The last two weeks were incredibly reminiscent of my past life's daily routine.
I was dubbed the Star of Solidarity for a multitude of reasons, one of them being my questionable training practices.
Forget transcendents, the moment anyone set their eyes upon my residence, whether they be demons, dragons, witches, or constellations, they'd probably start shivering in fear.
Back in the day, when I was an 8-star constellation and chasing absolute flawlessness, I came up with some pretty "unique" training methods.
Some of them were helpful, some of them... not so much.
I basically threw shit at a wall and saw what stuck.
Out of all of them, my personal favorite was when I used to blindfold myself, plug my ears and nose, and release a dozen transcendent demons in my house.
I'd go about my day as normal, brushing my teeth when I woke up, making breakfast, and getting dressed, etc etc, I just had to do it all blind, deaf, and without my sense of smell, while dodging the attacks of a couple of abyssal horrors.
It helped me train my sixth sense to a supernatural degree, even by constellation standards.
Demons were unkillable without the holy light of Excalibur, so you could only really banish them temporarily before they spawned back.
There were dozens of complicated and convulted ways that transcendents dealt with demons. In contrast, though, mine was quite simple.
I'd simply lock them in the basement of my estate, and use them as training dummies when I was work shopping new techniques.
If they couldn't be killed, then I didn't need to hold back, right?
What I was currently doing wasn't so different.
For the past 14 days, I spent day and night in the spider's cave.
I had gotten so used to the arachnid's movements that I could now suppress it completely without the use of any enhancements.
My swordsmanship had blossomed beautifully; its forms and intent were basically complete.
Now that I had gotten used to this body and developed a suitable sword art, I was practically ready for metamorphosis, but I was purposely delaying it.
When you reach metamorphosis, your entire body undergoes a massive change: your aura gets stronger, your body gets tougher, and your mind gets sharper.
All of this is good and all, but for what I was trying to do, the enhancements that came with becoming a sword seeker would make it harder.
As of this moment, I was only able to wield a single aspect of my transcendent swordsmanship, the others being too conceptual or simply too strong for my current body to handle.
However, the core of my swordsmanship, one that I had constructed over centuries of fighting, was something I might be able to access without reaching transcendence.
My swordsmanship has always dealt with reading the flow, redirection, and momentum, but to be able to wield all of those concepts effectively, one had to perform extensive calculations at all times.
Through rigorous conditioning and arduous battles, I had forged a level of subconscious optimization. With my mind, technique, and body working together in absolute harmony, my body was able to move flawlessly in accordance to my will.
What does this mean exactly?
Well, in order to control the body, the brain initiates motor outputs that issue commands to the nervous system via the spinal cord, and then the nervous system commands the muscles in your body to follow those commands.
To move flawlessly, to move in harmony, for one's body to move in accordance with one's will, the brain and nervous system couldn't move one after the other; they had to move together.
In essence, they had to act as one.
To do that, I essentially created a second brain, one that I delegated all tasks related to movement to, one whose express purpose was to control the nervous system
That "second brain" is created through the honing of my subconscious, sixth sense, and will to an extreme level, allowing my body to gain a certain level of autonomy and move "perfectly" while my actual brain handles all the conceptual stuff.
By achieving this "realm", I was able to wield multiple concepts and authorities while fighting seamlessly, something thought impossible even for a transcendent.
In this new body, I didn't have access to this second brain.
My processing power is currently only about 10% of what it used to be.
If I want to use my swordsmanship properly in the foreseeable future, I have to train my body's sixth sense and subconscious movements to the same supernatural level I had previously attained.
The sixth sense was like a muscle; you have to target it and work it continuously if you want it to get stronger.
So for the past two weeks, I had been fighting the giant spider without the use of my five senses, using aura to block hearing, smell, taste, and even touch, and covering my eyes with a thick blindfold.
In order to train one's subconscious actions, one has to first access their subconsciousness.
So for the past two weeks, I haven't eaten or slept, maintaining a constant state of delirium, weakening my consciousness just enough for my subconscious to take over.
I didn't use Aura, nor did I access the power of my star; I simply fought with my body's base capabilities.
Strength is often increased in the face of adversity, so I was challenging myself with the absolute hardest task I could cook up, making what was once a relatively trivial task into a life or death battle, conditioning my body to get used to fighting subconsciously, and honing my sixth sense to an extreme degree.
The average sword expert probably wouldn't be able to fight under these conditions, but I couldn't be "normal".
The dream realm and the waking world were in a far more perilous state than the continent of my previous life.
Nightmare creatures flowed out of gates like violent torrents, and more and more people were getting infected with the nightmare spell every day.
Humanity is in a precarious position right now; safety isn't a given here.
I had died in my last life with practically nothing, and I don't want to die so meaninglessly again.
I fought for the sake of fighting, single-mindedly chasing strength because I had nothing else to cling to.
Even when I died in that battle against the Cursed Dragon, I felt no satisfaction in having felled the dragon, no sense of accomplishment in defeating an unbeatable enemy, and saving the empire.
All I felt was endless regret, a feeling that I don't want to experience ever again.
I was given a second chance, and I'm not about to squander it and die meaninglessly once more.
So, I'm gonna train like an absolute madman, achieve the heights of power I had in my last life, and get even stronger than that.
With those thoughts completely occupying my weakening consciousness, I fought the gigantic spider, my subconsciousness taking over, utilizing the sensory input from my sixth sense and the muscle memory thoroughly worked into my limbs to act.
I fought and fought, moving continuously for god knows how long.
Every once in a while, my subconscious self would draw in trace amounts of starlight, just enough to sustain myself while still keeping my consciousness weakened.
My sword danced, the originally sloppy swings sharpening into sublime lines and arcs, painting an absolutely breathtaking scene.
My feet moved, my body flowed, my sword parried and slashed.
Optimize
Optimize
Optimize
My subconscious self had no access to emotions; there was no sentiment, no intent, not even any essence in the subconscious sword movements.
But there was no need for any of that; my subconscious movements would form the vessel, and eventually, my consciousness would help fill it with intent.
Eventually, my movements stopped.
My subconsciousness no longer received any sensory information from my sixth sense.
Then, for the first time in days, I heard sound.
An impartial voice whispered in my mind, awakening my consciousness.
[You have slain Fallen Beast: Iron Spider Matriarch]
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(A/N: Sorry guys!
Originally, I was supposed to post two chapters yesterday, but I got distracted playing Monster Hunter wilds.
I wrote an extra-long chapter today, fusing the two that I originally wrote into something more cohesive.
I'm gonna try and flesh out the power system of IPOTE a lil, just cuz I there's not that many chapters of the novel to actually work around with.
A lot of it's pretty vague tbh, so I had to make quite a few inferences and guesses based off of word choice.
The whole "second brain" thing was my idea, something I had cooked up using the multiple brain abilities in other novels as a base, and adding my own touch to it.
The star-based power system will remain largely the same, but I'll take some creative liberties every now and then to make some cooler fights.
I hope you guys enjoyed this absolute word stew of a chapter, and thanks for the support.
Every view, collection, and power stone means a lot to me.
I probably wouldn't have gotten past chapter 6 if I hadn't read some of your comments. Thanks once again for supporting me thus far, and I'll see you guys in the next chapter!)