Day 8.
The discovery from the ancient texts completely altered my perspective.
With the addition of correct technique; the required breathing patterns, visualization sequences for each aspect of the Void, and the specific pathways the Valdrake ancestor mapped for their descendants hundreds of years ago. Each time I completed a Void circulation, I accomplished three times as much using correct techniques than I did with my earlier attempts. The flow of energy was smoother, flowed to a greater depth, and began building on itself. The flow of my meridians was also adapting; not easily, or without discomfort; but adapting to this technique in the same way that muscles adapt through stress and rest and eventually accepting this as their new condition.
I have completed twenty cycles per session; two sessions per day; for a total of forty cycles.
Hidden Quest Progress 26/100
The scar tissue on my hands had developed a stabilisation point; the dark purple streaks did not continue to develop, but had now settled into a permanent network of Void Aether channel structures on my knuckles and fingers, which are so thin they could easily be mistaken for veins in low light, but are clearly identifiable as being abnormal in bright light conditions. Because of this, I would require gloves; as had Cedric when wearing them in several of the cut scenes; black leather with silver clasps are the style worn by nobles. I had thought at the time this was done for appearance purposes only. Now I question if the original Cedric had scars of his own that needed to be concealed.
This is another item added to my growing collection of unanswered questions not provided as part of the game.
The speed of progress for sword training is accelerating at a faster rate than for cultivation of the Void. The muscle memory of Cedric has been made easier due to having the training of the Valdrake Combat Families for seventeen years built into the muscles, joints, and reflexes of his body.
My input to this project was adding an analytical layer. I analysed Valdrake's standard forms for inefficiencies, modified my stance according to the amount of Aether I outputted, and added footwork theory learned while studying the combat engine of the game itself.
Each fighting style in Throne of Ruin had a rhythm. This rhythm is an underlying tempo that determined when a fighter can attack, when they will recover, and when they have the opportunity to counter. I spent hundreds of hours learning how to read this rhythm and be able to tell when a boss would pause, when a combination would end and when a dodge window would open, etc. This knowledge can be applied to real-world combat.
Not perfectly. However, the principle that every fighter has a certain pattern, and that those patterns can be read or predicted, remains true. Cedric's body was a very precise weapon, even at an F-rank. When I gave him the correct input, he created effects that were beyond my expectations.
By the 8th Day, I was able to perform all twelve forms of the Valdrake sword sequence (which is quite a long sword series) at approximately low-D rank. The enhancement from the Void Aether that was provided through the meridian path increased my physical performance by approximately 40% of what I would consider my baseline. While this would not have been sufficient to compete with a true Adept, it would have likely blurred the line in terms of how I appeared to others.
Perhaps.
---
On the 11th Day:
The Duke came back from the capital city.
I knew prior to anyone telling me that he had returned to the estate because the Void Aether that was present in the estate had changed.The energy that was usually just flowing evenly through the walls and all around the estate was now flowing with a purpose — towards the North Wing where The Duke's quarters are. All of the estate was now pointing toward him as if it were all iron filings pointing to a magnet.
It's like living in a weather system when you live with a monarch-ranking cultivator; you can't see the storm coming, but you are experiencing the pressure.
Then he summoned me for breakfast, not dinner. Apparently in a Valdrake household breakfast is served in a smaller room, with only a twelve-person table and is lighter fare than dinner. Intimate by aristocratic standards.
He told me, "Your training..." He said, without looking up from the document. To him, every meal is a board meeting and eating is the distraction.
"Instructor Veylan has been hired to train you for the term at the academy. He was in the military and is competent. He will be assessing you during the first week."
I took his name down in my mental notebook: Instructor Veylan Graves. In the game he is a minor NPC; the combat instructor that appears in the training montage cutscenes, to give you the obligatory expository dialogue on how to fight. He has a total of about ten lines of dialogue. Brown hair, a scar on his jaw and a permanent look of disapproval.
Another minor NPC who is probably more important than the game has shown.
I replied to him with "I will be ready."
He put down the document and looked at me.
The third time we've been in the room together and the weight of his attention was still nobody would have mistaken me for the same person; the way he looked into my eyes was as if to say, "I know your secret."It wasn't getting weaker; if anything, it was getting stronger — or maybe I was just getting better at picking up on it. His Void Aether wasn't just filling the space but also interpreting what was happening in the space. I could feel it sweeping against my own meager energy signature, checking it, sampling it, and assessing it. An aura from a Monarch was not simply a show of power; it could be an indication of the Monarch's knowledge of another Monarch. A Monarch could probably find out the cultivation ranks of every person in a room just as easily as I could tell if a room was hot or cold.
This also meant that the Monarch could tell that there was something wrong with my core.
I held his gaze in silence. For two seconds, four seconds. I did so in the same manner that Cedric would; steady, unblinking, like a Valdrake facing another Valdrake.
"You have been using the vault," he said.
Not a question.
My pulse remained steady. Cedric's physicality is built for composure like a submarine's design is for withstanding pressure; the further down you go, the more it supports.
"I used the archive," I responded. "To study combat theory ahead of time."
"And the lower levels?"
He knew; the blood seal on the vault documented all entries and logged them. Of course it did; the Duke's residence is a "police state" with a better aesthetic than a police station.
"My curiosity got the best of me; I wanted to see what was located in the training area."
"And the fourth branch?"
He was scrutinizing my expressions as meticulously as a man would inspect a contract for undisclosed clauses. I gave him no insight. My mask was not slipping.Internally, I was screaming alarm bells because the fourth wing of the vault was Sera's chamber, and the fact that the Duke was aware I had been there meant he had been keeping tabs on the vault and had seen it as something of importance, or at the very least, something that generated anxiety within him.
