Post by Empty on Jan 24, 2011 20:39:20 GMT -8
» Training: Cero Proficiency (combined Cero techniques and base proficiency training)
Loki had temporarily left Astraea in the care of one of her local playmates, a young ape like hollow about one foot in height, of similar age and size, the pair were able to play together with little difficulty, under the most capable supervision of the little monkey's guardian, a part gorilla part eagle hollow – who was also a Corporal in the Sentinels.
As the Utopian governor and founder of the Sentinels, not to mention being the creator of the Caretaker; Loki von Verlassen had a simple charge. He must ensure that Utopia was free from interference – especially if such difficulties arose due to his own existence. For that reason he had done his best to ensure that the Caretaker would continue to persist even after his own death – it was also for that very same reason that Loki had travelled outside of Utopia – to the White sands of Hueco Mundo, to train in a technique that would make him better able to protect himself – to become more and more powerful, hopefully unassailable.
Though he held no title as he had given out to some of the citizens of Utopia, denoting their strength; still, Loki was the single most powerful being in the region. For him to have reached a plateau was a dangerous thing indeed; he had been examining the findings of the Sentinel units who were within External Intelligence, they had been gathering information about (among other things) the fall of Las Noches and the battle between Aizen's forces and those of the Shinigami in the human realm. There he had learned of the existence of three different variations of his most powerful attack – one that while he had spent much time training, he had not managed to fully develop; the techniques were Cero Oscuras, the Gran Rey Cero, and Cero Metralleta. He would endeavour to learn them all, for in doing so he hoped to address the only area where he could really find fault with his own prowess – that of his sheer offensive power.
“To safeguard the safety of each of the souls of the Verlassen–” Loki's sneaky transformation would have gone unnoticed by someone standing right next to him as the Resurrección call out phrase was uttered, his body transforming into gel that exactly mimicked his flesh while his true body appeared within the gel costume's brain. “–and for the well being of Utopia.” Loki said without missing a beat, his reiatsu unchanged as he continued, repeating his false Resurrección trigger, “Blue Seas, Green Pastures, Clear Skies; Govern All Things, Tyrann des Goldes.” (Tyrant of Gold) The gold flecked red skin of the golden tyrant was punctuated at many of its joints by golden spikes that seemed to break through the skin and golden retractable claws replaced his fingernails; two horns sprouted from the sides of his forehead, where the remnants of his hollow mask were hidden by the bangs of his long, wild red hair, the tapered and much longer, gold tipped red horns, angled back over his ears; his red furry tail snaked first one way then the other as if he were eager to begin, the golden tuft of hair at the very end waving like a beacon.
» Training: Cero Oscuras
Cero Oscuras, the very name was ominous, a blast of energy so intense that its use had been forbidden within Las Noches and when that rule had been broken, near half the dome had been ruptured. If there were any single technique that could best offset his lack of fire-power, it was without doubt this one – though the limitation that he would need to be in his released state was less than desirable; still there was the Gran Rey Cero to address that problem. For now, he would concentrate on achieving this most dreadful of techniques.
To begin Loki concentrated his energy into a cero as per standard, quickly charging the concentrated ball of reiatsu, firing it off into the side of a small white dune to witness the result – the sandy surface caved inwards at the force, throwing up a loud of sand, as the air cleared less than one half of the dune, the part closest to the ground, was all that remained. Blinking slightly in surprise, Loki could instantly tell that the amount of damage was less than expected, perhaps it was due to his recent separation of soul and mind, yet he could certainly feel a diminution in the amount of energy he had access to; while he usually had his reiatsu so suppressed that such limitations were difficult to sense, it was now when he attempted to access so much more of his true powers, that the restrictions were apparent.
Still, he now had something by which to compare any further progress, that was always vital when attempting to improve something; the difficulty was, that with so little of the dune remaining it was going to be difficult to accurately gauge the difference in power levels produced, for each time he would need to target a different dune.
Considering the technique itself, Loki mused at how it might work; why was it that the Oscuras could only be released by a released Arrancar? The answer must lie in either the amount of power or else in the nature of that power; were it the former, Loki was quite certain that he could meet such requirements even without needing his release – so it must be the later. Something about the Resurrección itself, a difference that set it apart from the sealed Arrancar – even one of great power.
Musing on the problem in the abstract was difficult, however such techniques were rarely known and few who might know them would be willing to share such knowledge.
There were many differences that separated the sealed Humanoid form from the Resurrección, the first and most obvious was the physiological changes, but Loki readily dismissed those – since each Arrancar was different, the likelihood of the Oscuras relying on specific physiological factors was absurd. No instead of being physiological, the requirements must lie somewhere else – though once again Loki ruled out psychological factors for the very same reason, they varied from one individual to another and many Arrancar experienced little to no changes in the psyche when released. No, the requirement could be neither physiological nor psychological; what remained were spiritual factors – the soul and its energies.
Each soul was unique, manifested within its spiritual matter vessel, their bodies; their reiryoku and reiatsu permeated each; for Arrancar, their Hollow reiryoku was blended with many of the characteristics of Shinigami reiryoku; minus balanced with plus, enabling the Hollow to remove its mask, to affect a change in its manifestation – heart changed to mask, mask changed to zanpakutou. At least for most Arrancar – in Verlassen's case that heart had instead formed the basis for the Caretaker. Still, the Resurrección tapped once more into the heart's power – for most Arrancar their Zanpakutous, for Verlassen the Caretaker; their soul became closer to being whole once again, their energies becoming more complete yet at the same time more volatile as the shinigami characteristics of their humanoid forms were surrendered in return.
Were Loki to devour the Caretaker, he would increase his power much like other Arrancars when they accessed their Resurrección, however he was reluctant to do so – for it would weaken Utopia's protection. However, just recently he had managed to distribute many of the charging crystals throughout Utopia and their use was proving popular, if for no other reason than the individual being able to show off their powers – yet the side effect was to provide the Caretaker with its own dedicated reiryoku supply. Given that, Loki could now devour a portion of the Caretaker without removing all the protection it offered; indeed, even were Loki to desire to do so, that was no longer possible.
Calling the portion of their reiryoku sealed within the caretaker was easily managed, within moments, Loki's souls returned to him, his power growing ever greater. Nodding in affirmation as he realised that he was no longer merely the 'agent' of his own creation, Loki began charging a cero once again. The moment he did so Loki noticed a difference, the shade was slightly darker; the difference was barely noticeable, but to one with Revealing Gaze, such a difference could quickly be dissected. The 'dark' sensation it provided was almost despair inspiring, yet Loki was perversely pleased, hopeful that this despair would lead to great things.
