“I haven’t been good at unraveling riddles and mysteries recently...”
“Don’t flatter yourself, disciple,” Traves interrupted him, “you’ve never been good at that. Let’s get back to training. You have to discover the remaining three stances yourself. I can only give you a hint.”
Traves assumed a relaxed stance, and then swung his sword casually. The attack he launched looked like a stream of cutting wind, like in the ‘Strong Wind’ stance, except it didn’t travel in a straight line, and instead flew out in a wide circle around him. With just one strike, Traves had been able to leave cuts on each of the stones surrounding them.
“I’ll show you the stance again.”
He ended up having to show it more than once…
Each time, Hadjar felt his understanding of the Technique growing stronger. After the hundredth demonstration, Hadjar was finally able to notice something that had eluded his gaze before. Traves’ attack wasn’t just similar to the ‘Strong Wind’, it was it. However, it was also the ‘Calm Wind’ stance.
“Master,” Hadjar interjected before Traves’ started another demonstration, “please aim your attack at me.”
Traves, instead of refusing, just smiled broadly.
“Finally,” he said. “As my own Master once said, a seeker of knowledge must understand the deepest truths on their own skin.”
The truth that Hadjar understood at that very moment was that, compared to Traves, Sankesh was a small, unruly puppy. If this hadn’t simply been an illusory world, no trace of Hadjar would’ve been left after the dragon’s attack. Not even his soul. His forefathers would never have gotten a chance to welcome him into their home.
Chapter 377
Hadjar sometimes doubted the soundness of his own mind. Only insanity could explain the fact that, at that very moment, he was meditating deeply on the border between his and the dragon’s soul, which looked like an endless meadow full of green grass. It sounded so ridiculous that if someone had told Hadjar this would be his destiny twenty years ago, he would’ve laughed at them, provided they weren’t a small, imaginative child.
He sometimes felt like the events of the past year had happened to someone else a few centuries ago, that’s how disconnected he was from them. However, after calming down, he examined his life, and it seemed like everything had happened far too quickly. It was as Traves had said: all of it was unimportant in the grand scheme of things, so dwelling on it wouldn’t do him any good.
Hadjar was currently meditating over the fifth stance of the ‘Light Breeze’ Technique. He’d needed to see Traves’ two hundred demonstrations against the stones and then experience the one attack aimed at himself to understand the essence of Traves’ fifth stance. And it was undoubtedly Traves’ own stance, unique to him. From the very first moment he’d begun studying the Technique given to him by the dragon, Hadjar had realized that something was wrong with it. For example, the ‘Scorched Falcon’ Technique was fairly straightforward: every time someone made progress in it and their understanding of it deepened, the only outward sign of that progress was the bird itself growing larger. As for the three (‘Spring Wind’ was an exception) stances of the ‘Light Breeze’ Technique, they changed depending on what Hadjar put into them. The first attacks he’d made with the ‘Strong Wind’ were very different to the ones he used with it now. It hadn’t conjured any dragons or a tsunami of cutting wind before. Why? Well, Hadjar hadn’t been privy to all its secrets back then. To understand them, he needed to have the knowledge and power that Traves had possessed when he’d created the Technique.
As for the stances, utilizing them was much simpler. Well, if one could ever call knowledge that required a person to reach the middle stage of the Heaven Soldier level simple.
The fifth stance, which Traves called ‘South Wind’, wasn’t actually... called that. Or rather, only Traves’ version was called that. Hadjar was going to give it another name, as well as a completely different form.
The truth was that the fifth, sixth, and seventh stances of the ‘Light Breeze’ Technique were nothing more than different combinations of the first four stances. So, according to his simple estimates, there could only be a maximum of sixteen of them. Out of these sixteen, he needed to only choose three. Even then, two people who chose the same combination wouldn’t invent the same stances. After all, everyone had their own inner spirit, which affected the sword and Technique.
Hadjar continued to meditate on the fifth stance. He recalled his past battles. Not the times he’d slaughtered enemy troops by the dozen, but his fights against opponents whose power had seemed unthinkable. He recalled Shakar and Shakh, Ilmena and the Governor of the Empire, Primus and the Patriarch of ‘The Black Gates’ sect, his inner dragon and Coyote, the Bedouin tribe’s warrior, Karissa’s spells and his battles in the Pit, and, of course, Olgerd. Especially Olgerd.
What had Hadjar lacked in all these battles? The answer seemed simple enough — a second sword. The Master had once told Hadjar the legend of the swordsman who could wield a sword in both their left and right hand with equal skill.
Of course, Hadjar was very talented in the way of the Sword Spirit. However, his body, apart from the dragon’s heart, was very average, maybe a little above that, given the strength of the nodes and meridians in his body through which the energy of the World River flowed. Unfortunately, Hadjar couldn’t wield a sword equally well with both hands. Not because of his hands, mind you. As soon as they reached the Transformation of the Mortal Shell stage, all practitioners became ambidextrous, but holding a spoon in both hands differed from wielding weapons with both of them.
If Hadjar couldn’t wield two swords at once, how should he solve the problem? The answer was in his last battle.
Hadjar still remembered how Olgerd had used the ‘Icy Wasteland’ Technique. The sabers that had appeared out of the ice had helped him a lot. They would’ve rendered any other opponents who were less experienced than Hadjar completely helpless. Olgerd had also had the ‘Blizzard’ Technique and his snow clones. So, Hadjar lacked Techniques similar to the northerner’s. Not ones based on ice, of course, but ones that could aid him in battle without his direct guidance.
Continuing to meditate, Hadjar, as if using a microscope, examined the stances of the ‘Light Breeze’ Technique from all angles. He analyzed their energy flows, how the Sword Spirit and the energy of the World River interacted within them, their mutual vibrations, and both their synchronization and desynchronization. The process was insanely challenging and intense. It fundamentally differed from Hadjar’s attempts to break the protective seal on Brom’s box because he wasn’t trying to break anything this time, and was instead trying to merge things.
He didn’t know how long he spent immersed in the deep meditation. He didn’t know how many times he snapped out of it, took his sword, and tried to attack with it. He sometimes... couldn’t do anything. Such attempts were considered a form of progress as well. After all, some of his strikes hadn’t harmed the stones at all, only Hadjar. He’d even cut his own arm off once. If this hadn’t been an illusory world created by the overlap of their souls, Hadjar would’ve died.