"It's about to be a month, kiddo. I would teach you about weapons first...but...I think we can progress onto qi now."
Walker rubbed his nose in embarrassment and pride. Watching Teret be able to perform even a slight amount of the Whisper Steps greatly satisfied him.
Yet he wondered if he would have been able to replicate what the skeleton did if he was at his age. But, wait..how old even was he?!
Looking at the visage of a skeleton leaning forward with his arms pumped and level to his ribcage, visible stars streaming from the insides of his sockets...Walker felt it was impossible to tell.
(Oh, but he's pretty short...that prolly means something. No matter, I'll find out eventually, yeah?)
Teret was rapidly moving about, his bones glinting underneath the reddened luster of the atmosphere. Moving about rapidly as he visibly bounced off the terrain with subdued sounds emitting from his clacking bones, Walker waved his hand.
"Alright, alright. Calm down and come over."
With a spring in his step, the skeleton hopped over, landing squarely before Walker with his arms in the air. Offering his teacher the back of his hand, Walker clasped it as a darkened black miasma washed over them.
Reappearing in the area where Walker set up the blackboard, Teret eagerly moved to sit in a cross-legged position. Walker was a lot calmer, scaling the giant boulder he had erected without a fluctuation in his breathing.
"Pay close attention, my apprentice."
With these words, lights burgeoned all over his body. An intricate system of brilliant clusters emerged, connected by refined lines. It was as if looking at a constellation--no, a galaxy!
The clusters burst as a powerful condensation occurred in Walker's body. As a result, his aura became visible to the naked eye, multiple auras blending into one extraordinary compilation that was Walker's being.
Within the kaleidoscopic shades of black, light purple, dark purple, and a startling mulberry crimson...were multiple phantasms that slithered along. A gorgeous flower with eighteen outer black and pronged petals, nine rounded inner petals of different shades of purples, and three thin, white petals in the center surrounding a tear-shaped insignia.
Screaming faces were distorted in the miasma, and demonic energy flowed around with eerie cackles and horns. Multiple halos were cut in half and formed an even greater insignia that hung behind his back.
A negligible cluster was separated from the largest nebulae contained within an imperial topaz, which was the core of Walker's main Qi-Archive.
Walker withdrew his aura and focused on this energy, expanding it in the palm of his hand. Looking like a bunching of auric strings coupled with pristine fluctuating waves.
The strigs are undulated and loosely hanging in the air. Walker controlled them without having to move an inch, almost as if these strings were a reflection of his own body.
He changed their shape, their texture, their length, and their size. Endless movements were casually formed underneath a blank face.
And then, he commanded the strings to gather together in a spring, coiling and churning in a magnificent spiral. Pouring more energy within the spiral and letting it float freely, a vortex ripped the very atmosphere with transcendental speed. The area around seemed to be scattering like shards of shattered glass...
"This is the weakest tool I have ever created, but if it's you...I think you can elevate it. This is the Spiral String Qi I will impart to you, my dear apprentice."
A smile slid alongside his barren expression as his mauve purple eyes glowed in a neon-style hue.
Teret sat there, his jaw agape as his bones unfolded waves after waves of tingling sensations. If Walker hadn't controlled his power, he felt as if this whole entire region could've been blown away with a simple thought...
"Hey~wake up! You won't be nearly this strong right now, get it? Besides, there's a thing in the world called "density," and some places are much more sturdy than others. So don't think that just because you can cut a piece of paper, you can cut a diamond."
Walker's face subtly scrunched up after that statement, and he scratched his head as if mulling over something. Then, a few seconds later, he made an addendum to his prior statement.
"Well...not with the same amount of force, anyway."
Walker plucked a single string from the vortex before dissolving it with a wave of his hand. A hair's breadth of Spiral String Qi lingered betwixt two compressed digits.
Walker suddenly appeared behind Teret, snapping near his cranium with his free hand. The skeleton suddenly jumped, rearing slightly away after glimpsing the eerie smile that hung on Walker's thinned lips.
"Clench your teeth. My. Dear. Apprentice~!"
The hammering sounds of chattering teeth could be heard by all creatures in the forest for a long time...
...
"2 years, huh? That's surprising. I meant to give you one. Hey, are you alive still?"
Walker perched over the splayed-out body of the skeleton, prodding gingerly at his cheekbones. A dull tapping noise resounded in the spook-induced silence of the depths of The Wettened Woods.
A crystal white fuzzy glow subtly spewed out of his frame, a relatively long string of qi blowing along with the breeze. When it halved in size, another string formed and lazily twitched in midair.
Walker's eyes widened as he viewed this.
(Huh, I was deciding whether or not to do this, but I think you'll be ready in another month! Your first assignment...take out those losers in Swillberg. I would do it myself, but I can't let everybody think my apprentice is some milquetoast they can just toss around, can I?)
Walker stood up and stretched his muscles, hearing his bones pop as they eased out of their stillness.
....
Week 1.
Two figures stood adjacent to each other, their bodies curtained by the twisted, drooping boughs of rot-laced trees.
