"A saber, or sword and as I'm finally going to wear a decent disguise I want you not to be discreet." I say this after thinking, I don't want a weapon that is easy to hide or looks ordinary.
I want a weapon that attracts all the attention and thus avoid any kind of association that my disguise may have with 'Mingten the heiress' since the latter was someone who always ran away from any situation that put her in the spotlight.
"A distraction scheme huh? In that case it might be good to change your style from using mostly one hand to wield the sword and go all out on a two-handed sword." The old drunk replies, as soon as he understands my idea.
"Could be, I guess." Honestly I have no idea how much difference this will make but O.k
"Well with that decided, comes the nagging question what are the properties of your Synchros?" Oh damn.
"Can't you skip that part?" I ask, I think for the first time that I am uncomfortable in front of the liquor thief.
"Of course, it's just going to be a weapon that barely helps you or hinders you at all depending on how destructive your Synchros are."
You could just say no, gallon drinker.
"Argh" anyway I'll be depending on him for a while "Baha, excuse us please."
"Ok" I think for the first time he contains his curiosity and just does as requested.
We wait for Baha to get out of range of our senses, my senses to be exact, who knows what is the old monster's range.
"Okay, since we're going to be looking out for each other I guess it's okay to share information." Discomfort please leave my mind as I speak ""My Dantian was created with wind Ki and the second stage channel with rupture Ki."
"Okay, and what does Rupture Ki mean exactly?" Kaz asks with eyes that can almost pass the 'translate' command by themselves.
"A Ki that can split matter and energy to a certain degree, most of my family's techniques rely on combining the bursting Ki with some more Ki to render our opponents' defenses useless." I answer while wondering if I should tell the old monster anything else.
It's probably better to tell.
"Furthermore, it is possible to trigger a chain reaction to generate short, intense bursts of energy, however I don't really know the principle behind this as I was unable to complete the training." Unfortunately, there's not much I can do about that at the moment.
"It's maddeningly similar to fission..." The old monster snarls in whispers "Synchros issues aside, I'm going to make a two-handed, one-edged sword, to unlink your current image from the one you'll assume."
"Sounds good to me." I speak when he finishes the explanation.
"You can go do whatever for a while, I'll get busy preparing the metals for the saber." And so the gallon drinker kicks me out of the room.
**********
When Kaz and Mingten ask me to leave the room, an idea immediately comes to mind.
Kaz and Mingten are no longer the only Synchroners around me, why don't I try to see if any Tower members are willing to teach me?
And I already have someone in mind to start with, the slovenly guard who commands a thousand swords: Talavar.
With this objective in mind, I go to the entrance of the Tower where he keeps watch, I go through the wooden door and I find him, leaning against the wall of the tower with the appearance of someone who is about to fall asleep on his feet.
I turn to him and ask:
"Doesn't anyone trade shifts with you?"
"What's the reason behind this curiosity, want to steal the Tower by any chance?" Talavar responds with a mocking smile.
"No, I'm not crazy enough for that." I defend myself quickly "My companions may deserve your distrust."
"What a sensitive guy." He speaks while stretching "Now be direct and say: why are you looking for me?"
Was it so obvious?
Whatever.
"Would you accept me as a disciple?" I take the suggestion and get straight to the point this time.
"I refuse." Talavar responds instantly.
"What! Why?" Couldn't you have pretended to consider it for a second at least?
"Because, at the moment I can't teach you anything, since our attributes don't overlap in almost any characteristic. For now, focus on the basics until you advance and if your second attribute is metallic in nature, then yes, I can teach you something. " He answers solemnly, almost erasing the impression of the absolutely slovenly guy he usually gives, almost.
Talavar can't teach me because of the difference in attributes, but Kaz doesn't seem to mind that much even considering he's only training us in what he considers the most basic aspects.
Is the different emphasis they place on attributes due to different stages or knowledge, perhaps both?
I do my best to ignore a third possibility that comes to mind because of their attitude: they just don't want to put in the effort, so they teach whatever is easiest for themselves.
"Well you can't teach me, that doesn't necessarily mean you can't clear my doubts, right?" I ask.
"As long as I know the answer, I guess so." He responds while sitting on the ground and leaning his back against the tower wall.
He's not going to end up sleeping while watching the tower, is he?
"Where are you from?" I ask, already preparing more questions about organizations, worlds and profits.