Infusing the still already charging cero with the sensation, Loki could feel the emotion redoubling, with every growing moment the feeling of dread grew while the vibrancy of the colour rapidly dimmed, the surface darkening fractionally, little by little. However no matter how he infused the cero with the dark energy, Loki could not remove the green tint, leaving it a very dark green rather than black, yet the darkened energy was compressing into a much tighter mass than his regular reiatsu and the amount of power within the Cero was incomparable.
Finally he unleashed the beam, the concentrated ball of reiatsu gushing forwards, searing across the ground to disintegrate the targeted dune before slamming into another, much larger one, leaving it neatly bisected, even as the energy beam rushed onwards over the white sands. Looking awestruck, Loki slowly knelt to the ground and touched the sand near his feet, in a line where the cero had been fired, the sand had been pushed in, compacted to a smooth concave finish, slightly warm to the touch. Were he to estimate the power of the darkened cero compared to one of his standard ones, it would have ten times the force, perhaps slightly more.
Swallowing slightly, Loki began again, yet this time instead of creating a normal cero then infusing it with the dark energy, Loki concentrated on gathering reiatsu, bearing that dreadful sensation in mind; this time as his reiatsu compressed, it did so far more tightly than before. Where earlier the normal cero energy had diminished the level of compression Loki had achieved; this time,the the dark cero energy was unimpeded and grew more intense as he charged it. Instead of a green that became more dark as the charging continued, the energy produced was darkest black and the moment he finished charging their was a slight pulse of energy, characteristic of a cero, yet the sensation was one that Loki would never forget – feeling dread at his own power was something he had seldom experienced before.
Once more he discharged the cero, yet this time the power was even vaster than he had anticipated, the unexpected recoil enough to knock him back a step – all but missing the spectacular show that followed. The black energy permeated his surroundings, even in the dark realm of Hueco Mundo the difference was instantly discernible as even the most limited of ambient light was stripped away; as Loki managed to right his footing, the beam of darkness tore apart all in its path. As light returned the aftermath was apparent, twice as wide as the previous attempt, the beam had left nothing behind, the sand bordering its path had been melted, fused into a glassy finish leaving a gigantic smoothed channel in its wake. While before the amount of force he had amassed had been a significant increase, this was even more-so, instead of perhaps ten times the power, the Oscuras had come closer to thirty times. What was more disturbing however were the tears in the air, they opened to reveal gaps similar to that of Garganta techniques, tears in the dimension around them – such a technique would need to be used sparingly if at all.
However, the effort was draining and Loki required some time to recover himself; as he did so he once again separated soul from mind, directing the flow of energy back to the Caretaker; a time consuming process – once he had finished, he felt able to continue.
Once again he charged a cero, noting that it lacked the dark finish it had previous had, despite the fact that he remained in Resurrección. Beginning to charge a cero once more, he concentrated on trying to regain that dark sensation, it was slower than before, attempting to gather that energy without the presence of his 'heart', yet even his partial Resurrección proved sufficient in the end. Finally he unleashed a second Oscuras, though having less energy than before to call on, the resulting attack was far less impressive, however it was still a thirty-fold increase in power on what he might otherwise achieve at such a power level.
» Training: Gran Rey Cero
With their development of the Oscuras complete. Loki allowed the Resurrección, true and false alike, to revert him back into his humanoid Arrancar form; after all there was no need to maintain such a state any longer. There was no doubt that Cero Oscuras was the most powerful of the Ceros, however the need to be in his Resurrección was a grievous limitation, one that meant that the technique may not be suitable in a pinch. To offset this, Loki had asked the Sentinels to gather information about the Gran Rey Cero also, for this technique was reportedly usable by a humanoid arrancar, were they strong enough. Though it might be a little arrogant, Loki was quite certain that there had been few of the now dead Espada who had been stronger than he – as such he was certain he could manage it.
The technique seemed easy enough, to a normal cero, the arrancar's own blood was added, which caused the power within to rapidly rise while the colour changed depending upon the user's reiatsu. The problem was, however, that such a thing could not even really be called a technique if it was as simple as that. Otherwise strong arrancars would be accidentally be using it were they to get scratched in the wrong place. No rather than being a simple matter of the presence of the bodily fluid, the technique must rely on something within the blood as a catalyst, or perhaps there was some method of energy transformation facilitated through the biological matter itself.
Using his revealing gaze, Loki looked down at his own body; though only an 'Agent' the creation was completely faithful in its rendition of his Humanoid Arrancar form, right down to the nerves and blood vessels; the form was completely biological, his blood real even at the genetic level.
As he looked at his arm, he studied the flow of blood, the liquid pulsing through his limb carrying oxygen from the heart out through the arterial veins to the tissues that needed it, collecting the carbon dioxide and flowing back through the veins; an immensely efficient and beautiful creation. Yet the longer Loki looked down at the vessel which contained his mind and reiryoku, the more he noticed one simple fact; his body was of a fixed size, yet in one sitting, he could create many, many ceros, despite those being heavily compressed balls of reiatsu themselves. Indeed, were he to create just the cero balls with every fraction of reiryoku within him, he would be able to fill a reasonably large room.
It had not been apparent until now to Loki due to the difference between Reiryoku and Reiatsu, yet the two were vastly different in their ability to compress energy. Reiryoku filled a soul and was converted into reiatsu, yet the amount of reiryoku a soul contained was more than the amount of reiatsu it was unleashing at any one time – otherwise the person would quickly run out of energy. The reiryoku itself was far more stable however, much like Loki's attempts to produce compressed energy had resulted in the ability to prevent decompression; yet even more so, the energy itself seem inclined to remain in the soul unless transformed into reiatsu. That was true too for the reiryoku within the blood that pulsed through the soul.
Charging a cero in his left hand , Loki allowed a sliver of energy to race across his palm producing a hair thin cut, nearly one inch long. A few drops of blood welled to the surface and Loki angled his hand so that the drops fell onto the cero then continued to gather his reiatsu, layering it around the fluid. However as Loki looked at the blood with his revealing gaze, he could not help but notice that the reiryoku had receded from the blood, back into the cut the moment that the liquid had begun leaving his body, like rats fleeing a sinking ship the reiryoku had left the drops as soon as it had become apparent it would no longer be 'part' of the soul.
The result therefore, was nothing more than a regular cero, with a couple drops of blood within, no more powerful, just a little less pristine; irritated, Loki allowed the Cero to dissipate. What he needed was some way of ensuring that the reiryoku remained within the blood as it left the body into the cero. Fortunately, Loki was no stranger to Cero techniques and his previous efforts had included using both reiatsu and reiryoku at the same time to charge a blast; hopefully the same principles could be applied now, not to increase the speed of charging, but rather to help retain the reiryoku within the blood.
