Infinite Realm: Monsters & Legends

The Sword

His mind was focused, his will trembling from the exhaustion. There were many different ideas and ways to meditate, but the one that Zach had always been more adept at was visual meditation. Imagining a task or goal in his mind, seeing himself doing something, training inside of his head. There was not enough room on the ship for any real training, nor was there any true privacy. So, Zach was forced to train inside his small room, by planning things inside his mind. For months, this was his daily routine, sit and meditate. He could feel the skill inside of him, his will brought into existence, bending the laws of nature. The training inside his mind was sharper, clearer, more… real. It drained him, but he felt the wall in front of him now.

And he pushed. The skill quest required him to simply meditate a set number of times, but Zach didn’t want a direct upgrade of his skill, he wanted more. To train without risk of injury, to do things that he couldn’t in reality. He was fighting a group of bandits inside of his mind, but it was… murky, their movements and even his own were not clear. It was him imagining something instead of what he wanted it to be.

His willpower trembled and he felt the skill evolve. He felt as if a bubble of pressure burst inside of his head, and he felt as if he had lost most of his strength. For a few seconds the feeling remained, and then it retreated, and he opened his eyes.

Naha sat across from him, looking at him. “You did it?”

“Yes,” Zach said as he pulled up a notification.

Congratulations!

Greater Meditation >> Phantom Training

“It is exactly what I wanted,” Zach said. By now, he understood how skills worked. You shaped them by need and will. They could evolve in moments of great stress, where their evolution would be guided by the need at the moment. A powerful evasion skill might become spatial if there was no way to escape an attack and the will to do so was powerful enough, or if one could evade, but just lacked a tiny bit of speed it could evolve into something that made one faster.

Both he and Naha had done so much research into skills, they had been evolving their skills slowly. Keeping them on their quests and devising a route forward, making sure that their evolutions were useful and right for them.

“Do you feel like you can use it?” Naha asked, obviously referring to how tired he was.

The skill evolution had taken a toll, but he wasn’t quite done. He closed his eyes, focused on his |Phantom Training| skill and activated it.

A sensation came over him, similar to what happened when he moved between realms. He remained where he was, the same room on the ship heading for the Empire of the Third Iteration, but Naha wasn’t there anymore. The room was empty, and everything around him had a kind of Ethereal sense to it. It was as if he was looking into the realm of ghosts, everything was just… slightly wrong. He stood up and looked around, then looked down at his hand and tried to change it. His hand transformed into a blade as easily as it did in the real world, and he raised it and cut around in front of him, getting a feel for it. This all felt a lot more real than it had before when he was just visualizing things inside of his mind. He could still tell that he was inside of his head, imagining everything, it was just more tangible now.

He tried to think up an opponent, a bandit, and a shape manifested in front of him. The human bandit was a lot clearer now, and Zach could recognize him immediately as one of the bandits that he had fought in the past. It was actually a strange sensation; he was almost convinced that he was remembering more about the bandit now than he had before.

He thought about the bandit attacking him and he did, his movements were exactly as Zach imagined them to be. Which was an issue, if that was all that this was going to be, it would only serve to be an elaborate dance thought up by Zach, not a real challenge. So, Zach focused his will, and slowly as he fought against the bandit he stopped trying to think about how the bandit should move. And slowly the dance turned into a real fight. Zach no longer knew what the bandit was going to do, but had to react to the unexpected. He fought, blocking and striking out, not pushing the bandit that wasn’t nearly as powerful as Zach, but just testing the skill.

Then, his will ran out and the skill ended. The entire world inside his head disappeared and it was as it had been before, just his imagination without the clarity that the skill provided. Zach opened his eyes and saw Naha sitting up close, her nose nearly touching his. Something in his eyes worried him and he raised an eyebrow.

“What happened?” He asked.

“You were in a trance, I couldn’t wake you up,” she answered.

Zach grimaced. He had expected something like that. “A drawback, I get to train inside my head, but I end up being vulnerable in the real world. It is worth it though.”

“It worked how you hoped it would?” Naha asked.

“It did,” Zach nodded. “And there is still room for the skill to evolve, I can… guide it in a direction to alleviate or remove the downside.”

“With enough will everything is possible,” Naha added.

Zach smiled; it was one truth about the skills that drew him to them. The ability to make reality what you want, to change and influence simply through the power of your will.

“Will you do it now?” Naha asked after a moment.

