Depthless Hunger

Chapter 250: Advancing at the Oasis

Long after the other elves had gone back to the oasis to rest for the evening, Kai continued training atop the thin trunks. Without the need to spar with anyone, he could actually try different methods. At the moment he was doing a handstand atop two trunks and trying to raise his bodyweight. The weight itself was easy, but the flimsy foundation required him to use stabilizing muscles like never before.

So far he was training his Physique but the majority of his progress was just gaining experience fighting on such unstable ground. The thing was, that seemed to be exactly the same advantage the elves had. Other than Heruul Cryswind, who was truly stronger than him, they weren't actually that strong or fast. Yet they always seemed to step right, as if they'd been fighting on this exact battlefield their entire lives.

It brought him back to the exact question of what Soul Level meant. So far on his journey it had been treated as a weak power by most, while the elves claimed it was something humans only possessed as a cheap imitation. He thought Omilaena might be interested in the theory, but she seemed so busy.

"Still training, huh?" Ceryyn waved from the side of the pond, then gracefully leapt out to join him. "I really admire your tenacity."

"Ready to spar?" he asked.

"If you are!"

She had been coming to check on them more often than not. From her he'd learned that the unicorn hunts the local elves spoke about were actually a critical part of their culture. The Cryswinds had made a mistake by allowing him to take the sparring test, because otherwise he'd never be allowed to join. Of course, he had to actually win against their best in order to take part.

The greater benefit Ceryyn offered was an honest sparring partner. She danced across the trunks, forcing him to push his mobility to the limits. Occasionally he still fell, but she never knocked him in as mockery. Taking her time to train with him was extremely generous of her.

He tried to keep that in mind, because fighting Ceryyn was frustrating. No matter what he tried it didn't seem to take her off guard, as if she'd already seen it before. It wasn't that she was that much faster than him, she was just already where she needed to be first. When he actually attacked with his full strength, it wasn't that she had invincible defenses, she just resisted with unusual tenacity.

Was this what it felt like for other people to fight him? For most of his life Kai had been punching up against stronger opponents, with his Soul Level being one of his few advantages.

And apparently elves had an in-born advantage that let them attain levels of soul he could never dream of reaching. It should have upset him, but it didn't - the world was filled with people who had been given unfair advantages over him. Getting a chance to fight someone with this advantage was just refining his edge further.

"Whoa there, you're looking a bit serious." Ceryyn balanced on one of the central trunks with a strange smile. "I'm not upsetting you, am I?"

"No, I'm just thinking about the others." Kai sighed and pulled at his tunic, which was still soaking wet. He realized belatedly that he should clean up before Zae Zin Nim visited again or she'd probably think he smelled filthy.

"This faction isn't particularly friendly. Sorry they're being so unkind."

"It's not your fault."

For a moment he stared at Ceryyn, wondering just what she was getting out of all this. Her initial exploration had been justified, given how they had been able to retrieve the obelisk, but there was no more reason for her to spend time with him. She seemed to like him, but she seemed to like everyone and it was hard to tell if there was anything more behind her actions.

"Uh..." Kai cleared his throat and did his best not to sound too earnest. "What do you think about all their claims? Are elves really superior to h-"

"Of course not!" Ceryyn exclaimed.

"Let me finish. I can see the patterns and there's no way my training could ever make my soul equal to someone who's been soul cultivating. Even the humans with the highest Soul Levels I've seen don't have the sort of presence even moderately trained elves have."

"Some elves are dismissive, but I'm not." Ceryyn leaned forward on her perch, somehow maintaining balance as she examined him. "I think there's a nice sort of aura to experienced humans and other races. It's like... with someone who knows themselves and their world, there's a solid confidence there."

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"Huh." Kai thought that over while trying not be drawn into her bright emerald eyes. "But it's easy for us to get out of our zones of confidence. Elven grace seems to apply to everything."

She shifted back and sighed. "That's not true. If someone is surprised - really surprised - you'll see them be not graceful at all. It's just that most threats, and most maneuvers in combat, are really pretty predictable."

"Well, let's see if I can't surprise you this time." Kai grinned and she smiled back.

.

..

.

Kai was training with Ceryyn now. Omilaena could definitely see where that was going.