There was a pause.
Then the Duke surprised me. He nodded. Not an approving nod — approval speaks of some emotional investment, and that is something the Duke does not possess — but a nod more toward acknowledgment. It was as if I had successfully completed an examination that I had been unaware I was even taking.
"Yes," he said. "Your inheritance is everything."
Then the Duke returned to the document he was reading, and that was the end of the subject. The remainder of breakfast passed in silence.
The food on my plate was tasteless to me as I calculated what I knew about the Duke and what he had demonstrated with his actions. He was aware I'd entered Sera's room. He did not warn me away from it (which I would have interpreted to mean that I should not have gone into it). He did not ask me whether I had found anything inside it. He did not acknowledge that Sera had ever existed, and he did not say that the room was Sera's.
All he said was, "Your inheritance consists of everything," which I take to mean that what lies behind the wall of a deceased woman also belongs to me.Cedric Valdrake Arkhen, age 17, is classified as a Villain Status, Initiate (F) to (F+). Due to the additional benefits gained from the Meridian Pathway, his Aether Core's rating remains CRITICAL DAMAGE. Cedric's Void Aether Throughput has increased from 4.7% to 11.3%. His Bloodline is classified as Void Sovereignty, Stage 0.5, but the potential for his Bloodline to be anything more is to be determined. Currently, Cedric has only 1.1% of his potential Bloodline access. In terms of Physical Stats, Cedric's Strength is rated F+, Speed and Reflexes E-. With his enhanced muscle memory from the Void, Cedric's combat ability will be at best rated as D for short combats (3 minutes or less). After 3 minutes of combat, Cedric's true rank will be revealed. Cedric currently has 47 Death Flags; the next Flag will be #1, occurring within 10 days of this date. The Narrative Deviation Index shows a 0.4% deviation from the norm for the upcoming Entrance Exam. Cedric has received 10 Villain Points; at this time, there is a Hidden Quest named The Fractured Path. Progress towards the Hidden Quest's goal is currently at 58 / 100.
The rating of F+ does not reflect my total ability as a Villain, but is indicative of my abilities based on the system acknowledging that I was able to utilize the void technique to achieve a result that was well below what I had anticipated achieving. The most important line of my Combat Assessment was that I was capable of mimicking a D-rank performance during a short engagement, or combat scenario, lasting less than 3 minutes.The maximum duration for which an entrance exam duel took place as per the guidelines was five minutes.
However, there was a two minutes gap between the limits of what I will be able to sustain and what I absolutely needed to sustain, where my mask would crack, my Void reinforcement would recede, and anyone who was observant would see an F-rank attempting to act like something that I was not.
To put things in perspective, two minutes is equivalent to the length of a song, a boil pot of water, and it was also the difference between surviving and being exposed.
So, I could actually work with that time frame, but I had to make certain that my opponent was finished before three minutes was up.
---
On Day 18 of my training, I learned from the ancient writings connected to the Void Meridian Reversal that they had failed to inform me of a very important fact when it came to the way that I presently perceived Aether.
As for standard cultivators, the way in which they perceive Aether is similar to how we perceive temperatures in our everyday lives. For instance, we know that it is warmer here and colder over there with respect to the areas we move into and out of. However, this only gives you a generalized impression of Aether. A basic means of getting around and assessing your threat levels; other than that it is not much use.
For me, with the way I have been channeling raw Void Aether through pathways meant for channeling processed Aether, my meridian pathways have a built up hypersensitivity to the flow of Aether, similar to what happens to a tongue that has been burned by hot food. I can feel Aether instead of simply sensing it; I can sense the texture, the direction, and the composition of Aether.I could tell whether an Aether was Pure Aether or Elemental Aether simply by touching it. I could feel the Void saturation that permeated the walls of the estate, allowing me to map density gradients without using my eyes.
And I could sense people.
Every living creature has an Aether Core, which emits a signature field (called Aether) that cultivators produce automatically — without needing to concentrate on projecting the energy. For an ordinary person using standard sensor equipment, this would appear to be a vague, general impression of "a lot of energy in one place and little in another". However, I was at the point where this was developing into an almost sonar-like experience for me. I could sense the kitchen staff that were three levels above me, their Unawakened Aether Cores were akin to flame candles in the darkness of night; they were small (as we would normally perceive "small") and relatively steady with no real discernible value at this stage. I could also perceive the guards surrounding the estate, their Initiate and Acolyte Aether Cores were a bit stronger than those of the kitchen staff (as if they were a campfire rather than a candle). The Guards' Initiate Aether was much brighter than their Acolyte Aether and produced an intensity and constant rhythm of energy as a result of the trained discipline used to maintain it.
Lastly, I could feel the Duke himself. Even though he was located four stories down and surrounded by stone that had been saturated with Void Aether, the intensity of his Monarch Aether Core felt akin to the feeling of being at the ocean's edge (unlike the sensation of the kitchen staff and guards) — it was enormous, vast, deep, and had a gravitational pull that distorted everything around it.
This aspect was not mentioned as a function of the Void Meridian Reversal in the manuals — this was a development that arose from my physical training resulting in my senses becoming significantly greater than what standard cultivation would create.
I thought about the room Sera had used (the one I'd located using the sensation of the Void Aether's bending around an invisible obstruction). When I first located it, I assumed the reason for being able to sense the obstruction was due to my training at that time. Now, I can see that the Void Meridian Path created an ability to sense the Void – this is something that standard cultivators could never accomplish.
The weakness of my physical body and inability to be heralded a warrior, has evolved into a major informational advantage. However, as I had learned over the course of 4,127 hours of playtime while playing Throne of Ruin, gaining high valuable informational advantage over another player is the most dangerous weapon available in any game.