Zach grimaced. His plan had always been to try and evolve one more skill to tier 6, one more perfect skill. His studies into skills, and the instructions of the Citadel’s Skill Master indicated that it was possible without creating an imbalance between his focuses. He knew that his secondary and tertiary focus couldn’t be more than half of his main one, which is where they were now. His main focus was Class at six tiers, his Cultivation had two, and his skills one. Gaining one more perfect skill would put him over that, but if he had understood everything correctly, he wouldn’t be feeling the effects of imbalance if he did things right. He hadn’t felt them before either, and he knew that the reasons were because of the part of himself that he had anchored.

Anchoring a core of one’s being made his will, his mind and his personality stronger, harder to influence by imbalance. If he managed to make one more anchor like the one before, he should be able to do it without creating issues for himself.

But that in itself was a big task. Finding what it was that was core to his being required a lot of insight into himself and what it was that made him who he was. He had spent a lot of time meditating, thinking, but… He was still not quite certain that he had found what he was looking for.

“I… I want to,” Zach said. “Getting more power, especially considering where we are going and what we are doing. But I am not certain that if I did it now I would get it right.”

Naha nodded. “It is important, you can’t make a mistake now. What do you think is the issue?”

“I don’t know, I’ve tried to think of what I consider my driving force. My previous anchor was about those that I loved, it is a big part of who I am. Protecting, being there for those who mean the most to me. But… I also want to get stronger; I want to live freely. But what would it mean for me, for the future if I sealed a part of me that wants to fight? That wants to get stronger? Where would that lead me? What if I reach some great height and then… then I just continue to go forward, trying to get more and more?”

“I understand,” Naha said, and Zach realized that she did understand. She had experience with the way that skill anchors could be twisted.

“I want to help you,” she continued. “But I am not like you. I am older, with different views, I am… not human. The experiences that I had on my old world are not like what you had to go through. We are in many ways connected by our trauma and the things we suffered through. But the basis of who we are? Those are not the same. I grew up a hunter in a world where things were in many ways simpler. You came from a world that was different, the way you were raised was different. The way that you think even now is rooted in who you were before. I know that you changed, that you’ve embraced the Infinite Realm. But the core of who you are is still Earth. You need to figure out how that part of your past fits into who you are and who you want to be.”

“That isn’t an easy thing to do,” Zach sighed. “Especially alone.”

“Of course not, but you have others who understand, who know Earth.”

Zach leaned back in shock. “You want me to talk with Ryun? About this? I—”

Naha cut the air in front of her with her hand, stopping him. “—No, never. It wouldn’t do any good either. That man… he isn’t like you. He isn’t even really human, you can see it in the way that he walks, the way that he talks, how he deals with things. I’ve spent a long time studying every race, I know their mannerisms, the ways that they think. He does not think like a human does. He is… he embraced the Framework and abandoned everything that he once was. It makes him just… him. I’ve seen others like that before, those who are strong or mad. They become something else, something more than they used to be. In time, you—we, will be like that too.”

Zach didn’t know what to say to that, he had decided that the less he thought about Ryun the better. They hadn’t interacted after their talk, instead they had kept away from one another, each keeping to their side of the ship. “So, what did you mean then?”

Naha reached over and tapped his forehead. “Inside of there you have the minds of those who were the greatest of your kind. You used them to get ahead, to get stronger, to advance. Why not ask for advice from those who might know what it means to be human, and who had with you lived through the change?”

Zach blinked, almost feeling embarrassed that he hadn’t thought about it before. He had barely had the time to train with his improved perk. The Last Sovereign of Terra allowed him to bring the spirits of Earth into being fully now. Naha was right, he should’ve thought of that.

“Thank you, Naha,” he said slowly, taking her hand and squeezing it once. “I think that I will do that, but first, I think that I need some rest.”

The way that Zach communicated with the spirits was not quite clear. He couldn’t straight up talk with them, not without pulling a spirit out. But there were so many of them inside of there that not even Zach had an exact number. He had been able to pull out spirits that could help him with specific things before. It was… almost like he thought about what he needed or perhaps it was just his state of being, the spirits could almost sense what he wanted. They sent out people that fit what Zach needed them for.

Now, he sat in his room again. It was a day after he evolved his skill and he finally felt rested enough. He focused on his perk and reached out, calling for a spirit of a swordsman to help him. He could feel the spirits in his mind, sifting through, looking for the right spirit for what Zach needed. He wasn’t clear in what he wanted, so he wondered who was going to come out. He needed someone to help him put things in perspective. Someone who could help him understand who he was.

Then he felt one spirit step forward.