By now of course the cells on his palm had regenerated to heal the slight cut, Loki allowed a stream of reiatsu to slice the palm once again as he began charging the cero.
As the reiatsu gathered, Loki also began concentrating on the drops of blood that welled at the cut as well as the reiryoku within the fluid; like before the energy attempted to return to the soul as soon as the blood looked to be leaving the body; yet, with great effort, Loki was able to call on his previous experience, encapsulating the blood and its energy in a thin film of reiatsu, drawing it out of the body and into the cero. More drops followed, until the charging cero took on a reddish tint towards the middle, then from the outside the surface began to take on a opal-like quality, hundreds of colours collecting on the outside of the sphere until the green emerged dominant, spreading from small pockets to envelop the entire ball. The crimson centre too was consumed by the emerald glow as the reiatsu on the outside of the sphere mixed with the blood and its reiryoku. The energy levels surging higher as the two sources of energy pulsed as one; no simple cero any longer, Loki had managed to achieve his desired technique – or so he thought.
The pulsing duo of energies were a potent combination, Loki's reiatsu vibration control was pushed to its limits as the reiatsu and reiryoku pair beat its crescendo. At the same time, the energy began to revolve, faster and faster; far more than Loki's reiatsu rotation control was used to, it was all he could do to ensure that it remained contained to the sphere. The size too began to buckle, enlarging slightly then compressing again, the fluctuations were inconsistent and even his reiatsu compression skills were being tested.
With a roar it exploded, black tears appearing in the air nearby as Loki was thrown through the air like a rag-doll across the dunes, leaving chunks of flesh and a long trail of blood in his wake. For a long time nothing happened, then slowly, groaning in pain, Loki pushed himself up, or tried to; before realising that his left arm was gone entirely, even the shoulder blade had been torn free, the flesh of the left side of his torso ripped open to expose a number of ribs, his left leg too was gone, ended just below the hip and half of his face was badly burned.
Even with his high speed regeneration, several minutes passed before he was completely healed; the damage to his left arm in particular was tardy to heal. After the damage was completely fixed, Loki remained where he was, resting both mind and body; several hours passed as he fully recovered.
Finally he stood up, deciding that the effort must be made to master the technique that had so badly damaged him earlier. Once again his palm was cut and he began gathering both sources of energy towards the growing cero; the marble like finish was quickly supplanted by emerald energy which encompassed the entire ball of compressed reiatsu and reiryoku. This time however, he was more prepared than before, he would not attempt to fine tune things overly, no this was a technique where the very destructive power itself lay in its volatility, attempting to control those was simple folly.
This time, rather than attempting to control the oscillations the rotations and the changes in compression, Loki merely unleashed it across the sands. The thick emerald beam roaring as it sped forwards; shaking, it tore through the air, far faster than his normal cero, spinning as it went, its width increasing and decreasing innumerable times with each second. Its destructive path demolished dunes of densely packed sand with little difficulty, black tears in the air opening here and there along its pathway, as if the world around it could barely contain the volatile devastation.
» Training: Cero Metralleta (Part I)
With Oscuras and Gran Rey, the power of their Cero was unmistakably improved even the speed with which it moved was increased; yet the truth was that such an impressive display of power had a fundamental weakness, if dodged the result was merely a waste of power. Moreover, there were very few entities against which such an attack might ever need to be used; indeed, what was more likely to occur was that he might be forced upon to attack many foes at the same time, in such an event, the most he could do would be to swing the cero beam around to try to hit more than one attacker – yet to do so would require that he maintain the much more powerful ceros for a longer time, it would simply use too much reiatsu.
To deal with such an occurrence, the Sentinels had examined the third of the Cero technique+s they had gathered information about – the Cero Metralleta, which involved firing numerous cero blasts one after another, in doing so it was even possible to change the direction of each successive blast, allowing a spray of weaker cero's following a given path. In his previous attempts to master his cero, Loki had attempted something similar, incrementally releasing the energy within a cero, letting out weaker bursts of reiatsu from the compressed ball, then stopping before starting again, all the while he was able to still charge his energy into the ball. It seemed so very similar to the Cero Metralleta, yet in truth, the fire rate was markedly diminished according to the reports.
Looking to discover the truth of things, Loki began charging a regular cero, compressing the reiatsu within his left palm – the ball of energy that formed was unusually stable, one of the hall marks of Loki's compressed reiatsu. From within there was a surge as Loki partially weakened the cohesiveness of the restraints on one side of the sphere, the result was a short blast of concentrated reiatsu, it was no where near as powerful as a regular cero though, only perhaps a quarter of the power. That meant the power of the individual shots were about on par with the Metralleta, however–
Releasing a second blast, Loki was forced to pause to wait for the energy within the compressed sphere to stabilise as it built to the required level of intensity, then he released a third, a fourth followed and a fifth. Again and again the blasts came, quicker now as Loki began to get the feel for the rate at which he could fire them without diminishing the attack. Finally he had reached a rate of about ten with every second thatpassed; while compared to the normal cero the speed was impressive, when compared to the dozens, even scores of compressed energy blasts that the Metralleta produced every second – it was a dismal result. However, there was no getting around the need for the cero ball of concentrated reiatsu to stabilise and grow in intensity between each blast – and that took time!
Even with Loki's impressive reiatsu control, it was simply a matter of simple logic – if the energy was used in the blast it would need to be replenished; that some had been used meant that the structure had been altered and would need to stabilise. Neither of these two points were subject to negotiation, they were unchangeable, immutable. And indeed, Loki's reiatsu control was both effective and efficient, it was unlikely that he could speed the process much faster than its current rate – instead he would need to address the issue from another angle.
If the maximum number of discharges that the cero ball was capable of producing was fixed, then perhaps that limitation might be overcome in an indirect fashion – simply by creating more than one cero ball. The theory of it was sound; it should be possible to time the releases in such a way that the discharge of a blast from one ball of compressed reiatsu occurred while a previously used reiatsu ball was stabilising and intensifying.
» Training: Multiple Moving Ceros
The main difficulty would come in that Loki had never before attempted to manipulate more than a single cero at the same time; he had managed to charge them more quickly, to change the direction of the beam, to change the time they lasted for either short bursts or longer sustained beams, to overcharge their power as well as even learning two of the more powerful variants, Gran Rey and Oscuras – yet never had Loki attempted to control more than one at a single time, except through the use of Gel Seeds.
One of the very few technique that Loki performed multiple of while within his humanoid form was Eco (Echo) which enabled him to create an immense number of energy signatures as well as visual copies and other sensory data; yet such creations, while more complex, were hundreds of times less concentrated in terms of reiatsu; still, the diminished number and complexity of the creations would likely alleviate much of the difficulty in terms of concentration.
