On the opposite sides of an arena Kenji and Shinji could be seen bruised and beaten, panting heavily as they gaze warily at the opponent standing in the center of the arena. She was a beefy white-haired dragonewt with a pair of giant arms made from stone and dirt mimicking her movements as they floated above her. The dragonnewt was Yang Ning, their master's biological aunt.
"Okay! Here I go!" Kenji muttered to himself as he activated his 3rd stage aura transformation and bolted towards Ning faster than a human eye can track.
*Swoosh**Bang*
Ning, anticipating his movements in advance, swung both her rock arms down in Kenji's direction, which made contact at the elbows. However, Kenji, in his current form, was completely unharmed, as his body had simply melted right through the rock as he continued moving forward. Though he was still moving relatively fast, he was losing momentum quickly as he was weighed down by all the molten stone around him. After about 5 seconds since transforming, he just managed to get out the other end of the arm before turning back to normal, after which he fell to the ground in exhaustion.
"Ugh!"
"TAKE THIS! CHAIN LIGHTNING!!!"
*Crackle*
While Ning's gaze was fixed on the beefy young man collapsed on the ground, Shinji, fired a 3rd tier lightning spell at her back. When he first learned this spell, it took him several minutes to cast this spell reliably, but through his hard work and practice over the last few years, he can now fire it off in a matter of seconds. This is rather significant as even with the help of his spriggans, this casting speed is unusually fast for a young 3rd tier magician, as this level of mastery is more common amongst mages who are one or two tiers above the spell they are casting.
Unfortunately, as impressive as this was, his spell was still just a 3rd tier spell, and his opponent was a green core earth element nascent soul. Ning just slapped her tail into the ground, and a row of earth barriers was erected behind her, weakening the piercing lightning with each obstacle, causing the spell to fizzle out before even reaching her, though it might have been unnecessary as her dragon blood and high cultivation would be more than enough to fully resist the attack. However, the earthen walls served another important purpose.
There was a reason why she was still looking towards Kenji on the ground instead of facing Shinji who was busy preparing spells behind her. Even though his face was pressed against the ground, her intuition told her he still wasn't done yet, and just as she thought, she saw his hair light up red, and she threw herself to the side to dodge the juggernaut bolting towards her in a straight line. Once he passed her, he smashed straight through all the barriers. Shinji, who was expecting Ning to be the one charging through the rock walls, had launched the surprise ice lance spell he had been hiding under his shirt, as it is the only spell he knows with enough piercing power to deal any damage to her. Additionally, to prevent evasion, he had simultaneously cast a new 2nd tier spatial spell he learned called 'Lesser Shorten Distance' which slightly shrinks the distances withing a certain range, decreasing the travel time for his projectile. However, the ice lance just evaporated the moment it came into contact with Kenji's body, and the compressed space he created ended up backfiring soon after as Kenji, only just now noticing he had missed his target, undid his transformation and crashed into Shinji, his momentum sending them both flying into the arena wall.
"Oy! Meathead, yer movements are too linear and easy to predict! If ya can't control where yer goin then slow the fuck down! Slowpoke, I ain't no mage so I can't say much bout the spells, but if yer facing an opponent who don't need eyes to see where yer at, then ya need to move if I block yer vision, else yer just a sitting duck!"
"Yes, ma'am!" The two said in unison, groaning in pain as they did.
"HEY, ELF BOY! YA GOT ANYTHIN TO ADD, OR CAN WE GET STARTED NOW?" Ning shouted in the direction of the two magicians up in the spectator's seats.
"Huh? Oh! SHINJI! DON'T SHOUT THE NAME OF THE SPELL WHEN YOU ATTACK! IT ONLY SERVES TO HELP THE ENEMY RESPOND QUICKER TO YOUR ATTACK! IF YOU HAVE TO SHOUT, TRY SAYING THE NAME OF ANOTHER SPELL TO CONFUSE THE OPPONENT INSTEAD!"
