68 – Shinsoo Flow

"Start vibrating the Shinsoo while it's in your body, let it build up along a path, hold it at the edge, then push it out all at once!" Ha Jinsung instructed.

I followed the instructions and attempted to attack the golem, releasing…nothing visible.

"No, focus on the Shinsoo, not your arm's physical movement!"

…

"Feel the Shinsoo as I push it into you," said Ha Jinsung, palm against my chest.

I coughed out blood as his Shinsoo vibrated through my whole body.

…

"You do realize that unlike Viole, I don't learn from attacks hitting me, right?" I asked while stuck in an uncomfortable mid-motion pose, fallen on the ground.

"Hah! I'm not expecting you to. The point of this exercise is for you to understand your own flow better, since you're not making any progress with even the basics of Reverse Flow. Just stay there until you can break out of it on your own, without any cheating. It'll wear off in a few hours if you can't even do that," said Ha Jinsung.

…

"This stupid student dares to slack off after all I did for him?! Where the hell is he?" Ha Jinsung's voice could be heard in the distance.

"What do you mean slacking off, I'm right here!" I shouted. "It's just not working!"

Jinsung appeared around the corner of the cave wall.

"What the…why are you…? Oh shit, have you been stuck here since I hit you three days ago? I must have overestimated your resistance and overpowered it. Sorry, kid!"

…

"Let's try this another way. Why do you think Floral Butterfly and Fast Skip are both Reverse Flow techniques? What's the relation between them?"

"Because…they both try to reverse the flow of Shinsoo in the opponent?"

"But what does that actually mean? What even is 'flow'? If they both reverse the flow, why does one technique paralyze, and the other destroy?"

"I don't know," I said, but I was certainly curious to find out. Understanding the secrets of Shinsoo was a key reason to study under a master like Ha Jinsung, after all. "I can see why Lighthouse Flow Control and Fast Skip are both Reverse Flow because they use Shinsoo control to interfere with the Shinsoo inside of an opponent and around them, but I don't know how that relates to the vibrations used in Floral Butterfly Piercing."

"It's because everything in the Tower has flow, and it isn't a singular property of a whole being, or a physical current like running water. It exists in the smallest speck of dust and in every one of our cells, in souls, and it can even exist when there is no Shinsoo. Smaller flows aggregate to form bigger ones, and all flows resist other flows or form part of more complex systems. Different flows exhibit different attributes or properties, which then affect whatever thing is expressing that flow. Rather than thinking of your body having Shinsoo with flow, you should think of it as having a flow which can be expressed physically from your body."

"Then, the reason the two techniques do different things, is because they are targeting different flows within the same body? Or different components?"

"Yes. The Floral Butterfly Piercing technique is aimed at piercing through an opponent's Shinsoo Resistance and other defenses. It specializes in disruption at the point of contact. Fast Skip is to stop the opponent's entire Shinsoo flow at range. The principle of reverse-flow control, is therefore not about reversing any direction, but about reversing the normal order of control: reading and then attacking the flow of Shinsoo in order to influence the physical, rather than using the physical to influence the flow, which is the true essence of the target. Now that you know this, try to get a feel for the flow of different things, both living and nonliving. I will help by stopping parts of my own flow so that you can try to distinguish between different aspects of my body."

…

I meditated with the water spirits while attempting to comprehend the ideas Ha Jinsung taught, while Ha Jinsung played around with Derflinger channeling far more Shinsoo at a high level than the sword spirit ever had the opportunity to experience before.

Focus on individual flows. Separate the parts from the whole. Smaller.

Vibrate, build up, push.

I had always known that Shinsoo was a miraculous substance, but the explanation from Ha Jinsung made that even clearer.

If 'flow' was something fundamental to the nature of a thing, to its essence and the way it interacted with the world, wasn't it something deeply related to Mystery of magic, as a sort of mystic building block to construct reality as we knew it?

The terminology was a bit awkward, but for flow to exist even in the total absence of Shinsoo meant that it wasn't truly a property of Shinsoo, but rather something that Shinsoo allowed its users to comprehend and access.