Still, in terms of the power requirements, it would be essential for Loki to be able to use many times more reiatsu for each additional cero than were required for an 'Echo'; for that, his earlier experience with the other Cero variants might have proved useful, except that one required his Resurrección and the other his blood. Since Metralleta was supposed to be able to be used within the Arrancar's humanoid form, the lessons from Oscuras would be of limited use; while the lessons from Gran Rey would only prove useful if he opened his veins, something of which that the information he had been provided made no mention. Of all the techniques and training Loki had thus far managed, the one with the greatest suitability seemed to be his efforts to increase the power of a standard cero.
It was something he had garnered while attempting to quicken the speed with which he was able to charge the blasts; by continuously charging a cero it was possible to increase the overall power, though in turn the growing intensity made the energy less stable as the level of compression grew. Were Loki to increase the reiatsu compression of one of the echos it should be able to be manipulated in a similar way.
Convinced of his idea, Loki created one of the echos, a mirror image of himself standing some ten feet away. Focusing on the projection, Loki began to infuse it with more reiatsu, as he did, the image began to flicker, the quality of the sensory signatures diminishing rapidly until it seemed only vaguely humanoid. Finally, as the level of reiatsu began to approach cero level, the shape collapsed inwards on itself, shrinking further and further as the energy increased, until only a ball of highly compressed reiatsu remained, a cero.
Grinning, Loki created another echo and quickly attempted to duplicate the effort; this time it was a little more difficult, causing Loki to frown in concentration. Unlike his estimates, the much less complex ball of compressed reiatsu was considerably more difficult to manage than numerous of the more complex 'echos', the level of compressed energy attempting to surge against his will was more taxing than the increased complexity of the more docile form used for echos.
By the time Loki had created the fourth cero, he quickly realised that he was nearing his limit, were he to create any more than that, he would likely have insufficient control to manage any in battle manoeuvrings that might be required, depending on the situation.
Loki quickly discovered something rather intriguing, as they used the echo's as the base they were each connected by one Aquí y allí (Here and There) conduit, this meant that so long as they remained within range, the spheres of energy should be able to be moved at the same speed as he himself could manage. It took a few moments before the first of the four conduits began moving as he desired it, the compressed ball of reiatsu to which it was connected was far more intense than almost any other connection that had been made previously, to connect to four such – well it was something that Loki had not previously had much experience with. Still, progress was beginning to show and the orbs were moving with increased smoothness, now as Loki took a step to the right, they moved in unison, even as he turned sharply to the right, they rotated, keeping their position respective to him constant.
As Loki increased his pace and attempted to move one of the compressed spheres further away, the conduit shrank slightly, pulling it closer to him instead. Annoyed, Loki continued his efforts, attempting to combine his movements and those of the spheres until they could move independently as well as respective to his own direction and orientation. The effort was taxing, yet with Loki's efforts in developing compressed reiatsu that would not expand until desired – it was not as bad as it may have otherwise been. Soon it was that the Arrancar and his four cero's were darting around the dune top. Occasionally Loki fired one off, then would quickly create another; with each time he did so, the time that the echo existed was diminished, until even as the energy began to form it was turning into a sphere, finally it was impossible even to tell its origins as an echo, as soon as the energy was gathered it was compressing into the desired sphere.
» Training: Cero Metralleta (Part II)
Now that Loki had managed to form and manipulate the four different ceros, it was time for him to attempt to combine them with the intermittent bursts he had learned in an attempt to overcome the delay that had occurred between the small cero blasts. Allowing the four existing cero spheres to dissipate, Loki began charging all four at the same time; they took slightly longer to shape than normal, yet the difference was not great and given that there were four rather than one – it was well within allowances.
As Loki began the next stage of his training, he partially unleashed the energy within the spheres, four small blasts of energy emerged, then there was a delay as the energy within sought to stabilise, then began rising once again; instantly Loki stopped charging them – this was exactly the problem from before, the incredible delay between the blasts was the main issue, not simply the number per second, but rather their timing. It was vital that they come out in a rapid stream of blows rather than periodic clusters of blasts; that was the entire strength of this technique.
This time as Loki began again, he fired one of the ceros off, then, once it had fired and had begun stabilising, he fired the second cero, while the first was stabilising, the second had begun, when the third blast was released, the first cero had stabilised and the energy was beginning to gain once more, the second was stabilising and the third had begun stabilising. By the time the fourth had fired, the first was nearly done, yet their was a delay before the charge would be ready once more, meanwhile the second sphere had begun intensifying, while the third was stabilising and the fourth had just fired and was now beginning to recover. Yet on the second repetition, the process was slightly slower, this time, the first cero was ready to fire even before the fourth was shot; the third repetition proved far too slow and there was a long delay between each of the shots.
Timing; managing to keep the charging constant by triggering the releases based on the power levels was proving more problematic than anticipated – in particular, it was important to be able to manage the timing depending on the reiatsu of the other spheres. What he needed was a way to link them together and in doing so, queue the release, stabilisation and accumulation of reiatsu, the most likely solution was once again a conduit, or rather four conduits.
Once again, he began charging, however this time as the ceros fully formed, Loki a conduit, linking each of the ceros to those next to it, forming a daisy chain. The instant he had done so, he could more accurately compare the adjoining sphere's reiatsu levels and the stability of the energy within those spheres. This time, as Loki began firing the blasts, it was far easier to tell when the other spheres were ready, when their reiatsu had been partially released it was possible to readily compare how unstable it had become, as their energy recovered and became more stable, when the diminished energy began to get replaced by the conversion of reiryoku and finally when it was fully recharged once again, ready to be fired once more
Yet as the rapid blasts became more closely managed, their timing, so vital in this technique – revealed yet another flaw. In controlling it too efficiently, the timing had become constant, easy to predict. What Loki needed was some way to adjust the timing slightly without affecting the entire chain – that which occurred to him was merely a logical progression of the approach he had already used – rather than connecting only those adjacent, he would also connect the remaining spheres, so that each cero was connected to each of the other three.
This time, as Loki began discharging the ceros, he could delay one slightly, yet still queue the next in the chain, only the cero opposite was affected, when one cero discharged late, the other would need to overcharge slightly, resulting in a more rapid recovery of its reiatsu. So while one was delayed the other sped up, the small, sporadic adjustments in timing were instantly discernible; rather than a constant rhythmic stream, the flow of blasts was slightly varied, the timing oscillating.
The small blasts of reiatsu were no where near as powerful as standard, however as Loki swung his hand to the right and the four spheres followed – their resulting blasts left a trail of destruction like small meteor strikes in the desert sand, a circuitous path of compressed reiatsu strikes.
Most satisfactory.
! ~ The Big Bang ~ !