Something flew out of Zach, a white and blue mist that formed the spirit in front of him. It was more… more real now than it had been before when he first pulled a spirit out. The perk upgrade made it so. The shape that formed was male, and quickly it solidified into a man wearing colorful clothes with a feathered hat on his head. The clothes placed him somewhere in the 16th or the 17th century, at least by what Zach remembered of history. He had a rapier at his hip and a satchel on his other one. The man’s most distinguishing feature was his nose, long and hooked enough that it made his face look hawkish.

As the spirit fully formed Zach felt something leave him, and with a quick check he saw that three of his perks were blocked for him. The three that he had chosen for his spirits. Since there was only one spirit now out, he could use all three of the perks that he had designated for them to use.

“Ah,” the spirit said. “This does feel strange.”

Zach understood. The first three spirits that he had summoned when he was experimenting with the perk had all felt the same. They were more real, closer to how they were in life, only stronger.

The spirit raised his eyes and met Zach’s. “Greetings, host.”

“Host?”

“Are you not the host of us wayward souls? If that is what we even are. It is funny in life I believed in the afterlife, yet this is nothing like what I imagined. Yet… I had dreamed of things like this, it is… a gift, to be able to experience this,” he waved his hands around, gesturing at everything. “Regardless, I am Cyrano de Bergerac, at your service.”

The spirit, Cyrano, bowed.

“I am Zacharia Gardner,” he bowed in turn.

The spirit smiled, of course, he already knew that. There was always a… familiarity between Zach and spirits. It was hard for there not to be anything, they were inside his head in every fight, advising, watching, learning, pushing him further and further. He was as strong as he was because of them, because he had their talent and knowledge to draw on. He respected them all.

“You know why I summoned you?” Zach asked.

The spirit nodded. “We can feel you, more intimately now than before. We learn from you, we know these… powers, we know your heart. It is… difficult to explain, I do not have the words for it personally, I do not think that there are even words that can explain. Ironic really.”

“Why?”

“Because words were one of my strengths,” Cyrano answered. “I was many things in my life, a short, but eventful one. I was a novelist, a playwright, and duelist of some renown, I even had a nickname. The Devil of Bravery, ha!”

The spirit shook his head, then took one of the chairs in the room. Zach walked over and took the other.

“You wish to speak?” Cyrano said after a few moments.

Zach tried to think about how to even start. “I… I guess that there are things I would like help with. I need to find something that is the core of my being, but something that is not easily corrupted. Something that can be a guide in a long life. I hope that you can help me with that.”

Cyrano nodded his head, his fingers tapping on the table. “I know why I was pulled out for this, though I don’t think that it is why you think. I am not someone who can help you find what you are looking for. I doubt that there is any one of us who could do that. Or rather, we wouldn’t do that. We spirits inside of you are… we are many things, but we are with you because of our skill with the sword. There is one thing that all of us have in common, and that is knowledge of oneself. To be a great duelist, one needs to understand himself and his own limits. There is not one among us who will help you find what you are looking for, because we understand that this is something that you need to do by yourself. But we can help you do that.”

Zach tilted his head. “Is that really different? Helping me do it by myself is still helping me, isn’t it?”

Cyrano smiled. “There is a difference that you will know only after you have done it. And it is not a simple thing, to know yourself.”

Zach sighed. “I know that it might simply be that I am rushing. There is time for me to contemplate, to think and find myself. Yet I need power, as much of it as I can get.”

Cyrano looked thoughtful. “There is power in knowing who you are, understanding it. So, let me tell you about my life, a short one at that, and things that I have learned. Perhaps that will help you find what you are looking for?”

Zach nodded and met the man’s eyes.

“I was born in a time that was… great and horrible at the same time. I loved many things, and I indulged in them. I learned and became a great duelist, though, I believe that I was greatest near the end of my life, when I finally accepted myself. You see, there were things about myself that I had to hide, that when they came to light I had to run in fear for my life, simply because of who I was. I wrote stories about escape, fiction about worlds and travels that only I could see in my mind, romance,” Cyrano closed his eyes, looking wistful. “I loved the romance and wondered about what might come in time after I was gone. It gladdens me to see that many of the things I imagined are true, if not exactly how I believed them to be.”

He paused then, and his eyes focused on Zach. “Forgive me, I rambled on. It is… strange to be here you know. I am me, but also not… if that makes any sense? Myself as I was when alive would not have taken to all of this so calmly, yet my heart barely flutters now… strange and glorious at the same time.”

Zach let the spirit talk; he knew that some of them had this kind of reactions from his previous conversations with them.

