The Grey Ghost: Book Two of the Archaic Ring Series

by Reed R. Stevens

  He touched it.

  Nearly a minute passed before the stone showed a reaction. The peculiar statue fractured like a fallen vase, small wisps of dust escaping from the pervasive cracks before the entire thing collapsed into a pile of dim, lifeless powder. A small black light rose out from the remains and then shot forth so quickly that Nolan’s eyes couldn’t keep track of it as the gently glowing orb directly pierced into the centre of his forehead.

  “Fuck!” He fell to the ground with a scream of pain. So much had happened since his last experience with an inheritance that he’d forgotten how painful it’d been.

  Back when the vast stores of information contained within the Ancestral Body Technique’s Inheritance Monument had been pouring into his mind and fusing with his subconscious, it had felt like a wedge of the coldest ice in existence had been driven directly into his brain, leaving him with the migraine of a lifetime. As with the previous instance, the black light began to directly merge with his subconscious, however the pain that it brought forth was entirely different from his previous experience. He felt as if his brain were being ground into paste. The next few minutes were akin to a violent hemorrhage within his head, one that suffocated all that he knew, all that he was, until he could only perceive mind-numbing pain.

  “Uncle Grey!” It was Nyla’s voice. “What’s happening to him? Do something!”

  The old ghost remained silent as he watched the process with a studious squint.

  Nolan had fallen to the ground and was now rolling around in agony as he clutched at his head. He could hardly hear his own screams, for he’d withdrawn deep into his mind and reverted to a feral state of thoughtlessness as his body struggled to cope with the torment.

  This time around, there were no images of uniformed people or wondrous landscapes, no foreign memories and feelings recorded from the lifetime of another person. The only thing that the black light imported into his mind was knowledge, the same subconscious sort that governed his understanding of the Ancestral Body Technique itself, only this information was accompanied by an innate sense of revelation. Nothingness; in the end, all that existed was nonexistent. Infinite Space was an endless, empty expanse riddled with short-lived instances of reality. By making use of the void, one could traverse these realities, these instances of being.

  The second that his eyes flew open, Nolan could feel that he was covered in sweat. Nothingness? Existence? What the hell was all that? When he thought back to the bizarre sensation he’d been made victim to, he found that most of the content was surrounded by a haze that no degree of focus could penetrate. That being the case, an aged voice drifted through his mind, a slow scrape of archaic words that he understood with perfect clarity. It might have been a minute, or perhaps a split second, but in the end the voice had disappeared as if it had never existed in the first place. Oddly enough, he couldn’t recall how it sounded.

  “Nolan,” Uncle Grey said gently. “Calm down and empty your mind. Don’t be alarmed, the inheritance will isolate itself for a time.”

  He nodded along, taking deep breaths as he tried to recover from the ordeal that he’d just endured.

  “Don’t think, just speak. What is the name of your new technique?”

  He pushed himself up from the ground and struggled to balance himself on shaky legs. It took a couple minutes before he could stand relatively still, at which point he turned to Uncle Grey and muttered, “It’s called the T—Tranquil Void Step.”

  He had just obtained his first martial skill, and he still had around a month to practice it before he would be ejected from this mysterious grey world.

  Chapter Twenty-six: Farewell for Now

  Compared to Nolan’s first inheritance, the Tranquil Void Step proved a much more difficult technique to reproduce. Studying new memories, improving inner essence control, practicing movements and breathing patterns; he’d done all of these without rest during the six days since he’d obtained the martial skill, yet he’d hardly made any headway.

  Despite being equipped with the exact knowledge necessary for self-instruction, the concept that he was trying to replicate boasted an incredibly high standard in terms of skill mastery. The Tranquil Void step was an amazing technique that had two impressive functions, both of which could drastically increase Nolan’s survivability.

  The first part of mastering the technique, just by following the skill’s basic inner essence circulation routes, he would enjoy a boost that equated to three times his usual speed. According to Uncle Grey, just this portion of the skill was far more impressive than the total effects of most other movement skills. Unfortunately, good things didn’t come cheap in life, and activating the skill’s basic function would place a constant burden on his energy supplies.

  There were nine ‘steps’ to the technique, each more difficult to learn than the last. The first level was known as the ‘Single Step’ and it allowed the user to instantly relocate anywhere within five metres of their casting location. For all intents and purposes, it was basically teleportation. As he was now, Nolan would lose around eighty percent of his total energy just to change locations a single time, at least if he were able to use the skill. Each of the subsequent steps were improvements of their predecessors, and these steps were the second function of the skill.

  The steps aside, simply activating the passive increase in speed would drain his inner essence reserves about one percent per second. If he kept it activated for more than a minute and a half, there was a high chance he’d lose consciousness. If he pushed his luck, he might even die.

  As absurd as the concept behind the technique seemed, it was simple enough in theory. Follow the breathing patterns, form his inner essence according to the described density and thickness, and then guide it through the inner essence channels mapped out in his mind, with altering speeds. Up to here, the process was pretty similar to that of the Ancestral Body Technique.

