AIR Chapter 193

Chapter 193

The trip back was…quiet. I saw the ship from Ah-Marin, the one with all the sects on it and I saw the hive marching past Ah-Marin and into the great void. 

The hive queen nodded at me again, and I nodded back. 

Bugs, who knew how they worked. 

I hid my presence, making sure no one saw me slid into the little marble world of Ah-Marin. 

Immediately, I became one. Bill had been talking to Medin about recipes and suddenly, the mind of one and the other became the same. 

The separation fell, and I was aware again. 

I ended my conversation with Medin, and taught her the fundamentals of croissants. She seemed interested in the idea of putting so much effort into one piece of food. I said my goodbyes and quickly reached myself, my reflection. 

Our minds had fused but the physical body was still there, and that was due to necessity. I took the objects I needed and the body faded into me. 

I went home and sat down, opening up the cloning technique and studying what it had to say. 

This was the difficult part. It was a detailed technique that had five stages to it. At each stage you would be able to create one more clone, and the longer you kept the technique circulating, the quicker you would understand the technique. 

The title was, Five Shadows Self Technique. 

It was an assassination technique, meant to provide the assassin an alibi while their split went off to commit the act. This could create both clones and splits, but the splits took more time and effort. 

The difference between a clone and a split was that a clone had an original, and if the original perished, so would the clone. But a split had no original, the mind and memory was shared and you were only splitting what was already there. 

I took my time studying the technique, doing my best to understand all of its nuances. It was multilayer and complex and would require actual time and devotion to master. 

But I would be able to create my first split within the day and that was really all I needed for the moment. Still, I studied and focused. 

My favorite thing about this technique was the shared memory. I would essentially have the ability to update both memories while apart, no matter the distance. The connection was a familiarized one. Since the split was me, whenever my split found a safe enough place, he would connect to the other me and we would, for a second, become one. 

I wonder if this was how the Tome felt all the time. 

Its in a similar range.

“Oh, it decides to talk now.”

You have not asked any questions.

“I’ve asked many questions.”

You haven’t asked any question I can answer.

What a smartass. 

Intelligence cannot be an insult. 

I ignored the book and went back to the technique, focusing on how it actually functioned and how I would have to alter it to make it work best for me. Every technique at or above the twelfth rank required a bit of personal work. You became unique at the twelfth rank and that had to be accounted for within the technique. So there was a bit of a gamble with purchasing these kinds of techniques and there was also a skill and understanding of fundamental qi relations and functions necessary to rework it. 

But a lot of times, the technique would work as is, and this was one of those times. 

I still didn’t use it. 

I wanted to make my own personal changes here and there. Nothing major, just tiny changes in the soul area. My understanding of souls was probably higher than the original creator of this technique so I could fill in some of the gaps they had left behind. 

And I was right. 

A few hours of work later and the technique was a little bit better, though I don’t know what Faiser would think of it. I was a little envious of the person to be honest. 

Sure they were a bit strange, but they were safe and happy in some sector of the safest place in the world. And Dorsin’s words also range in my head as well. 

But I was fine for now. If hell really came after me, I would scoop up Ah-Marin and run for Lynoria. 

I was being dramatic, nothing had even happened yet. We were ages away from war and I had time to grow. 

And with that, I circulated the Five Shadows Self Technique. The technique howled in my head and I felt a split like I never truly had before. The pain was immense, but I was ready and willing. 

I kept pushing the technique. 

The reflection technique wasn’t like this, and that was because it was a fake, an illusion of independence. This technique wasn’t. The differences were large. With the reflection technique, I would only be able to split my consciousness into two semi separate beings. But this technique was splitting me down the middle. 

In terms of power, this changed almost nothing. Splitting techniques didn’t multiply your power, only split it. It wasn’t enough to be considered a decrease in rank or dao but only a decrease in quality of power.

Each half of me would become a weaker version of the original to some degree, but that was fine by me. I was a preparation fighter and focused on using arrays in combat more than anything else. 

I felt a crack reverberate through my body, spirit, and soul, and I felt the whole of my being break. 

The pain, while drastic, was not overwhelming. The worst part was the time it took for the whole process to be complete and the effort I had to exert during the whole thing. It felt like I was pushing a boulder up a hill, unable to stop or breath for a singular moment. 

And then there were two.