The Martial Path

**The Martial Path** allows mortals to harness the **Energy of the Heavens** (or **Heavenly Energy**) to nourish the body, making one stronger, faster, smarter, and healthier. Peak experts further learn to manipulate Heavenly Energy to perform acts such as stepping through the skies and controlling the elements.

## Overview

The Martial Path is the way in which mortals can become Martial Warriors. Martial Warriors are able to access Heavenly Energy, a form of energy that is found everywhere, by turning it into Chi. With Chi, Martial Warriors are able to perform feats beyond what mortals can achieve. The Martial Path has four foundational milestones: Core Creation, Aura Condensation, Natal Palace Formation, and Domain Development. However, this will only bring a person to the level of a half-step Divinity. In order to go beyond, one must Shatter the Void. If done successfully, the Martial Warrior becomes known as a Divinity.

## Mental States

### State of Enlightenment

Serves as a state of mind, ideal for combat. While in the state, you can think more clearly, and act and react more quickly, letting you deal with high stress situations easier. Demonstrating the Forms can help guide beginners to the state.

### State of Balance

> "Be aware of nothing, but awareness itself."
>
>

The first step in cultivating the Energy of the Heavens. By drawing in Heavenly Energy and making it your own, you change it. After absorbing it to the bodies limits, you brand it with your own essence, and it becomes Internal Energy, or Chi, and is stored in your core. The quantity of Chi that can be stored in your core grows over time. Apart from enhancing your body, absorbing heavenly energy also prolongs your lifespan. While normal humans usually live for around 80 years, Martial Warriors can live up to around 120 years, only showing signs of aging when nearing the end of their life. Demi-humans have a higher limit on how much their bodies can absorb, but a lower limit on how much Heavenly Energy they can convert to Internal energy.

Balance has nothing to do with morals. You can be imbalanced and good, or balanced and evil. Animals naturally seek Balance, but humans must reach for it, struggle to hold it, and there has yet to be a single person who has truly mastered it. Morality is a human construct, Balance a natural one. All things in moderation.

### Insight

Insight is when a Martial Warrior suddenly gains an awareness of an ability or technique that they hadn't previously. It could be one that they have been trying to accomplish, but failed at before. Or it could be a spontaneous one that just came together in the moment. Rain described as information being uploaded into a person's soul but without a complete comprehension on what they just learned.

It is later speculated to be a matter of the Soul perceiving the Heavenly Dao and translating that information into something the mind and body can understand.

### Inspiration

When a blacksmith is working on a weapon, they could suddenly get an idea of how to either improve a previous creation or a brand new one that they hadn't before. This is similar to Insight, but is exclusive purely to the creation of weaponry.

### Impartation

Impartation of Heavenly Energy is the theoretical ability for one Martial Warrior to share their knowledge and experience directly with another. It can be seen as one Martial Warrior directly giving another an Insight. It is speculated to be the act of using one’s Soul to share one’s own unique perception. So far, only Rain has ever demonstrated this ability.

## Chi Skills

Chi skills are active abilities that Martial Warriors can use to improve their combat capabilities. Visualization is key to using Chi.

### Basic Chi Skills

* **Honing**: Creates an cutting edge on weapons.
* **Lightening**: Decreases weight. Can be reversed to increase weight instead.
* **Reinforcement**: Strengthens muscles.
* **Stability**: Adjusts center of balance.
* **Amplification**: Multiplies force.
* **Guiding**: Corrects trajectory to thrown weapons.
* **Reverberation**: Gives out shockwaves in attacks.
* **Deflection**: Deflects attacks. It can also be reversed, causing attacks to be drawn to a target.

### Advanced Chi Skills

* **Healing**: Restores the body to a previous state of health at the expense of greater depletion of nutrients and fat stores. Regrowing limbs and other body parts are also possible, but the former results in new nerves that are extremely sensitive until they recover. Regrowing body parts requires an extensive knowledge of how the body is formed in order to prevent the Healing from restoring the body incorrectly. Healing other people requires a Domain.
	+ **Inner Examination**: Using chi, one can examine one's own body to identify any abnormalities.
	+ **Panacea**: A simplified method of Healing discovered by Falling Rain. It allows for Healing to happen without the need for extensive medical knowledge by siphoning a material that is named Panacea by Falling Rain from the bone marrow into the bloodstream and then into the areas that require Healing.
* **Sending**: Every person has their own unique signature, a designation of sorts, and with familiarity or proximity, you can home in on someone’s specific signature and use it to Send them a message.  It takes more effort to speak and Send at the same time, as is Sending to multiple people at once.
* **Speaking**: Increasing the volume of ones voice using a combination of Reinforcement and Reverberation.
* **Cloud-Stepping**: Allows the user to walk on the air creating footholds made of Chi. Utilizing Lightening at the same time allows for higher elevation.
* **Concealment**: Utilizes Chi to hide one's presence. Concealment that only stops sound is called a Sound Barrier. There are two types of Concealment: The first type Conceals the user from the physical senses to varying degrees, that is sight, sound, smell, touch, and I would assume, taste. The second type isn’t really a different type, but more of an advanced version of Concealment which hides the user from another Warrior’s Domain.
* **Scrying/Watching**: Allows for the remote viewing or a target. Requires a Domain.
* **Listening**: Allows for the eavesdropping on a target.
* **Oration**: The usage speech to influence the emotions of those listening.
* **Compulsion**: The ability to cause anyone to obey anything you say. Only the Emperor has ever demonstrated this Chi skill.

