Chapter I: Unfriendly Visitors I
Shizukana Gake
Heian Kingdom
The Great Plateau
Month of the Pangolin 2, 172 ,328 DE
Thud! Thud! Thud! Crack!
As my punch leave a fracture in the chain-wrapped Iron Wood log I use for a punching, I frown, but I am not displeased. Since breaking the seal in my Soul and becoming a Triune, my Body, even in my human form, has continued to develop.
The door to the training hall opens, and a yawning Vorn walks in. Looking at my Iron Wood punching bag, he frowns. "You broke another one? What do you have, an Adamantium club you pull out when I'm not around?"
"Just my fist and feet. Your face should already know how hard they are."
Vorn balls up his fists. "Big words for someone that hits like a little girl. I need my morning exercise."
"I've been waiting for my sandbag to show." While speaking, I channel a thread of Trinity under my feet. With the Trinity negating any friction, I slide across the lacquered floor and hammer a palm strike into his abdomen.
Vorn retaliates with a vicious hook aimed at my face. I could dodge it, but channeling a thread of Trinity to dissipate the force of the blow, I stop the punch with my my open hand. As I drive my elbow into the middle of Vorn's chest, he retaliates with a knee to my ribs. We both step back for a second before unleashing a flurry of attack on one another.
We may not be trying to kill each other, but we do not hold back in out sparring matches. I use our sparring sessions with Vorn more for conditioning my body against impacts than anything else. He seems to use them more for working on dodging and evasion. I am faster than him, but over the past month, he has become better at avoiding my attacks. Even so, I land more strikes than he dodges.
As we exchange, I can feel the difference in Vorn's strength and the toughness of his Body from just yesterday.,He has already begun to practice the Scripture of Origin. He has given up the use of Yuan Qi, and because he was raised as a Cultivator, he has very little Mana, Psi, or Ki within himself. After I helped him gain control of the aspects of the Trinity, he immediately began binding his Power to hi Body, Mind, and Soul. He may never become a Triune, but the change to his Body's strength has already begun to show.
For me, the pace of its development has far exceeded that of my Mind and Soul, but I feel like I have neared the peak. Without stepping into the First Circle of Coalescence, my Body cannot improve much more, but before I begin to Coalesce my Power, I need to strengthen, but I need to develop my Mind and Soul to an equal level.
However, for me, at least, developing the Mind and Soul presents a challenge several orders of magnitude beyond developing the Body. From the Swords Temple, I have learned exercises and techniques, which I practice, that are meant to develop and strengthen the Mind and Soul. However, my growth is slow. Beasts, including Great Beasts, grow the fastest through combat, and I am a Great Wolf. There is a limit to their effectiveness of just practicing techniques.
I thought the Mind Net would be useful, but it proved useless. Human Cultivators on the Great Plateau have weak Minds and Souls. When I have tried fighting artificial enemies generated by the Mind Net, I did not increase my strength at all. The purpose of the Mind Net is not to grow my strength, rather it is to learn, refine, and perfect techniques. At least, I found and learned attack and defense techniques from the Mind Net, but unfortunately, I am still simply too weak to use them. If I had enough strength to use those technique, they might serve to further improve my strength.
In the end, I need to find enemies with strong enough Minds and Souls to give me a challenge. I tried using Ferocious Beast and Demonic Beasts, but their Minds and Souls are too weak and unfocused, at least the ones I have found are like that. I need suitable enemies with whom I can fight life and death battles with my Mind and Soul as my weapons.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
From beyond the training hall's doors, the sound of heavy, running footsteps reaches my ears. It sound like Hoshi. Wile looking toward the door, I use my other sense to keep track of Vorn and continue the fight. It takes Hoshi less than five seconds to fling open the door, but we exchange more than seventy blows in that short time.
"Beast! A Sengoku battleship! You have to see it!"
Tensing the muscles throughout my Body and concentrating a thread of trinity in my arms, I stop Vorn's kick with a crossed-arm block. The recoil from the impact knocks him back a meter or so.
Vorn frowns at me. "Will you ever fight me with you full strength?"
"Maybe. You have to stop holding back. I can't condition my Body properly with you pulling your punches."
"Beast!" Hoshi's voice goes up a couple octaves.
"Relax, Hoshi. A battleship or a transport. An airship is just an airship."
"It's a Shokaku class! Their latest class of battleship! It's nothing like your rebuilt yacht! It's amazing!"
Hearing the name 'Shokaku', I hold up my hand to
When the Shokaku, the name ship for the class launched maybe two years ago, Hoshi had bombarded me with pictures and articles from the Engineering journals he likes to read. The ship's design is completely different from anything else built east of the Kami Kaze Mountains. When I asked Old Man Jones about it, he said that to just fly it needed sigils that no one in the Sengoku Empire should know how to inscribe.