Loki had temporarily left Astraea in the care of one of her local playmates, a young ape like hollow about one foot in height, of similar age and size, the pair were able to play together with little difficulty, under the most capable supervision of the little monkey's guardian, a part gorilla part eagle hollow – who was also a Corporal in the Sentinels.
As the Utopian governor and founder of the Sentinels, not to mention being the creator of the Caretaker; Loki von Verlassen had a simple charge. He must ensure that Utopia was free from interference – especially if such difficulties arose due to his own existence. For that reason he had done his best to ensure that the Caretaker would continue to persist even after his own death – it was also for that very same reason that Loki had travelled outside of Utopia – to the White sands of Hueco Mundo, to train in a technique that would make him better able to protect himself – to become more and more powerful, hopefully unassailable.
Though he held no title as he had given out to some of the citizens of Utopia, denoting their strength; still, Loki was the single most powerful being in the region. For him to have reached a plateau was a dangerous thing indeed; he had been examining the findings of the Sentinel units who were within External Intelligence, they had been gathering information about (among other things) the fall of Las Noches and the battle between Aizen's forces and those of the Shinigami in the human realm. There he had learned of the existence of three different variations of his most powerful attack – one that while he had spent much time training, he had not managed to fully develop; the techniques were Cero Oscuras, the Gran Rey Cero, and Cero Metralleta. He would endeavour to learn them all, for in doing so he hoped to address the only area where he could really find fault with his own prowess – that of his sheer offensive power.
“To safeguard the safety of each of the souls of the Verlassen–” Loki's sneaky transformation would have gone unnoticed by someone standing right next to him as the Resurrección call out phrase was uttered, his body transforming into gel that exactly mimicked his flesh while his true body appeared within the gel costume's brain. “–and for the well being of Utopia.” Loki said without missing a beat, his reiatsu unchanged as he continued, repeating his false Resurrección trigger, “Blue Seas, Green Pastures, Clear Skies; Govern All Things, Tyrann des Goldes.” (Tyrant of Gold) The gold flecked red skin of the golden tyrant was punctuated at many of its joints by golden spikes that seemed to break through the skin and golden retractable claws replaced his fingernails; two horns sprouted from the sides of his forehead, where the remnants of his hollow mask were hidden by the bangs of his long, wild red hair, the tapered and much longer, gold tipped red horns, angled back over his ears; his red furry tail snaked first one way then the other as if he were eager to begin, the golden tuft of hair at the very end waving like a beacon.
» Training: Cero Oscuras
! ~ Fade to Black ~ !
Cero Oscuras, the very name was ominous, a blast of energy so intense that its use had been forbidden within Las Noches and when that rule had been broken, near half the dome had been ruptured. If there were any single technique that could best offset his lack of fire-power, it was without doubt this one – though the limitation that he would need to be in his released state was less than desirable; still there was the Gran Rey Cero to address that problem. For now, he would concentrate on achieving this most dreadful of techniques.
To begin Loki concentrated his energy into a cero as per standard, quickly charging the concentrated ball of reiatsu, firing it off into the side of a small white dune to witness the result – the sandy surface caved inwards at the force, throwing up a loud of sand, as the air cleared less than one half of the dune, the part closest to the ground, was all that remained. Blinking slightly in surprise, Loki could instantly tell that the amount of damage was less than expected, perhaps it was due to his recent separation of soul and mind, yet he could certainly feel a diminution in the amount of energy he had access to; while he usually had his reiatsu so suppressed that such limitations were difficult to sense, it was now when he attempted to access so much more of his true powers, that the restrictions were apparent.
Still, he now had something by which to compare any further progress, that was always vital when attempting to improve something; the difficulty was, that with so little of the dune remaining it was going to be difficult to accurately gauge the difference in power levels produced, for each time he would need to target a different dune.
Considering the technique itself, Loki mused at how it might work; why was it that the Oscuras could only be released by a released Arrancar? The answer must lie in either the amount of power or else in the nature of that power; were it the former, Loki was quite certain that he could meet such requirements even without needing his release – so it must be the later. Something about the Resurrección itself, a difference that set it apart from the sealed Arrancar – even one of great power.
Musing on the problem in the abstract was difficult, however such techniques were rarely known and few who might know them would be willing to share such knowledge.
There were many differences that separated the sealed Humanoid form from the Resurrección, the first and most obvious was the physiological changes, but Loki readily dismissed those – since each Arrancar was different, the likelihood of the Oscuras relying on specific physiological factors was absurd. No instead of being physiological, the requirements must lie somewhere else – though once again Loki ruled out psychological factors for the very same reason, they varied from one individual to another and many Arrancar experienced little to no changes in the psyche when released. No, the requirement could be neither physiological nor psychological; what remained were spiritual factors – the soul and its energies.
Each soul was unique, manifested within its spiritual matter vessel, their bodies; their reiryoku and reiatsu permeated each; for Arrancar, their Hollow reiryoku was blended with many of the characteristics of Shinigami reiryoku; minus balanced with plus, enabling the Hollow to remove its mask, to affect a change in its manifestation – heart changed to mask, mask changed to zanpakutou. At least for most Arrancar – in Verlassen's case that heart had instead formed the basis for the Caretaker. Still, the Resurrección tapped once more into the heart's power – for most Arrancar their Zanpakutous, for Verlassen the Caretaker; their soul became closer to being whole once again, their energies becoming more complete yet at the same time more volatile as the shinigami characteristics of their humanoid forms were surrendered in return.
Were Loki to devour the Caretaker, he would increase his power much like other Arrancars when they accessed their Resurrección, however he was reluctant to do so – for it would weaken Utopia's protection. However, just recently he had managed to distribute many of the charging crystals throughout Utopia and their use was proving popular, if for no other reason than the individual being able to show off their powers – yet the side effect was to provide the Caretaker with its own dedicated reiryoku supply. Given that, Loki could now devour a portion of the Caretaker without removing all the protection it offered; indeed, even were Loki to desire to do so, that was no longer possible.
Calling the portion of their reiryoku sealed within the caretaker was easily managed, within moments, Loki's souls returned to him, his power growing ever greater. Nodding in affirmation as he realised that he was no longer merely the 'agent' of his own creation, Loki began charging a cero once again. The moment he did so Loki noticed a difference, the shade was slightly darker; the difference was barely noticeable, but to one with Revealing Gaze, such a difference could quickly be dissected. The 'dark' sensation it provided was almost despair inspiring, yet Loki was perversely pleased, hopeful that this despair would lead to great things.
