Rudolph slid Eric a scroll while they ate dinner. Taking the scroll, he hurriedly finished eating before going to his room and reading it, "[Primordial Human Arts: Rock, Paper, Scissors]"
Time lost meaning as Eric delved into the scroll reading its application and the theory behind it.
'It's well rounded, focusing on defense, offense, and control.'
Delving into rock, Eric contemplated rigidity, absolute defense, and hardness. His skin hardened a bit but that was the limit.
'I ought to keep practicing, eventually it'll be on par with fight, flight, and freeze.'
*Trying scissors, Eric focused on the sharp and piercing nature of it. He felt the vague form of the scissors in his mind but outwardly nothing happened.
Slicing out with scissors, Eric found a slight silver hue following each finger. Switching to paper, Eric tried to manipulate the sticky, swarm like nature of the technique.
A vague outline of paper formed before disappearing. Smiling, Eric knocked out for the night.
Waking early the next day, Rudolph had Eric get reacquainted with his weapon. Eric picked up his short swords, feeling them, he started to go over each of his sword movements.
Southern Empires Swordsmanship and the Central Lands Swordsmanship.
Eric felt how smooth everything was, there was still weight to both swords but he could feel an added confidence wielding them compared to before.
Switching to the whip, Eric could feel each stroke flow, the last minute snaps, twirls, and feints now had a maturing control.
Waiting for him to finish, Rudolph threw Eric something. Catching it, Eric looked at a shuriken, but the fine details on it showed it was anything but a normal weapon.
"Think of that as one of my final gifts before you ship off, I'll be clear. Once in the military you will need to gather certain items and information. However, this shuriken was a product of a drunken bet I made in my youth. I crafted this and won the technique you saw in my library. You may study that technique on the final day before you leave.'
Interested, Eric poured some nectar into the weapon and it expanded. The small throwable item became as big as a shield. The area in the middle held a bar to hold onto.
Detaching the top half, Eric was left with two sharp and spinnable throwing stars. Reconnecting them into one, he slammed it down causing a small tremor.
'It's durable, let's see how far I can throw this thing.' Reducing it back down into a throwable, Eric threw it at a target.
He couldn't stop the grin as he heard it silently rip through the air and nail dead center.
Raising a hand, Eric recalled the star into his hands and laughed.
Wearing his weights, Eric took his three weapons and fought against the puppets. Eric could feel the difference, usually tired and injured, in his peak state the regular opponent was easy to read and weak to defend.
His blades carved in all the right areas while his whip threw the construct off balance, practicing with his throwing star proved a challenge that became easily overcome as time passed.
Eric switched to a faster and harder hitting puppet. Fighting against it with all three weapons for an hour, he again upped the anti and choose an even stronger puppet.
Knowing regular techniques weren't enough, Eric used Fight with his weapons for the first time.
A red figure appeared above him as his speed and strength increased. The puppet whipped a kick that he ducked low for and burst forward with every ounce of added strength. His eyes razor focused, caught the mace like punch that slammed down twice as fast as the leg.
Hitting a slide and popping up into a forward back flip, Eric dodged as two large shuriken cut into the puppet. Temporarily lifted off it's feet, Eric was already upon it as he hungerly tore at it with his swords.
The construct was on pure defense until a burst of speed caused him to disappear from sight. His body reappearing with a trail of blackish blue.
Chaining apart of the construct with Flight's chains, Eric then switched back to Fight. Rage burned hot as he delivered the heaviest strike yet from his short swords.
The attack rocked the construct, after an hour of fighting he had finally beaten the construct. Sweat dripping, Eric could feel the difference from today to months ago.
'This victory is mine and solely mine, no transformations. Just my own power and techniques.'
The day passed without any surprises. Eric grew more comfortable with his weapons. His acclimation to the shuriken was fast but still amateurish.
On the second to last day, Rudolph showed Eric how to turn off the bloodline restrictions of his weights.
Doing so, Eric meditated and found a vast difference in his totem and totem slots. His first totem was the Serpentine Mountain Cloud Primate Warrior bloodline.
The totem looked nourished, the serpent a bit larger while the fur looked denser. Mountainous patterns and patterns of water adorned the totem area by the first bloodline.
Looking at his second bloodline, Eric saw the same cold and conniving eyes locking him down. The form the same except the bovine like horns growing onto his head.
Checking the third Eric found it to have grown. Th arachnid's legs longer, while a pouch slung on his back made of silk, reminiscent of a spider's abdomen pulsed.
"I need to understand them, I need to find their strengths and their weaknesses. These bloodlines are not fully mine."
Entering his Serpentine Mountain Cloud Primate Warrior bloodline, Eric smiled. The familiar feeling of strength, this time increased by a notch was a marker to him.
Eric slashed, punched, jumped, and flashed around. Gaining a feeling for his increased power, he could feel a push to fight while in this form.
