happens when the two entities start fighting again?" his Master's gaze contained a bit of worry when he asked this question.
Taku's expression heard this question and he stiffened a bit before saying. "Did you hear about the incident at one of the Elephant Foot Guard bases four years ago?
Chiwenga nodded as his expression turned grave. "I slaughtered a quarter of the participants at that time. Whenever they begin fighting I usually lose control and turn violent. I will kill anything that has a pulse."
Even though Chiwenga had anticipated the answer, his face still turned grave when he heard it. Taku was relatively weak in physical power when compared to other people. So Chiwenga could not help but ask. "Did you have your awakening early? Most people like you rely on such means to know which type of cultivator they are. But some noble families have a way to awaken their children's ability without using such a risky technique."
Taku just shook his head which caused his Master to sigh. "This is the first time that I have met someone like you… I thought that my situation was bad, but yours is just on another level." By the time that he was done talking the shadow behind him had already disappeared. This further led Taku to believe that his Master was far more powerful than he had initially thought. He chose not to ask questions and just kept his suspicions to himself.
Seeing this his Master smiled and took out a book which he handed to Taku. "This book is a soul skill. It's a nameless technique and its purpose it's to create these things called soul seals. These seals are similar to inscriptions that you find on certain weapons."
Chiwenga stopped explaining when he noticed the confused expression that his disciple wore. He sighed when he knew that his disciple did not even know this." Most spirit weapons have these things called inscriptions. When you pour your zesa into your weapon these inscriptions will light up and will either increase the weapon's offence or defence. These soul seals are similar to that. The only difference is that you don't put these on weapons after you make them.
Instead, you place them on your soul. Now here is how it works. The more seals you create the better. Each seal you create has a different use, for example, I have created 10 seals, and one is for tracking, if I place this seal on anyone then no matter how far away from them I am I can find them or my arrow will always follow until it hits its target.
The other one is a zesa amplification seal. Every time I want to increase the power of any skill I use this seal. It can amplify your zesa to a terrifying degree, but it has its side effects. The side effects aren't that severe if you use it once every two or so days but if you use it repeatedly you could lose your battle strength for an hour or even a couple of days. I will only tell you about these two for now."
Taku opened the book and realized that it truly only had descriptions of these two seals. "But Master, what about archery?"
"You will spend five hours every day on target practice. As for archer skills, I will only impart some when your accuracy reaches 90%." Taku's expression turned blank when he heard this. His Master smiled and continued. "There is another seal that I will teach you later on. This seal will allow you to control weapons with your soul power. Like you know how you can spread your soul outside your body and see everything around you? This seal does something similar. Only when you place the seal on a weapon will it carry a strand of your soul. You will be able to see whatever is around that weapon. And you can also control that weapon even though it's not in your hands."
Telekinesis?
Taku quickly began reading the descriptions of the seal. He fully engrossed himself in his studies to the point where he forgot the flow of time. He only lifted his head and went to practice Archery after his Master had told him to do so. The Master and disciple duo left the Training hall and left the town. The town was surrounded by a desert, this desert was called the Kalahari. It was awfully barren and had nothing really to spectate.
The duo walked for about an hour before they arrived at a place that looked like a place that held archery competitions. His Master stopped when they were about 20 meters away from the targets. "We will start from here. If you reach 95% accuracy at this distance then we will increase it to 50 meters. The maximum distance that I want you to go when training with me is 200 meters."
His Master had offered him a bow, which Taku refused. Stating that he wanted to familiarize himself with his own weapon. Chiwenga was shocked by this, he had never seen Taku with a Bow before, so he began to think that Taku had put it in a storage ring or storage sack. He quickly passed some arrows to Taku and told him that it was easier to use real arrows for target practice instead of using those that he created by using his Zesa.
Taku grabbed the arrows and nodded. He calmed himself down and raised his hand whilst he began clenching his fist like he was about to catch something in mid-air. He did not fully clench his fist as some smoke began forming in the middle of his hand. The smoke then began taking shape and in a couple of breaths, it formed a bow that was rather rigid.