The most important thing I could learn about Shinsoo wasn't in the specific techniques, most of which I might not be able to use outside of the Tower in other planes.

It was all the truths that it revealed about reality itself! Because only by grasping these truths could I leverage them to use universal principles across the planes, integrating different abilities and theories, thereby finding methods that could be adapted to local laws and concepts, wielding great power even when the planes sought to deny me.

…

I examined the arranged objects on my table carefully once more, with both Structural Analysis and Shinsoo senses.

'Wait…this sensation…are these also vibrations? Why would a normal toaster have Shinsoo vibrations?'

I checked the other objects one by one, and found that among the ones I brought from outside the Tower more recently, I either couldn't feel it, or it was too minuscule to detect.

But the objects which were produced in the Tower, yet not based on Shinsoo technology and didn't use Shinsoo in any way, still contained this sensation. They were otherwise identical to mundane appliances from Worm.

I had tried to figure out the reason such mundane tech malfunctioned only when brought from other planes over the years, but had no luck uncovering the reason. All I'd been able to do was use mana Reinforcement to temporarily prolong their durability, but advanced electronics would inevitably break down for no discernible reason after being in the Tower for too long, faster if I actively used them.

This was the first time I'd uncovered a clue.

…

"At least you're starting to feel something. Learning the technique itself will take years, we're going to do some other basic Shinsoo exercises in the meantime. You can never go wrong by improving the basics," said Ha Jinsung, taking up a stance and ordering me to do the same.

…

"Maybe I've been thinking about this the wrong way. Why does Mana Reinforcement prevent or delay the breakdown of extraplanar tech, instead of making it worse, if the problem was similar to Rejection? Now that I know the local tech somehow has Shinsoo flows in them, it must be something to do with Shinsoo, or the lack of flow," I said aloud.

I tried to Reinforce both the local tech and the extraplanar tech, and observe the differences.

"Wait, that's it! The flow gets stronger when I Reinforce it, just like it does when I Reinforce my body. Although nothing seems to be happening with the extraplanar tech, couldn't it just be that I'm not sensitive enough to detect the difference? The same way I couldn't feel this flow before."

"That's a good point. By the way, I think this 'flow' is actually the same thing as Shinsoo resistance. Or it gives Shinsoo resistance," said Derflinger. "The thing that one guy said about swords in the Tower way back was true, you know. The more we've gone up, the more I can feel pressure against my surface, especially on the flat side, which awkwardly alters the trajectory of my blade, since it's uneven compared to the edge. But when that master used Ignition with me and channeled Shinsoo, it was as if there was no pressure at all."

"That makes sense. Aside from the Arie swords, all other higher level swords I know about seem to be Ignition Weapons. Then, according to this theory, the problem with the extraplanar tech must be a total lack of Shinsoo resistance. Is it even possible for inanimate objects to develop it? Or maybe it just takes too long compared to how fast they break down!"

…

Fake out. Move inside guard. Strike. Retract while Shinsoo is pushed out.

"Too slow! Time a small Shinsoo burst from your feet to launch yourself forward in the middle instead of being so obvious!" Ha Jinsung shouted, smacking my arm away, causing it to burst with blood and pain, then getting inside my guard with the same palm technique I had tried. "And you can dodge back the same way, you fool, don't just stand there looking stupid!"

His palm hit me, then blood and innards blew out of my body like a fountain.

At some point Ha Jinsung had figured out how to transmit damage around the Endbringer internal armor I had, and simply cause other parts to explode.

Not that he needed to go around to hurt me.

…

"What are you trying to make now?" Derflinger asked, floating around me as I added reagents to the 'cell culture' I was growing, and taking notes on the process.

Having no permanent base to make a proper Workshop, I had ultimately set up shop inside my own Lighthouse.

"I'm trying to upgrade my clone familiar idea into something more powerful, actually deserving the name of clone. The old Beastiont version with Androssi can barely use any magic or Shinsoo, same with the corpse puppets. What it needs is a proper power core of its own, like how the Symbiotic Spirit Crest draws from an independent host, except it shouldn't be another person that can interfere with my will. It shouldn't even have residues," I explained.

