Chapter 59: Empty Seat

"Have you done this kind of training before?" Song Zhilan asked quizzically.

"Nope."

'The crystal isn't just floating off of his palm, it's over across the cave.'

'How many steps did he just skip?'

"Actually this is sort of similar to two things I've done before."

"When I made my Divine Foundation and when I got really injured in the Marble. That was especially tough I had to control my Divinity to stop it from trying to maintain my non-vital parts."

"What are you talking about?" Song Zhilan asked shock on her face.

"Yeah, it wasn't great. Pretty sure I almost died twice."

"Feng Biao, what Rank are you?"

"Divine Mortal."

Song Zhilan stayed silent. Looking at Feng Biao intently.

"Umm is there something wrong."

"Just stand still."

Song Zhilan placed her hands on Feng Biao's shoulders. Staring at Feng Biao up and down.

'Odd, really, really odd.'

Song Zhilan was at a Rank that allowed her to view the internal workings of another's Divinity. She'd never seen a hint of a Divine Foundation in Feng Biao. Though, she'd never bothered to check until now.

Divine Foundations were the spiritual body that allowed someone's Divinity to be channeled within their body more easily. Technically the control over one's Divinity was not actually linked to their Rank, but usually, the two were hand in hand.

Having a Foundation allowed for much easier manipulation of Divinity. Rather than constantly escaping outside one's self when manipulated Divinity would not be wasted in excessive amounts from just controlling it.

'Moving the crystal like that is far above what a Divine Mortal can usually do.'

"Can you tell me more about what you did when you were injured?"

"I just made my Divinity stop trying to maintain the parts of my body I didn't need to live at the time time. Oh, and I blocked out pain with it too. Really needed to."

"That's impossible," Song Zhilan said shaking her head.

"Why?"

"Pain is a complex neurological process involving your nervous system. There is a massive difference between keeping some internal organs from collapsing and blocking out pain."

"It's much more achievable to block out pain with drugs than Divinity."

Feng Biao nodded his head thinking back to the spicy chocolate Hunter gave him.

"Yeah I tried it later and I couldn't really do it."

"Because it's beyond your grasp. Even at my level doing something like that would be impossible."

"You were likely hallucinating on the brink of death. Don't try to do that idiot, you're going to fry your brain."

"That can happen?"

"Of course, it can. All you need to do is accidentally will something in there to move and you're a vegetable."

"I thought it was something anyone could do."

"What made you think that?"

"I dunno I just thought it was easy for everybody else."

That impression had been formed upon seeing those videos of Marked commenting they couldn't stop the pain they felt with Divinity. Feng Biao had assumed this was because of the same reason he was unable to block the very same pain.

The truth was because the very act of trying to block that pain would as Song Zhilan stated, likely cause serious harm to one's brain or nervous system, or both. If he had done the research he might have come across this fact, but he had taken what he had done as a matter of fact.

'Still, it's undeniable his Foundation is completely transparent.'

Song Zhilan had heard that when one's mastery of their Divinity reached a high level changing their Foundation was a natural process.

'To move your Divinity outside your body with ease the barrier between your Foundation and the outside world needs to become thinner and thinner.'

The result was a more transparent Foundation. But she had never heard of one that was completely see-through.

Looking at her own Foundation it was visible, not as solid as most, but not invisible like Feng Biao's own.

'Supposing he's somehow achieved complete mastery over his Divinity then what should he be able to do?'

Thinking for a moment Song Zhilan decided to give Feng Biao a normally impossible task for his age.

"Ok let's try this, have you ever tried to fly?"

"We can fly?"

"Yeah it's not really all that hard, just do what you did to the crystal to yourself. Just remember, be careful."

"Start off however you think you should," Song Zhilan said interested to see what would happen.

Song Zhilan had tried to fly before. She had gotten to the level of being able to levitate before she stopped.

While it was nice it required too much time training specifically in it and didn't help her grow stronger in actual combat nearly as fast.

Mastering Divinity was supposed to be a bit like playing tug of war. Divinity came from your specific Divinity, it was not your own power. That was why without a Mark you lost access to your Contract and you were no different from a regular human.

To fly was a feat of Divinity mastery that required absolute focus. There were a few ways to do it, but the one Song Zhilan had tried was the most common.

The goal was to command your Divinity to lift your feet. The first step being levitation. The problems arose from the fact Divinity was not easy to control.

Divinity was not surgical. Giving it the command to lift your feet with too much force could in the worst cases result in a muscle could be pulled.

There was a big difference between commanding Divinity to strengthen yourself and asking it to pull you up.

The safest method was actually similar to the way Feng Biao had lifted the crystal. It was known as "ballooning". Filling up an object, or yourself, with Divinity like a balloon and commanding it to lift yourself.

The problems were twofold, it required a massive amount of Divinity per second and great mastery over one's Divinity.

That was why other paths were created. The method Song Zhilan had learned ultimately culminated in key points of the body being lifted up. Overall it used up much less Divinity than ballooning and required less skill.

'Now how will he try to do solve this?'

Watching Feng Biao Song Zhilan saw something that confused her.

Feng Biao had already gotten off the ground. But he didn't seem to be levitating, nor was he was ballooning.

Instead, he had focused his Divinity on the soles of his feet acting as a platform for him to step on.

Feng Biao had come up with this idea based on how Hunter had described his [DP] functioning.

'He's doing solid manifestation?'

Song Zhilan was now fully convinced Feng Biao had somehow achieved absolute mastery over his Divinity. What was especially odd about it was that he really didn't seem like he had practiced controlling it very much.

'I've heard of geniuses who master their Divinity before they turn 20, but that's only been the case because they manifested their Mark early.'

From what Feng Biao had said he had only developed his Mark mere months ago. She had never heard of anyone achieving this level of control in such a short time.