When I arrived at the beach, the first thing I did was look out to sea to see if Ariel was behind that rock waiting for me.
Unfortunately she wasn't there, so I focused my attention on my training.
My doubts about Water Breathing were valid, whether Gacha had given me a stronger card than the one used in the world of Demon Slayer itself, one that actually teaches me to use real water in my attacks, or whether I had done something different that had triggered it, or whether I was just going crazy believing in my dreams.
'But that dream was so real that I couldn't imagine it was just my imagination playing tricks on me...' I thought confusedly.
Standing on the sandy beach, I drew my sword from its sheath and calmly began to perform the Water Breath movements.
Just like the first time, every movement I made with the sword caused water to surge around my blade and follow the flow of the attacks.
To test something different, I started making wrong movements, slightly different from the correct way of executing the First Form.
This time the water didn't come out sticking to my sword...
'Okay, this only works when I practice with the right movements...' I nodded, understanding this.
Then I started repeating the Water Breathing movements, but with my mind focused on trying to do the movements without water coming up and following my sword.
Surprisingly, just imagining the attacks without water was enough for water not to appear, and the lethality of the attacks was only slightly reduced.
'So there's something about it that I still don't understand...' I was excited to be getting closer to the answer.
Continuing to practice, I started testing all the different variations of will, movements, intention and the like to try and find an answer and after an hour I felt I was very close to figuring it out.
From my tests, Water Breath doesn't actually make water appear and attack with the sword, but without Water Breath water only appears if I use the power of demigod specifically.
So what I was using to make this water appear was different from my Percy demigod power, as it wasn't Water Breathing either, but something that added to it by amplifying the power of Water Breathing without me knowing, but only when I wanted it to.
'What could that be? ' I asked myself in confusion.
Reviewing all my powers, I don't think there was anything I had learned that could help with this.
The only things that had affected me that might have something to do with it were Percy's assimilation, Johnny's assimilation and the Water Breathing ability itself.
'Wait... I'm not ignoring Johnny's card too much?' I was surprised.
If he was just a normal person with martial arts skills, his card should be a maximum of 2 stars, right?
'Maybe there's something special about this card...? ' I started thinking about everything I knew about Johnny Cage.
I've never been much of a fighting game fan, only playing Mortal Kombat a few times, but I liked watching videos telling the stories of the games, and as I focused, I remembered something.
'If I'm not mistaken, in some Mortal Kombat game it was explained that Johnny wasn't just a movie actor, but actually came from an ancient lineage of warriors who used Chi to protect the earth, right?Could it be that I wasn't unconsciously using Chi with Water Breathing?!' I thought about it and was surprised that it made more and more sense.
Sitting cross-legged and trying to meditate, surprisingly my body automatically adjusted to the correct position, as if I'd had years of practice at it.
This familiarity with meditation was very similar to the familiarity I had with Johnny's martial arts techniques that I tried to use in my first training.
Sitting cross-legged, I tried to follow my instincts and do what I felt was right, emptying my mind, not thinking about anything, and letting my consciousness feel what was inside me.
At first this wasn't easy, theoretically I had never practiced, but apparently Johnny's familiarity with this type of training was helping me to reach the ideal state.
After an unknown amount of time, I began to feel something inside me...
It was hard to explain, it wasn't tangible.
But I was feeling something.
As if two different energies were in me.
One large and powerful, while the other was smaller and more discreet, but which surprisingly was interacting naturally with the more powerful energy.
I wasn't entirely sure what it was, but I had a few guesses.
'I think the more powerful energy is my demigod power, something much more powerful than I could have imagined, and which hadn't even fully developed in me yet, while the lesser energy was the Chi that Johnny's card gave me, or helped me to awaken.As this energy is more... "natural", it is interacting with my demigod side in a symbolic way and helping me to use this power more naturally.' I guessed.
Without something to help me really see my inner side, this assumption might be the closest I could get to the truth, but this result already made me very happy.
Discovering that the card I'm assimilating is more powerful than I first imagined is a great surprise.
'Too bad it looks like I might miss out on a lot of the card's details or powers if I don't know that the card specifically has that power...' I was a little disappointed. 'I thought all knowledge of cards would come naturally to me, but apparently not... so whenever I get a new card, before I use it I'll have to stop and try to remember all the details it might have.
Maintaining a calm and meditative state, I tried to use Water Breathing while still feeling my insides.