“As I was saying,” Cyrano started. “There is one thing that I think will help you beyond all else. And that is acceptance.”

“Acceptance?” Zach asked, confused.

“Yes,” Cyrano said. “Accepting who you are.”

“I already do, I need help trying to figure out why I am. What part of me makes me who I am, so that I may seal it and ensure that I remain like this forever.”

Cyrano shook his head. “I am a spirit of a man that dwells inside of you Zacharia,” he said slowly, almost kindly. “You call on us to fight, you call on us to think and to plan, to learn. We know you Zacharia as well as we know ourselves. And trust me when I say this: there are many of us, and all of us know ourselves perfectly. We understand you, we in some ways are you, at least a little bit.”

“What do you mean?” Zach asked.

“There are things that you aren’t admitting Zach, about what drives you. You say that it is fear of failure? That it is for the sake of loved ones? It is, but there is more. One more part that you try to ignore, and you think of it as if it is wrong. As if it makes you more like… him. It does not. It is love and greatness,” Cyrano leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with intensity. “It is why you have us, you know? Why you gained this… power, and all of us. Because deep down inside you have the same thing that we do, all you have to do is accept it.”

Zach turned his eyes away, looking at the wall.

Cyrano spoke again. “At the core of it, we are all romantics. We are all in love. Your first anchor is about love too, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Zach said slowly. He knew what the Cyrano was talking about.

“Why do you think that it is wrong then?” Cyrano asked. “Because he loved it too? Because he indulged in slaughter, death and suffering? That is not because of fighting, of the sword itself, Zacharia.”

He closed his eyes and thought about it for almost a full minute. The spirit remained silent, waiting for him.

“It is… older than that. I… when we were young, we joined a dojo. We learned Kendo together, we sparred together, and it was clear from the start that I was better. Our instructors said so, and I… I fell in love with it, with the sword. I trained and trained, and Ryun stayed with me, struggling, but somehow still managing it. He didn’t have a talent for the sword, not really,” Zach shook his head. “Then our dojo was deciding who to send to the tournament, we had to fight other kids in our class. I went up against him.”

Zach paused, then turned his eyes back to Cyrano. “I was better than him in every way, I was taller, had longer reach, I was stronger and just a better with the sword. I knew the techniques by heart, I was one of the best students in the class. And then…”

“You lost?” Cyrano asked.

“No, I didn’t,” Zach shook his head. “I took the first point, easily. It was the second that went to him… Ryun, he had no technique, no skill, he was just… it was a wild attack, it was just… I don’t even know what it was. But he hit me, got that point. I won the next bout, of course, but… I always remembered that one. He shouldn’t have been able to do that. It made me feel like… like all the time and practice I put into learning was pointless. What use was it that I was better when I got hit anyway?”

“I lost my drive for it then, started missing practice, then stopped going all together. Ryun did the same. I… started to think that I wasn’t really good at it, that me lacking in talent and drive was the reason why stopped going. Now… I am older, I know more, I have practiced with the sword, a blade. I know that I was wrong, that one moment made me scared. It impacted me more than I have ever realized back then. And then everything else happened.”

Cyrano nodded. “So, you tried not to think about it? You saw him fight and seem to love it, so you tried not to be like him. I understand that Zacharia. But love for the sword, for the art of fighting itself is not wrong, it is often something that makes a person. All of us who dwell inside of you are defined by it, it is a core of who we are. We are, many of us killers, but when you look at who we were in life you will see how different than him we are.”

Zach thought back on it, remembering other spirits. Salvator Fabris, a fencer and teacher. Miyamoto Musashi a swordsman and philosopher. Sasaki Kojirō, master of his craft and teacher. Others that he had called, all of them were more than just followers of the sword. They were great in other ways. He looked at Cyrano, remembered what he said about his life. He was a writer, a novelist, none of them had been mad and obsessed with killing. His talks with them had always been like this, sitting across someone, almost philosophical in nature. They were violent people, but they didn’t use their violence at every turn in life, and in death they were still teachers.

“I see,” Zach said, and he really did.

“Look inside Zacharia, and you will find the core of who you are and who you want to be. To reach the peak of the sword requires more than simple violence and death, it is for those who are more than killers. None of us inside of you are simple.”

Zach nodded his head, Cyrano smiled. “Well then, I guess that you don’t need me for the rest?”

Zach inclined his head, bowing to him, and then pulled the spirit back. As the Cyrano dissipated and flowed back, Zach whispered. “Thank you.”

Alone, Zach took a seat on the ground, settling into a meditative pose. There were things for him to think about.