After Nox finished her business in the Yang estate, she told Alex to stay here with his juniors and give them some pointers and lessons while she disappeared to places unknown. So, wanting Shinji to practice the practical applications of his newly learned spells, Alex had asked Shinji to join in on Kenji's sparring sessions within what was essentially Ning's personal combat arena as it was the only place in the estate they could fight without worrying too much about collateral. Ning had agreed to this arrangement of course, under the condition she got to join in, as she had been impressed at how strong Kenji was considering he was a newly ascended red core nascent soul.
As a frame of reference, in a fight between a red and an orange stage cultivator, the orange stage would win 8 out of 10 times. Meanwhile, a yellow core would normally be able to bulldoze a red core cultivator, and Ning was one stage above that. The fact Kenji didn't fall flat on his ass just from her focusing her qi pressure on him was already impressive, but his 3rd stage aura transformation is enough to even let him overpower her. Unfortunately, the strain it puts on his body only allows him to use it in short bursts in addition to making his mind a bit hazy which is why he struggles to adjust his strength or do complex maneuvers.
Seeing how strong Kenji was, Ning got curious and wished to see what Nox's other disciples were capable of, and so she has been sparring with Kenji and Shinji for fun over the last couple of days while Alex watched from the side while trying to teach Aiko the basics of aura. However, eventually she grew used to fighting them as Shinji without his very deadly aura was pretty much helpless against her, and Kenji, though he was improving slowly she had grown so used to how he fought that he wasn't much of a challenge anymore. So, she got Alex to agree to spar with her under the condition she beat both Kenji and Shinji in a two-on-one.
*Sigh*
"Are you guys okay? Can you stand?" Alex asked as he flew down next to Shinji and Kenji who was lying on top of each other.
"Ugh! I'm fine! *Cough* I think I just broke a few ribs! I'll walk it off!" Shinji said, as he pushed Kenji off himself.
"I think I need help! I think I overdid it with that last burst, and now my body feels numb!" Kenji said, lying limp in a weird pose on the ground.
Alex pulled out two potions from his spatial ring and handed them to Shinji.
"Just because you can endure an injury doesn't mean you should! Sometimes an injury might be worse or different from what you think! The red healing potion should be able to fix your ribs and bruises, while the green one is a stamina potion that should allow Kenji to move around at least! If the pain doesn't go away after 5 minutes or Kenji still can't move by then, please warn me! Meanwhile, I want you two to pay attention to this fight, and try to think of ways to copy or counter what you see, got it?"
"Uhm! Yes! Thank you senior!" Shinji said, before taking the healing potion.
"Hey, Shinji! Mind propping me up and helping me drink the potion? I can't really move!" Kenji asked.
While the two injured juniors were taking their potions, Aiko was busy meditating with her eyes closed up in the stands, as she was trying to focus on feeling her own soul paying no attention to the battle that was about to unfold.
Aura is fueled by one's willpower, and that will originates inside the soul. Hence, as a way to try and familiarize Aiko with the concept, Alex had chosen to start her aura training by making her self-aware of her own soul. Most tends to learn 1st and 2nd stage aura subconsciously through life and death battles when one's soul and will shines the brightest, but another much safer way to learn aura is to learn to sense souls so they can better see how they channel their willpower when attempting to use it.
After seeing what happened in Nishi, Alex prioritized giving Aiko aura lessons to prevent her from losing control again. If she can at least learn how to use 1st stage aura, she will at least have some control over her immense aura power should it be unleashed again.
Normally, sensing souls would take many decades to learn on your own, but not only did she have help from her senior, she was already somewhat familiar with this. The psychic network between her and her ancestors is a soul-based ability, and though she had merely been hooked up to it by her ancestors rather than establishing it herself, the experience had given her some idea of what she was looking for. That is why, after only 3 days of practicing, Aiko began to open her 3rd eye, acquiring a 6th sense of her very own that would allow her to see souls, and this is what her first look into the world of souls looked like.
A pitch-black world with luminescent dust particles floating about in the air. The ground beneath her was almost none-existent aside from the glittering sparks that disappeared as soon as they appeared.