It was difficult to maintain this level of focus, to the point that I could only keep it up for the first few seconds of the First Form, but that was enough to prove my theory.
When I performed Water Breathing, the small energy inside me, which I believe to be my Chi, got involved with the big energy, my demigod power, and a small part of it was used to generate water for my attacks.
"So that's why!" I thought excitedly, finally finding the answer I was looking for.
'If Johnny's card hid such great power, how much more of it am I missing?' I was surprised.
Sitting down to meditate again, I started trying to remember everything I knew about the character.
'Images of some of his cutscenes, funny dialogues I remember him saying, moments of his combat in the game... wait, was my memory always so good? ' I was confused.
Trying to remember other details about other characters in the game, I realized that my memories were as hazy as they should be, but specifically my memories about Johnny were much clearer and more accessible than they should have been.
'Maybe this is Card's way of helping me discover the powers I'm about to take on?By refreshing my memories of the card I've assimilated? ' I thought excitedly, if this were true, it would make my life a lot easier!
To see if this was true, I tried to remember details of other characters from the Percy Jackson book series, but my memories of them were as vague as those of someone who only watched the movies several years ago, but when I started trying to remember Percy himself, the memories of the movies became clearer, videos I watched about him and was supposed to forget also became clearer, all the information I had ever come into contact with in my other life about these characters was now as clear as if I had researched it last week!
'That's great!' I enthused.
Trying the same with the other cards, I discovered that everything was like this, for example...
[Power - Hunter's Night Vision (2★)
Origin: The Witcher
Description: Allows you to see clearly in total darkness up to 50 meters.
Usefulness: Useful in night missions or underground areas. No impact on direct combat].
The description of the card itself didn't say much, but thinking about this power I could remember that in the game this power came through a ritual, permanently changing a witcher's eyes, giving them a distinctive feline appearance, a passive power that if I wanted to, I could keep activated 100% of the time.
Fortunately, because this power comes from a card, I can just activate or deactivate it whenever I want, not trapping myself with cat eyes, which would certainly attract more attention than I'd like.
Understanding this new side to my powers got me excited, making me stay in a meditative position for several hours as I traveled through my memory and tried to understand my powers as much as I could.
'Knowing myself is just as important as knowing my enemies...' I thought seriously, realizing the potential I was wasting just by blindly using my powers.
Without my realizing it, the midday sun began to warm me up and I started to feel hungry.
Opening my eyes from meditation, I was surprised to see a red head in front of me, with big blue eyes showing a lot of curiosity.
When Ariel saw that I had opened my eyes, she quickly turned away in embarrassment, causing me to let out a laugh.
"Good morning, Ariel." I said with a polite smile.
"Good morning, Eric." Ariel replied as she lightly covered her face with her hair. "What were you doing?"
"Meditating." I explained. I explained. "To better understand my powers, I realized that I was using it in a very superficial way before, now I want to understand myself better."
This aroused the little mermaid's curiosity. "Really? And you've discovered something interesting?"
Nodding to her, I stood up and focused my Chi.
The control over it was more natural than when I first started to understand it, which surprised me a little, but I kept using it and trying to apply it in a way that I remember seeing Johnny use.
Ariel was looking at me curiously, apparently wondering what I was going to do.
After concentrating for a few seconds, I managed to guide some of my Chi out of my body, creating a sphere of pulsating green energy in my hand.
When Ariel saw this new form of magic, she was shocked.
"Blimey Eric, not only can you control water, you can also do Magic!" She said excitedly as she tried to move closer to me, which without legs made the attempt more difficult than imagined.
Smiling, I walked over to her and slowly held out my hand to her.
The ball was still small, being a little smaller than a tennis ball, but the energy it gave off was surprising.
My arm was even going numb just from holding it.
Ariel, curious, reached out carefully and tried to touch the Chi sphere, running her delicate finger along it, making it clear that it had no mass.
But despite the lack of mass, Ariel still pulled her hand back quickly, startled.
I quickly stopped supplying Chi for this and threw the sphere away.
When it hit the sand, a small explosion erupted, throwing sand around and making a small crater in that spot.
"Are you all right?" I asked worriedly.
Ariel nodded as she looked at her hand curiously.
"I'm fine, it's just that it felt... strange." She commented.
Apparently remembering something, Ariel ignored what had just happened and spoke to me with some worrying news.
"My father wants to meet you."
--- Cat Notes ---
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