Ascension of the elder

Chapter 40: Phantom limbs

"Don't worry guys I'm only a little tired."

The men who had come closer had taken a defensive stance around Kyle as he fell and they had worry etched on their faces, but on hearing Kyle's words they relaxed a bit and stepped back giving him room.

Dylan helped Kyle stand up before stepping back and standing respectfully in front of him awaiting his orders. Kyle grinned seeing this before he spoke out again.

"What are you guys waiting for, someone to fetch your slippers get cultivating."

This made the men laugh and they spaced themselves out again and continued their cultivation. Dylan lingered for a moment and felt that Kyle reminded him of his instructor from boot camp which was weird as his instructor was a 50 year old vet who could make grown men cry while turning the air blue with incredibly inventive insults. Smiling while dismissing this weird thought he sat down and recommenced his cultivation while thanking his ancestors he found this place.

Kyle sat down with his men and began cultivating, when he was healing Dylan he used mana to support his mental concentration through the third node in his mind but his mana reserve couldn't maintain this use for a long time hence the strain and exhaustion he now felt. As he was cultivating he was pleased to note that while he had been directing his mana at this node it had also leached into the surrounding nodes and had begun clearing them.

After a few cycles of cultivation Kyle's mana reserves had returned and had even increased slightly with his first level mana channel expanding getting closer to his level 0 channel section. While Kyle had been inspecting the guards during their training session he had noticed that when they were using his technique to open up their level 0 nodes there was a strengthening effect on the subsequent nodes and channels so once they were able to progress to the next level they could use the associated improved mana. He didn't want anyone to immediately jump to a higher level of the technique for fear it could hurt them.

He'd given Bruno and Ash the higher level but realised now this was a mistake. Fortunately this was still a low enough level it didn't adversely affect them so they could continue as is without having to step back. It seemed as though the saying in wuxia novels about having a stable foundation was true.

Once Kyle was topped up and refreshed he stood and headed to the last man on his route. This man was the one he was truly worried about as he didn't know how he could help him. This man had his arm severed at the elbow. Everyone else may have been hurt or injured but the bits were still there so they could be fixed but this man didn't have anything to fix. As Kyle approached him he could see the man was training hard with an almost unnatural focus. Kyle thought of people like paralympians and those who had lost limbs but did things others with all their limbs couldn't just to prove to themselves it was possible. Kyle felt this man believed he had something to prove so he was putting forth all his effort and will.

Kyle approached and dove into his spirit realm to see what he could. As expected there was damage to his nodes and channels in line with what he had seen from the bad training techniques used by the others. This had already begun to be repaired by the new technique and Kyle could see this man was actually looping his mana several times within each node rather than once which made Kyle annoyed as he wanted them to do it once to prevent damaging the nodes by an uncontrolled expansion from too much mana being retained without giving them a chance to be healed by the effects of the technique. Kyle would give him a talking to once he was finished.

The node clearance was progressing but once Kyle approached the location of the man's lost arm he saw something new. After what he had seen previously Kyle was expecting maybe a blasted or damaged land or possibly just mist shrouding what was lost however Kyle instead saw a ghost image. The man's mana was flowing out from the node in his shoulder and was creating this mirage, Kyle thought of this and began to compare it to something he had heard of before. Phantom limb syndrome is when people can still feel a lost limb this is a terrible feeling for the person and if you haven't suffered from it you would struggle to even empathise with them as it is a completely foreign sense.

Kyle was inspecting this ghostly landscape which was made in a much more metaphysical sense than anything else he had seen before it may even border on the paranormal. Kyle headed to the line between the landscape and the ghost land to see how they interacted. There was no interruption between the 2 it was one second land the next it was a mana construct. As Kyle was watching he saw something which made him question himself for a second before he began to observe closely. The mana at this connection was much denser than elsewhere and as he observed the mana began to turn into matter like the rest of the land. It looked like the ghost image was a blueprint and the mana flowing through was filling in this blueprint returning it to its true state.

Kyle didn't know how this would translate to reality, would the man's arm re-grow or would he gain some kind of mana limb? Kyle hoped it was the first and he thought of something he had heard before, he couldn't remember if it was a quote from a person, book or movie but they said 'injury is an aberration and the body tries to repair this aberration' so Kyle hoped that this was what was happening with the support of mana.

Kyle came out of the spirit realm and looked at the man's arm. He couldn't see any change but he decided he would keep an eye on him.

"Wake up!"

Kyle shouted to the man which brought him out of his trance. Once he saw Kyle was in front of him he scrambled to his feet and stood at attention.

"Why aren't you following my instructions? I said to loop the mana once at each location, did I stutter?"

"No sir!"

The man responded with fear as he didn't want to be forced to leave but he also didn't want to be left behind by his brothers because of his injury hence he pushed more than the rest.

"You loop the mana once and only once to prevent an uncontrolled mana build up. I will only explain this once another time will mean punishment. DO YOU UNDERSTAND!"

"Yes sir!"

Kyle had to exert his authority as these men were older than him and if they didn't take him seriously they may begin to act on their own thinking it was for his benefit but if he didn't have control he may miss something important.

"Good, you don't need to worry. You are part of this family now and we stand as one no one will be left behind."

During his conversation with this man the rest of the guards had come out of their trances either on their own or by being awoken by those near them. When they heard Kyle once again say that they were family and they had each other's backs they felt that connection they had missed and as Kyle watched they began bowing to him. First it was the one armed man but the rest joined in after. It was surreal seeing so many grown men bowing 90 degrees to a child, Kyle was shocked seeing this and was also a little uncomfortable.

"Look we bow to no one not to each other and certainly to no one else. If you salute use your fist and place it on your chest. If you didn't know bowing like that is to expose your neck to those above you but none of us is above the other here."

Kyle had heard the origin of bowing from eastern cultures which was later adopted to western cultures and he didn't like it so he would abolish it here and now. Plus if a guard was bowing how could he see what was coming, it was ridiculous to him.

"Well kid it looks like you've got some good guys."