Meski sudah sangat menguasai teknik itu, Lex terus berlatih lebih dari satu jam. Ia berlatih mengumpulkan Qi untuk Qi Repulsor di berbagai bagian tubuhnya, dari telapak tangan, dada, kaki, bahkan dahi. Baru setelah Qi-nya benar-benar habis ia berhenti.
Lelah dan berkeringat, Lex mandi lama sekali, lalu mengenakan kembali Bathrobe dan kembali ke ruang Meditasi. Duduk bersila, ia mulai berkultivasi menggunakan Regal Embrace.
Setiap gaya kultivasi berbeda, dan sedikit mengubah Qi yang diserap menjadi bentuk Qi unik yang tersimpan dalam tubuh tiap kultivator. Bagi orang yang punya afinitas, seperti Will Bentham yang berafinitas air, Qi atau energi spiritual yang mereka simpan di tubuh akan lebih pekat dan istimewa. Namun Qi di tubuh Lex berada di tingkat yang sama sekali berbeda.
Qi itu mengandung aspek energi spiritual, energi jiwa, dan vitalitas. Kombinasi unik ini membuat Lex tidak terbatas hanya bisa memakai teknik spirit, meski saat ini ia baru bisa mengakses itu. Artinya ia juga bisa memakai Qi-nya untuk teknik jiwa yang langka dan sangat kuat, serta teknik khusus kultivator tubuh. Sementara kultivator biasa harus menumpuk cadangan tiap jenis energi untuk memakai teknik terkait, Lex bisa memakai ketiganya langsung lewat Qi-nya.
Ini juga membuat Qi-nya lebih kuat daripada Qi rekan-rekannya, meski kekuatan itu tampil dalam bentuk ketahanan, bukan daya serang. Sisi baiknya, karena secara teknis ia menarik dari 3 sumber sementara orang lain hanya dari satu, ia bisa mengisi ulang Qi-nya lebih cepat. Sisi buruknya, setiap terobosannya akan tiga kali lebih sulit daripada kultivator biasa. Lex merasakan sendiri kesulitan itu selama beberapa hari terakhir saat mencoba berkultivasi.
Tapi Lex tidak sedang berkultivasi sekarang, ia hanya mengisi ulang Qi-nya agar bisa berlatih teknik. Ia memindai Inn sekali, memastikan tidak ada yang butuh perhatiannya, lalu melanjutkan latihan.
Teknik berikutnya yang ia latih adalah yang paling mudah setelah Qi Repulsor, yaitu teknik untuk menambah kecepatan. Namanya Falcons relief. Alih-alih berfokus pada kaki, Qi dipusatkan di sekitar jantung dan paru-paru. Efeknya bukan hal sepele seperti memastikan darah mendapat cukup oksigen, bukan. Dengan memusatkan Qi di dua area itu, Qi perlahan larut dari meridian ke dalam darah, dan memberi dorongan kecepatan menyeluruh, bukan hanya di kaki, tapi di seluruh tubuh. Ia bisa berlari lebih cepat, tapi juga menyerang lebih cepat, berputar lebih cepat, makan lebih cepat, atau mencerna lebih cepat. Apa yang ingin dipercepat terserah dia.
Durasi teknik ini bertahan selama Qi belum seluruhnya larut ke dalam darah. Apakah Lex memakainya untuk lonjakan kecepatan sesaat, lari jarak jauh, atau hal lain, sepenuhnya terserah dia.
Tapi meski ini teknik termudah berikutnya setelah Qi Repulsor, bukan berarti benar-benar mudah. Faktanya, meski Lex baru mulai bisa memakainya setelah beberapa hari berlatih, ia yakin tanpa ruang Meditasi dan Bathrobe yang membantunya berkonsentrasi dan belajar lebih cepat, butuh waktu jauh lebih lama.
Mempelajari teknik-teknik ini juga membuatnya menaruh hormat baru pada semua pertarungan yang pernah ia lihat, karena memakai teknik saat berdiri diam itu satu hal, tapi memakainya sambil melakukan gerakan lain sangatlah sulit.
Tapi Lex tidak terlalu keras pada diri sendiri, ia baru mulai berlatih dan wajar kalau masih buruk. Ia terutama tidak bisa membayangkan bagaimana orang memakai beberapa teknik sekaligus. Tapi Lex terlalu jauh melangkah. Ia harus melangkah satu per satu dan fokus pada Falcons relief.
