Child of Destiny

……

“The answer should be here,” muttered Shin as he looked at the huge rock boulder in front of him.

A moment later, he closed his eyes before spreading his Mental Energy once again and covered around the rock boulder for another time. And at the same time, his consciousness was also spread alongside that Mental Energy.

After that, Shin started observing the invisible runes around the boulder. Minutes later, he reopened his eyes and smirked. “So, that was it.”

Then Shin sat crossed-legs on the ground before clasping his hands together while closing his eyes again. “Hup!”

Together with his actions, the Mental Energy inside his body started rushing out continuously like the flowing water from the river.

Shin made some hand gestures with an extreme speed and great precision. Alongside it, the Mental Energy surrounding him moved accordingly. Moments later, he suddenly reopened his eyes while thrusting his hand forward.

Pointing his hand at the huge boulder in front of him, the surrounding Mental Energy moved immediately accordingly – they started rushing towards the direction that he was pointing.

Those Mental Energy were focused on a single point where a particular rune was located. But when they reached that spot, the movements of the gusting Mental Energy suddenly came into a sudden halt as if they were being blocked by an immovable force.

Shin tried to persist for a few more moments before he suddenly remembered some of the words that Grandmaster Benn had told him earlier. ‘Without the help of your ‘Physical Strength’.’

Thinking about that, Shin was finally able to figure out the real meaning behind those words. “So, he doesn’t want me to solve this with a brute force. Instead, he is expecting me to break this formation with the skills that learned so far.”

“Did he want to evaluate how much of the ‘Four Symbol Scripture’ I understand,” he muttered before pursing his lips a little. ‘Tsk! Riddles, just like that Old Geezer.’

After that, he suddenly squinted his eyes a little before focusing some of his Mental Energy on his eyes. Due to that, his eyes started glowing with a faint golden glow as he stared at the particular rune that he was trying to break.

Then Shin started recalling all of the basic runes inside his head, trying to find what this particular rune was for. It didn’t long for him to figure out the use of that rune.

“This rune stands for ‘Strong and Steady’ under the ‘Strength Category’,” muttered Shin to himself as he pulled his Mental Energy back together with the backward movements of his hand.

“And to break this particular rune, I need to hit it repeatedly until it finally collapses,” Shin continued while making a few more hand gestures.

A moment later, he gathered the Mental Energy around him before focusing them on his right hand. And when the accumulation of the energies reached its peak, Shin suddenly thrusted his hand forward and sent the gathered Mental Energy at the spot where ‘Strong and Steady Rune’ was located.

Bang!

But strangely, the Mental Energy didn’t just hit the Rune once. Instead, it hit the rune repeatedly like the waves on the shore – it was one of the Mentalism Techniques that Shin had learned and mastered.

‘Four Symbol Scripture: Turtle General’s Pounding’

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Shin used the same move repeatedly all the way until he exhausted his Mental Energy on his reserves. But at the same time, he also managed to break the rune in the end.

Despite being exhausted, Shin still looked just fine – and it was because of his monstrous willpower. Most of the Mentalists on his level might have fainted already for exhausting their Mental Energies.

But Shin was different, he could stay awake even if he exhausted all of his Mental Energy reserves because of his strong will. And together with his tough body which was trained through Martial-Arts, a ‘Mental Energy Exhaustion’ didn’t put much trouble for him. Unless, both his body and mind were exhausted at the same time.

Shin could immediately recover his exhausted Mental Energy through some meditation, but he thought against it since he wanted to digest the insights that he got from breaking the first rune.

After breaking the rune, Shin was able to discover another method for his Mentalism. That ‘Strong and Steady Rune’ gave him some idea how useful the runes were in battle. And that was when he recalled about the ‘Mentalism Enhancement’ which was the counterpart of the ‘Qi Reinforcement’ of Martial-Arts.

These two might have the same purpose, but the way they were used was quite different.

Qi Reinforcement Skills were skills used to empower the body of a Martial-Artist, turning their bodies into a dangerous weapon itself. It was like a sharpener that could make a sword even sharper.

