The campfire crackled and popped, sending sparks spiraling into the night sky like inverted stars fleeing the earth. The flames danced in shades of orange and gold, their warmth a small island of comfort on the blood-soaked peak.
Beyond their reach, the portal pulsed with its own light—a violet-blue glow that seemed to breathe, expanding and contracting in rhythms that matched nothing in the natural world. The two lights clashed and mingled across the mountain's summit, painting the scattered rocks and the distant piles of corpses in shifting, contradictory colors.
Titus sat cross-legged on a flat stone, his weathered hands working a makeshift spike over the flames. The meat impaled upon it: strips carved from one of the feline beasts that had fallen in the earlier waves:sizzled and dripped fat into the fire, each drop hissing angrily before disappearing.
The scent that rose was complex: the rich promise of cooked meat underlaid by something wilder, gamier, tinged with the spiritual energy that still saturated every fiber of the creature's flesh.
Norlan sat beside him, his own spike held with considerably less expertise. The checkered haori had been removed and draped over a distant rock to dry—or at least to become slightly less saturated.
His white undershirt, now more pink than white, clung to his torso in ways that would have been uncomfortable if he'd had the energy to care. His wavy hair, finally beginning to dry, had started to regain its natural dark luster, though clumps still stuck together where blood had matted it thoroughly.
"Norlan my boy, let's start our preliminary course in all things associated with cultivation."
Norlan tore his gaze from the hypnotic dance of the flames, fixing Titus with an expression of exaggerated skepticism.
"What do you mean preliminary? I probably know more than you about Albera." His face lit up,a genuine flash of youthful pride breaking through the exhaustion,at the thought of knowing something this ancient ancestor of his might not.
Titus didn't take the bait. He simply smiled, that weathered expression that held centuries of patience, and bit into his meat with exaggerated satisfaction. The juice ran down his chin, catching the firelight like liquid amber.
"I don't doubt that for even a moment. I bet the goddess has much to say on that front." He chewed thoughtfully, swallowed, and pointed the stripped spike at Norlan.
"But I'm not talking about Albera specifically. I'm talking about cultivation."
Norlan's expression shifted,the skepticism fading into something more thoughtful.
"Furthermore, if the goddess Aurelia didn't deem it unnecessary, and she was the one who ordered me to teach you, there must be some gain you can get from my experience."
Titus soothed his next bite with obvious pleasure, closing his eyes briefly as if savoring not just the meat but the moment itself.
Norlan gestured exaggeratedly, a courtier's flourish performed in a blood-stained undershirt on a mountain of corpses. "Carry on then, O ancient one. Enlighten me with your centuries of wisdom."
"Much obliged, my lord. Much obliged."
Titus waved his free hand, and the air before him shimmered.
Four streams of light emerged from his palm. Each moved with its own distinct character, its own rhythm, its own internal logic.
Titus waved gently, and the four threads complied with his movement, circling and revolving around each other with guided precision, weaving patterns that were beautiful precisely because they seemed to follow no pattern at all.
Norlan's breath caught.
"I know the skill Energy Contradiction allows you to perceive energy at a deeper level than the average man," Titus said, his eyes never leaving the dancing threads. "Although you can only use this skill for now, I can tell you right away that I, Titus Grimblade would without a second thought,immediately give up everything;every skill, every art, even my own expression just to gain that skill."
Norlan raised an eyebrow. The firelight caught his profile, highlighting the sharp planes of his face, the tension in his jaw that spoke of deep thought beneath the casual exterior.
Wasn't it just perceiving energy at a magnified level? What was so special about that? Wouldn't every cultivator eventually reach such understanding at higher levels?
"I know what you're thinking," Titus said, and now his ancient eyes lifted from the threads to meet Norlan's. "You think that eventually every cultivator will come into contact with the same breadth of understanding regarding energy intricacies. That it's just a matter of time, of accumulation, of reaching a high enough realm that these things become visible naturally."