Jam demi jam mengalir seperti butiran pasir di dalam jam pasir, dan saat malam tiba, Lex sangat lelah. Bukan hanya Qi-nya habis, ia bahkan merasa lelah secara fisik dan mental.
Mandi lagi — lihat, dia bukan orang yang tidak menjaga kebersihan — Lex lalu makan. Saat ini ia hanya makan makanan roh karena membantu mengisi ulang Qi-nya secara pasif, bahkan perlahan menaikkan kultivasinya. Setelah selesai, Lex menjatuhkan diri ke kasur dan langsung pingsan.
Pagi berikutnya, sebelum ia sempat bertanya, Mary memberitahunya bahwa Alexander ingin bertemu. Pertemuan itu singkat, Alexander ingin tahu apakah Lex bisa melacak Helen. Lex jelas tidak bisa, dan mengatakannya dengan cara diplomatis.
Alexander lalu bertanya apakah ada tempat di semesta ini yang terhalang untuk mengakses Inn, karena Helen menghilang lewat portal, tapi belum kembali ke Inn memakai kunci emas. Lex meyakinkannya bahwa Inn bisa diakses dari mana saja, sesuai yang dikatakan Mary.
Ia tidak menghabiskan lebih banyak waktu dengan Alexander, karena anak itu tampak terganggu oleh pikirannya sendiri dan Lex punya tugasnya sendiri. Sekali lagi, Lex memulai hari dengan berlatih Qi Repulsor, lalu menghabiskan sisa hari berlatih Falcons relief. Menjelang akhir hari, Lex sudah bisa memakai teknik itu sambil berlari, pencapaian besar karena butuh kemampuan multitasking luar biasa.
Hari berikutnya, Lex berlatih Falcons relief setengah hari, sebelum beralih ke dua teknik ofensifnya. Dua teknik itu, Qi blade dan Auxiliary burst, sangat sulit dikuasai Lex. Bukan hanya kerumitan tekniknya yang membebaninya; ia merasa Regal Embrace memberikan rasa jijik bawaan terhadap teknik itu. Ia bisa merasakannya dari cara Qi-nya nakal setiap kali ia mencoba berlatih.
Tapi alih-alih patah semangat, tantangan itu malah menambah motivasinya. Alih-alih mengembangkan teknik sebagai insting atau refleks, ia berlatih dengan penuh kesadaran. Ia memberi perhatian ekstra pada kecepatan, kepadatan, dan kelenturan tiap helai Qi saat berlatih, dan belajar mengantisipasi kapan dan bagaimana Qi-nya akan nakal, sampai akhirnya ia menguasai teknik itu bahkan lebih cepat daripada Falcons relief. Tinggal satu teknik terakhir yang harus dipelajari Lex, namanya sederhana saja, Mirage.
Mirage bisa membantunya bersembunyi dengan menyamarkan diri dan membuatnya sulit dideteksi lewat penglihatan, tapi saat ini Lex belum bisa menguasainya. Bukan hanya karena kerumitan tekniknya, tapi juga skala teknik serta jumlah Qi yang dibutuhkan untuk memakainya. Karena ia harus menutupi seluruh tubuh saat memakai teknik ini, skalanya lebih besar daripada apa pun yang pernah Lex lakukan, dan jumlah Qi yang dibutuhkan hampir seluruh isi tubuhnya.
Di titik ini, ia kembali ke John untuk berkonsultasi. Sebanyak apa pun Lex ingin melakukan semuanya sendiri, itu tidak mungkin. Menerima bimbingan dari yang lebih berpengalaman akan membuat proses belajar jauh lebih mudah.
Dalam persona Leo-nya, ia memperagakan tiap teknik pada John, sekaligus menceritakan pengalamannya saat mempelajarinya. John diam-diam sangat terkesan dengan kecepatan Leo, tapi tidak menunjukkannya. Apakah ia sedang mempelajari beberapa teknik dalam satu bulan? Tidak, bahkan belum dua minggu.
Saat Lex menjelaskan bagaimana ia menguasai dua teknik ofensif itu, mata John bersinar dan ia menyadari sesuatu, tapi belum mengatakan apa-apa.
John menghabiskan beberapa jam menjelaskan kesalahan Lex, dan menginstruksikannya tentang bagaimana ia harus melanjutkan latihannya ke depan.
Setelah selesai, John duduk nyaman di kursinya dan menatap Lex beberapa saat sambil mempertimbangkan sesuatu. Akhirnya, ia menghela napas dan berkata, "Leo muda, apakah kau familiar dengan array?"
