There was another silence for 2 minutes.
“I will say now that I will not give you this certification unless I truly approve of you. I have a limited slot of such certification I can endorse. You can get more information about the rankings and the milestone fights from your seniors. You can also chose to change your teacher. The request can be done at anytime. Do you wish to change your teacher now so that I don’t have to waste my time?” His teacher asked.
SAUARESKULL’s eyes had been on him the entire time, through his talks and during his silence. His mild eyes were always locked onto Soverick. As if daring him to make a move. Now SQUARESKULL was asking him if he wanted a replacement. So yes, it is safe to say, without a doubt, that Karak is messing with him. He wanted Soverick gone.
Soverick smiled. “Thanks for your consideration but I’ll wait. I have already experienced how well you prepare before you speak, I’ll wait to see how well you teach something actually useful to me before I pass my judgment.”
He would have loved to leave, but SQUARESKULL hadn’t done enough to bother him. What matters at the end of the day is how well Karak can teach. He also wanted to spite Karak.
“Your choice. Next, I’ll talk about the Spear and how to use it to pursue excellence in your martial pursuit.”
Silence for 30 minutes.
Even Soverick was beginning to get frustrated. So much of his time is being wasted. He wanted to wait to find out if this will be a one-time thing or if it will occur every time SQUARESKULL teaches him.
“The pursuit of the spear is one that needs strength, agility, and technique. The strongest power available within the realm of high heaven is the power of Sovereigns. It is the power of perfect control over a concept of the world. A concept is an indefatigable and undeniable truth. The manifestation of authority over world power. That’s what it means to be sovereign. But how does the concept come about?”
Silence for 10 minutes.
“It is known that a concept is composed of laws and an image. A single image forms the mold of a concept while laws fill it up and makes it a truth. Without laws, an image will remain false. The image you envision of your concept is the path that you choose to advance with as a titan of law. An image is an opinion or a belief about how the world works. It could be a sentiment. It could be anything imaginable, but only when it is backed by laws does it become a fact. Without the reinforcement of laws, your image of the world will forever remain your opinion. That’s how a concept is formed. Then the image and the laws it contains must be of one accord before you can become a sovereign.”
Silence for 5 minutes.
“Your concept will evolve into an eternal truth when you become a sovereign. Then when you are able to merge with such an eternal truth, you will become eternal yourself, everlasting. That is what it means to be an Origin god. It maintains its potency even in the most diluted of bloodlines. As long as a royal bloodline awakens, the recipient of the bloodline will be remade into the image of such a truth. But a truth has to be unique, no two Origin gods can have the same truth. That’s why you must forge your own truth to become a titan of law. Even the descendants of a world god are not exempted from it.”
Silence for 30 minutes.
“Some do not start thinking about their path until they become transcendent. It is true that laws cannot be touched upon without being a transcendent. There are some Transcendents that haven’t been able to touch laws yet. But images can be cultivated right from the moment you started your path of refinement. Images can be cultivated and refined over the course of your life. It can be based on anything. It can be based on your spear too.”
A period of silence for 45 minutes.
“There are requirements to fulfill if your image is to be based on your spear. These requirements are the steps of spear mastery. The first step of spear mastery is achieving one with the spear. It is the requirement for you to become an adept in spear mastery. It may be the first step but it is very difficult to achieve. I will not touch upon or speak about the other steps. We will put our entire focus on just the first step. You might consider it easy to achieve, but I’ll tell you that it is not. It is the requirement to beat the 13th milestone fight and get better placement for your admission into the tertiary stage. Some don’t even achieve it before they graduate.”
Silence for 18 minutes.
“To achieve the first stage, we will focus on the fusion of two aspects. Technique and fighting instincts. The technique consists of conscious proficiency in the spear arts while fighting instincts is the subconscious proficiency. Only when both are fused, when your techniques become subconscious and when your instincts become conscious can you become one with the spear.”
Another Silence for 12 minutes.
“In the first stage, the preparation stage, you prepared your body. In the second stage, the challenges and techniques stage, you got rid of bad habits and learned good ones. In this stage, we will mold your body and mind to be suitable for the spear, so that when you become a mana entity, you will be able to easily achieve the next steps of spear mastery. It is a plan that will continue when you reach the tertiary stage to ensure that you will not be found wanting at the moment when you try to become a titan of law.”
Soverick was inwardly impressed with the curriculum of the battle academy. He could see the effects of their training regimen more clearly than others, including his teacher. When an individual becomes a mana entity, they gain power, but their potential will stagnate. It doesn’t mean that they can’t grow stronger, but their maximum future strength becomes capped at that point. Potential doesn’t matter to a transcendent, only energy and laws matter. But If their potential is not enough to reach the transcendent stage then they will be stuck forever in the mana stage no matter what they do.
The training curriculum of the battle academy is geared toward improving the potential of its students. Soverick knows that mastery of any weapon is a very difficult thing that requires years of effort. It is usually mana entities that start to train in mastery but If they are able to master the first step of spear mastery before reaching that stage, then their potential for the spear will increase. Then spear mastery will become easy for them to achieve as mana entities.
The other thing is habits. While techniques are easier to learn as a mana entity because of the control of mana, they are very difficult to master if you have bad habits. Habits are one of the things that solidify as a mana entity, and they will inhibit the mastery of techniques. This will make for a mediocre mana entity.
“I am SQUARESKULL. A transcendent with the bloodline of the Impassable mountain barrier. I have focused on the monolithic spear style of the earth. I will be your teacher from now on, but I will not teach you my style. It has been determined that learning other people’s styles before reaching the mana stage can lead to some bad habits and misconceptions.”
“No one is perfect, so no one style is perfect. But each style is suited to the creator of it. Learning it now will affect the creation of your style in the future. You must become one with the spear and acquire the common sense needed not to be led astray before you can learn the style of others. As your teacher, I’ll try my best to help you achieve your first step of spear mastery. Any questions?”
Maybe it was wise to wait to find out on his own, but Soverick couldn’t spare that time just to determine if his time with SQUARESKULL will be a waste. The periods of silence between each speech were finally getting to him and he doubts he will be able to take more of it.
So he asked, “Do you always become silent for random periods of time when you speak? If yes, is it a long speech thing or do you do it every time?”
SQUARESKULL chuckled. “You can rest assured that it is a one-time thing. You seem to be a no-nonsense kind of guy and I wanted to see how far you will go to enforce your way of life. Would you be so bold as to disrespect me when I take breaks to speak? I do it for every one of my new students to test their resolve and their patience. Are you satisfied with that?”
Soverick sighed in relief. “Yes, I am.”
“I assume you are ready for your training to start. So for your first training take this.” SQUARESKULL brought out a black spear that looked like a thick rod with a blade stuck onto it. It was plain without any design. More like it was ugly, but Soverick didn’t mind. He preferred function over looks.
The spear floated towards soverick and he grabbed it out of the air. His face changed the moment he touched the spear. He had discovered something he minded very much.