"What's a Shokaku class battleship doing in a backwater shithole like Shizukana Gake?"
Hoshi pouts. "We all know Shizukana Gake is a backwater shithole, but you don't have to say it."
I give Hoshi an annoyed frown. "Fuck Shizukana Gake. What's a Shokaku class doing here?"
Hoshi shrugs. "No idea. When I woke up, I saw it moored over the City Lord's manor and came here as fast as I could!"
"Why?"
Hoshi's mouth drops open."You don't want to see it?"
Vorn sighs. "We might as well go see it. If we don't, he'll just keep bothering us."
Hoshi beams. "That's right! Princes are amazing. They understand the people so much better than you, Beast. I know you really want to see the battleship! I'll just keep bothering you until you do!"
"Alright. We'll go look at the battleship." While shaking my head, I pull a pair of leather pants on over my loincloth and put on a leather shirt.
After Vorn puts on a leather gambeson and his usual chainmail armor, we leave the training hall. But when reach the kitchen, Hoshi sniffs the air and stops dead.
"Raymon-san, are you ready for breakfast?"
"Breakfast." While rubbing his fat stomach, Hoshi practically drools. Since Old Man Jones disappeared, he has been spending a lot of time here, especially mealtimes. By hanging around when I was teaching Brigitte, his Engineering skills have improved rapidly.
"Give me a few minutes, and I can make enough for Hoshi-sama, as well." Mika-chan is product of the Heian Kingdom, and Hoshi is a member of the nobility. From birth, she has been trained to address anyone of the nobility with the 'sama' honorific. It is a matter of survival for a commoner. Without the protection of someone like Old Man Jones, under Heian Kingdom law, she could be summarily executed for not addressing a noble with the 'sama' honorific.
"Beast! Let's eat first!"
"You dragged me out of my training to see that damned battleship, and now, you want to eat? We shouldn't waste the time."
Hoshi's expression resembles that of a child that just lost it favorite toy. "But, Beast, it's Mika-chan's cooking!"
I shrug "I get to east her cooking every day. Missing it for one breakfast is fine."
Mika-chan glares at me. "Raymon-san! You're being mean to Hoshi-sama and you need to eat you breakfast. I made cutlets out of that Forest Cat you killed the other day."
With his hands folded, Hoshi get so close his face is practically pressed into my face. "Beast. Please! It's Mika-chan's cooking!"
While shaking my head, I release a heavy sigh. "Eat."
"Yeah!" As Hoshi hops into a chair, despite it being built to hold my or Old Man Jones' weight, it creaks alarmingly under his bulk.
As we are leaving the residence after eating, Brigitte walks out of the private factory. She stares at the three of us with bloodshot eyes and grins proudly. "I finished …where are the three of you going?"
Bouncing on the balls of feet, Hoshi points toward the north. "There's a Shokaku class battleship moored at the City Lord's manor!"
Glancing to the north, Brigitte frowns and shivers slightly. "I saw one of those once. There is something wrong with those airships. They're unnatural."
"Why do you say that?"
Brigitte looks at me. "It just made my skin crawl seeing it. The way flew looked wrong. I don't know how else to explain it."
Hoshi gapes at Brigitte. "Unnatural? Wrong? It's an Engineering marvel! Over twenty thousand tons and it performs like a racing yacht!"
"That's unnatural! Has your fat turned your brain to mush?" Brigitte glares at Hoshi. She does not particularly like him to begin with, and when they disagree on something, she immediately gets hostile.
"It's quality Engineering! I really want to know how they do it."
"Whatever!" As Brigitte stalks past us toward the residence, nervousness fills her scent.
Unnatural? Brigitte is almost as much of an Engineering otaku as Hoshi is a military otaku. For her to call an airship unnatural is interesting. But Old Man Jones said that no one on the Great Plateau should have the knowledge to craft sigils that would allow the Shokaku class to fly. Maybe something about the sigils used affected Brigitte on a subconscious level? Could there be more to it than just the sigils?
Hoshi races toward his steamer car. Despite having an open cockpit, the chassis and five centimeter thick armor are all military grade; it only lacks weapons. If he was not a scion of of one the Five Great Clans of Shizukana Gake, as they call themselves, the city's government would probably confiscate the steamer car.
"Do you two want to ride with me?"
"No. I'll take my bike." While speaking, Vorn shakes his head rapidly. After riding with Hoshi once, he has refused to ever get in a steamer car with Hoshi as the driver again.
On our steamer bikes, we follow Hoshi's barely under control steamer car to the City Lord's manor. Before we come close the manor, the sight of the Shokaku class battleship seeming to hover frozen in place above the city raises my hackles. I agree with Brigitte; there is something unnatural about the battleship.