## Milestones

### Core

The Core is what differentiates a commoner from a Martial Warrior. The Core is the metaphysical location wherein a Martial Warrior can absorb Heavenly Energy and turn it into inner energy, or Chi. The only known way a Core can be damaged is if the Spiritual Weapon of a Martial Warrior is destroyed.

### Aura

Aura is tied directly to emotion, it requires a build up and release of it through the surrounding Chi. The basic Aura can only embolden allies and demoralize enemies. More advanced usage of Aura allows for the user to have targets feel the specific emotion that the user wants them to feel. Aura affects other individuals because rather than target the body, which is protected by one’s innate and internal Domain, it targets the mind instead, through an ability almost all living creatures possess: empathy.

### Natal Palace

The Natal Palace is an inner world and is normally required to become known as an Expert. It allows for the practice of Chi skills without actually using up the Chi in ones body.

### Domain

A Domain is an extension of the Natal Palace that affects the physical world. It is required to become known as a Peak Expert. One in ten-thousand Martial Warriors Develop a Domain.

There is a more advanced application of Domain called Domain Plating. This allows the user to coat an object with their Domain, giving it properties such as strengthening it, making it sharper, or redistributing its weight. It is later explained that Domain Plating is actually the use of Strengthening on a Domain. Rain later realizes that Domain Plating is used when Cloud-Stepping

There is another advanced application called Domain Manifestation. This allows for the observation of all things within one's Domain in real time.

## Blessings

Blessings are powers relating to the elements. When a Martial Warrior gains a Blessing, it is called an Awakening. They can be divided between three sub-classes: Primal, Auxiliary, and Esoteric.

* **Primal**: This consists of the four elements: Air, Water, Earth, and Fire.
* **Auxiliary**: This consists of combinations of two Primal Blessings. Known Blessings are: Metal (Earth+Fire), Wood (Earth+Water), Sand (Earth+Wind), Ice (Fire+Water), Lightning (Fire+Wind), Cloud (Wind+Water), Smoke (Fire+Air), and Light (Fire+Wind).
* **Esoteric**: This consists of any Blessings that do not belong to the first two categories. Known Blessings are: Space, Shadow, Sound, and Sun.

Approximately one in ten-thousand Martial Warriors receive a Blessing. Those who are Blessed with the one of the Primal Elements are also said to be particularly skilled with two specific Chi Skills, depending on what their Blessing is.

* **Water**: Deflection and Reverberation.
* **Air**: Lightening and Guiding.
* **Fire**: Honing and Amplification.
* **Earth**: Reinforcement and Stability.

Much like the Forms, the Awakenings are a guideline on how to use one’s Blessing, and different individuals can arrive at vastly different conclusions.

## Spiritual Weapons

Spiritual Weapons play a vital role in ones Martial Path as it dictates their fighting style. As part of the ceremony to bind the weapon, the core becomes inherently linked whilst providing guidance on how to wield it. As a consequence, breaking a branded spiritual damages the core and their has only been one living Martial Warrior to have fully recovered.

## Trivia

* Martial Warriors require two to five times more food than a normal commoner.
* Rain describes the State of Enlightenment as basically bullet time.
* ruffwriter sometimes writes Resonate instead of Reverberate. He has later said that it should be Reverberate, not Resonate.
* Ranged throwing weapons are looked down upon by Martial Warriors due to Martial Pride.
* Cloud-Stepping is the Chi skill Martial Warriors look forward to learning most.
* Lightning is one of the most common Auxiliary Blessings, followed by Sand and Metal. In contrast, Light is one of the rarest, with one coming about every few millennia.

## References

1. ↑ Chapter 612
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Chapter 11
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Chapter 15
4. ↑ Chapter 12
5. ↑ Chapter 21
6. ↑ Chapter 26
7. ↑ Chapter 16
8. ↑ Chapter 67 comment: Lastly, yes, this world has already shown us that it can't be easily divided into good and evil, or light and dark. Instead, it has shown us is that Balance doesn't care about good and evil, light and dark, or any other binary forms of division. Much like the natural laws of our world, human forms of classification are inconsequential; the Energy of the Heavens is simply a tool for strength.
9. ↑ Chapter 200
10. ↑ Chapter 678
11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Chapter 709
12. ↑ Chapter 189
13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Chapter 733
14. ↑ Chapter 629
15. ↑ Chapter 821
16. ↑ Chapter 105
17. ↑ Chapter 696
18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Chapter 710
19. ↑ Chapter 723
20. ↑ Chapter 712
21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Chapter 408
22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 22.3 Chapter 550
23. ↑ Chapter 128
24. ↑ Chapter 716
25. ↑ Chapter 554
26. ↑ Chapter 576
27. ↑ Chapter 625 comment: They're the same thing, its just impossible for me to keep track of which one I want to use. I don't know why, but with Resonance and Reverbaration, I always keep using them interchangably even though I dont want to. It should always be reverberation, but the other one slips in every now and then.
28. ↑ Chapter 633
29. ↑ Chapter 718