[Severed Divinity] 73. Rankings Update (2)

It was rather beautiful, watching how the ambient energy curled like smoke around his limbs as he moved through the sequences. The most difficult part in the beginning had just been remembering what to do, but he’d flowed through them at least a hundred times at this point. All of fourth clade could probably do the sequences in their sleep, and he wasn’t close to that point. Still, the natural flexibility and power of a tier two cultivator allowed him to move through them without tiring, and he wasn’t ashamed by his display.

Then they moved onto the pole. Up close, the enchantment inscriptions seemed to glow from within the material, obscured by a translucent outer layer about two fingers thick.

Isen followed the example of the tier ones and performed a palm thrust. Energy roared through his meridians, concentrating in his legs, his torso, and his upper body to prepare the explosive blow.

The pillar absorbed the strike with a small shudder, its surface quivering, almost like gelatin. The recoil was thankfully minimal.

He saw Meridia and Jorin sharing a look, though neither revealed what they were thinking.

Isen didn’t want to be a hypocrite and toot his own horn after condemning Freyan’s arrogance, but gods, he felt great about that strike. An actual fight, or even a spar, normally never let you charge up and launch an attack like that. It was enough to easily brain a tier two.

He moved on to the kick. The tier ones had all performed side kicks, taken straight from one of the more dance-like maneuvers from the sequences. He focused his energy on his abs and lower body, holding as much as he could in his legs. Then, he twisted and performed a near-instantaneous half spin, his foot crashing into the pole. More rubbery ripples.

“Now it’s time for techniques,” Meridia said. “I’ll ask you to perform all the techniques you’ve learned. Announce each technique before you use it. For this first part, you won’t be judged on anything other than successfully invoking the technique.”

“Shadow sight,” Isen began, getting the worst over with. He only flared the technique for a moment. “Shadow cloak.” Shadows hugged him, billowing from his shoulders. “Shadow fist.” He struck at an imaginary foe, his hand covered in shadowy energy and producing a small implosion in the air. “Shadow step.” He activated the technique with as little energy as possible in his calves, sending himself forward a few steps.

The only one he was missing was shadow bolt.

He considered mentioning his ability to channel shadow energy into an arrow, but held back. At least according to the Legacy framework, it wasn’t its own technique.

He also considered manifesting an energy ball, but at this point, he no longer needed to show off more than he already had. He’d already seized Welco’s attention. Moreover, the game had changed—whether Welco leaked important info to Isen was no longer relevant. Isen just needed to steal the cosmovault and smuggle it out of the clan.

“One last thing,” Meridia said. “Pick the technique you’re most comfortable with.”

“Shadow cloak.”

She nodded. “Off to the side, channel it for as long as you can. When you fully exhaust your energy, you’re done.”

It didn’t seem like a particularly fair test—what if he had just exhausted himself demonstrating the other techniques? Then again, if the tier two tests were always the same, it might be common knowledge.

As Isen walked away, Arthum approached the testing ground. Isen breathed in deeply, trying to keep his physical breath separate from pulling in the energy of the world. When he was comfortable and fully focused, he activated shadow cloak.

He counted the seconds.

When a minute passed, he internally cheered. But he kept going, relying on the energy he cycled to offset his expenditure. Eight rings wouldn’t be enough to pull that off—they just delayed the inevitable.

At ninety-one seconds he stopped, just in time to catch the end of Arthum’s slow version of the Femera sequences. Arthum’s movements were impeccable to Isen’s eye, confident and exact. The second version, at normal speed, held a similar faultless grace.

As for the two strikes on the pillar, Arthum didn’t cause the outer layer to quiver like Isen had. And when it came time to showcase his techniques, Arthum knew only three—shadow fist, shadow bolt, and shadow step.

It struck Isen as odd—why wouldn’t Arthum learn all of them? Unless... he couldn’t.

Isen looked forward to shadow bolt, since he’d never seen it cast before. But Arthum only held the skill for a moment, producing a ball of black ink over his hand.

Like Isen, Arthum was sent to the side to exert himself to the point of exhaustion. Unlike shadow cloak, which was channeled, Arthum was expected to use shadow fist repeatedly. The number of casts—and the perceived energy behind them, according to Jorin—would compose his score.

That left only one person: Freyan. Before Isen, the clear forerunner of fourth clade.

Unlike Arthum, she seemed almost... nervous as she approached Meridia. She fidgeted, and took a few seconds to calm herself down enough to get started.

She performed the Femera sequences just as well as Arthum, her movements sinuous, and indeed, almost shadow-like. As for striking the measuring pole, she showed a similar performance to Arthum as well. Her lip trembled slightly when her blows failed to make the pillar quiver.

Isen almost felt bad, since he figured she was comparing herself to him. It seemed obvious at this point that imbibing Erasmus’s blood had made his body stronger. That was probably related to his C-grade measure on the body tempering category on the assessment stele.

Freyan was E-rank overall; he doubted her body tempering was higher than D. It was cruelly misleading for Isen to even be placed into E from the start. Jorin and the other elves at the admin desk had probably thought it fine to put him in E as a placeholder since there was only a week until the rank updates, but it set an unreachable standard.

