Training started simple, basic bread and butter meditation. I found a good spot isolated from everything, nestled down, charms were as much spiritual outgrowths as they were physical techniques, if not more so.
Which was probably why most of my charms came from Malfeas. While we were far from a perfect match, I knew something about living with pain and I had alotof anger inside me.
The key difference between us was that I kept my rage inside. Found constructive ways to vent it. Even if I hated everything from the gravity weighing all of us down to just that guy who unknowingly bumped into me five minutes ago I tempered that wrath with understanding and rationality.
Ninety nine times out of a hundred when someone slights you they don't actually mean offense, they just want something and you were in their way.
It still pissed you off. I mean even if it was unknowingly they still did something to you and that sparks the desire for vengeance, for payback. It's just that like most desires it's a stupid one and easily smothered by greater urges.
Not so for the Demon City. Malfeas' wrath runs open and free to those who provoke it, the very concept that others might have opposing opinions was something so alien to the Lord of the Yozi that it was a rare moment of realization to that fact that let him surrender and fall to his current state in the first place.
Mind you the alternative, becoming a Neverborn, was certainly no superior option.
So right now I was basically trying to wrap my mind about how to explode in rage so much that I hulked out from it, which was warring heavily with my own self discipline.
~You know the two concepts aren't exactly mutually exclusive. Just because your letting your rage lash out doesn't mean your loosing control of it~
"So just... get mad and use it? Focus it?" That seemed... way to basic really.
~Well you're also going to have to reshape your essence while you do it~
My eyebrow twitched.
A few hours later and my anima banner was flaring well into the visible range as I punched at a tree.
There was no good reason to be punching a tree. I was about as good at punching things as I was going to get within the next century or so and while my blows left blood they also stripped bark. Actually that was badly understating things, I'd dug in about three inches into the trunk just by hitting the same general area enough times. In truth I think I only dug in that far because exposure to my anima was turning most of the local plant life into Brass.
Living brass. I'd scanned over some of the smaller stuff after it had converted fully with Insignificant Embers Intuition, the power that let me sense the essence of something and pick out fine details about it.
I had no idea if I'd just started a plague of super plants or not but I couldn't really care because I was to busy punching a tree with all the malice and hatred I had within me.
I punched and punched and punched, until something in me just...snapped and I head-butt the tree at full power, burning every mote I could into empowering my motion.
The tree fell.
Unfortunately, due to the now four inch indentation it fell on me.
Yeah... that was probably not my smartest move.
Luckily I could actually dodge worth a damn even without supernatural bullshit, and managed to avoid being crushed like a bug.
Still this proved one thing.
I needed a new approach.
So with heavy heart I slowly returned to my camp for supper, more cup noodles, and to check in with Lisa.
Naturally, a bear had the same idea.
It wasn't a big one, just a little black bear, something barely bigger then your average man, but still dangerous enough to kill most people if provoked, and it looked really, really hungry.
Sucks to be it.
"Move the fuck over bear," I growled out motes burning again, as I strolled right back into the camp giving not a fuck about that.
The bear looked at me and let out a loud bear like noise.
I ignored the oversized would be pack rat and filled up my smaller canteen with the much larger one that took up around half of my current baggage, and then grabbed two more cups of noodles.
The bear made more noises.
I looked back at it, "What the fuck do you want?"
I was pretty sure it was confused by this as it roared the roar of the fifth smallest bear I'd ever seen in my life.
Fifth smallest because I'd seen bear cubs before.
"Fuck it, fine, here, have some," I ripped open a cup and tossed it at the bear. You weren't supposed to feed bears but why not? They looked like they were having a crappy day as well. Worst case scenario I break their spine and get a new rug.
Then I set the canteen, now full with water by the fireplace and punched the kindling inside it back to life with a terrible flash of green energy.
The bear promptly decided to leave without even giving a thank you.
"The nerve of some people," I muttered.
Then sighed, oh well, Rome wasn't built in a day! And if nothing else I got a good workout on things!
"Ah well, plenty of time to figure this out still," I muttered to myself as I watched the fire start to build up. I was going to need to find some more kindling...
Where the hell had a bear even come from this close to town?