Infusing the still already charging cero with the sensation, Loki could feel the emotion redoubling, with every growing moment the feeling of dread grew while the vibrancy of the colour rapidly dimmed, the surface darkening fractionally, little by little. However no matter how he infused the cero with the dark energy, Loki could not remove the green tint, leaving it a very dark green rather than black, yet the darkened energy was compressing into a much tighter mass than his regular reiatsu and the amount of power within the Cero was incomparable.
Finally he unleashed the beam, the concentrated ball of reiatsu gushing forwards, searing across the ground to disintegrate the targeted dune before slamming into another, much larger one, leaving it neatly bisected, even as the energy beam rushed onwards over the white sands. Looking awestruck, Loki slowly knelt to the ground and touched the sand near his feet, in a line where the cero had been fired, the sand had been pushed in, compacted to a smooth concave finish, slightly warm to the touch. Were he to estimate the power of the darkened cero compared to one of his standard ones, it would have ten times the force, perhaps slightly more.
Swallowing slightly, Loki began again, yet this time instead of creating a normal cero then infusing it with the dark energy, Loki concentrated on gathering reiatsu, bearing that dreadful sensation in mind; this time as his reiatsu compressed, it did so far more tightly than before. Where earlier the normal cero energy had diminished the level of compression Loki had achieved; this time,the the dark cero energy was unimpeded and grew more intense as he charged it. Instead of a green that became more dark as the charging continued, the energy produced was darkest black and the moment he finished charging their was a slight pulse of energy, characteristic of a cero, yet the sensation was one that Loki would never forget – feeling dread at his own power was something he had seldom experienced before.
Once more he discharged the cero, yet this time the power was even vaster than he had anticipated, the unexpected recoil enough to knock him back a step – all but missing the spectacular show that followed. The black energy permeated his surroundings, even in the dark realm of Hueco Mundo the difference was instantly discernible as even the most limited of ambient light was stripped away; as Loki managed to right his footing, the beam of darkness tore apart all in its path. As light returned the aftermath was apparent, twice as wide as the previous attempt, the beam had left nothing behind, the sand bordering its path had been melted, fused into a glassy finish leaving a gigantic smoothed channel in its wake. While before the amount of force he had amassed had been a significant increase, this was even more-so, instead of perhaps ten times the power, the Oscuras had come closer to thirty times. What was more disturbing however were the tears in the air, they opened to reveal gaps similar to that of Garganta techniques, tears in the dimension around them – such a technique would need to be used sparingly if at all.
However, the effort was draining and Loki required some time to recover himself; as he did so he once again separated soul from mind, directing the flow of energy back to the Caretaker; a time consuming process – once he had finished, he felt able to continue.
Once again he charged a cero, noting that it lacked the dark finish it had previous had, despite the fact that he remained in Resurrección. Beginning to charge a cero once more, he concentrated on trying to regain that dark sensation, it was slower than before, attempting to gather that energy without the presence of his 'heart', yet even his partial Resurrección proved sufficient in the end. Finally he unleashed a second Oscuras, though having less energy than before to call on, the resulting attack was far less impressive, however it was still a thirty-fold increase in power on what he might otherwise achieve at such a power level.
» Training: Gran Rey Cero
! ~ Red and Green ~ !
With their development of the Oscuras complete. Loki allowed the Resurrección, true and false alike, to revert him back into his humanoid Arrancar form; after all there was no need to maintain such a state any longer. There was no doubt that Cero Oscuras was the most powerful of the Ceros, however the need to be in his Resurrección was a grievous limitation, one that meant that the technique may not be suitable in a pinch. To offset this, Loki had asked the Sentinels to gather information about the Gran Rey Cero also, for this technique was reportedly usable by a humanoid arrancar, were they strong enough. Though it might be a little arrogant, Loki was quite certain that there had been few of the now dead Espada who had been stronger than he – as such he was certain he could manage it.
The technique seemed easy enough, to a normal cero, the arrancar's own blood was added, which caused the power within to rapidly rise while the colour changed depending upon the user's reiatsu. The problem was, however, that such a thing could not even really be called a technique if it was as simple as that. Otherwise strong arrancars would be accidentally be using it were they to get scratched in the wrong place. No rather than being a simple matter of the presence of the bodily fluid, the technique must rely on something within the blood as a catalyst, or perhaps there was some method of energy transformation facilitated through the biological matter itself.
Using his revealing gaze, Loki looked down at his own body; though only an 'Agent' the creation was completely faithful in its rendition of his Humanoid Arrancar form, right down to the nerves and blood vessels; the form was completely biological, his blood real even at the genetic level.
As he looked at his arm, he studied the flow of blood, the liquid pulsing through his limb carrying oxygen from the heart out through the arterial veins to the tissues that needed it, collecting the carbon dioxide and flowing back through the veins; an immensely efficient and beautiful creation. Yet the longer Loki looked down at the vessel which contained his mind and reiryoku, the more he noticed one simple fact; his body was of a fixed size, yet in one sitting, he could create many, many ceros, despite those being heavily compressed balls of reiatsu themselves. Indeed, were he to create just the cero balls with every fraction of reiryoku within him, he would be able to fill a reasonably large room.
It had not been apparent until now to Loki due to the difference between Reiryoku and Reiatsu, yet the two were vastly different in their ability to compress energy. Reiryoku filled a soul and was converted into reiatsu, yet the amount of reiryoku a soul contained was more than the amount of reiatsu it was unleashing at any one time – otherwise the person would quickly run out of energy. The reiryoku itself was far more stable however, much like Loki's attempts to produce compressed energy had resulted in the ability to prevent decompression; yet even more so, the energy itself seem inclined to remain in the soul unless transformed into reiatsu. That was true too for the reiryoku within the blood that pulsed through the soul.
Charging a cero in his left hand , Loki allowed a sliver of energy to race across his palm producing a hair thin cut, nearly one inch long. A few drops of blood welled to the surface and Loki angled his hand so that the drops fell onto the cero then continued to gather his reiatsu, layering it around the fluid. However as Loki looked at the blood with his revealing gaze, he could not help but notice that the reiryoku had receded from the blood, back into the cut the moment that the liquid had begun leaving his body, like rats fleeing a sinking ship the reiryoku had left the drops as soon as it had become apparent it would no longer be 'part' of the soul.
The result therefore, was nothing more than a regular cero, with a couple drops of blood within, no more powerful, just a little less pristine; irritated, Loki allowed the Cero to dissipate. What he needed was some way of ensuring that the reiryoku remained within the blood as it left the body into the cero. Fortunately, Loki was no stranger to Cero techniques and his previous efforts had included using both reiatsu and reiryoku at the same time to charge a blast; hopefully the same principles could be applied now, not to increase the speed of charging, but rather to help retain the reiryoku within the blood.
By now of course the cells on his palm had regenerated to heal the slight cut, Loki allowed a stream of reiatsu to slice the palm once again as he began charging the cero.