"Weren't you concerned before about a clone having too much independence and becoming a risk, especially if it somehow became its own soul? What changed?" Derf asked.

"That's still a problem, I'm not trying to make an actual full clone. Like I said, the issue is having a power core to increase its range and combat strength. Even if a clone got its own soul somehow, it won't necessarily have access to magic, not having circuits. I don't have the means of creating a homunculi after all," I said.

"Then how are you going to make a power core? That doesn't feel like something that would hold much mana," said Derf, observing the mass of cells and reagents in the tank. "Even if you're using the Endbringer flesh, that stuff doesn't hold much mana naturally without a spirit bound to it, and the spirit you gave that girl doesn't really qualify."

"Of course, the spiritual weight is too low on its own without a host. However, I have an idea to convince the water spirits to split off a large enough concentration of spirits to make it work," I said.

"Oh, what's that?"

"Before, when I tried to ask them directly, they sent a tiny cluster from the stone's main group, barely enough to survive on their own, and aren't even really compatible with a different vessel. But I realized that I have more pull with the new peripheral spirits that occupy parts of my body now."

After years of growth, the water stone had started to periodically incubate some new subordinate lesser spirits that left the stone itself to cohabit my body directly. It was partly through observing this process that I created the Crest Spirit which I implanted in Yihwa in the first place.

"Basically, I'm going to incubate a power core as an organ inside my body to trick them into thinking it's just another part of me," I said, "then I'll have to sacrifice maybe a year's worth of the new peripheral spirits I have most control of to achieve the necessary density."

"Ohoho, what? Say that again? Incubate it inside your body? So you're going to impregnate yourself? Hahahaha!"

"Very funny. No, it's just going to be the same thing I originally did with the water stone, creating an extra organ for it, and slowly guide the peripheral spirits into it. Now, if this is going to work properly, you also need to do some work."

"Me? What?"

"If the power core works well, the upgraded clone familiar will be more like an avatar that can use almost all of my abilities, even if at a degraded level. To make it as realistic and difficult to detect as possible as my body double, it should also be capable of using you. But if I'm operating it remotely, I don't want you to be at risk of being stolen if the clone is defeated, so you also need some sort of body double you can control to replicate your powers."

"And what do you want me to do about that? That's definitely not one of my abilities," said Derf.

"Just try and find a way to create a new ability," I said.

"You're asking too much, Partner, if I could create a new ability with a snap of a finger don't you think I would've done it a long time ago? I'd have way more abilities than I do now," said Derf.

"Yes, but you managed to learn Shinsoo control, right? Don't just assume it isn't possible. I don't think it's a huge stretch either, this ability should just be an extension of things you can already do. You can transfer your spirit into any inanimate object, and you can take control of a user. Why can't you also just transfer a part of your spirit, then control that remotely like a familiar?"

"I'm not a mage, duh."

"But you are a high level spirit capable of using some manner of magic. It stands to reason that you could possibly copy the water spirits' way of creating weak new spiritual offshoots like I did with the will imprint and Crest Spirit. Then turn it into a familiar of sorts. Or, maybe I could handle the familiar spell and serve as a bridge between you. The point is, we can try it."

"Hmmm…sounds like an awful lot of work…I think I need some extra motivation for this."

"Like what?"

"Let's see, if I have to stay back from the fighting and only use a weak body double, you should at least make the experience pleasant for me, don't you think?"

"Sure. In what way?"

"Hehe. From now on, I want to be wielded by a pretty girl, one who can handle me more tenderly and move with graceful elegance."

"…"

"Don't give me that look. I am completely, one hundred percent serious about this. My creator and first wielder was a girl, you know? After that, they were almost always men, and even if there were a few odd girls, none could ever match her grace, beauty, and power. If I could feel the glory of those days again, maybe I might remember something useful, hmm? If I were in her hands, this kind of spirit magic would be a piece of cake."

I sighed, knowing what Derflinger was talking about. There was some logic to it, though who could say if he was just using it as an excuse?

