Silk Song was an absurdly versatile martial art.
It had an answer to every possible configuration of silk imaginable.
Silk bands, silk bandages, silk ribbons, silk cloth, silk blankets, silk strings, silk rope, silk clothes, even silk confetti.
And then there were the sound arts one could perform by using silk as an instrument or just manipulating the vibrations of silk itself.
In addition internal energy could be used to alter the properties of silk, it’s hardness, elasticity, toughness, and stiffness.
Even for Yousti who had reached the fifth realm of martial arts he occasionally found himself overwhelmed by how many options he had.
That’s why he had only truly mastered the first form of Silk Song the Center Cut.
It’s essence was to convert the energy within the body into rotational force into the silk.
But now he had mastered the second form of Silk Song.
Second Form: Center Winding
The essence of this form was to send the first form’s rotational energy back into the body.
His body would store it within his internal energy so he could perform the Center Cut again instantly.
By alternating between the first and second form Yousti could now utilize silk far more explosively than before.
Imagine Yousti spinning in a void with a long strand of silk attached to him.
Normally if he pulled in the strand of silk he would rotate faster.
But by using Center Winding that wouldn’t happen as all that rotational energy would be stored within his internal energy.
Winding up the silk’s energy within his body.
Of course these forms were only scratching the surface of the endless variations of forms that Silk Song had to offer.
The essence of the Center Forms is pulling and transforming pulling through rotation into pushing.
This had nothing to do with sound arts or the weaving aspects of Silk Song.
But just mastering Center Winding was a huge cause of celebration for Yousti.
“Aurora! I did it!”
He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her in excitement.
Aurora was not pleased by his enthusiasm invading her personal space.
‘What a dignified teacher I have.’ She rolled her eyes once again at Yousti’s antics.
“Yes you learned the thing!” She replied sarcastically.
“Yes I learned Center Winding!” Yousti did not get the hint.
Tears fell down his eyes as he got on his knees and shook his hands towards the sky.
“It’s almost like reaching a new realm in martial arts! It’s one of my greatest joys.”
Golden Intent only visible to Yousti’s eyes rose from his body.
He could now see the intent of joy.
Gold – Joy (喜)
His joy was so infectious that even Aurora emitted some gold intent.
Though she didn’t show it on her face.
Eventually he calmed down and wiped a tear from his face.
“I really love martial arts you know. You don’t get it but I would die just to experience enlightenment if I could.”
“Yes that would be so great if I wasn’t some low third rate martial artist like you call me.”
“Yes but your body comes first. Also how many birds are there above us?”
“13.”
Yousti smacked her in the head with a roll of silk.
“16. Keep on maintaining awareness of your environment. And how many times have I sm-”
“eigh-”
Smack
“Don’t interrupt me. Now we go back to the knife.”
Yousti threw her knife right at her face, only for Aurora to skillfully catch it.
‘Ten months and she’s already so skilled.
I’m astonished at her knifely talents.
I couldn’t be more proud.
We should probably stop by someplace to get noodles for dinner, I missed eastern cuisine.’
As Yousti was thinking about dinner Aurora was trying to stab Yousti with the intent to kill.
But her red angry intent was was seen and dismissed by him in an instant as he effortlessly parried and dodged all her attacks.
Eventually he swapped his foot and tripped her onto the ground.
Before she fell on the ground Yousti caught her with a ribbon of silk around her waist.
“Don’t go scraping yourself with the ground on my watch.”
“You’re the one who tripped me!”
“I did? I thought it was your sorry excuse of footwork?”
“Uuugh”
“Well don’t worry about it. Tommorow I will finally teach you the true martial arts you’ve been asking for the last ten months. Why have you wanted to learn martial arts for the last ten months?”
“That’s the entire time you’ve been teaching me!”
“You’re correct.”
He couldn’t help but tease the girl.
Even though he knew it pissed her off every time.
Her anger had incredible entertainment value to a lonely practitioner like him.
“Let’s go have some noodles.”
~
“I’d like two bowls of noodles.” Yousti politely ordered.
As they were being served Aurora looked at Yousti with a blank expression.
“What? You have food in front of you, go eat it.”
His mouth was already full of noodles as he spoke to her.
“It’s about being in Seres.”
She poked her noodles with a chopstick.
“I know that it hasn’t stopped us but I don’t understand what the people here are speaking.”
She awkwardly used the chopsticks to take a bite out of the noodles.
“So I took the initiative and secretly borrowed some of your money.”
Yousti stopped chewing.
‘Secretly borrowed?
Bruh.’
He squinted as he slowly began chewing and talking again.
“Sho whad ya do whif id?”
Aurora looked around before responding in a very faint voice.
“I may have gotten all of it pickpocketed before buying anything.”
Her voice was so faint that it was practically nonexistent.
Unfortunately for her Yousti was a martial artist with honed senses.
‘Well I knew something was wrong by reading her intent.
So know I know what guilt looks like with intent.’
“That should be fine I had a secret bag of coins that I didn’t tell you about.”
Yousti reached into his clothes to reach for it until.
‘Hmm that’s weird.
I never noticed it going missing.’
“So I may have grabbed that bag when you left it out.”
‘I knew I forgot something.
I just forgot what I forgot.’
