The Astral soul system-Chapter 97: Lessons from Zephyr

Zen was about to step out when he suddenly remembered something. He looked towards the screen that still had Maximilian and Xavier on it.

"I’m looking for a blacksmith. Know where i can find a good one?"

They were all slightly suprised.

"You’re looking for new gear? Not a bad idea. We could all do for an upgrade after that. Sadly I can’t help you "

Neo shrugged to show that he also didn’t know.

Zen looked at Xavier but the look on his face wasn’t a yes or no,it was more of a ....

"Fuck!!!"

"What’s wrong?" Maximilian asked.

"..."

"Come on,spill it!" Neo urged

"I..." Xavier whispered something under his breath so softly that even Maximilian couldn’t hear it.

"What?"

"I forgot the crystals " Xavier eventually spilled

"What?!"

"The third tier beast crystals"

"Ho-"

"I was showing them office last night and forgot to keep them in my ring "

Neo’s mouth gaped incredulously. Who could ever forget something so precious.

"It’s under my pillow. Zen, could you probably take them with you. If you find a decent blacksmith,do me a solid and see if you can get me a pair of gauntlets made out of them. I’d really appreciate it "

Zen walked to Xavier’s bed which was above his and checked between the bed and the frame and found two decently large beast cores. He made sure not to touch the directly, pulling them from under the bed while making sure it didn’t make contact with his skin.

They had all decided to give the two third tier crystals to Xavier since he had destroyed his previous gauntlets protecting him and Neo.

"Thanks man. Appreciate it"

Theia whispered to Zen.

"You don’t have to find a blacksmith,you know. You already unlocked the shop,that should take care of most of your problems.

Zen let out a groan of approval and stepped out of the room and immediately headed for the gym. He still had to complete his daily quests.

"Good, very good. You’ve already gotten a very high level of skill with dark tendril, even if your execution is nothing special"

Zen sighed as he realized he might have to deal with more and more voices in his head as time went on.

"Anything i can do about that?"

"Open your system and go to skills. I understand how it works a little bit now"

Zen opened his system screen and went to the skills tab, noticing something different.

[Combat skills](learned)

[Combat skills](system)

[Vocational skills]

[Theoretical skills]

[Ultimate skills]

"Oh, yeah. I did some organizing. What do you think?"

Zen opened combat skills(learned)

[General hand to hand combat -Max]

[Assassination - Max]

[Execution(multiple styles) - Max]

[Basic weapon mastery (multiple)- Max]

[Intermediate weapon mastery (multiple)- Max]

[Advanced weapon mastery(Guns, swords, shield, scythe)- Max]

[Mixed martial arts- Max]

[Tai chi- Max]

[Arcane movement]

There were a few more exotic skills and even some soul skills but Zen didn’t need to see any more. He opened the same tab under system.

[Soul gun- LV3]

[Soul form- LV1]

[Read- LV5]

Zen closed the tab. He briefly checked vocational skills, but as the name suggested, they had nothing to do with combat. This was also the category he had most skills in. He already knew what was in ultimate so he ignored it.

"I didn’t see anything" Zen told Zephyr.

"Seems like its still too early. You’ll have to practice the normal way for now"

Zen wasn’t expecting much so he wasn’t disappointed.

The dean had given them a few weeks off from school so he didn’t have much to do today. He quietly made his way to the gym before completing his daily quests.

His next stop was Aurora’s library. He was still curious about that string he saw yesterday.

Zen knew she wouldn’t be in so he didn’t bother knocking and just went in with the spare key she gave him.

Zen walked into the library but was suprised when he didn’t see the string. Was it perhaps because it was day time,or was it like a quest that had to be triggered.

"Zephyr?"

"What is it?"

"What happened after"

"Hmmm?"

"According to the story i heard,you ascended to godhood, stole all light from the world, and disappeared forever. What happened next? How did you end up on that planet? And wasn’t your family killed? Who’s this brother of yours? And most of all,why would you try to protect the world? I assumed you’d seek revenge the moment you got power, considering what you went through "

"I don’t know " Zephyr answered calmly.

"What?"

"I’ve been dead too long. Too many of my memories are foggy. I can’t even remember this guy’s name, only that he’s my brother,i sealed him away, and now he’s going to try to kill us all"

"Dead too long?"

