Ki Horizons - [Litrpg, Adventure, Power Levels]

Harder. Faster. These words were ones I knew well. Very, very well. Along with 'Punch it'. If anything, they'd been ingrained into my very psyche from however long Master had said and whispered those horrible damning words into my ears. They were brutal beyond belief and possibly even part of my whole identity. I'd definitely thought them at least a few times while I had been fighting that mechanical T-Rex or the Director.

So it was beyond compare to now practically hear the opposite all the damn time.

"Slower Mutai. Slower. Slower. Do you not know what Slower means? It means less speed. Like maple syrup. Pretty good, maple syrup. I should have some later. Maybe pouring some will help you get the idea through your thick head."

"I'm! Trying!"

"Softer too. The Ki must be like water but going at your pace. Speed and force is easy, we don't want that. Do the exact opposite even. We don't want beams and blasts, no, we need to have something lighter."

What even was the point of this?!

I stood in the underground arena but things had changed sharply. Now, the walls were pale black. I'd raised an eyebrow at that but had just wiped it away as Master's Ki shenanigans. He can do practically anything so far as I was concerned.

The training, when he told me, had been simple enough. I had to make my Ki like molasses, then ice, then a solid, and finally, I'd have to do the opposite all over again. Cycle, Master had said. I had to cycle my Ki between the two extremes and try to push past each extreme every time.

It had sounded simple, if hard. But…

I once again tried to summon ki… only for it to shoot out immediately as a small blue ball. Its speed wasn't even impressive, something a power level [5] could've dodged and much less 'hit' the wall, it more just popped next to it before dispersing into energy.

"I don't get it… why?!"

"Hmm… there's a lot in that small word this time isn't there? 'Why' is your Ki useless and worthless right now? Because your life force isn't high or strong enough. You aren't pulling from life and death itself, damaging you beyond repair. You also don't have some strange boost from someone you just met, pouring their Ki into you. This is your normal Ki. Weak, pitiful, slow. Pathetic really."

"No, not, not just that! But why… I don't get it… why is it so pathetic? Surely… I can do more than this!"

"No, you can't. That's the whole point. I told you, Ki is the pinnacle of your life force, like your blood. And as a blood metaphor, you need it coursing through you. You can expel all of it and be severely weakened, not unlike training for a whole week straight with no rest, but trying to pull and push it out and use it is hard. There are methods of using it internally, but that's pretty advanced even for you. We'll have to get there slowly."

I focused, taking the words in. It wasn't unlike throwing an amazing punch and then all the rest of your punches being as weak as pillow slaps. The other two times I'd used Ki offensively, it had been devastating and amazing. I had literally killed someone every time I'd used it.

Now… this might not even kill a power level [2] rat.

And honestly, what might be worse… was that I couldn't do what I'd first done at all.

I tried to simply float a ball of Ki in my hand, only for it to fire upwards, slowly, towards the ceiling.

Master popped it without even looking at it. Or touching it. No idea how he was doing that, even with my Ki Sense. It was like my Ki just seemed to suddenly stop existing.

"I told you to stop doing that. I haven't fortified the damn ceiling yet. Even if it's weak, I don't want you pushing Ki towards it till I have."

I grumbled but continued on. I felt the Ki coursing through me, sensing it. Sensed the fire and the energy. The way it permeated my whole being. The way it seemed to weave inside its own self, flowing through invisible lines of fire. More suggestion than not but also… healthy. Helpful. Nothing was 'technically' stopping me from shooting Ki out of my shoulder and not my hands… but it wouldn't go well for me. I either remade the 'line' that way or I got real good at using free flowing Ki. I actually had taken the time to read about Ki on Hoardapedia (odd naming convention there) and as much as I could at that, using my damn brain for once.

My shoulder shattering would be the least of my worries if I tried. 'Explosive Destruction' was, I believe, the words it used.

I shook my head, focusing back on my senses. I 'pushed' my ki through the 'line', having it flow through up and out of my body, trying to slow it down as much as possible. Trying to have it go as slow as syrup, as fast as ice, as quick as a turtle-

It rocketed out of my outstretched hand and arm, a blue ball emerging into existence, only to then go at the speed of a tortoise with a weight attached to it.

"No, ya see, it's the inner part we want to make slow. Not the outer part."

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"I don't remember you being this mean last time!"

Master snorts.

"Oh? Is the big talented baby who learned years of my lessons and martial arts and skipped dozens, if not hundreds, of my planned teaching moments going to cry? Perhaps you'd like my fist to help wipe the tears?"

"Petty bastard…" I grumbled, focusing back on the work at hand.

