Chapter 9 - Warriors (2)

"Do all warriors learn a 'Truth'?" Shin asked. He was already worried that he wouldn't be able to figure something like that out.

"Haha, don't worry. Most warriors figure out their path by the time they reach my level." Hendrick chuckled as he calmed down Shin, who had visible fear creeping up his face. "But even if you don't, that just means you've found another area to practice and train upon."

For example, Emperor Leon did not walk upon the path of 'Truths'.

He instead trained Ki control to the extremes and reached a point where he could simulataneously cover a thousand weapons in his own Ki and manipulate it to his will.

A very famous attack of his was called 'Judgement of Steel' where the Emperor, with this grotesque strength of a Hero level warrior, would fling an enemy up into the air and then command his thousand weapons to fly into the target from all directions.

This created a sort of a 'sphere' made of various weapons and was for the most part, a sure-kill method to deal with tough enemies for the Emperor.

Shin's worried were eased to a degree after listening to an example of the Emperor.

However, he still had a desire to find his own 'Truth' after being mesmerized by the Baron's showcase of his abilities.

"Once one accumulates and fills up the entire core with purple liquid Ki, they can start to condense the ki into a solid form. And once they suceed, they'll be met with their cores having drastically decreased in size and becoming a solid, translucent crystal."

This was called the Grand Weaponmaster.

Characterized by their ability to easily manipulate their Ki and their extreme increse in all physical abilities, this stage was divided into 2 steps.

The first step, the black crystal, was called the Dark Stage. This is the level when most warriors would focus on a specific path that they have gained insight upon in the previous stage. And once they gained and refined even more Ki to creatate 5 black crystals within their core, they were able to fuse them into a white core.

This was called the Light Stage.

The Light Stage was characterized by an element. Unlike mages who could control an element by transforming the naturural mana of the earth, warriors had to reach the Life stage to control over the elements.

This was mainly due to the unrefined and chaotic properties of Ki.

The element of a warrior is predetermined on the creation of their white crystal as the center of the white crystal will have a colored tinge, such as red for fire.

Of course it was hard to figure out what a warrior's element was from just looking at the color within their core but by looking at the characteristics of their Ki, it was easy to figure out their element.

For example, Emperor Leon's Ki had a property of turning every non living material into iron or steel, which was dependent on the amount of Ki he inputs into the said material, to a degree.

Another famous warrior, the principal of the royal academy, had Ki that created a flaming aura around his weapon which left behind a flames whever he cut with his dual blades.

"There are currently over 30 known Light Stage Grand Weaponmasters within the empire." Hendrick explained. "However a large amount of them are away to train in order to reach the level of a Hero."

Heroes. They were the epitome and peak of the body enhancement and Ki path of a warrior.

"Only 2 Heroes exist. One is the Emperor, Leon Steelheart. The second being Akechi Raijin."

"Ake..huh?" Shin stuttered to repeat the second Hero's name.

"Hahaha." Hendrick chuckled. "He's not from our continent. Apparently there is another continent to the extrem east of our eastern ocean but little is known to us."

Akechi Raijin. 'Hero of Lightning'.

He was an old man who had reached the peak of warriors almost a century ago and had guarded this world long before Leon had rised up. He was also Leon's tutor and had trained the emperor from young age.

To reach this level, one had to refine the Ki into the white core until all of it slowly refined into their 'element' and changed the color of the crystal entirely.

At that point they would attempt to further condense this core until it shatters and absorbs the Ki with every aspect of their being.

Once this happened they showcased a level of power that was 'inhuman'.

Such as crumbling an entire mountain, flattening a wide plain or cutting apart the ocean for kilometers on end.

They also no longer needed sleep and could heal external wounds at supernatural speeds that were visible to the eye.

They would basically becoming half-immortal.

As for Akechi Raijin, this man had reached the peak of speed as that was the truth he had been enlightened with.

Coupled with his lightning element, he could easily break the sound barrier by himself and travel multiple times at the speed of sound.

The shockwave and force being nothing for his supernaturally enhanced body of course.

His appearance was coupled by zips of lightning through the battlefield which was soon accompanied by a tremendous gust of lightning winds that followed his trail.

And this monster currently resides in the tallest mountain of the contient. The mountain had originally been called Everfrost mountain due to the tremendous ice upon the peak but ever since Akechi decide to reside within this mountain, the mountain was covered in storms all year along and was now called the Raijin Mountain.

With his most grand display of power happening in a battle almost 5 decades ago where he had abused his vast amount of Ki to the heavens and had brought down a giant blast of lightning which blew up an area a kilometer in diameter and caused area to melt down from the sheer energy and heat.

Akechi personally called this move the Rairyu or Lightning Dragon in his language due to how it actually resembling a giant dragon made of lightning descending headfirst into the ground from the skies.