  Once he was able to activate the skill’s passive technique for two seconds, he began his attempts at linking it with the Single Step, the first of the nine.

  He would choose a nearby location and focus intently on that spot. Without breaking concentration, he’d drape a large amount of inner essence over his body like a thick, intangible blanket, and then project it toward the spot he’d selected. This created a link between him and the selected location. In that split second, he’d activate the skill by momentarily halting the inner essence activity within his body and matching it with the makeup of the stagnant energy he’d expelled toward the chosen spot. He’d then take a light step forward with his mind intent on the destination. According to the knowledge he’d recently obtained, after following these steps he should arrive at the other spot.

  However, the only thing that he’d managed to accomplish after practicing for dozens of hours was that each attempt gave him a terrible stomach ache that took at least ten minutes to subside. Teleport? He might as well try learning to fly.

  “This is so goddamn frustrating.” Nolan ran a hand through his hair as he spoke with Uncle Grey. “I’ve done everything just like I’m supposed to, but what the hell is this? Is it even possible?”

  “It’s your mindset,” the old ghost repeated. “Do you not take anything I say to heart? State of mind is of the utmost importance, no matter what technique one is trying to learn.”

  “I know that, but it’s tough to recreate those thoughts, even with the inheritance. Besides, isn’t this skill supposed to be top of the line? I can barely project inner essence from my body, and I’m trying to learn one of the most difficult techniques out there.”

  “Must you have such a cynical outlook? It’s not called the Angry Void Step, is it? Do not simply clear your mind and expect things to work out. Empty your thoughts, yes, but do so in the most casual manner possible. Then, while you’re meditating, contemplate the profundity of these memories, the ones that came with the technique.”

  “I’m telling you, that’s what I’ve been doing. I stop all thoughts and enter
a calm state and then I imagine that I’m nothingness, like a void, just like I subconsciously know to do. Only, it’s hard to do that after projecting so much energy to another spot, especially when I have to do it in an instant. I can barely manipulate energy outside of my body, let alone maintain the skill for more than a couple seconds.”

  “Nolan.” Uncle Grey looked exasperated. “You are too impatient. Even if you still can’t move freely while doing so, the fact that you can activate the skill for even a moment after only six days of practice is something you should be proud of. Even if a thousand others were given the same inheritance, I doubt any of them could show such results.”

  Nolan couldn’t help but feel reassured. “You’re not just saying that, are you?”

  “Of course not. Although you’re a disrespectful, impatient and unfilial disciple, it still remains that you’re one of the more talented pupils that I’ve taken under my wing. At the very least, your comprehensive abilities have surprised this old man on more than one occasion.”

  “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and take that as a compliment. Anyway, you should probably check up on Nyla’s progress. I haven’t heard a tree fall for over an hour, so she’s probably practicing that skill you showed her.”

  Uncle Grey nodded and then turned to leave. “I know that you’re impatient, but remember that others have spent entire lifetimes and never seen through the mechanics of a single martial skill. The methods of learning them are all dictated by the thoughts and perceptions of the creator. Try to think like them, attempt to feel as they might have felt when they made it. This is just a guess, but don’t mistake ‘void’ with ‘nothingness;’ the latter doesn’t exist, while the former does!”

  Seeing his teacher floating away, Nolan thought back to what the old ghost had told him about martial enlightenment. For cultivators, an unexpected epiphany could mean the difference between learning a technique in an instant and never learning it at all. Simply put, sometimes the obstacle that barred someone from learning a martial skill was a lack in perspective. Seeing things from a different angle could enable someone to completely alter the way they interpreted a set of instructions.

  Uncle Grey was saying that the person who left this inheritance behind seems to have sealed a memory within that statue. It’s probably a memory of the epiphany that led to them developing the skill. Nolan took a deep breath. He knew what they’d felt, but he just couldn’t reproduce the sensation.

  Thinking back on the old ghost’s parting words, he imagined himself relaxing on a tropical beach, a cold beer sitting upon a chairside table as his ears swallowed up the soothing sound of waves lapping against the shore. Restraining any wayward thoughts, he drew upon memories of a childhood vacation and focused on preserving the sense of relaxation that he’d been able to dredge up as a result.

  If nothingness didn’t exist, then what was it that made a void an existential concept? He’d heard of outer space being classified as the great void, usually when referring to massive expanses of empty space in between celestial bodies. Maybe the ‘void’ being referred to in the title of his martial skill was representative of emptiness? How did he know for sure that the creator hadn’t just picked some random name because it sounded cool?

  He remembered the brief instant of foreign understanding, the dawning comprehension that everything was connected, even ‘nothingness.’ For sure it had something to do with ‘void’. However, going off the assumption that they were different things…

  Nolan continued to ponder the truths behind the Tranquil Void Step, and soon lost himself to a soothing stream of profound thought.