This wasn't easy. It was hard and part of the reason was because trying to move Ki was hard. I could sense it, sure, but it was like trying to move light after being able to see for the first time. The fact that I could at all surprised and shocked me but it wasn't easy. It was like trying to tap into a way of thinking and movement that was, well, beyond me. And then I'd 'hit' it, like blinking my elbow or some nonsense, and it would fire out of me without any kind of slowdown at all. Grasping it, smoothly cycling it, making it hard or soft, fast or slow? That all was beyond me at the moment. Just knowing the damn lines within me were there was difficult despite my growing Ki sense.

…it didn't help that this training was after a full eight hours of having to meditate while Master still blasted me with his Ki like a raging inferno's worth of hellfire.

I focused again and-

Another slow floating blue ball.

"Wow. That was terrible. That was almost not awful, if we change the meaning of 'almost' entirely to mean 'super'."

I miss when Master was encouraging, even if it was in his own brusque way. I miss it a lot. This damn training is going to cause me to go crazy!

*******

The days continued but the next major change came three days later. It was a normal day, stressful as always, as Master bombarded us with enough energy to kill us a hundred times over. About halfway through, I sensed it. A change in the Ki around us.

But it wasn't coming from Master or me.

I turned and saw Vincent staring rapturously down at the ball of Ki in his hands, red in nature instead of my blue.

"I see it… no… I see it all…" Vincent muttered to himself, still staring at his hands but his eyes were practically vacant.

I smiled inwardly, waiting.

"The road, it was so beautiful- MY EYES!"

"Babies, the lot of you." Master grumbled to himself.

The red ball of energy dissipated as Vincent rolled on the ground like a worm first exposed to the sun. Huh. Perhaps I'd handled this a lot better than I thought.

"I'm not "turning myself down."" Master said. "Get up, sit down, and keep meditating. It's only going to get worse from here."

"GAHHH!" Vincent screamed and yet… his body moved, like invisible wires of determination were forcing his muscles to do the actions his mind demanded. Nearly every single vein in his body could be seen, so tense was he, as he stared at Master in a fear unlike any other I'd ever seen on him. But even that simply wasn't enough to beat his iron clad will.

What a Monster my marital brother was.

********

After the eight hours of meditation were up, I literally saw a dust cloud of Vincent's form as he fled. Huh, the dojo was getting a little strangely dusty. I moved to go follow him and help him-

Only to feel an iron clad hand grab my arm.

I looked over to Master and felt my heart hammering in my chest. His eyes bored into me.

"I was just-"

"He will return. We aren't here to play, we are here to train. And it's still time to train."

It was the first time I'd ever simply thought of refusing Master. Well, refusing out of pure desire and not pure exhaustion at least. Vincent needed me but…

"What must you always do Mutai, if you wish to keep being trained by me?" Master said, giving no room for argument.

"...My best."

"Then follow me."

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

Vincent returned later and I winced. He didn't seem unhappy or anything with me, no, in fact he seemed ecstatic and also horrifyingly afraid. I understood, Ki sense was like that, especially around Master.

"Mutai… you really undersold this feeling."

"I tried!"

"Try harder next time, holy shit."

I shook my head at Vincent. Things changed after that, a relief and balm on my soul replacing the anger and frustration the second training had been filling me with. And the reason for that was because…

"Why?!"

"Deja Vu huh? Well I already explained this to Mutai but…"

It was true what they said. Misery loved company.

"Stop smiling like a lazy fool and get blasting."

Despite making no true progress that day, the days continued on and on. It was repetitive and boring. Eight hours of being blasted with Ki like a scorching sun, always getting brighter and brighter, to the point a full hour of losing all my other senses even happened once. Then, afterwards, hours and hours trying to use the new slightly improved Ki Sense to control the energy in our bodies, trying to slow the path of it, to make the release itself glacial. Minor progress, tiny, but every day it was there.

Our Power Levels had ground to a halt, but we were improving day by day by day. The absence of time to ourselves or hobbies, the absence of being able to go swimming or see a movie, for the first time I truly felt it and marveled all over at Vincent Valorious. I had grabbed onto this like a sinking ship after years of pain and in a way, so had he, but it just felt… different. I had abandoned those parts of me and yet Vincent clearly never had. He was no force of nature or spirit of vengeance… well… maybe he was that last one when he got that look in his eyes.

Either way, I missed being a person, even as I improved. The Ki came out slower, the Ki released actually improved, and my Ki sense got farther out and more detailed. Now I didn't need my eyes to feel it just as well behind me and I could almost kinda maybe close my eyes and still see a 'person' just using my Ki sense.

It was on a day like any other of doing that, that Master dropped a bomb on us.

"Vega's in the city."