Actually, I had considered the idea before. In fact, I had no choice but to contemplate it, because of something I had learned about the Kaleidostick after Agate merged back into my main consciousness. It was just that the benefit was marginal yet after I looked into it, I realized it would be somewhat difficult and time consuming to accomplish.

"How exactly do you expect this to be fulfilled?" I asked.

"Hah, I know you can do it, don't hold back on me. Just use your shapeshifting ability."

"That would be a big and complicated modification, that comes with other issues, and according to what you've said, there's no guarantee that you'll actually remember anything useful."

"Oh come on, you can't tell me you've never thought about trying it yourself. Aren't you curious? Here I am giving you a convenient, pragmatic, reason to experiment, and you won't take it?"

"You know my 'shapeshifting' ability with either the Armoriont or Bionanite Swarm isn't that powerful. The mental control interface isn't precise enough to make genetic modifications like this without additional equipment, and even then there could be problems after the editing. It's not magic-based, and things that work off science don't tend to work that easily."

"Couldn't you just ask that girl with the powers for help? I thought she could change living things however she wanted."

"I could, but given her…issues, it's even more dangerous if Amelia is operating, so I won't," I said. "I don't even want to give her the idea, and you'd better not talk about it in front of her."

"I'm sensing a story there…"

"Another time. Best I can do for now is start the experiment with modifying clones, if you aren't satisfied with an undead puppet. Can't make any promises on the timeline."

"Hmm. I don't think that will work, but I won't turn it down. I have a feeling I'll only remember more good stuff if it's you wielding me directly yourself," said Derflinger. "They just don't feel right."

"Alright, I'll see what I can do. The first avatar is reserved though and it needs to retain the Axion body model to serve its purpose. That means…no, actually, it would be better to just make it modular. The power core ought to be plug-and-play into any compatible vessel, so that I could switch it out or retrieve it in case of destruction…"

"Hehehe…" Derflinger chuckled, pleased with himself while I began making notes of new plans.

O O O

"That's it! Shinsoo resistance was really the problem, and this is the solution!" I exclaimed, beholding the results of my experiments.

After using mana reinforcement on a laser gun, then flowing Shinsoo into it carefully as controlled exposure, I had found a way to give it just the barest of Shinsoo resistance, when it obtained a noticeable 'flow'.

And now, after numerous guns had been experimented upon, malfunctioned and broken down, I finally 'enchanted' a gun that was usable normally.

Of course, the gun itself was barely useful to me anymore, but the proof of concept was the key.

I would no longer need to fear advanced technology breaking down after being brought into the Tower, if I could imbue them with a bit of Shinsoo resistance.

It wasn't just advanced technology either. Even cells newly grown and lacking time to acclimatize to the Shinsoo environment suffered more problems the higher we went, similar to how I had problems before the water spirits helped me on the first floor.

All of the Beastionts had issues with this severely limiting their effectiveness in combat, especially with larger biomasses. I had only 'solved' it with Axie because I'd put a mass of water spirits into it. It was a similar story with the planned Spirit Cluster Core which would give my freshly grown clone Shinsoo resistance immediately.

But now…a lot of new tactical options just opened up to me.

O O O

One year later…

The golem's chest cracked and crumbled slightly as Ha Jinsung clapped. I panted heavily, still holding my hand out in a martial stance, having finally learned the Floral Butterfly Piercing Technique to a beginner level. For now the effect of it was pretty similar to Reinforcement Break, but its true value lay in what could be possible at higher levels of mastery, and its ability to pierce resistance, whereas Reinforcement Break was easily blocked by any sort of magic resistance or Shinsoo resistance.

"Good work. You've gotten it down much faster than I expected, I guess it's time to get the real training started," said Ha Jinsung.

"Thank you, master. Actually, there's something I wanted to discuss with you," I said, after bowing to him in gratitude.

A few moments later after I explained my plans…

"What, seriously? I don't think you'll get much benefit if you only leave a weak clone with me," said Jinsung.