“I see… so… I’ll just pay with my silk then. Beware of pickpockets, you don’t know how many things I’ve lost to them. They can get you begging on the streets before you know it.”
A woman wearing simple clothes walked up to their table.
“I can pay for your food.”
Yousti pointed at the woman with his thumb.
“See scammers will walk right up to you at the smallest opportunity.”
“You should be careful, but I am not one of them.”
She dumped coins on the table.
One glance was all it took for Yousti to know that they were the real deal and not counterfeit.
‘Oh it’s someone kind of similar to Neoth.’
Yousti saw that the woman’s consciousness was similar to Neoth in how it existed around her in gaseous aura but much smaller.
“What’s your name?”
“Erda.”
“Let me guess, you’re a perpetual.”
“That’s correct. Neoth told me of your incredible combat skill, he admitted that you were his better. That’s rare considering how powerful and arrogant he is.”
“I only met him once.”
“And you challenged him to a duel.”
Yousti nodded.
“Yeah I do that. Say do you want to duel?”
He began to sit up from the table.
“No.”
He sat back down with a slump.
Erda turned towards Aurora.
She spoke to her in a much kinder voice.
“And what’s your name?”
Aurora looked at Yousti in uncertainty.
To which he just shrugged.
“Aurora.”
“That’s a beautiful name Aurora”
“I said that too.” Yousti interjected.
Erda shot him a glare for interrupting her.
“He’s been teaching me ‘martial arts'”
Aurora pointed at Yousti in the same way he usually pointed at things.
“I’ve done nothing but learn Armatura for the last ten months. I’ve been training every single day because of him.”
Erda looked at Yousti with a glare.
Her intent was quite angry at him for being so hard on this girl that she pitied.
Observing this Yousti defended himself.
“Martial Arts is life. And I’m giving her life.”
“Martial Arts is not for you to enslave children to.”
‘I’m just trying to teach her self defense.
But she do got a point, can’t expect everyone to love martial arts like me.’
“No I like martial arts.”
Aurora defended Yousti.
But Yousti wasn’t comforted by that fact, he saw that she was once again emitting a dark red intent, clearly she was thinking about the father that she killed.
‘Martial arts is up to ones own interpretation but hatred really shouldn’t be a main driver for practicing it or anything in life really.”
Erda seemed satisfied with Aurora’s words though Yousti saw she still disliked it.
She turned towards Yousti and restarted her conversation with him.
“So tell me about these martial arts of yours. How have you surpassed the strongest among us in skill.”
“I’m just built different.”
“…”
Erda was not amused.
“Enlightenment.”
“Enlightenment?”
“I seek enlightenment through martial arts and through enlightenment I attain a higher realm.”
Erda was skeptical, she had heard many plenty of nonsense on things like this throughout her long life since early civilization.
But this was the man who for the first time surpassed Neoth in a way no other perpetual had.
His words had to have some kind of truth to them, assuming he wasn’t completely lying and trying to mislead her.
Yousti picked up his bowl and began slurping down the noodles for a complete ten seconds of just drinking, chewing, and swallowing.
“Damn those are some delicious noodles.”
“You said you attain a higher realm. What do you mean by realms?”
“Feel free to share what I tell you to anyone you want and Aurora listen to this too. I’m talking about the realms of martial arts, of which there are fourteen.”
“The realms of Martial arts are divided between the first seven and the later seven. The first seven are what could be considered the fundamentals and foundation of martial arts. The later seven are mysterious but I’ll know more when I get there.”
Erda comfortably sat at the table, listening to Yousti talk.
“That’s not a lot to go off.”
“I would tell you more but I’m literally the only martial artist who has begun to walk this path of enlightenment so it feels a little pointless to share. And I like to keep some secrets to myself as well.”
“You said that you would teach this girl here ‘true martial arts’ earlier.”
Yousti made an offended expression.
“Spying on our conversations is kind of rude don’t you think?”
“I don’t care.”
“Fair enough. The problem with teaching the martial arts I know, is that only I can perform them. But after ten months of searching for an answer I’ve found it.”
Through probing his Martial Record for ten straight months Yousti had found a solution to teaching others martial arts and their lack of internal energy.
“I created something I call an Immortal Art. And it’s essentially one of the building blocks to my martial arts as it is now. And through the power of enlightenment (from the Martial Record) I have learned how to give this Immortal Art to others.”
Erda grew tense.
What Yousti was describing sounded very suspicious.
She suspected that these ‘immortal arts’ were just a method of using the warp and that he would perform some kind of sorcery on Aurora to make her a Psyker or something similar.
If that was true she would prevent him from doing that to protect the child.
Yousti sensing her intent, reassured her.
“Of course I also have a martial art that can ward off the warp which I will perform.”
He swung his arm and various strands of silk unraveled and spun around him as he performed the Heavenly Escape with his full strength.
It took everything he had but the World Intent was severed within the small area of their table.
Aurora didn’t sense anything but Erda instantly made a shocked expression.
‘I don’t sense the warp!’
She could no longer sense the whispering of the warp.
Though it never bothered her as she was an immensely powerful psyker.
Seeing that he had successfully assured her of the safety of his methods to the highest degree he could he continued explaining.
“Before I had created the Immortal Art Qi but now I have created a collection of these immortal arts that I call a Mantra.”
“A mantra?”
“Yes and the name of the mantra is…”