"That question came almost out of the blue compared to the last one." He says smiling. I know, priorities change. "I was born and lived most of my life in Wudang of 'Nine Heavens', then due to a certain incident I was exiled."
"Wait a minute, what are Wudang and 'Nine Heavens'?" I managed to understand that they are names of places but other than that I got nothing but curiosity.
"Nine Heavens is the name of one of the eleven worlds, it is a solar system with nine planets, Wudang is one of those planets and like all the planets in 'Nine Heavens' it has the same name as the most influential sect on the planet." Talavar responds calmly.
This is interesting since here on Gaia sects are almost non-existent.
And I also have no idea why the planet was named Gaia.
Instead of sects there are academies, the two largest of which are supported directly by the Pendragon family and the Borgijin clan, the two largest remnants of the former western and eastern alliances respectively.
The smaller ones, I'm not even sure how they survive.
"Can you tell me what Wudang's specialties are?" I ask after thinking a little "Both the sect and the planet." I add to the question before he can answer.
"I can't answer any of those, I won't divulge the secrets of the sect that cared for me when no one else did. And as for the planet's specialties, I spent most of my time training in the sect's mountains, isolated from the world and before from being able to roam about freely I was exiled." Talavar explains why he is unable to give me information.
Well, it wasn't zero information, he clearly doesn't resent Wudang.
Perhaps exile is a way to ease the punishment he should normally have received.
Better not delve into this topic.
"But not to sound like I can only say no, I'll tell you something that's more or less an open Wudang secret." Talavar speaks with a mischievous smile.
"Some also call it an anomaly: most Wudang disciples can only train up to the eighth stage, however, once they surpass that, they become the strongest of 'Nine Heavens'."
As he explained I almost interrupted to ask: Isn't it normal to get harder to advance with each stage?
But when I consider that he called it an anomaly I imagine there is something else that differentiates it from a simple stage advancement.
Stop thinking about it Baha, you barely qualify as a first stage Synchroner, you don't have to worry about ninth stage problems.
I laugh self-deprecatingly as such thoughts race through my mind.
"Can you at least name the other ruling sects in 'Nine Heavens'?" Please don't have an unnecessarily complicated background that prevents you from answering this.
"Sure." Hallelujah an answer that is not 'no' or accompanied by one or more 'but'.
"The 'Nine Heavens' sects are Kunlun, Qingcheng, Hainan, Mount Hwa, Kongtong, Southern Edge and Baekdu." I don't think I'm going to remember the bunch of meaningless names out of nowhere.
"Is there any hierarchy of power among the nine sects?" I ask trying to establish an association with the names.
"Most sects are equal in strength and status, however three stand at the top: Wudang, Kunlun and Baekdu." I think I can remember those three at least.
"For today, that's enough of this question and answer game, go train if you still want me to teach you something." Talavar speaks before I have a chance to ask any more questions.
As there was nothing else to do I went back to the residential floor, Jill told us to take any empty room, then she does the records.
If the tower master doesn't end up kicking her out of here obviously.
As we could choose almost any room, I chose one of the closest to the central staircase, like most things here, the room has a double wooden door with reliefs and carvings related to stars and space.
Inside the room, measuring twenty by twenty meters, was a single bed in the outermost corner diagonally below a window on the opposite side was a desk with writing and calculation materials. A little way off to the side of the desk was a five-row bookshelf, still empty.
Beside the desk my backpack was thrown to the floor.
After looking around the room for a while I decided to follow Kaz and Talavar's advice and build up my Ki.
I sit on the bed and focus on the ring with the fire pencil, when I manage to establish the connection with my fingers I draw a line in the air, sparks coming from the ring soon follow the path of my hand and join in an intense line of fire, but thin.
When it looks like the line won't instantly disperse when I sever the connection, I stop controlling its shape, and try to sync the flames with my heartbeat.
Succeeding in this, the line of fire forms an incandescent horizontal ring around me that expands and contracts along with my heart.
"The fact that first dantian Synchroners need an external form of energy to synchronize makes it clear how limited their abilities are while being able to absorb energy from the surroundings is clearly something that should not normally be possible." I find myself thinking and grumbling about it when I consider the many steps I had to go through just to have a form of energy that I can synchronize around myself.
I soon regain my concentration, mumbling isn't going to change anything after all, and I start cultivating.