"Ya, bukankah itu formasi yang dipakai untuk melindungi tempat dan semacamnya? Kudengar ada beberapa tamu yang menginap lama di Inn karena di planet mereka, lokasi kembali mereka dikelilingi array itu."
"Sahabat mudaku, jangan pernah mengatakan hal sebuta itu lagi," kata John sambil terkekeh melihat kurangnya pemahaman Leo.
"Bagi orang awam, formasi dan array memang sama. Itu karena keduanya berasal dari sumber yang sama, dan sering kali orang yang ahli di satu bidang juga ahli di bidang lainnya. Tapi array dan formasi, meski kadang mirip efeknya, punya tujuan yang sangat berbeda.
"Formasi memanfaatkan berbagai benda, ada yang buatan dan ada yang alami, bersama pengetahuan rumit dan kompleks tentang ilmu sebab-akibat untuk melahirkan berbagai efek. Sifatnya bisa defensif, ofensif, auxiliaris, atau bahkan campuran ketiganya. Array, bagaimanapun, dibuat sepenuhnya dan hanya dari energi spiritual."
John menatap Leo, yang menyimak kata-katanya dengan penuh perhatian, tapi entah kenapa kehilangan keinginan untuk berkata lebih banyak. Ia menyerahkan sebuah cincin pada Lex dan berkata, "Masukkan Qi-mu ke ini dan kau akan bisa membaca buku di dalamnya. Beri tahu aku pendapatmu."
"Baik," jawab Leo, merasa tidak yakin kenapa John membahas semua ini. Tapi ia mengikutinya saja.
Despite being thoroughly familiar with the technique, Lex continuously practiced it for over an hour. He practiced gathering the Qi for Qi Repulsor on various parts of his body, from his palms to his chest to his legs and even his forehead. Only when he was completely drained of his Qi did he finally stop.
Tired and sweaty, Lex went and took a nice long shower, before he re-equipped the Bathrobe and returned to the Meditation room. Sitting cross-legged, he started cultivating using Regal Embrace.
Each cultivation style was different, and would slightly transform the absorbed Qi into the unique form of Qi each cultivator contained within their body. For people who had affinities, such as Will Bentham who had a water affinity, the Qi or spiritual energy they stored in their body would be more concentrated and special. The Qi in Lex’s body, though, was on an entirely different level.
It contained aspects of spiritual energy, soul energy, and vitality. This unique combination of aspects meant that Lex was not limited to only using spirit techniques, though at the moment he only had access to those. It meant he could also use his Qi to use the rare and especially potent soul techniques, as well as the special techniques of body cultivators. While a normal cultivator would have to build up a reserve of each respective type of energy to use the techniques associated, Lex could use all three directly using his Qi.
This also made his Qi more potent than that of his peers, though this potency was displayed in a form of resilience instead of attacking power. The bright side of this was, since he was technically drawing from 3 sources while people only drew from one, he could replenish his Qi faster. The drawback of this was that each of his breakthroughs would be three times as hard as an ordinary cultivator. Lex had personally experienced this difficulty while trying to cultivate these past few days.
But Lex wasn’t trying to cultivate right now, he was only replenishing his Qi so that he could practice his techniques. He scanned the Inn once, to ensure nothing required his attention, and then resumed his training.
The next technique he practiced was the one he found easiest after Qi Repulsor, which was the technique to increase his speed. It was called Falcons relief. Instead of focusing on something like the legs, the Qi was focused around the heart and the lungs. The effect was not something as mundane as ensuring he got plenty of oxygen in his blood, no. By focusing on those two areas, the Qi would slowly dissolve from his meridians into his blood, and provide him with an overall boost in speed, not just in his legs, but everywhere. He could run faster, but he could also attack faster, turn faster, eat faster or digest faster. What he wanted to speed up was up to him.
The duration of the technique lasted as long as all the Qi did not dissolve into the blood. Whether Lex used that for an increase in burst speed or long distance running or something else was entirely up to him.
But while this was the next easiest technique after Qi Repulsor, it didn’t mean it was actually easy at all. In fact, while Lex had barely started using it after a few days practice, he could say for certain that without the Meditation room and Bathrobe helping him concentrate and learn faster, it would have taken him much longer.
Learning these techniques also gave him a new respect for all the fights he saw previously, because using the techniques while you’re standing still was one thing, but using it while also doing any other action was incredibly difficult.