Maybe she’ll learn not to be so stuck up after this, he thought.

When it came time to perform her techniques, Freyan knew all five. It took her a few seconds to form each one, and she seemed increasingly aggravated by this fact, which only made her casting time go up, taking six seconds for the last technique, shadow fist.

The technique she chose for the last test was shadow step, which she performed four times.

After that, they were dismissed.

“Isen,” Jorin said quickly, before he left, “come here.”

He obediently walked over to him and Meridia. Jorin’s thumb rubbed over his featherless quill. His expression revealed none of his thoughts. Likewise, Meridia wore her typical smile.

“What do you think of your assessment?” Jorin asked.

Isen just wanted to leave and go to either the cultivation cave, the archery range, the weapons yard, or wherever he was supposed to go to practice alchemy after his explosive incident. He didn’t want to deal with cryptic questions regarding why he was stronger than he should be.

Another part of him couldn’t shake the worry that Jorin would recognize him as the mysterious interloper last night, even if it seemed extremely unlikely.

“I think I did well,” Isen replied.

Jorin’s facade broke as he rubbed the bridge of his nose, his eyebrows coming together. “We need you to strike the pillar again.”

Isen schooled his expression. Did they suspect him of cheating, even with the two of them watching his every move? “Fine.”

He ran right up to the pillar and struck with his arm before flowing into a kick. “Need me to do it again?”

Jorin just stared at him for a moment, while Meridia crossed her arms. “No,” Jorin finally said. Then, he sighed. “Isen, your assessment from the other day put your body tempering at low C. Since then, you’ve gained one ring, which shouldn’t have much bearing on your results.”

Isen blinked in confusion. “... And?”

“You hit with the force of a low B-rank,” Meridia finished. “We don’t understand it.”

Even though this was an interrogation, Isen could barely contain his elation. He hit like a B-rank? That was better than most adults in the clan, people who had been cultivating for decades!

Ros, you are the best master ever for giving me divine blood!

“It’s probably related to my low impurities from the hollow formation stage,” Isen offered. “My tier three master is wise and generous, and dedicated most of their time to improving my cultivation. Is such a result really so surprising?”

Jorin and Meridia shared a look. “You shaped your techniques in a fraction of second,” Jorin continued. “Not a total shock considering your A-rank meridian responsiveness. But even given your D-rank meridian strength, you held shadow cloak for longer than should be possible with only eight rings. We want to examine you as you hold the technique again, to see what you’re doing.”

“Okay.” As Isen prepared to call the technique, Jorin and Meridia both places their hands on his shoulders. It was weird, since shadow cloak manifested there, and he tried to block out the sensation.

Then, he cycled and channeled the technique. Optical cloaking, he thought, echoing the words of Legacy.

After a handful of seconds, they called for him to stop.

“I understand,” Meridia said, the old woman’s deep wrinkles pulling together. “He’s compensating for poor throughput by directing his energy only to his shoulders, which... would require remarkable control.”

Jorin nodded. “A-rank.”

“It’s bizarre to see such a large discrepancy... mid D versus A. Very, very interesting.”

Isen swallowed. “So... what does this mean for me?”

Meridia looked at Jorin. “He’s borderline. I say we leave the decision to him.”

“I concur. Isen, would you like to be recorded as high C, or low B?”

He stared at them owlishly. “Wait, I get to choose?”

“Well, the patriarch will be informed of your individual scores. If we had to make a judgment, I’d put you at low B,” Jorin explained.

“Even high C will put all eyes on you,” Meridia added. “It’s a lot to shoulder for someone so young—and so new to the clan. If I were you, I’d choose high C.”

Isen nodded. “High C sounds good.” He agreed that even that sounded crazy—

“Why do you always lose your spars?” Jorin asked, cutting off Isen’s train of thought. “Even against me, you felt only as strong as a high D. Have you been holding back?”

Hearing it so bluntly stated made Isen cringe. “My cultivation is just better than my actual fighting skills.” It was the honest truth, and a sore point. At least this morning he’d learned about the weapons yard. “Plus, I’m not always reinforcing my body like how I struck the pole.”

“Why not?”

Isen blinked.

“You’re not tier one anymore, needing to ration your energy,” Meridia cut in. “That mindset is holding you back.”

He saw Meridia’s point—most of the time, he tried to only use what energy he thought he needed to. Empowering his body took much less energy than using techniques, though. It really wasn’t that much of a burden.

It’s because I’m not trying to win, Isen realized. It’s because I’m trying to learn. And his own instincts recognized that. He matched the strength of his opponents, rather than simply overpowering them.

He didn’t actually think that was the wrong thing to do, though. “I learn better when I lose fairly.”

“So you held back even against me?” Jorin said, raising an eyebrow.

Isen frowned. That was a good point. He’d just attacked like how he thought he should. “Maybe... part of it is that I’m not familiar with empowering myself all the way. I don’t have enough control.”

“Control,” Meridia repeated, her impassive smile curving into a sly grin. “Now that, we can work on.”