She continued applying manticore venom to herself while she watched the two training. He could be unbelievably dense when it came to women - maybe not as awkward as he'd been when she first teased him, since he'd gained some experience in Krysal, but still dense. Ceryyn was throwing countless signals and he smashed right through them instead of taking her up on any offer.

In her experience, men went in two directions. Some believed that any woman who so much as smiled at them was clearly burning with lust, while others assumed that even the most overt approaches were just being kind. Kai wasn't so oblivious that he didn't notice at all, he just managed to convince himself to ignore all the subtext.

How long would it be until they started a relationship? She wished she had someone to bet with, but of course Zae Zin Nim would be irritated if she wasn't cultivating so much that she hadn't noticed either. Come to think of it, the other woman was about as oblivious to emotions.

By her judgment, Kai was mostly happy with his life, since he loved to focus on training, but he was lonely. What he needed was less the physical than the emotional connection, so he'd seek blindly until he blundered into it. Zae Zin Nim being gone so often left him uncertain, since he truly enjoyed her company, and Omilaena wasn't good at giving that sort of comfort.

She looked away irritably and considered her own progress. If only there was more. Her experiments with manticore venom had strengthened her Heart of Poison, even if it seemed like she'd never be able to fully grasp monstrous poisons. Over the course of the past month she'd done steadily more work for the elves and earned over 50,000 Crests. And that just wasn't enough, not for her goals.

Omilaena set the manticore stinger aside and looked at her soul.

Name: Omilaena

Total Power: 701

Heart of Poison: Level 63 (252)

Lethal Artisan: Spinel Rank (200)

Physique: D-0 (200)

Soul Level: 7 (49)

>

She's finally passed 700 Power, but that didn't mean anything when she was stagnating in so many other areas. The rose steel had finally raised her to a Spinel ranked Lethal Artisan, but there would be no more progress there. At most she would eke out another level or two for her Heart of Poison. Her Physique had been stuck at D-0 ever since she'd boosted herself there with injections.

A little power and some money for a month of work... no, it wasn't enough. Zae Zin Nim was drinking in oceans of qi and driving herself closer to a true breakthrough, and even Kai was advancing.

Ceryyn left eventually and he began training alone, engaging in brutal exercises throwing his body against the rocks. Now that she looked closely, she realized that he'd raised his Physique to D-2 from all his training. Another notch to his power and the balance training managed to make his bulky muscles look more graceful.

Perhaps that was her answer. Physique... but also being willing to ask for help.

She walked closer to where Kai was grunting and sweating, then swallowed. Fine, she didn't have a choice. He had already finished his set and was shifting to look at her, so she might as well.

"Can you train me in Physique?" she asked. No jokes or innuendo this time.

"I suppose I could. But you're barely beneath me, and you were the one who helped me get this far, so I'm not sure I have anything to offer. You think otherwise?" Now that Kai was on familiar ground like training, he was back to his usual sharp self.

"I got this far via chakra absorption exercises and injecting myself with strength-building compounds." Omilaena sighed and rubbed her shoulder. "But truthfully, I've never loved physical training, so I've neglected it. You have a lot of physical and mana-based exercises I've never tried, so they could be what I need to actually make progress."

"Sure thing." Kai grinned and leapt to his feet.

What followed was one of the worst weeks of Omilaena's life - she honestly preferred the terror and exhaustion of the Blood Current to pushing her body this hard. Kai's training methods exhausted her energy so that she couldn't rely on chakra-fueled movements and her body was clearly unused to enduring this much grueling effort, not to mention the mental grit required to force herself into the exercises over and over.

But she was deadly serious about pushing her limits, so she needed to do this type of training as well. Kai actually helped in another way she hadn't expected: one of the things that turned her away from physical exercise was how crushingly boring she found it, but he explained the theory to keep her occupied. It wasn't just a matter of pouring energy into her muscles, she could flex mana or chakra in the exact shape as her body, power and matter mirroring one another.

It was enjoyable enough that she would have propositioned him again if her body didn't ache all over. Besides, there were enough relationship messes already and she needed to focus on power. So they truly just trained together as the time passed.

Until one day Ceryyn showed up at an unusual time with only a shadow of her usual smile. Kai looked at her in surprise, already on his feet as if ready to act. Omilaena just lay on the ground and groaned.

"Oh, it's nothing bad," Ceryyn said and waved her hands. "But we just got word back from the Inverted Oasis. They didn't accept you, but they want to meet."