Chapter 95: Unshaken

As Taka ducked under the swipe from Paike's claws, he missed the foot that snaked out. It was reinforced with as much qi as Paike could force out in the tight window. Not only was the rebuke formed around his foot imbued with all the momentum from his core and swinging in the arc of his kick, but his channels were flexing as hard as they could to try and contain all the qi he was forcing through them.

The blow landed with the sound of rolling thunder as Taka was flung off his feet. Paike stood still and watched as he crashed through the trunk of a large tree and into another. Taka had twisted as he flipped through the air. He managed to control his bounce off the second tree enough to land on his feet.

Even as he regained his stance, he whipped around, and his eyes landed on Paike, who was still standing from where he had attacked.

"Paike?" Taka asked cautiously.

Paike was in no state to respond. It was all he could do to not continue the attack. Flashing with claws and feeling his teeth rend and tear. The lust for battle was insatiable. But he was still him.

He breathed in deeply and ignored what Taka was saying. Closing his eyes, he halted the qi raging through his qi channels. With great effort, he let it flow back into his dantian and join the spinning mass in its center.

The block of qi around his foot from his rebuke had already dissipated into the air around them.

Opening his eyes, he half expected himself to no longer be in his trance. The fog over his mind felt weak. Like when he woke up after coming back to himself. But he was still taller, and the talons on his fingers were still attached.

"--into your dantian and let the flame gutter." Taka was saying. Paike tried to listen; he really did, but it didn't make sense to him.

What was he supposed to do with his flame? Why would he let it die? The flame should burn it all-- but that wasn't right.

Paike was no flame. He knew that was wrong. He was primarily a thing of earth and metal. Maybe a tint of water. But not a creature of flame, nor of darkness.

With that realization, the fog fully lifted, and he felt himself. He let go of the feeling he had been holding the whole time. That moment before the dive off the cliff. It was as if he had taken back that choice. As if he had stepped back from the ledge, never to have made the plunge.

The talons faded, and his body shrunk back to its normal size. The change felt more jarring than when he entered the trance and even more than when he had come out of one after being knocked out of it, or by burning up the last of his qi.

The world wavered, and Paike felt hands catch him as he collapsed to the ground.

***

Lying on his bed, Paike tried to remember what happened. The entire trip back was fuzzy. He remembered that he hadn't said anything and stumbled into the empty house.

After he had lain down, he felt incredibly drained, but couldn't sleep.

His thoughts were sluggish; however, they kept coming back to the idea that this didn't make sense. In previous training sessions, he had entered into his trance repeatedly until he was out of qi. Even then, he suffered no such effects.

Taka hadn't warned him of anything like this in the slightest. He didn't even have a theoretical framework for what might be happening. Physically, he felt absolutely fine. Looking at his physical cultivation, nothing had changed or was obviously wrong with it. His qi was slightly drained, but he still had ample reserves.

There was nothing wrong with his spiritual cultivation either. What could it be?

The only thing left was that his mind was strained. Part of his problem was that he was struggling to think, so even after he considered it, it took him a long time to accept that his mind was the culprit.

It took him even longer to figure out what to do about it. He couldn't sleep, so rest wasn't really an option. Time did seem to be making a difference, but he had spent enough time staring at his ceiling already. Perhaps it was wearing off, but how long would that continue?

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There was one technique he rarely used. He had almost forgotten about it in his haze. Unshakeable in His Faith was supposed to protect from outside mental effects, but now that he had studied the fundamentals of the art, he could see the vast majority of the effect came from the stabilization and immutability effects they all shared.

This was not something he had considered before activating it. His mind was simply too muddled to weigh the consequences. He just thought: mental defense, mental problem.

When the techniques snapped into place, it dawned on him how monumentally stupid that course of thoughts and actions had been. If he had been correct in his assumption that his mind was strained, then preventing it from changing would have held him just beyond that catatonic state until he ran out of qi.

But obviously that wasn't what had happened. Instead, it had instantly brushed off the effect.

Now that he could actually think, he had a number of questions and doubts about his technique, battle trance, mental state, and many other aspects of his cultivation.

Mainly, it was clear that there had been some outside effect on him. His first suspicion was that Taka had done something.

In their first lesson, he remembered that his brother had some metal technique that he had managed to counter. But if he was being honest, he didn't think that his own power would be enough to counter a full Emerald technique. While he had been able to brush aside the gentle nudging intended to go unnoticed that his brother had tried before, this was nothing like that.

It had been an oppressive blanket over his thoughts; nothing was subtle about it. And his own technique had brushed it aside. If it had been Taka, it might have weakened something like that, but broken it instantly? Paike thought not.

Of course it could all just be him rationalizing away because the mental technique had left him unable to suspect his brother. He obviously didn't think that was the case, and if he was, he wouldn't be able to think it was, so considering it more was pointless. Unless there was no alternative explanation. But he needed to consider all the possible explanations before he doubted his own mind. Too many cultivators fell to madness of one kind or another for his family not to have at least some advice on how to deal with it.

Luckily, he did have a few other explanations that seemed reasonable on the surface. They would require testing.

First, and most likely, was that the taint of the ancient spirit's cultivation wasn't fully integrated and had some lingering effects he hadn't noticed yet. It was some aspect of his qi. That Unshakeable in His Faith had countered it was odd. He would need to look into it a bit more. Intuitively, it would keep his mind in stasis, but that wasn't how the technique worked.

It was clearly able to resist active effects. So there was some part of it that identified outside influences and fought against them, stabilizing the integral parts of his own mind. He supposed a version of that might have helped against mental wear, but that wasn't how this worked. It simply stopped the effect, not healing the mind. So it wouldn't help against ongoing damage.

However, if something was leaning against the mind, warping it like a weight on a stretched cloth, it would reinforce the mind, pushing it back to where it would be. It would not, however, mend a rip in the cloth.

The second option might have been less likely, but it was still possible. The trance itself could have had lasting effects because he didn't properly cancel it. However, with his brother's help, he should have been able to come out without issue. He had done so before.

Besides, he hadn't even had nearly the same issues in the trance, so it was an unlikely thing to have a delayed effect. Pushing off the effect wouldn't be like that, as the effect was different in essence.

So it was likely some effect from the attunement of his qi. Something that his technique saw as not part of him, at least not; however, it investigated his mind. It would take a lot of research to find out what. Another visit to the cave was in order.

He would also need to dissect Unshakeable in His Faith more thoroughly. There was a lot of it that he didn't understand. He and Guan Li hadn't even started looking into metal effects caused by qi workings. That might have to take precedence over the meridian work they had been planning.

More than anything, though, all of that was secondary. The executioner's blade hanging over his neck had been removed. It would be hard to claim that his battle trance wasn't under control anymore. He should be safe. He could enter and leave it when he wanted. He couldn't be provoked into it by accident. Was it perfect? No, but that wasn't what had been asked of him.

He had done it. He was not going to be expelled.

Paike finally dropped Unshakeable in His Faith, and he felt fine.

Even now he had a solution to the one side effect. It just wasn't as smooth as he would like. There was only one way to fix that problem.

He would need to practice. Only then would he be comfortable using this outside of training. Now that the downside wasn't as extreme, it would be myopic to not harness the increased power when he needed it.

Moving into a sitting position, he started to meditate. Moments later, the physical change came over him, but he stayed still, keeping that feeling of just about to take a plunge. He was in control. The bloodlust was there. He still wanted to tear flesh and sink his teeth into his enemies, but he was his own master.

He activated Unshakeable in His Faith and felt no difference. That was almost expected. Then he closed his eyes, and while maintaining the defensive technique, dropped his battle trance.