While everyone else was eating and taking a break from training, Sun-young remained seated in her canoe with her katana on her lap. All this ti, she had barely twitched.
Kazi didn’t want to disturb in case she was too deep in ditation. He put the tip of his foot on the canoe. Sohow, Sun-young sensed it and opened her eyes.
"So are we both having ditating fevers? Or is sothing else going on, Ms. Sun-young?" Kazi joked.
"Sothing else," Sun-young replied.
"Fair enough. Is your stomach better? You drank down the potions I gave?"
’They cost a hefty price too. Fifty thousand points for each.’
"Much better," Sun-young said.
"Don’t push yourself. ditating is still training."
"I won’t. I’ll be fine."
Sun-young said it with surprising enthusiasm. Okay, enthusiasm wasn’t the correct term, but the point was that there was an uptick in her voice.
’It’s pretty obvious she fought the Templars during her recovery. Even with the System, her body needs recovering.’ Kazi put a foot on her canoe, silently asking if he could join. She gave a brief nod and he reached forward to sit on the edge of the canoe, facing her. ’Normally, a person would go for physical exercises. Slowly rebuild their strength, but she’s not doing that. She’s trying to learn sothing about herself through ditating. She learned sothing from the Templars, or saw it and wants to learn.’
His hazel eyes flickered to her katana. It wasn’t much of a mystery, the answer was sitting on her lap.
’Anti-magic. Ms. Sun-young is learning to harness its power.’
There were the natural anti-magic properties of the sword but what about the aspects beyond the weapon itself? Was it possible for a player to conjure up beams of anti-magic like Ronin did? How would it coordinate with the mana system in place?
"You’re too focused on nothingness and that makes you focus on your surroundings," Kazi noted. "I get it. It’s hard since we’re on a lake on a canoe. It’s not exactly peaceful. My advice is to focus on a pattern, then lull to it. You’ll feel a sense of content."
"Except my goal is to reach nothingness," Sun-young said. "I have been reading books on it. Complete nothingness exists and it’s what I need to beco stronger."
"Ah, I get it. Anti-magic can only be harnessed through an empty mind, like an empty vessel, so to speak, likely so that it doesn’t interfere with the mana inside you. "
"Yes. It wasn’t until recently that I figured that out. The Ronin’s technique is a stepping stone. A simple slash won’t be enough against truly strong opponents. I want to go beyond that."
"I can try and teach you Third Eye ditation," Kazi suggested. "Its focus is on gathering large amounts of natural mana but the core principles might help. Complete nothingness isn’t only advanced, it is the mark of a master. I rember talking to so monks about it. The thing with nothingness is that technically anyone can do it. A couple seconds, a minute, that’s all in the realm of possibility. But to do it for longer, to do it without needing to spend hours of ditation, it’s hard."
"I’m okay," Sun-young said. "I think I know what to do."
"Got it."
Kazi turned his gaze over to Marta. She and William were hard at work, both attempting to find equilibrium in their respective fighting styles. William was attempting to heave around his axe without causing a splash. Marta was attempting doing the sa but with her save. They were the sa yet different.
"Okay, I admit it, Marta." William sighed and sat on his canoe. "You were right, this IS hard!"
"Mhm, mhm! Told you."
Bonding over tough training was nice to see. A smile appeared on Kazi.
Training. Hard work. Putting ti into sothing small. Struggling with tasks.
The distance. All of a sudden, Kazi was able to see it again. He was so far apart from everyone else. He was reminded of ho, of the whispers and the worship.
Kazi Hossain truly didn’t comprehend it. To him, it all ca naturally. Never once did he have to reconsider his position. His body simply responded to it as if it ant nothing.
He shook his head.
’I should go back to calculating.’
The Wendigo. The sky of coding. The glitch. Getting out of bounds.
Kazi zoned out from the world and began encoding the sky. The codes, the sequences, the numbers and letters, there had to be a aning to them. It was a matter of trial and error rather than difficulty. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. There was nothing stimulating about it, nothing challenging.
Frequency analysis was key to decoding ciphers. Frequency did exist, though nothing ca out of it.
’It’s not a modern cipher, I can tell that much. There’s too much frequency and computers don’t make mistakes. Gods and humans do.’
The codes were on a sky between gates—or so Kazi theorized since there was no other explanation. The world was in an entirely different space-ti, which for the Heavenly Tower wasn’t an impossible thing. After all, when they entered the Server Room and went through the gates in there, it was akin to going through the Nether Portal in Minecraft. A different world, a different dinsion.
’So far, regarding the creation of gates, I know this much: there is a sponsor and an architect. An individual or a group that creates the sponsors’ wish. For example, at Chichen Itza, it was Kukulcán. He pulled out because Jack was brutalizing the Kaloomte’. However, that implies two things: one, the gods aren’t totally invested in this. The whole design of the gate was to repeatedly kill and hunt down the witches. Jack killing them and helping them must have been the last straw for Kukulcán to pull out. Two, the gods have a decent level of influence over the Heavenly Tower. Not so much that they can refuse participation, probably derived from a social aspect. Gods that don’t participate are looked down on. They also can’t make it to their liking either. Soone, the Architects, they have to act as a middleman.’
In his head, he visualized the sky. It dropped to his level, his tilted head staring at each individual letter and number.
’That still leaves the question, how do I break this?’
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