Some of the Qi Reinforcement Skills could also be used for empowering a weapon. By channeling the Internal Qi of a Martial-Artist, the weapons that they were using tended to become much powerful and even stronger.

Even an ordinary stick could transform into a sharp sword or a tough polearm weapon if they were empowered by Qi Reinforcement Skill.

Meanwhile, ‘Mentalism Enhancement Techniques’ were slightly different.

Unlike the Qi Reinforcement Skill where the Martial-Artists needed to keep channeling their Internal Qi to keep the skill active, ‘Mentalism Enhancement Techniques’ didn’t have such restrictions.

As long as the ‘Rune Sequence’ were still intact and not damaged, any ‘Enhancement Techniques’ could become active forever.

And if the ‘Qi Reinforcement Skills’ were only restricted to the Martial-Artist that was using it and the weapons that they were using, ‘Mentalism Enhancement Techniques’ could be used on almost anything. After all, the Mentalist only needed to draw the right ‘Rune Sequence’ to keep it active.

This was also the reason why the weapons created by Mentalists were pretty much famous around the world. It was because those weapons could be used by either a Martial-Artist or a Mentalist.

And if that kind of weapon was further empowered by a particular ‘Qi Reinforcement Skill’ that could complement it, the wielder would have a weapon enhanced by a ‘Unified Strengthening’; a specialized technique resulting from combining the two methods.

“Unified Strengthening,” muttered Shin as he recalled his conversation with Professor Plum.

During that time, Shin decided to walk down the path of practicing both Martial-Arts and Mentalism. And with a goal of combining then in the end.

“Hu!” Shin took a deep breath as he collected his thoughts before opening his eyes. And this time, there was a demined look on his face.

After that, he slowly raised his hand in front of him while focusing some Mental Energy at the tip of his index finger. Seconds later, the tip of his finger suddenly shone with a faint golden light as he used it to write something in the air.

Shin was moving his hand in a slow manner but they had some accurate directions. And when his hand finally stopped, a rune suddenly appeared in front of him, floating in the air. It was the same rune that he was trying to break earlier, the ‘Strong and Steady Rune’.

While he was trying to break it earlier, Shin was also observing its patterns carefully so that he could memorize it.

Shin stared at the floating rune in front of him, trying to see if he drew it right. After a few moments of observing, Shin nodded his head with a satisfied look on his face and muttered. “That should be right.”

After that, he rested for a few more moments, mediating. And when recovered his Mental Energy back to full, he raised his head and looked at the huge boulder in front of him while saying. “This kind of training is quite interesting.”

“It can train my control over my Mental Energy while also teaching me about the Mentalism Runes. What’s more, it can also evaluate my current progress on each of my Techniques.”

Then he suddenly started grinning from ear to ear, saying. “So, Which rune should I learn next?”

…

At the same time, Grandmaster Benn and David saw everything from a distance. The former kept nodding his head repeatedly for being impressed and satisfied while the latter was staring at Shin with a dumbfounded look on his face.

“Hey! Isn’t it a little too unfair? How can he draw the rune in the air already! He just learned it a few minutes earlier!” said David, feeling some ‘injustice’.

Hearing that, Old Benn suddenly smirked before asking. “How many days did you spend to memorize all of the runes written in the Mentalism Manual?”

David thought for a moment before replying. “A day of memorization-… I guess. And I am able to draw all of them like that in a day or two after memorizing them all.” ｂｅｄ𝚗ｏ𝚟𝚎𝚕.𝚌𝚘ｍ

‘Aren’t you a monster too?’ thought Grandmaster Benn as he looked at David with a skeptical face.

After that, he crossed his hands on his back before starting to walk away. And while walking, he suddenly muttered. “I guess, it is possible for this kid to learn all of the runes in three days then.”

Meanwhile, David ignored his worlds as he squinted his eyes while looking at Shin. Then he put his hand on his chin while thinking to himself. ‘Of course, a pair of monsters would surely give birth to another monster.’

He continued to watch for a few more moments before deciding to leave. He stretched his body a little while muttering to himself. “Given his current progress, I guess I need to make my move after a day or two. Tsk! Such a drag.”

……