879 Authority
Khan burned that sensation into his brain, swinging his hand again. His attack landed on the ground, opening a deep, horizontal fissure. Cracks then grew from the hole, expanding everywhere.
The ground had already endured one of Khan"s spells, and the additional attack disrupted its frail balance. The fissure"s edges crumbled, affecting the nearby soil and creating a vast hole. The cavity wasn"t too deep, but Khan mostly found dirt inside it. No big chunks had survived.
Khan didn"t stop there. He kept swinging his hand, sending attacks left and right. Cuts opened on the ground, gra.s.s, trunks, and crown, always spreading additional destruction after the impact. That phenomenon also intensified as Khan grew used to it, pushing him to test the new ability even more.
Only a few minutes had to pa.s.s for the first tree to fall, which obviously wasn"t the last. When Khan stopped, he found nothing but broken leaves, trunks, and ground around him. He had cleared a circular area of that small forest, but the sacrifice had been worth it.
"I got this down," Khan thought, sitting on the ground while his eyes casually inspected the surrounding destruction. His mind went past what he saw, but the pain coming from his hand temporarily kept him in the real world.
Khan inspected his right hand. Nothing was broken, but his fingers had long since grown numb. They trembled, too, escaping Khan"s control. He struggled to close and flex them, and everything pointed toward the need for rest.
"The toll is heavier," Khan concluded.
The transformation and training had pushed Khan"s body beyond human limits. His flesh and bones could replace the st.u.r.dy metal demanded by the Divine Reaper, but his control over mana still played the biggest role. His energy and the symphony bore most of the martial art"s weight, preventing harsh injuries.
However, that new iteration of the Divine Reaper was heavier, demanding more out of Khan and pushing his physical limits. He didn"t only need to get better at it. He also had to let his body get used to that stress.
"I should resume meditating in my quarters," Khan planned. "This is a job for the plants."
Khan currently had two main training methods. The first happened in his caves, away from the cities" overwhelming amount of synthetic mana. The sessions there mainly involved acc.u.mulating energy, which his body slowly absorbed in the following days.
Instead, the second saw long meditative sessions in Khan"s special quarters, the one with the blue plants. He usually spent time there absorbing the mana inside his body and letting the toxic influence alter his flesh according to his training regimen and growth.
Right now, Khan mostly relied on the plants for the Transcendent Step, but that new version of the Divine Reaper also needed help. Still, he had to make sure his body conveyed what he required before immersing it in that transformative influence.
Khan ignored the pain, forcing his hand to close and open once again. He ordered his fingers to stay still as more mana enveloped them. He swung his arm afterward, making sure he performed his newest technique.
The new rounds of attacks weren"t meant to improve the execution. Khan only wanted to inflict as much damage as possible on his body so that his recovery with the blue plants would fix and improve it. His skills were evolving in that direction anyway, so it made sense to reinforce that path.
Once Khan"s right hand couldn"t take it anymore, he switched to his left, launching attacks until it ended up as damaged as its sister. That left him practically crippled, but he knew a few hours would be enough to regain decent mobility, and sleeping would take care of the rest.
After dealing with the hands, Khan let his mind wander in previously explored topics. He reviewed his interaction with Roger once again, focusing on the influence he had successfully enforced. His friends might cla.s.sify that ability as "alien stuff", but he knew how difficult it was.
"The symphony isn"t mindless," Khan thought, "But it"s instinctive. It has a purpose but not a proper will. Affecting it is easy, especially with my element."
The procedure was far from easy but had become no different than breathing for Khan. He literally saw the symphony, so he could interact with it as if it were any other object. Experts in the field would shout "genius" at that feat, but Khan was often blind to his achievements.
"Yet," Khan pondered, "Affecting the mana inside others is something else. That energy already has an owner."
Khan obviously wasn"t considering the unwanted effects of his presence. Many experienced fear and terror before his aura, but those feelings were merely a reaction to his pa.s.sive intensity. They were nothing more than basic instincts triggered by the nature of his existence.
Instead, altering someone"s mana was one level above that. Khan had basically changed the chain of command in Roger"s energy, putting himself above it. He had controlled the emotions Roger could experience, summoning a type of spiritual authority he had never enforced before.
"When did I learn to do this?" Khan wondered, inspecting his trembling hands. "Was it after Zu-Gru? Was it earlier?"
Khan couldn"t pinpoint the exact moment his ability had evolved. Truth be told, something like that probably didn"t exist. His expertise had simply gradually improved, eventually enabling that skill.
Nevertheless, that opened more questions. How much Khan could do now? What were the actual limits of his current expertise? Could he train that new ability? How far could he push it?
The questions didn"t stop there, but the main topic remained the same. Discovering new uses of mana made Khan hope he could eventually achieve the evolution the Nak"s corpse had spoken about or find the path toward it, at least.
"Is it control?" Khan considered. "Control over people"s mana?"
Khan lingered on those thoughts for a few seconds before discarding them.
"No," Khan thought, scratching his head with the back of his hand. "The chaos element is freedom. It doesn"t work like that."
For once, the answer didn"t take long and tragic years to arrive. Khan had already found it. He had only needed to ask the right question to become aware of its existence.
"Authority," Khan realized. "Authority over the mana, even that inside other living beings."
The more Khan studied that answer, the more sense it made. The matter even involved different perspectives. From his point of view, the new ability matched the evolution of his status and mindset. Khan had become a leader, so his aura reflected that.
Meanwhile, from the mana"s perspective, all the dots matched. The Nak"s corpse had told Khan to inherit the mana, which implied superiority over it. He would have to become its new wielder, its new ruler in the war against the scarlet eyes.
That simulation also matched the Nak"s nature. They embodied the mana, but that status couldn"t win against the scarlet eyes. Their heir needed to be superior to their species and the mana itself to push it toward higher levels.
Khan found himself nodding while reviewing the answer. Noticing the action snapped him out of his reasoning, forcing him to take a step back to approach the topic without biases. He worried he was talking himself into believing in what he had realized, and his situation didn"t allow mistakes.
The a.n.a.lysis was solid, but one potentially immense flaw existed. The conversation with the Nak"s corpse had used Khan"s brain as a mediator. The organ had translated the alien language into the best words it could find, but they weren"t necessarily correct. Khan"s understanding of the whole field could have been too shallow.
Still, doubts aside, Khan ended up voicing a helpless question in his mind. "Do I have a better idea?"
That was the first real clue Khan had found about the matters discussed with the Nak"s corpse. His answer had nothing to do with the chaos element but worked with the mana as a whole and could act as a good starting point.
"Following this path might uncover more answers," Khan concluded before moving to another question. "The problem is, how do I train this?"
The symphony didn"t complain, not in the same way as humans did, at least. Yet, testing and improving the ability further might demand training on living beings, which Khan wasn"t a fan of.
The issue wasn"t even with Khan"s nature. The Nele arts sort of prevented that abuse of living beings. It went against the whole harmless communication they preached, and his abilities were partially founded on that.
"It would be easy if I had prisoners," Khan admitted. "My anger would justify everything in that case."
Khan lingered on the idea for a few seconds before exploding into a laugh.
"Am I yearning for another a.s.sa.s.sination attempt now?" Khan cursed. "How twisted can I be?"
Khan let the irony of his situation wane before considering a serious approach to the issue. Theoretically, that ability would improve alongside his status, so ama.s.sing more authority would do the trick. Still, the matter seemed to have a proper progression, too.
"The symphony is the first-" Khan thought before correcting himself. "No. The mana inside me was the first step. The symphony was the second. Mana-enhanced vegetation and other materials without will should follow. As for the fourth, it must be the mana from other people."