Chiwenga's eyes at the moment were wide open with shock evident in them. He could clearly see that this bow made from smoke looked similar to his own spirit weapon. He did not know much about the smoke that Taku possessed. All he could think about at the moment was to go and seek out the Muroyi who helped out all those years back. But he only intended to do that after the week was done, for the upcoming days he needed to spend every bit of them studying his student.
Taku grabbed an arrow and placed it on his very unorthodox bowstring and then pulled. He held onto the arrow for five breaths in an attempt to fully visualize his target, after these five breaths he let go of the arrow. The arrow whizzed in the air as it flew towards the target.
'sii' 'Pa!'
The arrow hit but Taku immediately furrowed his brow. Even though the arrow had hit the target it had hit the outermost regions of the target. "Keep going. You can go retrieve your arrows when you have finished them all. And another thing, there are 10 targets there. I expect you to practice on all of them from the position you're standing right now."
Taku's brows knit together, even more, when he heard this. If only he could spread out his soul power he would not be in his current predicament. His soul power can only spread out a couple of meters and he knew it was useless to even try. Some of the targets were even at a very acute angle. For him to hit them at this point with his current level of skill was impossible.
He decided to continue to aim at the target that was dead centre. He wanted to shoot a hundred arrows at it to see how far he could go at the moment. The results made him feel disappointed. After continuously shooting out a hundred arrows he was only able to move his arrows an inch away from the edge and closer to the bulls-eye.
Taku was visibly disappointed which made his Master feel some shame. Not because his disciple was performing badly, but because it had taken him a full day for him to hit the target. And at that point, he did not even hit the bulls-eye until a week later. Seeing his disciple's rapid improvement made him feel like he was not talented at all in archery.
The shadow appeared yet again behind him and began to speak in a hushed tone. "I take back my words! Now I think that you don't deserve to be his Master. Such talent! Do you think you can handle it? Do you need my help?"
"Do you even have to ask?" Chiwenga answered. "My disciple is your disciple. If you have anything to give him guidance in. then please go on and help me." Chiwenga said all this with a slightly helpless smile.
The shadow replied. "I want to see how far he can reach in archery first! If he can hit the bulls-eye in the next three days then we both have to nurture him well. Even though he is slightly weak in raw strength he fully makes up for it with his artillery. If he can hit that bulls-eye within three days then I advise you to try to have him come stay with us for at least 5 years. The rest of his team can come too and we will guide them from time to time."
Chiwenga nodded and spoke as his face turned solemn. "I just pray nothing unexpected happens to him. I know for a fact that if we guide him for the next five years then he would be able to become a prominent figure in his generation. The Gutu Empire truly got a talented individual this time."
Hearing this the shadow began laughing. "Hahaha…Too bad that he is your disciple right? If those people knew that such a gem landed in your hands, they would try to kill him immediately."
Chiwenga's expression turned complex after hearing this. "They can try if they want to, but that is why I also told him not to tell anyone anything yet. Even when his teammates come to stay with us we will have them complete a life-blood oath before they can stay with us."
"Aren't you being a bit too cautious?" The shadow asked in a mocking tone.
Chiwenga said with a smile. "You yourself know that one can never be too cautious."
The two chatted and lost track of time. During that time Taku shot over a thousand arrows but still did not feel satisfied by the results. He was now only 30 cm away from the bulls-eye which was also about the same distance from the edge which was his starting point. When his Master and the shadow looked up towards the target they were shocked by the progress he made in such a short amount of time.
Taku went and retrieved all the arrows. By now his training was already done, after five hours of continuous shooting, he was visibly tired. He walked towards his Master with his head down and stopped in front. "I am sorry this is as far as I can go today. I'm just not that talented when it comes to archery."
Hearing this his Master's mouth hung open from shock. He had no idea how to respond to such a statement. 'Not talented', wouldn't that mean that I am just trash? At the moment he had no words to say and was fighting the urge to stand up and beat up this disrespectful brat.