Norlan didn't deny it. The silence was acknowledgment enough.
"Watch closely." Titus made a minute adjustment, and one of the threads separated slightly from the others, becoming distinct. "Tell me,what do you see?"
Norlan leaned forward, his exhaustion forgotten. The fire crackled behind him, the portal pulsed beside him, but his entire attention focused on those four streams of energy, each moving with its own character, its own texture, its own internal light.
He reached for his own perception, activating Energy Contradiction. The world shifted,the fire's warmth became visible as rising currents of dispersed heat-energy, the portal's pulse resolved into complex waves of structured power, and Titus's threads exploded into impossible detail.
"Natural spiritual energy," Norlan said slowly, pointing at one thread. "Spirituality. Soul energy. And raw body energy given form."
The words came out certain, confident, though he hadn't consciously known he knew them until they left his mouth. The threads resolved themselves in his enhanced perception with perfect clarity.
"And why do you say that?" The single word carried weight.
Norlan considered the question, letting his perception linger on each thread in turn. The fire popped behind him, sending a shower of sparks toward the indifferent stars.
"The natural spiritual energy" he pointed to the first thread, which seemed almost transparent in his perception "..it's too thin. Too spread out. When I use Energy Contradiction to perceive it, it looks exactly like the natural spiritual energy floating in the air around us. The same diffusion. The same lack of structure. It hasn't been refined yet."
He moved his finger to the second thread. This one was different,still carrying the fundamental nature of spiritual energy but...
"Spirituality," Norlan continued, "is what happens when natural spiritual energy gets claimed by a cultivator. It's the same in its basic nature, but it's been made personal.
See how the particles are more compact? More organized?" He leaned closer, and his voice took on a note of discovery. "And they're tinged with the color of your affinity. In your case, it's got that earthy, solid undertone,the raw body energy's influence, because your expression leans that way."
Without thinking, Norlan raised his own free hand. He reached into himself, into his divine aperture, and drew forth a strand of his own spirituality. It emerged from his palm,thinner than Titus's, less controlled, but unmistakably present. And it shimmered with a faint blue coloration, like the first light of dawn touching clear water.
"See?" Norlan held it up beside Titus's threads. "Mine's blue. Different affinity, different color. Spirituality takes on the form and color of the cultivator's expression. It's how you know it's been claimed and refined.
Natural spiritual energy has no color because it has no owner."
Titus stared at the two displays;his own threads, Norlan's blue-tinged strand,and then he did something Norlan hadn't expected.
He laughed.
Not a polite chuckle, not a restrained acknowledgment,but a genuine, from-the-belly laugh that echoed across the peak and sent a pair of distant scavengers scurrying for cover.
His weathered face creased into a thousand lines of pure amusement, and he reached out to slap Norlan's shoulder with enough force to send the younger man stumbling sideways.
"Control your strength when you do that,it hurts you know?" Norlan gasped, catching himself on a rock. His shoulder throbbed with pleasant pain.
"Unless you want to change your role from steward to eunuch. I don't think even Aurelia could fix that kind of damage."
Titus's laughter redoubled, and for a moment,just a moment,he looked less like an ancient warrior and more like a grandfather sharing a joke with a beloved grandson.
The firelight caught the moisture at the corners of his eyes, though whether from laughter or something deeper, Norlan couldn't tell.
"Boy," Titus finally managed, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, "do you have any idea what you just said?"
"Made an observation?"
"It wasn't just an observation." Titus's voice softened, losing its laughter and gaining something almost reverent. "Now. The other two threads,tell me about more them."
Norlan turned his attention back to the remaining streams. The third thread moved with a different rhythm than the others,slower, somehow heavier, though it had no physical weight. The fourth was almost its opposite: quick, flickering, impossible to track for more than an instant.
"Raw body energy," he said, pointing to the third. "And soul energy." The fourth.
He studied them both, letting his perception deepen, letting Energy Contradiction show him what lay beneath the surface.