As the reiatsu gathered, Loki also began concentrating on the drops of blood that welled at the cut as well as the reiryoku within the fluid; like before the energy attempted to return to the soul as soon as the blood looked to be leaving the body; yet, with great effort, Loki was able to call on his previous experience, encapsulating the blood and its energy in a thin film of reiatsu, drawing it out of the body and into the cero. More drops followed, until the charging cero took on a reddish tint towards the middle, then from the outside the surface began to take on a opal-like quality, hundreds of colours collecting on the outside of the sphere until the green emerged dominant, spreading from small pockets to envelop the entire ball. The crimson centre too was consumed by the emerald glow as the reiatsu on the outside of the sphere mixed with the blood and its reiryoku. The energy levels surging higher as the two sources of energy pulsed as one; no simple cero any longer, Loki had managed to achieve his desired technique – or so he thought.
The pulsing duo of energies were a potent combination, Loki's reiatsu vibration control was pushed to its limits as the reiatsu and reiryoku pair beat its crescendo. At the same time, the energy began to revolve, faster and faster; far more than Loki's reiatsu rotation control was used to, it was all he could do to ensure that it remained contained to the sphere. The size too began to buckle, enlarging slightly then compressing again, the fluctuations were inconsistent and even his reiatsu compression skills were being tested.
With a roar it exploded, black tears appearing in the air nearby as Loki was thrown through the air like a rag-doll across the dunes, leaving chunks of flesh and a long trail of blood in his wake. For a long time nothing happened, then slowly, groaning in pain, Loki pushed himself up, or tried to; before realising that his left arm was gone entirely, even the shoulder blade had been torn free, the flesh of the left side of his torso ripped open to expose a number of ribs, his left leg too was gone, ended just below the hip and half of his face was badly burned.
Even with his high speed regeneration, several minutes passed before he was completely healed; the damage to his left arm in particular was tardy to heal. After the damage was completely fixed, Loki remained where he was, resting both mind and body; several hours passed as he fully recovered.
Finally he stood up, deciding that the effort must be made to master the technique that had so badly damaged him earlier. Once again his palm was cut and he began gathering both sources of energy towards the growing cero; the marble like finish was quickly supplanted by emerald energy which encompassed the entire ball of compressed reiatsu and reiryoku. This time however, he was more prepared than before, he would not attempt to fine tune things overly, no this was a technique where the very destructive power itself lay in its volatility, attempting to control those was simple folly.
This time, rather than attempting to control the oscillations the rotations and the changes in compression, Loki merely unleashed it across the sands. The thick emerald beam roaring as it sped forwards; shaking, it tore through the air, far faster than his normal cero, spinning as it went, its width increasing and decreasing innumerable times with each second. Its destructive path demolished dunes of densely packed sand with little difficulty, black tears in the air opening here and there along its pathway, as if the world around it could barely contain the volatile devastation.
» Training: Cero Metralleta (Part I)
! ~ Tamaya! ~ Kagiya! ~ !
With Oscuras and Gran Rey, the power of their Cero was unmistakably improved even the speed with which it moved was increased; yet the truth was that such an impressive display of power had a fundamental weakness, if dodged the result was merely a waste of power. Moreover, there were very few entities against which such an attack might ever need to be used; indeed, what was more likely to occur was that he might be forced upon to attack many foes at the same time, in such an event, the most he could do would be to swing the cero beam around to try to hit more than one attacker – yet to do so would require that he maintain the much more powerful ceros for a longer time, it would simply use too much reiatsu.
To deal with such an occurrence, the Sentinels had examined the third of the Cero technique+s they had gathered information about – the Cero Metralleta, which involved firing numerous cero blasts one after another, in doing so it was even possible to change the direction of each successive blast, allowing a spray of weaker cero's following a given path. In his previous attempts to master his cero, Loki had attempted something similar, incrementally releasing the energy within a cero, letting out weaker bursts of reiatsu from the compressed ball, then stopping before starting again, all the while he was able to still charge his energy into the ball. It seemed so very similar to the Cero Metralleta, yet in truth, the fire rate was markedly diminished according to the reports.
Looking to discover the truth of things, Loki began charging a regular cero, compressing the reiatsu within his left palm – the ball of energy that formed was unusually stable, one of the hall marks of Loki's compressed reiatsu. From within there was a surge as Loki partially weakened the cohesiveness of the restraints on one side of the sphere, the result was a short blast of concentrated reiatsu, it was no where near as powerful as a regular cero though, only perhaps a quarter of the power. That meant the power of the individual shots were about on par with the Metralleta, however–
Releasing a second blast, Loki was forced to pause to wait for the energy within the compressed sphere to stabilise as it built to the required level of intensity, then he released a third, a fourth followed and a fifth. Again and again the blasts came, quicker now as Loki began to get the feel for the rate at which he could fire them without diminishing the attack. Finally he had reached a rate of about ten with every second thatpassed; while compared to the normal cero the speed was impressive, when compared to the dozens, even scores of compressed energy blasts that the Metralleta produced every second – it was a dismal result. However, there was no getting around the need for the cero ball of concentrated reiatsu to stabilise and grow in intensity between each blast – and that took time!
Even with Loki's impressive reiatsu control, it was simply a matter of simple logic – if the energy was used in the blast it would need to be replenished; that some had been used meant that the structure had been altered and would need to stabilise. Neither of these two points were subject to negotiation, they were unchangeable, immutable. And indeed, Loki's reiatsu control was both effective and efficient, it was unlikely that he could speed the process much faster than its current rate – instead he would need to address the issue from another angle.
If the maximum number of discharges that the cero ball was capable of producing was fixed, then perhaps that limitation might be overcome in an indirect fashion – simply by creating more than one cero ball. The theory of it was sound; it should be possible to time the releases in such a way that the discharge of a blast from one ball of compressed reiatsu occurred while a previously used reiatsu ball was stabilising and intensifying.
» Training: Multiple Moving Ceros
! ~ One Man Festival ~ !
The main difficulty would come in that Loki had never before attempted to manipulate more than a single cero at the same time; he had managed to charge them more quickly, to change the direction of the beam, to change the time they lasted for either short bursts or longer sustained beams, to overcharge their power as well as even learning two of the more powerful variants, Gran Rey and Oscuras – yet never had Loki attempted to control more than one at a single time, except through the use of Gel Seeds.
One of the very few technique that Loki performed multiple of while within his humanoid form was Eco (Echo) which enabled him to create an immense number of energy signatures as well as visual copies and other sensory data; yet such creations, while more complex, were hundreds of times less concentrated in terms of reiatsu; still, the diminished number and complexity of the creations would likely alleviate much of the difficulty in terms of concentration.