According to what she had been told by her senior and fellow disciples, this 6th sense only allows one to perceive matters of the soul, meaning most physical things like the ground, inanimate objects and the like tend to be practically invisible, hence the endless void beneath Aiko's feet. That said, you can often times find bugs moving about inside or underground, not to mention most surfaces are littered with living microorganisms too small and short lived to form a proper soul, yet still capable of storing soul matter, nonetheless, resulting in the glittering lights giving her some vague idea of the physical terrain. As for the dust particles, they are blank fragmented soul particles from which all souls are built.
Supposedly, whenever a life is born, these particles will be drawn towards it, fusing together inside its physical form, creating a new soul for this new body, and later, when a soul separates from its body upon death, like how a corpse rots into dust, the soul, without a vessel to sustain it's form, will slowly erode back into these blank fragments with no memory of who they used to be as they are recycled into a new soul in an endless cycle.
Looking forwards, down where the arena was, she saw four figures. In the center of the arena she saw a plague doctor, clad in black and covered in strange unknown symbols. Inside the center of his being, she could see an ominous black bow covered in green flames burning brightly within him. Facing the plague doctor, she saw a brownish red translucent figure vaguely resembling some kind of bipedal lizard. In contrast to the plague doctor, the lizard almost looked like some kind of apparition as its illusory figure seemed to be less stable by comparison as the fragments of colored light that made up its body would occasionally flake off, turning into more glowing dust particles, some of which would be reabsorbed moments after.
On the sidelines, she saw Kenji in his aura form, only his body was bigger and littered with a bunch of tiny cracks. He was wearing sporting blood red gauntlets and boots on his arms and legs, there was a sword hilt affixed to his back, and just like with the plague doctor, there was a fire burning inside his body, however it seemed a bit different. Unlike the plague doctor's perfectly contained green fire, Kenji's was red and much bigger, threatening to burst out of his chest as it was already leaking through some of the cracks. It also did not have anything inside of it like the bow inside the plague doctor.
Sitting next to him was a white skeleton clad in a black fog. Inside his body, she could see the silhouettes of two familiar small spriggans floating around a dim white flame burning in the center of his chest. The fire was much smaller than either of the other two mentioned prior, and just like with Kenji, it did not have anything enveloped within its flames.
Looking down at her body, Aiko saw her body. It was a rather strange experience as she came to realize that she could adjust her vision however she liked within a certain range, allowing her to view herself from outside her own body. It was mostly made of purple strings wrapped in a humanoid shape, and dangling from the palms of her hand were plates held up by her threads. There were small dots of white light running through the strings in her body, while in her chest there was a purple fire, growing and shrinking inconsistently in size. Looking into the distance, she could vaguely see the lights of other souls in the dark abyss.
As she continued to look around, she could feel her vision begin to blur as she felt a sharp stinging sensation around her eyes. As she was still a novice, continuous use of this new ability of hers would naturally be rather strenuous and could have some negative effects on her body and mind if overused. However, so long as she regularly practiced using it, she'll eventually adapt and be able to use it more or less indefinitely without consequence.
As the stinging sensation grew continuously more unbearable with every moment that passed, Aiko opened her physical eyes consequently resulting in her mind, which has not yet become accustomed to this new form of perception, automatically shutting off her newly acquired 3rd eye. This method of turning off her soul sense currently only works because Aiko is still a bit unfamiliar with this new sense, and so her brain will often confuse it with some of her other senses like sight or hearing. However, as she continues to use this 6th sense, the difference will begin to sink in, and she will eventually have to learn to do so manually.
Once she opened her eyes, she was greeted by the almost blindingly bright light of the sun, illuminating the colorful physical world overlapping the dark void she had been seeing herself in moments ago.
Where she had seen that cloaked skeleton now sat Shinji, alongside Kenji who no longer looked like a cracked version of his second form. Where she had seen a bipedal lizard ghost, she now saw Ning, cracking her knuckles with a smile on her face, and facing across from her, where the plague doctor used to be, now stood her senior disciple, Alex, the mad mage.