But Lex was not too hard on himself, he had only just begun training and it made sense that he was bad. He especially could not fathom how people used multiple techniques at the same time. But Lex was getting ahead of himself. He had to take things one step at a time and focused on Falcons’ relief.
The hours flowed by like grains of sand falling in an hourglass, and by the time night fell, Lex was extremely tired. Not only was he drained of his Qi, he even felt physically and mentally exhausted.
Taking yet another shower – see, he wasn’t unhygienic – Lex proceeded to eat some food. At this point, he exclusively only ate spirit food as it helped him replenish his Qi passively, and even slowly helped him increase his cultivation. Once he was done, Lex threw himself onto his bed and instantly passed out.
The next morning, before he could even ask, Mary let him know that Alexander wanted to meet with him. The meeting was short, as Alexander wanted to know if Lex could track Helen. Lex obviously could not do that, and said so in a diplomatic way.
Alexander then asked if there was anywhere in the universe that was blocked from accessing the Inn, as Helen had disappeared through a portal, yet had not returned to the Inn using a golden key. Lex assured him the Inn could be accessed from anywhere, according to what Mary told him.
He did not spend more time with Alexander, as the kid seemed troubled by his own thoughts and Lex had his own tasks to complete. Once again, Lex started the day by practicing Qi Repulsor, then spent the rest of the day practicing Falcons’ relief. By the end of the day, Lex was able to use the technique and also run at the same time, a huge achievement as it required an immense level of multitasking.
The following day, Lex practiced Falcons’ relief for half the day, before moving onto his two offensive techniques. The two techniques, Qi blade and Auxiliary burst, were very difficult for Lex to master. It was not just the inherent complexity of the techniques that overwhelmed him; he felt like Regal Embrace was giving off an inherent disgust for the techniques. He could feel it in the way his Qi would misbehave whenever he tried to practice.
But instead of being discouraged, the challenge somehow increased his motivation. Instead of trying to develop the techniques as instincts or reflexes, he practiced them mindfully. He paid extra attention to the speed, density and flexibility of each strand of Qi while he practiced the technique, and learned to anticipate when and how his Qi would misbehave, and ended up learning the techniques even faster than Falcon’s relief. That only left his final technique for Lex to learn, simply called Mirage.
Mirage could help him hide by camouflaging him and making him difficult to detect using sight, but currently, Lex was unable to master it. This wasn’t simply because of the complexity of the technique, it was also the scale of the technique as well as the amount of Qi required to use it. Since he had to cover his whole body while using the technique, the scale was bigger than anything Lex had done previously, and the amount of Qi was nearly everything he had in his body.
At this point, he went back to John for some consultation. As much as Lex would like to do everything on his own, it just wasn’t possible. Receiving the guidance of those more experienced than him would make the learning process drastically easier.
In his Leo persona, he demonstrated each of the techniques to John, as well as talked about his experiences while learning the techniques. John was secretly very impressed by Leo’s speed, but did not let it show. Was he learning multiple techniques within a single month? No, it had not even been two weeks yet.
When Lex explained how he managed to learn the two offensive techniques, John’s eyes shone and he realized something, but did not say anything yet.
John spent a good few hours explaining his mistakes to Lex, and instructing him on how he should proceed with his practice in the future.
Once he was done with that, though, John sat down comfortably in his chair and stared at Lex for a few moments while he considered something. In the end, he let out a sigh and said, “Young Leo, are you familiar with arrays?”
“Yeah, aren’t those the formations used to protect places and stuff? I heard we had some guests who stayed at the Inn for a long time because back on their planet, their return location had been surrounded by them.”
“My young friend, never say something so illiterate again,” John said as he chuckled at Leo’s lack of understanding.
“To a layman, indeed formations and arrays are the same thing. This is because both of them have the same origin, and often a person who is a master in one, is usually also a master in the other. But arrays and formations, while occasionally similar in effect, have vastly different purposes.
“Formations make use of various items, some manufactured and some natural, along with the intricate and complex knowledge of the science of cause and effect to give birth to various effects. They can be defensive in nature, or offensive, or auxiliary, or even a mix of the three. Arrays, however, are made completely and only of spiritual energy.”
John watched Leo, who was paying complete attention to his words, but for some reason lost the will to say more. He handed Lex a ring and said, “Insert your Qi into this and you’ll be able to read the book inside. Let me know what you think.”
“Sure,” Leo answered, feeling unsure about why John brought all this up. But he went along with it anyway.
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