Stopping, he stood still and just felt the form, the blood coursing through his veins. "Energetic, it feels easy to get excited, to get swept away by my boiling blood."
Eric's eyes closed as a bloodline memory surfaced. One of the hybrid warriors holding the bloodline breathed deep. Their figure immense, easily the size of a small hill, Eric watched interest as the small giant bled.
Blood dripped as the creature pulled on his surroundings. Eric could feel a complex usage of not just basic techniques but techniques he had no knowledge or access to.
Trying to gleam even an iota, Eric locked onto one potential technique. Eyes widening, Eric could hear the creature's loud but monotone voice.
[Nature's Fire], Feeling it, Eric raised one hand to the ground and another to to his chest. Drawing on the ambient wood and earth energy, Eric tried to fuse the nectar in a way he'd never thought possible.
Feeling a spark, Eric tried to light that fire only for an explosion to blow him flying. Coughing, he laughed at his failure.
'Just another thing to master, nothing to it.'
Throwing that to the back burner, Eric got up and slapped the dirt off of himself. Breathing deep, Eric entered the [Eight-Legged Ghost Lord] form.
Entering the form, Eric's brows raised at not only the slow transformation but also a sluggish feeling. Eyes narrowing, Eric tried to do more physical exercises but noticed that the strength although stronger than his base human form wasn't anything to write home about.
'Physicality is something both my demon's bloodline and mountain cloud bloodline excel at. This on the other hand, has to do with the soul.'
Eric reached inside himself, aiming to look at his soul brought strange feelings of negativity, of confliction, and hunger.
Eric reeled seeing the state of his soul. In an almost quiet place, hung by a spider's web, his soul was mottled. Bite marks having torn literal pieces from his soul body while a spider was tightly attached to it.
Getting a closer look, Eric could see that his soul body was fusing with the spider. The creature's eyes seemed limp. It's eyes a beautiful byzantine while a snow white adorned it's body.
Disgusted, Eric was about to leave when he heard it, a voice. 'Hunger!' The voice a feminine whisper, Eric looked on coldly.
"Your hunger brought your fangs to my body. What mercy should I show to you? The thing sucking away my spiritual essence."
"Mercy, Mercy, I was reared, born for my objective, but when I needed help, they cast me away. I hate.... I HATE!!!"
Eric winced, not from her sob story, no. From the intensity of her hatred, something foreign that felt like it was injected directly into his body. A dose of hatred foreign from himself running course in his very soul. Biting his lips he looked at the thing.
'Her fangs are still sunken into me. Nothing born from a fucking Saturnine creature is good, she could be lying, using me. When did she show mercy when she tried to devour me silently?'
Eric could only see her as what she was... a parasite. The creature's hazy eyes looked into his.
'I-I do not hate you, why must you hate me?' Eric felt his rage smolder at the lack of sense in her words.
"You leech off of my soul and ask why I hate you." The creature's eyes brightened, "You humans always take, you took from us---"
"I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT! What am I fucking meal to you?" The creature was quiet for awhile.
"I have no other food than the souls of beings. I was raised, a rare and elusive creature by one of yourblood, to complete your demise. Yet upon eating some of your soul...I now see hypocrisy."
"My progenitor, the Hades Spider was one of the Spawn of Saturnine Hell. I do not know all of her story. I do however know, she was imparted wisdom and ascended to greater things."
Eric sneered, his expression uncharacteristically dark. "You demons plague us, eat us, defile us, and you want sympathy? You could eat mindless bugs but you prey on us. What? You ate some of my soul and found God, is that it!? You want survival at my expense, to devour me and take what's mine!!"
"E-r-i-c, I sorry!" The creature's eyes closed as though out of energy, leaving Eric to stew.
Eric for the first time in a long time felt at a loss, he could see the creature, in all of it's ugly and horror. Yet hearing those words, the very soul of those words.
'She's sincere...' Remembering Rudolph's words, Eric thought it wise to not completely condemn the creature.
Grumbling, Eric shook his head and exited. His expression wrestling with the anger and confusion he felt. 'What the heck does it mean to be merciful to such a thing. No, who the heck besides my mother's father put that damned thing in me, I thought it--- No, I was too simplistic in my thinking.'
'I still haven't buried mother and father, it just feels like my enemies are growing faster than I can count. A clan, a race, haaaaa.'
Not even trying his demon's bloodline, Eric decided to retire. Rudolph watched Eric but offered no counsel.
'Good, he's starting to wrestle with it, with all of the preconceived notions and the weight of the decisions to come. Hah, your not even deep enough in this shit to look tired kid, just wait, the true dilemmas come with a price.'
Taking a look at a hand with a nasty looking scar he closed his eyes and the method of concealing it went back to normal. His hand looking no different from usual.