We left behind the penultimate town of our little unceremonious journey. On the way, as usual, I make the brats train to the limit and then some.
Honestly I'm not sure if I should put the brat training aside for a while to speed up, after all the idiot priest must have already delivered the news about me to some superior which could result in the cult sending a squad to chase me even if they don't realize they're dealing with an old enemy.
Or worse yet, they can spread our descriptions around until they reach someone who knows me or the factions that are chasing Mingten.
Well, as I've said before most of what they have to offer in combat doesn't threaten me too much, but the influence the cultists seem to have gained in the region means they must have more than one way to annoy me even if they don't withstand a direct confrontation.
"Kaz, can you teach me the technique you use to paralyze your opponents?" Didn't this girl learn anything from our last conversation?
"I have something to trade for that of course." Mingten replies, I think she's learned something, just not enough to contain her curiosity and anxiety.
"And what do you have to offer me?" I ask without pausing our race, for now the brats will train until they feel more dead than alive. The usual basically.
"Man, that sounds so wrong." Your mind that is in strange Baha places.
"My luck." she answers.
"Your luck? What do you mean?"
"Ten Coin Path." She speaks without adding anything else.
Not that I need to, I should have noticed as soon as she talks about using luck as a bargaining chip, only now I remembered that the technique is not just to accumulate good luck from the practitioner but can be used to exchange one person's luck for another .
"It's not enough to teach you the technique, but I can explain the basics of it. What do you think?" Even if I tried to teach it now it would need a vacant channel to start practicing it.
"Okay." Mingten responds by biting her lip in displeasure.
"To practice 'Eight Demons of the Mind' you need two things to start with, an extremely sharp sixth sense and a channel dedicated to synchronizing with emotions." This is literally the basics.
"A channel to sync with emotions?" Mingten asks in surprise "I've never heard of any Ki being generated by human emotion alone, so unless you've figured out a way to do that, this channel doesn't have any specific Ki running through it."
"Exactly, this technique basically wastes an entire stage's power boost." I speak, taking time to enjoy the brat's look of disbelief.
Despite saying that I wasted a stage, what I really lost was just access to another type of Ki and an almost atrophied channel since almost no Ki runs through it.
But I consider it a reasonable price to pay considering how useful this technique has been since I created it, even more considering that there are ways to mitigate or even eliminate these side effects.
In short, nothing to worry about.
As long as I can advance to the ninth stage as a Synchroner and find a way to generate Ki through emotional states.
The first one is hard as hell and the second no one has managed to do so far, but I really don't think that's a problem.
"I think I'm fine without learning this." Mingten speaks with a face of disappointment and regret.
"Not that you could pay me to teach you in the first place." Not even.
"Hurrg." What the hell is that supposed to mean, Mingten? "You know how to perform the exchange of fortunes right?"
"Yea." I answer, still reflecting on how to advance the stage "but we'll do it when we stop, I haven't had a chance to familiarize myself with this technique yet I want to take the chance to study it a little."
"Okay." Mingten expresses her agreement before she and Baha throw themselves to the ground asking for a break.
That they won't have.
At least I didn't want them to have a break so soon but thirty minutes later the brats looked like they were on the verge of death so I decided to let them rest for about ten minutes.
And as the two brats lie down on the grass, they must be too exhausted to care about the itch, as I sit on a rock by the road.
Part of me wants to do the 'Ten Coin Path' luck switch now, but I think I'd better let the brat enjoy the break.
Meanwhile, I reflect on how to extract Ki from emotions.
...
...
...
No ideas.
Well, in that case I think I'll focus on the stage advancement.
"Break is over, get back to training on your own or I'll force you to train until the sun comes up." Time to get moving again.
Hours after dusk we stopped to camp, considering the distance to the next town we would go to it and then we would stay at an inn.
Not this time, let's go straight through the city, I want to lessen the risk of getting into any trouble so, straight to the Stargazing Tower.
Before we each go to our own corner and sleep, Mingten sits in front of me and offers me a coin, normal for now, I take the 'ten path coin' and place it between my fingers and exchange it for the coin. which Mingten offered me by scratching the face of one coin against the other through my fingers.
When both coins touch my sixth sense is stimulated and the world I see changes, however it is not a transitory realm, as I call the ambiguous scale that the sixth sense gives me access, which I see this time.
