Chapter 68: Traces of Energy
Dean lowered the tip of the Spear of Dawn, his curiosity finally overcoming his desire to continue the exchange.
"Percival."
Percival immediately halted his advance, looking at his master.
"Yes, Master?"
Dean pointed the spear toward the place Percival had just crossed.
"What am I looking at?"
Percival tilted his head.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"When you move," Dean replied, wondering.
Dean narrowed his eyes, trying to put the phenomenon into words.
"You’re leaving...silhouettes."
For the first time since the training had begun, Percival looked genuinely surprised.
"You can see them?"
"I’ve been seeing them for a while now."
Dean glanced back toward the empty stretch of the training ground. Although the images had already disappeared, he could still remember them clearly.
Every time Percival accelerated, faint translucent copies of him lingered behind for the briefest moment before dissolving into countless blue-white particles.
"They almost look like afterimages," Dean continued, "Except...they don’t? I don’t know how to explain it."
Percival remained silent for a few seconds before lowering his sword.
"I wasn’t expecting you to notice them this early."
"So they are real?" he asked.
"They are. Like...a piece of my mana, too little, so I didn’t expect you to see them."
Dean rested the Spear of Dawn against his shoulder.
"I thought maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me."
Percival shook his head.
"No, Master. Your senses are simply becoming sharper."
Dean frowned.
"I still don’t understand what they are."
Percival walked a few steps across the field. This time he moved slowly enough for Dean to follow every motion.
"You already know that a ghost cannot maintain a physical body on its own. Well outside Nether or Aether, of course."
Dean nodded.
"You need mana. Well...an energy, and that is mana for me, as you know."
"Exactly," he said.
Percival lifted one hand.
"My body is nothing more than spiritual essence held together by mana. Every movement I make requires microscopic adjustments to that mana. If I stop supplying it..."
His arm slowly became transparent before returning to normal.
"My form immediately begins to collapse, and I’ll return to your soul."
Dean watched carefully.
"So those silhouettes..."
"Are traces," Percival said, cutting him off.
"Traces?"
Percival nodded.
"When I move, I don’t merely move my body."
He paused, searching for the right explanation.
"I relocate the mana maintaining my body."
Dean stayed quiet.
"The faster I move, the faster that mana has to flow from one point to another. It doesn’t disappear instantly. For a fraction of a second, a thin layer of mana remains where I was before catching up with me."
Dean’s eyes widened slightly.
"So I’m seeing..."
"The mana itself."
Dean instinctively looked toward the space where Percival had stood moments earlier.
"I thought most energies are invisible," said Dean.
"They usually are."
Percival smiled faintly.
"To ordinary people."
Dean blinked.
"So why can I see yours? I mean, I am not ordinary, but you get my point."
Percival’s expression softened.
"Because your Holy Power is developing, and so is your body and your mind."
He pointed toward Dean’s chest.
"Your senses are no longer limited to the physical world. Your soul has begun recognising the flow of spiritual energy around it."
Dean looked down at himself.
"My soul?" he asked. He knew that his soul was adapting; after all, he had 3 S-Grade items in his soul and even a Low-Level Ghost there.
Still...the thought he had about his soul being actually like this was...not something he expected to hear.
"Yes," Percival responded.
"The silhouettes aren’t visible because of my eyes?" Dean asked again.
"No."
Percival slowly shook his head.
"You believe you’re seeing them with your vision because that’s how your mind interprets the information. In reality, your soul is detecting fluctuations in mana, and your brain translates those fluctuations into an image you can understand."
Dean remained silent.
The explanation sounded strange...
Yet somehow, it made perfect sense.
"So... if I close my eyes..."
"You would still perceive them. Like you saw me with your Holy Power Energy just like 20 minutes ago."
Dean immediately shut his eyes.
For a brief moment, there was only silence.
Then Percival took a single step.
Dean didn’t hear it. He didn’t feel the wind that comes from the river and is released to the whole castle field.
Yet somewhere within the darkness behind his eyelids, a faint humanoid outline flashed into existence before fading away.
His eyes snapped open.
"I still saw it. Just like back then. So this is what it was," he said.
Percival nodded, unsurprised.
"You sensed it."
Dean couldn’t hide the excitement growing on his face.
"So this isn’t just useful against ghosts."
"No, sir." Percival replied.
"It works on everyone?"
"It works on anyone who possesses energies."
Dean’s grip around the Spear of Dawn tightened.
"If I learn to recognise those traces... I can tell where someone is moving before they actually arrive."
"That would be hard; after all, the more energy someone has, the more control they will have over those energy types. But...precisely. That is the main idea."
Percival’s silver eyes carried unmistakable approval.
"Most warriors chase speed. They try to become faster than their opponent."
He raised his sword once more.
"But those who truly master combat learn something far more valuable."
Dean instinctively shifted back into his stance.
"They learn to read movement that comes both physically and internally, that is, the energies themselves."
Percival smiled.
"And once you can read movements..."
His body leaned forward ever so slightly.
"Speed becomes much less frightening."
Before Dean could ask another question, Percival disappeared once again.
Only this time Dean wasn’t watching with his eyes alone.
As Percival moved, no fewer than five distinct silhouettes appeared in quick succession.
Dean had been able to see and sense each one. Perhaps it was because he’d been trying to sense them just a few seconds earlier, but without even closing his eyes, he’d managed to see the mana clearly.
It seemed that the intelligence itself could also be of assistance in such matters.
"You’re very fast," said Dean, with a touch of admiration, to be honest.
"This isn’t the fastest I can go. It’s just that I need to borrow mana or holy power from you, but if we’re not fighting, I don’t want to do that." Percival replied quite kindly.
When Dean heard those words, he simply smiled and said, "Alright, that is enough for today. I need to take a bath and eat."
Meanwhile, as the one-on-one training session drew to a close, something quite different was happening at the other end of the pitch.