"I apologize, I would also like to continue this training properly, but it's essential that I go up now. I have something I need to do there that simply can't wait," I said.

"What's the rush though? The Hell Train goes back around every year, you can just take it with Viole, since he'll probably be going in a couple of years himself," said Jinsung.

That was precisely why I needed to go now. It wasn't that I wanted to avoid Viole, but that I wanted to do this before extremely dangerous entities got involved when the plot picked up. Multiple Rankers and Ranker-level combatants would be getting on the Train at that time, so this was the best time to achieve critical objectives without attracting attention.

"There's a special training opportunity that I'm looking for on the Hell Train. I lack talent, so everything takes longer for me. If I wait and get on the train at the same time as Viole, then I'll end up falling far behind. Those who lack talent must make up for it by spending greater time and effort," I said.

"Well, I'm not sure what opportunity you're talking about but…you seem to be assuming that training with me won't be better," said Ha Jinsung.

"Haha, that's not it, it's just that, the skill I can learn on the Hell Train is unique and I really want it," I said. "But as you can see, with my terrible talent I might not even be able to master it in one run through the Hell Train."

"Honestly your talent isn't terrible, I've seen plenty worse, there's no point in comparing to Viole. But it looks like you've made up your mind already, so who am I to say no, it's your choice, anyways, go get your unique skill then," said Jinsung.

"Thank you for understanding, master."

Having learned the minimum necessary for my plans, I set off on my own journey.

O O O

Ship Leesoo's team, including Androssi, had just completed the 30th Floor test, attaining the qualifications to become D-Rank Regulars, if they ascended to the 31st Floor.

This naturally included my Axie familiar that participated with them as Androssi's pet, which meant I also had the qualifications to continue up now.

Ship and Khun had agreed to meet up on the 30th Floor during the Workshop Battle, so Ship intended to wait another year for them to catch up.

However, I had other plans.

While training with Ha Jinsung was immensely helpful, for technical martial arts, Shinsoo manipulation/theory, and direct combat experience using any of my skills against a powerful opponent who had been in countless scenarios over thousands of years, I had one overarching reason to request training from him.

I needed to take a journey on my own, without a summoner, which meant that I needed to rely on Shinsoo while minimizing my use of high level magic, even for battles against potentially very strong opponents.

I didn't plan to take Androssi with me, because this trip was meant to be a secret, though I doubted that she would've been a good companion, even if I wanted to take her.

Despite the supposed "incredible" speed with which we had gone up the early floors, from the perspective of outside observers, the truth was that it had been quite leisurely from my own point of view.

Androssi herself only trained a couple of hours a day at the most, and spent the rest lazing around in luxury comforts or dragging me to faux-dating outings. Having lived for hundreds of years, and being a Tower resident, whose lifespan was practically limitless, her sense of urgency was non-existent. If I tried to pair with her again for this phase of my plans, I sensed that it would soon turn into an exercise in frustration for us both, without other team members to distract her.

And now that I had everything prepared, I could finally continue climbing on my own.

I returned to the apartment I had rented on this Floor near them, and took stock of my belongings.

I usually kept everything important on my person, either in my Arms Inventory, Manbarondenna, or sometimes my Lighthouse. The apartment was just a place where I could check over everything privately.

Manbarondenna, the Compression storage suitcase I got from Khun back on the second floor, continued to be an incredibly useful item.

Inside Manbarondenna were four Canjon-class corpse puppets of the same type I used to infiltrate the 20th Floor test, some basic Armoriont clone familiars, a work-in-progress Avatar Bodies, and a fully armed and supplied AAPV.

I should explain the last two.

The Avatar Body was the intended vessel for a second Spirit Cluster Core. Still primarily composed of Armoriont biology, but specially prepared to later receive a Spirit Cluster Core. That was the result of the experiments I did over the course of the year using the peripheral water spirits and my own mana and will.

It was not capable of much autonomy and, unlike the Symbiotic Spirit Crest, wasn't designed to grow its spiritual strength by imprinting on the host. The tiny water spirit cluster might grow, but I guessed it'd be uselessly slow compared to the water stone.