If the transient realm is like seeing the world through a mesh of vibrating points, what I see this time are lines and strings that attach themselves to everything and move along the cause and effect of what they are attached to.
'Karma' so that's how the exchange of luck is made, huh. Lines representing karmic rewards are twisted through the coin and pile up on top of it, and when exchanged with another coin part of the lines from the original owner of each coin stick to them.
As I have the technique that allows me to control the twist of this karma, I can decrease the value/luck of my coin to the minimum in the middle of the exchange and take the coin from Mingten that has some positive Karma from everyone who has used it.
After understanding how the trading aspect of the 'Ten Coin Path' works I come out of my trance of karmic vision.
I wonder when she will realize that this is the coin Yanan gave me to facilitate my practice of this technique, and if she will realize that I only removed the luck referring to me from the value of this coin, which was there before going through the my hands are still there.
This is going to be an experiment, Mingten, I think I know almost everything about the nature of this world, but it seems I don't know much about the people who came out of this world considering I've never heard of your Breakers organization.
Which opens up the possibility that 'He' is not aware of you either.
This is going to be an experiment, to see if with more variables the bastard who moved me through life and death like a shifted pawn on the chessboard reveals any flaws, and if he shows one, even the smallest...
I will knock him off his pedestal even if this world falls with him.
*********
"He says his name is 'Kaz' and suffers from amnesia severe enough to not remember his own level, but retains enough memories to use Synchro efficiently and has recognized a you as a priest from the ashes without you introducing yourself." A tall man with long straight black hair tied in a high ponytail by a red flame ornament speaks, standing back and forth behind a table.
Ahead of the man is the idiot priest from the ashes, bent over on one knee not making eye contact with the man who is standing.
"Is this some kind of prank?" The black haired man asks.
"Unfortunately no sir Envoy, what's in that report is all I've learned about the man named Kaz." The priest answers still kneeling.
"But that's not all you know about their group, right?" The man behind the desk asks again.
"No sir." The priest responds.
"In that case why didn't you put the rest of the information in your report?" The black-haired man turns away from the priest and walks to the window at the far end of the room.
"If I may, sir, I thought I should pass this information on directly to you." The priest speaks.
"Go ahead." In response the priest raises his head but remains kneeling.
"I believe the traveling companions of the man named Kaz are the key to reclaiming your rightful place in the cult." The priest speaks in an agitated way.
"Oh?" The man who uses the title of 'Envoy' almost turns his face towards the priest but holds back and looks back at the window "give me the details. Now."
"I believe we can use the girl to get strong allies before the 'Festival of Rebirth'
"And the boy?" The envoy interrupts the priest, who shows no reaction.
"I suspect he's a Ligverborge."
"A hidden light? You say it's just a suspicion so I can assume he hasn't demonstrated the unique powers of his people."
Says the Envoy with a cruel smile.
"No sir." The priest responds.
"This is indeed a great opportunity for me. Thanks for the information Kalek, you can leave now."
'Poor Kalek, is the right place we think the same?' The envoy daydreams while looking at the city, if Kaz were here he would notice that it is the same city he, Mingten and Baha have just passed through.
'No, after all you talked about recovering that place, while I don't just want to go back to being one of the blessed, I want something more.'
************
"So roughly when am I going to be able to start this whole mess of advancing to stage two?" Baha asks as we pass through the gates of the last city on our journey to the tower.
"Considering you barely have time to practice and accumulate Ki, I have serious doubts if you even count as a first-stage Synchroner." Mintten responds.
'Please, by the time I find a tavern, I'm already halfway through the second bottle of rum, I desperately need to drown out the noise from the constant use of the 'eight demons of the mind'. My mind can barely keep up with the brats' discussion, due to the side effects of my technique. Still, I pay a little attention to their conversation to distract myself from the noise.
"Couldn't you just say that I have a long way to go?" As if just saying that would dampen his curiosity and anxiety for the higher stages.
"Just like you I was just expressing my doubts." Mixing them with an insult, I think you've given up on using him as the first member of your faction.
I feel the noises muffle a little as I let my attention be absorbed by trivial things, like the brats' arguments.
Maybe I won't need another bottle of liquor before we get to the Tower.