I have Nine Lives

Chapter 38: Soul Training

Felix's inner soul space was dark as a night without any starlight, he didn't like this feeling of emptiness and darkness, he liked a well-lit environment, and there was also the fact his eyes couldn't see through the darkness as if there was nothing there like he was just standing in the void.

How could he change the soul space? He wanted to add things inside, he didn't really understand the concept of souls and other stuff like this but he decided to imagine some stuff to begin with to see if that could fill the empty dark space in front of him.

He tried to remember the better days when he would be lazing and basking in the sun on the roof of the train station back on earth.

He thought about the place for a long and hard time but nothing appeared in his mind space, everything was as dark as before, maybe first he needed some light?

He tried to think of the giant sun in the sky, and after a rather long time, he could feel the sun on his eyelids!

Felix started to slowly understand how these things worked, he would first need to imagine the most important stuff before he could move on to the things that he wanted to put in his mind space.

The first thing he put after he imagined the sun was the moon and the stars, creating a day and night shift that he could change at his liking, if he wanted to be day, it would be day, if he wanted to be night, it would be night.

Then he created the earth and the pavement and the other things he remembered from Earth, slowly but surely the train station that he lived all his life in appeared in front of him, but things weren't right, only the train station existed and there was nothing else, the train station didn't even take up 1% of the total space so he decided to fill the other space with other things such as the things he saw on his travels during the missions, people he knew... he slowly created the hyena's main city, the flamingos... the lion capital, the mountain of the tigers, the cave of the bears... etc...

The main place where everything started was still the train station though, the people interacted with each other as Felix remembered, they were like robots and they didn't even see Felix, those were just his memories being replayed in front of him.

Felix saw Tsuru approaching him and petting him as he sat near the train station before taking some squid out of her basket and feeding him some, the taste was... inexistent, he couldn't taste it, maybe it was because he couldn't remember the taste of squid?

Felix shook his head as Tsuru disappeared, he didn't know why but he felt rather sad seeing her, maybe he was missing her?

Felix shook his head, the buildings and the other things around him started to shake but after a while, they remained the same. It seemed his mind space was acting upon his emotions.

Felix decided to keep a clear and calm mind, he closed his eyes as he sat there on the train station, he could feel that his mind cleared up more and more as he just stood there up to the point that he felt he reached a certain limit.

His eyes were clean of emotions as his eyelids fluttered open, he looked around and saw that he was in the inn not in the mindscape anymore. It was an interesting experience for him, he decided to do it more times, he could feel that he somehow felt better after doing this.

Felix left the inn and met up with Lindo to spar some more, this time Felix felt something budding in his head the more he fought, his body started to react easily towards his opponent's attacks, it wasn't killing intent detection yet as he was still hit one or two times, even Lindo thought that Felix learned the technique at first until he hit him in the stomach and made him vomit some of his breakfast.

Felix didn't know what went through him, he could easily see through Lindo's attacks but as time passed his vision started to blur and he let an attack slip through, unknowingly to him, his actions were training his soul. He realized soon that the reason he was getting closer to the realm of killing intent detection was because of what he did in his mindscape.

He continued his spar with Lindo for a few more hours before he went to the inn to eat, Lindo unceremoniously invited himself so he could eat for free, considering how many savings Felix had, he didn't mind giving him some food.

Lindo looked at Felix after he finished his meal and asked:

"Are you close to learning killing intent detection?"

Felix nodded, he thought that it would be like that at first but he would still need some time before he could learn it properly, but the door to that realm was slowly opening in front of him, he could feel that if he continued his training with time he would be able to learn killing intent detection, Felix looked at Lindo and asked:

"Any luck with killing intent masking Lindo?"

Lindo shook his head, he wasn't a freak like Felix, he could barely know where to start from he tried to mimic Felix's stealth skills to try and learn it but he failed very hard, even though they were basically on the same lineage, the difference between their races was a bit too big so he couldn't grasp the stealth technique at all.

Seeing that Lindo got a bit awkward after the question made Felix come near him and pat his arm a few times.

Being comforted by such a cute being made Lindo get a hold of himself as he laughed and petted Felix's head while saying:

"It's ok, I'm sure I will get it sooner or later, I should go now, my father is expecting me for more training."

Felix watched as Lindo left, he had his other training to do as well, he went to his room and directly went to sleep as he accessed his mindscape, he wasn't sure how he was doing it but when he went to sleep he automatically appeared there.

He looked around and continued to use his memories to fill the empty and dark places, the underground maze, the cat village, the first forest he was in... the mindscape was slowly getting filled with his memories of people, as he reorganized them properly he could feel that his mind was getting clearer and clearer. Also, his modified soul was properly fusing with his evolved body, his mind and instincts were also slowly stopping their actions against each other as harmony appeared between them.

A strong mind would be supported by great instincts, but in Felix's situation his mind and instincts were telling him two different things at the same time and he had to choose which path would be better for him, but his instincts and mind were now slowly aligning with each other as he was training his soul by fixing his memories in their proper place.

Felix continued to meditate on the training station as his mind got sharper and his instincts adapted the same, his instincts got dulled by his mind previously but as the body and mind aligned themselves he could feel the slightly open door, fully open in front of him!

He looked down at his paws as he found himself back into the inn, could he grasp killing intent detection now?

There was only one way to check this, he went to the sparring field and met with Lindo there, it seemed he also went through his special training at home as Felix could feel that he was rather tired.

Felix didn't want to fight him immediately so he let him rest for a bit, Lindo gave him a grateful look before he sat there for a while to catch his breath, then he waved his hand at Felix indicating that he was ready for the spar!

Felix immediately disappeared as he jumped towards Lindo while slowly turning invisible, his body turned midair as he changed his attack place, his claw slowly went towards Lindo's stomach but Lindo dodged by side stepping making Felix only leave a small gash to his sides.

Lindo then tried to grab Felix by the tail but all he could grab was air, he didn't know the technique of the bears so he couldn't disturb the surrounding Hex energy to make him visible, all he was doing was reacting to Felix's current location and counterattacking as good as he could.

Felix appeared again as he looked at his tail, Lindo could have actually grasped it if he didn't move it down at the last second making him think that he missed his location.

His eyes were shining, his instincts were aligned fully with his mind! Even though there were still empty patches here and there in his mindscape they would be slowly filled with time as the mindscape increased in size.

He looked towards Lindo who stopped attacking him when he saw him look pondering for a few seconds:

"Let's continue, I think I will surprise you today!"

Lindo smiled as he entered a stance and his muscles slowly started to increase in size and weight, it was a different appliance of the technique from before, while his muscles were bigger in size than before they didn't seem to hold his speed down at all!

Actually, his speed increased as Lindo appeared behind Felix while saying:

"It's nothing personal Felix, just a spar!"

Felix frowned as he easily dodged his attack that was going to stomp him into the ground, Felix gave him a cheeky smile as his ears moved for a bit before saying:

"Nothing personal as well, but I think your previous attack was quite obvious."

Felix was learning how to shit talk by mimicking Lindo's tone.

Lindo became a bit flustered as his new technique was easily dodged, his eyes widened as he looked at Felix's glowing eyes as he said:

"You learned killing intent detection already?"

Felix's eyes were now red, this indicated that he was using his vision and senses to their fullest, this was the normal visage of a person who activated the killing intent technique.

Lindo started to become serious as he looked at Felix's eyes and his eyes also turned a deep shade of red as well, they were both going all out in this situation!