"Death works differently for entities like me "

Zen didn’t question anymore tried to see if he could recall where the string was leading to. Unfortunately he hadn’t seen the specific place so he only knew the general area.

Zephyr’s voice suddenly appeared in his mind.

"I want to know how far you’ve progressed with my powers. Is what I saw back there all you can do or is there more?

Zen thought for a bit. He had intentionally slowed the tendrils down and made them look less lethal, but other than that ...

"Pretty much"

"That’s not good. Have you practiced forming other things?"

Zen showed him the shadow hand he could form, waving it a bit and showing how it mimicked his movements like a shadow, and then forming a full shadow avatar that mimicked his movements. Unfortunately,he couldn’t keep them all up for long and only showed them briefly.

"Your utility of the power is admirable.... for a beginner, but you’re inexperienced, and the amount of energy you can harness is pitiful "

"Then what do I do?"

"Practice. Over and over again. There’s no substitute for experience, and over time as you empty your core and refill it over and over again, it’ll eventually begin to expand to accommodate more and more energy"

’This is beginning to sound like one of Freya’s books’

"As for new skills, I’ll teach you. You can already form a shadow dome, right? You’re an assassin,so the next skill you should probably add to your repertoire is.... shadow steps and shadow spy"

Zen was confused. The system put assassin as his profession, but what did that have to do with anything.

Theia read his mind and answered.

"Your profession and class aren’t just there for show,you know? Some skills will be either easier, harder or just impossible to learn based on your profession and class."

"She’s right. Back in my day there were thousands of customization and personalization done with this ability,so there are literally thousands of styles you could choose from to learn. Your profession is your area of expertise, it’s your trade. And luckily for you,i learned every single thing, and I can guarantee the next thing you should learn as an assassin is shadow steps. A basic stealth skill in its infancy, but once you’ve nurtured it, it’ll be almost impossible to break "

Zen tilted his head. He already knew a stealth skill. He could move undetected and unnoticed as long as he wasn’t being directly seen, and that combined with dash made him basically untraceable.

"That doesn’t matter. The skill won’t interfere with any other special footwork else you’ve learned,in fact, it’ll only enhance it"

Zen finally agreed and listened to Zephyr’s instructions.

"In the beginning, the intricacies of the skill isn’t important, only the essence. Focus on the shadow beneath your feet and -"

"About that..."

Zen looked at the ground beneath him that was missing something important.

"Right....no matter, that was just a shortcut anyway. I was going to say to expand your influence to your shadow and force it to condense beneath your feet, but you’ll probably have to form the shadows yourself "

Zen created two circular flat piles of darkness beneath his feet and guided them under his feet, forcing them to cover the bottom of his feet perfectly like the soles of shoes.

"Is this good?"

"Yes, but now comes the hard part. Move"

Zen tried to take a step, but the moment he did, the shadow beneath his feet disappeared.

"You need to constantly concentrate on the shadows and keep feeding them energy as you move, otherwise they’re no different from regular shadows. Sort of like what you do with the tendrils "

Zen nodded and tried again. This time, he made sure he was actively controlling the shadows beneath his feet. He took a step and was a bit confused. He didn’t feel any different.

"Try jumping on the spot "

Zen was confused but didn’t complained and started hopping up and down as fast and hard as he could.

"Quiet"

Zen muttered under his breath

"It sure is"

Zen wanted to try something else. What would happen if he used his other movement techniques or even dash? Right now he was expending two points of astra every five seconds. What would happen if he tried something?

Zen tried mixing it with his usual movement techniques and it felt almost like he was flying.

Everything else had been successful so far, so Zen wanted to try mixing this with dash.

He took a comfortable stance, calculating how far he wanted to go and in one movement, took a step.

*Bam!!!!*

Zen found himself surrounded by books and wood. He had overshot and crashed into one of the shelves.

He wasn’t bothered by the pain, no he barely felt it. What did worry him was that he OVERSHOT. Zen was confused. He’d learned this technique when he was four and practiced everyday since then. He never overshot it. He briefly imagined Raven,Crowley and the others were here laughing at him while asking how he missed such a basic technique. Zen shook his head, getting rid of those unnecessary thoughts and getting up.