The main differentiator as an "Avatar" was that the spirit cluster allowed it to manipulate Shinsoo at much higher level, so I could use it to exhibit almost the full breadth of my powers, albeit degraded.

Compared to the Canjon-class puppets, whether using a corpse or an Armoriont clone, which lacked significant Shinsoo control skill and could not operate without a nearby mana source, the strategic value was much higher.

So I was incubating a second Spirit Cluster Core, which would probably take another half a year to complete before I could insert it into an Avatar Body.

Of the two Bodies being prepared, one was using the normal Axion model, and the other was the new female model for Derf's request.

The creation of a Spirit Cluster Core was somewhat costly so I did not intend to make too many, since keeping the peripheral spirits within my body had its own benefits. But the body vessels themselves were easier, so I would prepare different ones to be kept in reserve.

As for the AAPV, although Shinsoo Inventory items only worked one-way (that is, they could bring items out of the Tower, but stopped working once opened/Decompressed on another plane and couldn't carry anything for the return trip), this didn't stop me from simply planeshifting with an AAPV and then placing it inside Manbarondenna after arriving in the Tower.

The only issue was that, being the most advanced tech I had, it was at risk of potential catastrophic nuclear meltdown if it started malfunctioning like all the other tech, at least until I figured out the issue with Shinsoo resistance and solved it recently.

With this, I was ready to go.

I left the room and went to the admin center to end my rental contract, then went to a taxi station to hire a Seal taxi (a type of seal-like large Shinheuh) through the fields of clouds that made up most of this Floor, to the Middle Area.

From there, I continued by myself on a Light Cube for a while, until I determined that nobody was around.

Then, I took out the AAPV from Manbarondenna and got inside, and plotted a path for one of the space lanes that went to the next Floor up.

Every Floor was connected to the adjacent floors through many different paths throughout the Middle Area, so there were plenty of ways to get around other than getting teleported by the Test Centers in the Inner Tower or the Administrators.

In general, if a Regular needed to travel between floors for any reason other than passing a test, they would need to take the Middle Area paths.

Some paths were regulated by the Zahard Empire so that only authorized vehicles were permitted to enter. This was the case for most of the major warp gates for commercial traffic.

Other paths were only accessible or navigable to Guides, going through very complicated rough terrain with powerful Shinheuh or strange places like the floating stairs hidden in the dark spaces.

But there were also unregulated natural space routes. Unlike the Zahard Empire warp gates, these did not immediately send the traveling vehicles to the other end of the gate on the new Floor, but instead involved physically passing through an area that was similar to outer space.

These areas were rarely used or visited, so most commercially available vehicles for purchase or charter in the Tower were not designed for this type of travel, which involved going through vacuum areas.

These spaces still had Shinsoo, but it was simply in an unbreathable non-particle form that mimicked the properties of outer space.

As each Floor was continent sized, these areas were correspondingly huge and it would be easy to get lost in with few landmarks, if you were doing anything other than traveling directly to the next Floor via the main connecting lanes.

Ultimately, I chose this method of travel because it was the most efficient for me. As long as I stuck to the main lanes, the AAPV could cross the Floors relatively quickly, as it could travel through both atmosphere and space at high speeds over extended periods.

By doing this, I avoided the travel controls of Zahard Empire, didn't have to deal with scheduling or paying for commercial voyages, and simply rushed up the Floors in a near straight line.

Of course, when using such methods of travel through the Middle Area, a Regular would be unable to go to Floors they were unauthorized for, and would be stopped by the Administrators or teleported back.

Even as an Irregular, although I was less restricted and could go to higher floors if I wanted to, I wouldn't be allowed to skip tests or enter the Inner Tower Regular areas of Floors above my qualifications.

Because my first destination, the Hell Train, was considered a Regular testing zone, even though it was outside of the Inner Tower, the same rule applied. I wouldn't be able to get on without passing the previous Floors' tests first.

So, after a few days of travel with only Derflinger and Offensive Bias for company, I arrived on the 31st Floor.

O O O