Lu Shen

Lu Shen, also known as Temperance, is a member of The Equilibrium, owned and played by Temperance.

## Appearance

He normally is seen wearing the traditional *Kasaya* his monastery adopted. He is bald and has an unkept beard. He has several tribal tattoos over most of his body, and some scars can be seen throughout his body.

## Personality

In stark contrast with his past self, Lu Shen is now a fairly tranquil person. Usually wearing a poker face, he almost never raises his voice, choosing instead to take his time and talk in a quiet, rasped one. He’s pretty independent, often looking on how to do things himself rather than asking for help.

## Biography

Lu Shen knew crime the moment he was born. Raised in the streets without having a place to call home, the only way for him to survive was to steal food and money from the locals, usually managing to escape and taking a beating when he did not.

At the age of 15 he joined a local gang where he would make most of his early friendships and earn his reputation of being excessively violent and destructive whenever they went out to have fun; that is, vandalize and pick up fights with other gangs. Lu Shen was particularly infamous amongst the latter because of his rather big frame and brute strength.

One day however, at the age of 19 Lu bumped into a man that appeared to be a monk. As violent as always, he immediately tried to pick up a fight with him, but soon found out that the guy was having none of it, instead apologizing briefly and going away ignoring him. The young man took this as a provocation and tried to attack the monk even though he was facing away. Imagine his surprise when, even though he punched him without holding back, the monk didn’t even flinch. It felt like he was punching a brick wall, and worse than that was that the stranger hadn’t even acknowledged him.

Lu spent the rest of that evening attacking the man, trying to get some sort of reaction from him to no avail. By the time they reached the outskirts of the city, Lu had almost given up, and was barely even attacking the monk, in a state of extreme exhaustion. Unbeknownst to him however, the man was impressed by the young man’s perseverance, and so he made him an offer: If he wanted to one day become as strong as him, he could follow him to the monastery where he lived, on the condition that he would not leave until he had finished his training. The young man ended up accepting, and he was given one day to get his affairs in order before they would meet again on that same spot and finally go to the temple.

Once in the monastery, after having said his goodbyes to his friends and peers, Lu began a rigorous and severe training regime, barely allowing any free time, not that he had much energy left to spare. During that period of his life he was either training, eating, maintaining the monastery or sleeping. It truly was exhausting. Another important thing was that he had miscalculated the time the training would take. He figured that it would, at most, last a year or two. Even with his prodigious body, it took him 20 years to get to a level where his master considered he was at an “acceptable” level.

The monk wasn’t lying though. By the time he was 41 he had almost reached the pique of his physical condition, having reached the level of the monk that introduced him to the monastery. But not only that, the time spent there also changed him mentally. Thanks to the severe punishments delivered by his masters, Lu ended up changing from violent, boisterous and conflictive to rather tranquil, dependable and peaceful.

Once he was allowed to leave, inspired and thankful of the time he spent bettering himself, he chose instead to remain there and further train both his body and mind. After some years training and proving himself to be worthy, he was revealed the secret technique of the monastery, only learnt by those who reached the highest level of mastery of martial arts: Nen.

Finally, after mastering the 4 main principles and figuring out his affinity, at the age of 55 began his training’s last phase. For the following years years he sat in the dojo, without moving a muscle, and meditated. All the while other students, both new and advanced, used him as a practice dummy. This involved attacking him with blunt weapons, martial kicks and punches, etc. The time not spent there was time he used to master other techniques such as Gyo or Shu.

Only when he had mastered each and every instance of Nen he stopped. He was 67 years old by that moment. Afterwards, having nothing left to learn he was given a choice: He could either remain there and become a teacher for those to come; or he could go out to the world, free to do whatever he wanted. Lu Shen ended up choosing the latter.

It was during this “pilgrimage” of sorts that Lu took the Hunter Exam. Now he travels the world, looking for untapped potential in order to invite them to the monastery, so that they may too find illumination.

## Skillset

-Expert martial artist

-Expert with most close to mid range weapons

-Top physical condition

-Strong-willed.

## Nen

Lu spent most of his life training not only the body and the mind but also his Nen. As such, he has complete control over all basic and advanced techniques. He is particularly good at Ten, Ren, Ken, Ryu and Ko however, as they are closely tied to his overall training and his hatsu. His affinity with other categories only covers Enhancement, Transmutation and Emission, not having practiced any of the remaining categories. He has theoretical knowledge about them, but he lacks the proficiency needed to achieve a respectable level of mastery with them.

### Unbreakable - King of the Mountain

The user shrouds themselves in aura (either in Ten, Ren or Ken) in order to harden and strengthen their body. This hardness is inversely proportional to how fast the user is moving, meaning that the slower the user moves, the stronger their body gets. As a side effect however, the user gets heavier the more powerful their body gets, so they must be in shape in order to not collapse onto his own weight.

If the user stands completely still, besides achieving the utmost limits of this hatsu, they will gain another sub-skill, ***Unswayable***, which consists of a really dense layer of transmuted aura, which has the effect of repelling low level or non focused aura attacks (I.e. a transmuted poisonous fog or minor Nen bullets thrown by an emitter).

#### Temperate Heart - Iron will

The user can absorb and accumulate 1% of the force of each individual attack they have received while using *King of the Mountain*. This value shows as the user’s skin changing into progressively redder and darker colours.

Whenever they want to, the user can release ALL the accumulated energy in one of three forms:

* A transmuted wall of Aura, which is able to hold as much damage as force accumulated.
* An emitted Nen blast.
* A singular attack by the user, utilizing either their body or a physical weapon. If the user chooses the later, they must envelop the weapon in Shu. The power of the attack is affected and can be amplified by utilizing Ko or Gyo along side it.

***Iron will*** *is the only addition Lu Shen consciously made to his hatsu, which was developed naturally while training. Since he found out about it halfway through it, he does not retain about half the years he spent meditating worth of energy.*