"I told you it would enhance your others"

Zen didn’t reply and tried to figure out what just happened. Everything he had calculated: Friction, air resistance, weight of his clothes, gravity and even more. All that seemed to have been nullified or weakened when he took the dash.

"The technique makes you completely imperceptible, even to the laws of the world....or at least it will when you get to a high enough level. Right now its just offsetting a small percent of the effects,i suspect about...two percent? That’s about right "

Only two percent? If this was two percent then what would happen at a hundred?

Zen tried again and although he didn’t crash this time, he still stumbled a little,a problem he hadn’t had with dash In years. He’d practically poured a portion of his life into this skill,to suddenly mess it up was... disorienting

Zen practiced a bit more but he still couldn’t do it as naturally as before.

Zen deactivated soul step and tried a move he was familiar with. It was simply a consecutive use of dash.

He barely had to think for a second before shooting off at insane speeds in a straight line before carefully stopping his usage and letting the inertia take him, and once it was spent, he activated it again before his speed could drop, dashing in another direction. Zen did this multiple times, Zigzagging across the room like a pinball, except he hadn’t made a single error and hadn’t collided with anything. After a few seconds of that, Zen switched to just circling across the room. This time, he couldn’t temporarily drop the skill and had to commit fully as he activated dash with every single step he took. When he was satisfied, Zen tilted a little, abruptly ending the skill and ending up in the center of the room.

Theia who was watching started clapping excitedly.

"Awesome. I was only watching and even I’m dizzy"

Zen groaned and activated shadow steps.

He focused as hard as hell could, preparing himself, and in a sudden burst he was off.

*Bam!!!!*

Zen had tried to tilt in the opposite direction like he did the first time, but by the time he had tried turning around,he had already crashed into the wall.

"That’s gotta hurt" Zephyr commented

Zen got up again, ignoring the pain.

He took another stance but before he could try again,Theia stopped him

"Wait wait wait. You can’t"

"Why?"

[Astra: 0/200]

Zen looked at the screen a bit surprised. He was so focused, he didn’t notice his Astra had bottomed out.

He was about to take a break to meditate when he suddenly noticed something.

Zen looked at the pitch black ethereal string that was in the air.

Almost like it was calling to him,He slowly approached it in a slight trance, and without thinking, he touched it.

Theia was overcome with panic as she saw Zen’s body drop lifelessly to the ground.

She flew towards him as fast as she could.

"Zen? Zen, can you hear me? Zen!!!"

*****************

Zen’s eyes burst open as he got up. He looked around, looking a bit confused about where he was, especially since it was nighttime, but once he realized he was on the sofa in Aurora’s office, he calmed down.

’Wait a minute. Didn’t i fall asleep in the library?’

"Looks like you’re up"

Zen looked at where the familiar voice came from and saw Aurora sitting at her desk .

"I’m guessing the floor was uncomfortable"

Zen didn’t reply and tried to grab the strange moisture on his forehead. Taking it off,he realized it was a towel,a wet,cold towel. He glanced at her table and saw at least a dozen similar used towels and napkins.

"You were burning up" Aurora admitted.

"You wouldn’t stop twitching and turning. After a while, you looked like you were about to cry. Must’ve been some nightmare, huh?"

"...yeah"

Zen suddenly remembered the mess he made, training in the library.

Almost like she read his mind, Aurora replied.

"I already cleaned up your little mess. If you’re feeling up to it,you can leave . I have a feeling that although you just woke up, you still need a real rest "

Zen got up and took a bow.

"Thank you "

He was about to leave when Aurora suddenly stopped him.

"Kid...are you okay? Do you need help with something?"

Zen shook his head.

"No"

"Fine, just make sure you go get a checkup from Elaine tomorrow. I’ll ask her if you showed up,so don’t try to get out of it"

"Okay "

Zen was halfway to the exit when he suddenly turned around.

"Do you know where I can find a blacksmith?"

***************

Zen walked through the halls on his way back to his dorm. He had spent most of the day passed out in Aurora’s office, but he had luckily already completed his quests.

All the voices in his head exploded in questions the moment he woke up, but Zen had to ignore them to focus on Aurora.

"Zen. What happened?"

"I... saw another one of those strings"

Theia looked suprised.

"And what did you see?"

Zephyr asked

"You"

"What?"

"I saw...you"