Path of the Berserker

I spent the next few days perfecting the [Spectral Projection] technique.

Not that I had a true way to even count days.

I measured time from when I woke, cultivated and trained, ate and then slept again.

It was a crude measurement, and it could just have easily been 12 hour periods instead of 24, but I trained and practiced until I lost all mental focus and then woke again when my body and soul were ready for more.

By the end of the first ‘day’, I managed to project as far as thirty feet and maintained it for about ten minutes. By the end of the second day, I could do about a hundred feet and could hold the technique for about an hour. My progression was still limited by the amount of Frenzy I could generate, but as I got used to maintaining the technique, I found I could vary the distance widely depending on how long I needed to maintain it.

I also discovered the limitations of the technique as well.

I could exert brute force through my spectral form and use Frenzy techniques as well, but manipulating objects with fine motor control was quite difficult. I’d have to use even more Frenzy to just hold something. I practiced this by hunting for the eels in my [Spectral Body] rather than fishing blindly in the pool.

I almost wished I hadn’t, because the true look of the ‘eels’ was more revolting than my imagination had conjured. They were about two feet long and rippled with segmented bodies that were blood red. No eyes, just a mouth. They were probably closest to being leeches that fed on rocks.

Seeing the things for real made eating them a lot harder, which made my need to widen my area of search even more important. By day five I found I could project nearly a thousand feet and could hold my [Projection] that distance for close to an hour at maximum. That was pretty close to what I would need to get back to the surface, I figured. I could do ten times that distance if I held it for only ten minutes.