"They both carry traces of your raw body affinity,that earthy undertone is there in both.
But the structures are completely different."
He focused on the soul energy thread, trying to articulate what he saw. "The particles themselves in this strand,the fundamental components,they're arranged differently. The shape of them, the way they interact with each other, the spaces between... it's like comparing water to stone. Both exist, both are real, but they're built from different principles entirely."
He looked up at Titus. " To sum it up, all of them,spirituality, raw body energy,and soul energy; they all have different components and structures. They're not just different flavors of the same thing. They're fundamentally different kinds of existence."
Titus nodded slowly. The firelight played across his ancient features, revealing depths of approval that he rarely let show.
"One more question," Titus said. "Do you think everyone can see those differences? The way you just did?"
The question hung in the air, and Norlan felt something shift in his understanding. He looked at the threads again,at the clear distinctions between them, at the structural differences that seemed so obvious now that he'd noticed them.
Then he tried to imagine seeing them without Energy Contradiction. Without that extra layer of perception that let him peer beneath the surface.
The realization hit him like a physical blow.
"If I didn't have Energy Contradiction," he said slowly, "I couldn't tell them apart. Any of them!" He pointed to the spirituality thread, the raw body thread, the soul thread,dimming his passive skill.
"They'd all just look like... energy. Colored by your affinity, maybe, but otherwise indistinguishable. The only one I'd be able to identify for certain would be natural spiritual energy because it has no color, no affinity tint."
He looked at Titus with new eyes. "Everyone else fights like that?"
" So now you see.. hahahaha!"
Titus released the threads, and they dissipated into the night air like morning mist burning away.
"Yes. Most cultivators perceive energy as a single thing with varying intensities. They can tell when an attack is coming,how the energy builds,how it focuses:And how it prepares to release. But they can't actually tell what kind of energy until it strikes. Until it's too late to adjust."
He picked up his spike, turned the remaining meat over the flames. The sizzle filled the momentary silence.
"Think about what that means in combat," Titus continued. "An enemy gathers power. You feel it building. But do you know if it's a soul attack that will target your soul directly? A raw body strike that will shatter your physical form? A spirituality technique that will try to overwhelm your will and claim your mind? Until the moment of impact, you can't know. You brace for everything, which eventually means you're prepared for nothing. You can argue that one can dodge, or any other kind of manuver but, it's still the same.."
Norlan's mind raced, applying the insight to the battles he'd fought, the things he'd seen, the near-misses and the clean kills. The beasts had attacked with pure instinct, raw power channeled through physical forms.
But against a human cultivator,someone with training, with technique, with the ability to disguise their intent...
"Hahahah!! It seems you have finally figured it out. Yes,it is intent. Every movement of a human being is guided by intent. One can't move if one doesn't intend to move. One can't run if one doesn't intend to run. Even something as miniscule as blinking needs intent.
Now look at me. Think about it,what if you could see through the intent of your opponent before they even move? Think about it, energy contradiction gives you this advantage,you may not see it for now due to low mastery but just think about it..??"
Titus couldn't help but grinning wildly. He took Norlan's attention by snapping his fingers,his wild grin plastering all over his face.
"Now that you have thought about it,move your mind to the combat style that I have ingraving into your bones,think about it and tell me it's core principle!"
If an idea or thought or conclusion would be replaced by a dark moonless night,the inspiration hitting Norlan now would be akin to fireworks exploding and lightning up the entire sky.
He looked at Titus with a look of astound astonishment. Then roared with vigor.
"There is no intent! You have been training me to fight without displaying intent!!"
Then it continued to hit him like a falling mountain, Fighting with no intent,all the while being able to react to your enemies intent. Isn't that too overpowered??
Then he heard Titus's voice overwhelming the whole mountain peak...
"Zero Intent. That is the name of the combat style ! Made by yours proudly and perfected by you."
"ZERO INTENT!"