Still, in terms of the power requirements, it would be essential for Loki to be able to use many times more reiatsu for each additional cero than were required for an 'Echo'; for that, his earlier experience with the other Cero variants might have proved useful, except that one required his Resurrección and the other his blood. Since Metralleta was supposed to be able to be used within the Arrancar's humanoid form, the lessons from Oscuras would be of limited use; while the lessons from Gran Rey would only prove useful if he opened his veins, something of which that the information he had been provided made no mention. Of all the techniques and training Loki had thus far managed, the one with the greatest suitability seemed to be his efforts to increase the power of a standard cero.
It was something he had garnered while attempting to quicken the speed with which he was able to charge the blasts; by continuously charging a cero it was possible to increase the overall power, though in turn the growing intensity made the energy less stable as the level of compression grew. Were Loki to increase the reiatsu compression of one of the echos it should be able to be manipulated in a similar way.
Convinced of his idea, Loki created one of the echos, a mirror image of himself standing some ten feet away. Focusing on the projection, Loki began to infuse it with more reiatsu, as he did, the image began to flicker, the quality of the sensory signatures diminishing rapidly until it seemed only vaguely humanoid. Finally, as the level of reiatsu began to approach cero level, the shape collapsed inwards on itself, shrinking further and further as the energy increased, until only a ball of highly compressed reiatsu remained, a cero.
Grinning, Loki created another echo and quickly attempted to duplicate the effort; this time it was a little more difficult, causing Loki to frown in concentration. Unlike his estimates, the much less complex ball of compressed reiatsu was considerably more difficult to manage than numerous of the more complex 'echos', the level of compressed energy attempting to surge against his will was more taxing than the increased complexity of the more docile form used for echos.
By the time Loki had created the fourth cero, he quickly realised that he was nearing his limit, were he to create any more than that, he would likely have insufficient control to manage any in battle manoeuvrings that might be required, depending on the situation.
Loki quickly discovered something rather intriguing, as they used the echo's as the base they were each connected by one Aquí y allí (Here and There) conduit, this meant that so long as they remained within range, the spheres of energy should be able to be moved at the same speed as he himself could manage. It took a few moments before the first of the four conduits began moving as he desired it, the compressed ball of reiatsu to which it was connected was far more intense than almost any other connection that had been made previously, to connect to four such – well it was something that Loki had not previously had much experience with. Still, progress was beginning to show and the orbs were moving with increased smoothness, now as Loki took a step to the right, they moved in unison, even as he turned sharply to the right, they rotated, keeping their position respective to him constant.
As Loki increased his pace and attempted to move one of the compressed spheres further away, the conduit shrank slightly, pulling it closer to him instead. Annoyed, Loki continued his efforts, attempting to combine his movements and those of the spheres until they could move independently as well as respective to his own direction and orientation. The effort was taxing, yet with Loki's efforts in developing compressed reiatsu that would not expand until desired – it was not as bad as it may have otherwise been. Soon it was that the Arrancar and his four cero's were darting around the dune top. Occasionally Loki fired one off, then would quickly create another; with each time he did so, the time that the echo existed was diminished, until even as the energy began to form it was turning into a sphere, finally it was impossible even to tell its origins as an echo, as soon as the energy was gathered it was compressing into the desired sphere.
» Training: Cero Metralleta (Part II)
! ~ Fireworks Barrage ~ !
Now that Loki had managed to form and manipulate the four different ceros, it was time for him to attempt to combine them with the intermittent bursts he had learned in an attempt to overcome the delay that had occurred between the small cero blasts. Allowing the four existing cero spheres to dissipate, Loki began charging all four at the same time; they took slightly longer to shape than normal, yet the difference was not great and given that there were four rather than one – it was well within allowances.
As Loki began the next stage of his training, he partially unleashed the energy within the spheres, four small blasts of energy emerged, then there was a delay as the energy within sought to stabilise, then began rising once again; instantly Loki stopped charging them – this was exactly the problem from before, the incredible delay between the blasts was the main issue, not simply the number per second, but rather their timing. It was vital that they come out in a rapid stream of blows rather than periodic clusters of blasts; that was the entire strength of this technique.
This time as Loki began again, he fired one of the ceros off, then, once it had fired and had begun stabilising, he fired the second cero, while the first was stabilising, the second had begun, when the third blast was released, the first cero had stabilised and the energy was beginning to gain once more, the second was stabilising and the third had begun stabilising. By the time the fourth had fired, the first was nearly done, yet their was a delay before the charge would be ready once more, meanwhile the second sphere had begun intensifying, while the third was stabilising and the fourth had just fired and was now beginning to recover. Yet on the second repetition, the process was slightly slower, this time, the first cero was ready to fire even before the fourth was shot; the third repetition proved far too slow and there was a long delay between each of the shots.
Timing; managing to keep the charging constant by triggering the releases based on the power levels was proving more problematic than anticipated – in particular, it was important to be able to manage the timing depending on the reiatsu of the other spheres. What he needed was a way to link them together and in doing so, queue the release, stabilisation and accumulation of reiatsu, the most likely solution was once again a conduit, or rather four conduits.
Once again, he began charging, however this time as the ceros fully formed, Loki a conduit, linking each of the ceros to those next to it, forming a daisy chain. The instant he had done so, he could more accurately compare the adjoining sphere's reiatsu levels and the stability of the energy within those spheres. This time, as Loki began firing the blasts, it was far easier to tell when the other spheres were ready, when their reiatsu had been partially released it was possible to readily compare how unstable it had become, as their energy recovered and became more stable, when the diminished energy began to get replaced by the conversion of reiryoku and finally when it was fully recharged once again, ready to be fired once more
Yet as the rapid blasts became more closely managed, their timing, so vital in this technique – revealed yet another flaw. In controlling it too efficiently, the timing had become constant, easy to predict. What Loki needed was some way to adjust the timing slightly without affecting the entire chain – that which occurred to him was merely a logical progression of the approach he had already used – rather than connecting only those adjacent, he would also connect the remaining spheres, so that each cero was connected to each of the other three.
This time, as Loki began discharging the ceros, he could delay one slightly, yet still queue the next in the chain, only the cero opposite was affected, when one cero discharged late, the other would need to overcharge slightly, resulting in a more rapid recovery of its reiatsu. So while one was delayed the other sped up, the small, sporadic adjustments in timing were instantly discernible; rather than a constant rhythmic stream, the flow of blasts was slightly varied, the timing oscillating.
The small blasts of reiatsu were no where near as powerful as standard, however as Loki swung his hand to the right and the four spheres followed – their resulting blasts left a trail of destruction like small meteor strikes in the desert sand, a circuitous path of compressed reiatsu strikes.
Most satisfactory.