On the right was a skeleton who clutched an unimpressive-looking dagger. Alternating his grip, he tossed it back and forth as he struggled to wrap a strand of string-qi around the handle. Energy sputtered and flickered pathetically, threatening to expire before the deed was finished.
On the left was an unfathomable beast condensed in the guise of a bewitching young man with looks that trumped even the most beloved of models. There was no energy in flux, and he held a long, spindly hilt that he laid against his shoulder.
It was spindly and gothic, yet the appearance was quite ornate and thought out. The whole bodice seemed to be composed of thin black bones that bore a resemblance to a bat's skeleton. At the cross guard were three eyes, the first two level to each other and the last vertical as if to point upwards to the nonexistent blade.
This weapon was widely known in Everything is Bury--it was an Effigy. Typically, these would depict some unfathomable power, force of nature, law, or a deathdeity. Yet Walker's had no reverence for any such figure, making it a simple conduit that lacked any energy it could draw upon.
There was only a slight hint of ectoplasm, which functioned in the place of electricity for commonly used energy in the setting of Blendpunk Chthonim.
"Are you going to come here? Or should I go to you?"
Walker's lips parted as he revealed an amused demeanor that wasn't subdued whatsoever. Illusions of shadows flickered in Teret's gaze as his teacher seemed to grow infinitely towards the sky, encompassing all he could see.
The feeling of being trapped arose without much difficulty.
Teret carefully wrapped his strings of qi around both of his arms. Then, bracing his bones that began to rattle as he shivered, he steeled himself as he took a step forward.
[Trait Aspiring Butcher activates! 20% status increase.]
As if to reassure him, a system panel floated to the right of his line of sight.
Silent steps sounded deafeningly loud in Walker's ears as his eyes narrowed. Then, not even moving his legs, he effortlessly parried the pitiful stroke of the dagger in Teret's hand.
The sheath at his waist wasn't employed, even if Teret attacked from multiple angles with the help of his qi. He even operated the Skeleton's Perforating Fingers and the Knifehand Expression techniques as thin mortisim breathed along his chassis.
Every single attack was blocked or thrown away. Teret felt Walker's gaze projected in the air...as if his every movement and thought could be captured no matter where he was.
The assassin's eyes were locked on the skeleton, lacking prejudice or changes in emotion. Teret could see his reflection in the mauve purple tint, Walker's gaze unreadable and profound.
Hours passed as Teret streamed along like both a fleeting fairy and a dogged soldier. He even stuck the dagger in his jaws at one point, freeing both of his hands to strike!
At times he lashed out with the string-qi, which could be seen as rudimentary and insignificant in Walker's eyes. But it had to be said that even the trash he gave Teret was a unique treasure in the perception of others, allowing straightforward thrashing of string-like tendrils to carve impressions on the decaying trees.
On the fifth hour, Walker finally spoke up. Teret had extinguished and replenished his qi many times, the mere two years worth not nearly enough to withstand such strenuous operation.
"You know what your best quality is?"
The dagger in Teret's hand was blown away as Walker's hand seemingly disappeared. Flying freely, it wasn't long before the nicked blade sunk into the hollow of one of the many crooked trees.
"You don't stop. Because stamina is irrelevant to you, you can get much more done even if you're much weaker than you should be. You take a long time to get exhausted, too. That's some impressive mental fortitude, apprentice of mine...but your skills lag far behind that."
He nodded, pointing the spike-like eye of the hilt at Teret's head.
"Go ahead and use that Trait of yours."
...30,28, and 90. Two Bengal cash-outs and one Tiger, Tiger. The cloak and dagger glinted as the phantasm of wildcats leaped and bounded around them, emitting a low growl. Even their appearances slightly changed, with the numbers appearing on them along with insignias of a Bengal's likeness.
The aura Teret gave off tremendously changed, the number 90 appearing in the center between his collar bones. His appearance shifted, the pattern of a tiger's stripes lacing his grey-boned form. The fingers of his right hand seemed to sport claws, his toe bones deviating in the same way as well.
"Ooh, it's still interesting no matter how many times I see it! Well, what are you waiting for? Come on."
With an enthused grin and a swaggering provocation, he gestured with a single finger, telling Teret to give it his best shot.
Moving with an almost doubled status, he flew threw the air and skittered around, his toes gracing the environment in arched spikes.
The forest was noisy once again.
Week 2.
"Aw, don't be so upset. Did you think you would force me to move with just two weeks of practice? The only things you can believe in sheer-heartedly are your abilities and efforts, which don't trump mine."
As Teret moped about, he stood in an impossible way. Upside down, his feet met the underside of a sturdy branch and made no efforts to cling onto its rough textured surface.
His head was inverted as his cranium mirrored the floor instead of facing the sky. With his arms crossed and a downturned expression, the only thing that stood out was the solid white strings wrapped around his feet and the branch. Wrapped within the qi-strings was the handle of the poor dagger cradled within the tied auric tendrils.
"Your dagger technique and qi operation are getting a little better, though."
Teret lifted his head once again as stars seemed to trickle from his sockets. Then, turning around midair, his feet faced the ground once more as the long string placed the dagger back in his grasp.
"...That's impressive. Do it again."