  

  It had been nine days since Nolan had obtained his second inheritance. He still hadn’t made any progress with the Single Step, though he could now maintain the skill’s passive function for seven seconds. He still couldn’t move around while doing so, but it was a great improvement from his starting point.

  He’d always had an ambidextrous way of thinking, never had much trouble splitting his attention between different focuses. Even so, the martial skill that he was trying to learn called for a very high level of multitasking in terms of thought distribution. A slight shift in focus might disrupt the entire technique, similar to a single mistake causing the collapse of a house of cards. He couldn’t remember working his mind so hard in all his life.

  He eventually decided that he’d be better off dedicating his time to achieving movement while the martial skill’s passive effect was activated, which was a difficult task in its own right. Keeping the technique activating while his surroundings blurred past him was tough to do, though he knew it was possible with his spiritual sense.

  He’d learned from Uncle Grey that martial skills were classified into several categories depending on the effects of the technique. The Tranquil Void Step was a movement skill, which were generally used to increase speed.

  Uncle Grey had taught Nyla what he’d labelled the simplest movement skill that had been available to the disciples of his sect. In exchange for a large portion of inner essence, Nyla was able to double her maximum speed for just over two minutes. The activation method was relatively easy and there were only two stages to the technique, but it was the only movement skill that Uncle Grey could teach her within such a short period of time.

  Nolan spent about an hour of each day lost in silent meditation, always within the Divine Spirit Fountain. While his body and spiritual sensitivity were being nurtured by the waters, he pondered the odd memory of revelation that his recent inheritance had imprinted within his mind. The more he focused on the sensory perceptions contained within those moments of profound insight, the more that he could see that the owner of the memory had viewed this instance of enlightenment as the sudden understanding of an innate truth of existence. But what was the essence of this truth? That everything was nothing?

  Nolan had never been much for poetry, or particularly fond of most literary conventions. That wasn’t to say that he hadn’t done exceedingly well in his advanced English studies, it’s just that he usually found that one had to cater to the teacher’s personal opinions regarding things such as symbolism and allegory, which could get exhausting, and sort of defeated the purpose of creative expression. He much preferred mathematics and the sciences; all problems had a definite answer, you just had to unearth it with the proper equation, express it with the right formula.

  What had his advanced functions teacher always said? Don’t overthink things, just trust that your math is right.

  It happened when Nolan was in the midst of meditation. Weren’t breathing patterns and inner essence circulation routes similar to mathematical equations? Constants, coefficients, operators—he had them all. He even had the answer to the equation, the knowledge of the eventual outcome that he was pursuing. The only thing he needed to take care of was a single variable, the matter of the profound perception that he was trying to replicate. Wasn’t this just a simple equation? As long as he maintained a tolerant patience, the mindset would come to him.

  He was confident that he would successfully learn the trick to mastering the martial skill, eventually. At the moment, though, he didn’t have the time to take such a drawn out approach.

  Nolan remained within the fountain for the next eleven hours, constantly activating the Tranquil Void Step as the nourishing waters continued to replenish the vast stores of inner essence that powered the martial skill. He could now maintain the technique for around eight seconds, at which point a stray thought usually caused the skill to deactivate. Considering how divided his attention was, he couldn’t help but feel a bit proud at today’s improvements, if not excited. Although he was only able to keep the skill active for a second longer, this would still benefit him greatly in a fight.

  The bare bones of the skill weren’t too complicated, at least not when he had a subconscious understanding of its inner workings. It was just a matter of growing accustomed to directing the flow of inner essence down certain pathways wit
hin his body, of gaining an instinctual and habitual proficiency in the usage of the steady breathing patterns described in his foreign memories. As he grew more adept in these areas, cohesion between the different aspects of the skill would naturally improve as well.

  All I need to do is practice.

  He couldn’t help but think back to the seventh grade, which had also been his first year of hockey. As a young boy it had taken him a long time to convince his parents to let him join the local house league, and as a result he wound up starting out much later than most of the other kids. He’d been the worst skater on his team; all ankles, no breaks. He might have had a great sense for the game, but what good was a mind for strategy when he couldn’t act upon his insights?

  Not to mention his team, he’d been one of the worst players in the league, and had suffered many times over for it. Every bone-rattling check that smashed him into the boards, every heated fist-fight lost because he couldn’t keep his footing, it would have been enough to crush any kid’s spirit and make them want to quit. But what had he done? He’d gotten a paper route and saved up enough money to pay for his own skating lessons. He’d watched as many games on TV as he could, regardless of which teams were playing. He studied the movements and reactions of the pros and made attempts at mimicking them, either during practices with his team or when he’d bussed down to the local rink with his brother on public skating days.

  Four years—that’s how long it took for him to ascend to the AAA league for his age group, the highest caliber of minor hockey within the country. He wasn’t a team leader, but he was skilled, versatile, valued and appreciated by the coach. He’d had to rely on his teammates every time they travelled out of town, and eventually had to stop playing since his parents couldn’t afford to keep him in the game, but he’d never forgotten how satisfying it was to earn his place in that league with his own efforts.