Chapter 77: Negative

It was a momentous achievement. His excitement staved off the exhaustion trying to take over his body.

Now, he could Reinforce his legs the same way he did his fists. It opened up a lot of possibilities. Martial Manuals that focused on offense using the legs were available for him to cultivate. It would elevate his fighting ability with another dimension. He wouldn’t just be limited on punches.

But perhaps the most important reason for Reinforcing the legs was movement.

Now, he could learn the second part of the Foundational Moveset. The Primal Step.

He’d already seen Kaiser demonstrate it perfectly. With skillful Reinforcement of the feet, one could traverse vertical walls as if they were the ground itself. Gravity was of no consequence, only how long their Ræzoň could last.

Of course, it wasn’t as simple as when they gripped the stalactites with their Reinforced hands to keep hanging on.

It was a lot more complicated and made use of a more advanced utilization of Ræzoň.

He immediately entered his Mind Palace.

The myriads of journals, memoirs, and manuals were his to peruse. Personal first-hand experience from vastly different kinds of people were very helpful in letting Eren understand the fundamentals of the technique.

But of course, who better to learn the Primal Step from other than the Venerable Ursine King?

[The Primal Step. It’s a technique that has saved my life countless times before. Traversing stars with a single leap, I left my enemies and pursuers unable to catch a whiff of my presence.

But for you to fly, my inheritor, you must first learn how to walk.

Reinforcement is only one side of the coin. Like everything in this universe, all come in pairs. You have learned how to imbue your fists with a dense fog of Ræzoň. Now, you must learn how to live with its absence.]

Eren recalled the Ursine King’s words. The absence of Ræzoň, or more colloquially known as Negative Reinforcement, was a subject that all cultivators would eventually learn in their journey.

He got up from his meditative pose and faced the wall of his room.

Raising his leg, he planted his soles on the wall’s facet. Then, he reached deep into his Dantian and commanded them to flow into his feet.

His newly opened Primary Meridians worked flawlessly. Ræzoň surged at his beck and call with much more force and vigor as normal Reinforcement.

Now empowered, Eren tried to scale the wall.

He launched himself backwards, almost hitting his head on the wall behind him.

Using pure Reinforcement to step on the wall would only cause him to either break through its surface, or jump away from it with a lot of force like he did just now.

Negative Reinforcement was needed. A vacuum, in modern terms.

By depriving the bottom of his soles of Ræzoň, the natural Ræzoň from his surroundings would naturally be dragged into his feet to compensate for the difference in pressure.

That suction force would serve as the anchor that would keep him tethered to the wall, allowing him to scale up its vertical ascent.

Of course, the concept may be simple. But the execution was a little bit trickier to do properly.

Bereaving oneself of Ræzoň was unnatural. It was like telling someone to hold their breaths for an extended period of time. Eventually, their natural self-preservation would forcefully make them inhale a deep breath.

Eren tried it himself. It didn’t work.

His only experience of ’sucking’ in Ræzoň was through meditation when he would gather Ræzoň to store in his dantian.

That force was negligible. Not even enough for him to stick to the wall for a millisecond.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to work through this process using trial and error.

Reading the Venerable Ursine King’s instructions gave him an achievable training regimen that, if he followed correctly, would teach him how to use Negative Reinforcement in a moderate amount of time.

[I learned the Primal Step through necessity. Ashamedly, I tried to sneak into the sect that had rejected me before in the hopes of being accepted as a disciple.

By focusing Reinforcement around my feet and leaving only a small area of my soles empty, I was able to achieve partial success in the Primal Step. I used it to climb a skewed tree to bypass the walls of the sect.

I fell many times. But as I persevered, I was eventually able to apply Negative Reinforcement throughout the entirety of my soles...]

The Venerable Ursine King urged him to practice small. Achieve a vacuum one small area at a time. This should be implemented with a few core and leg exercises that would increase his affinity with leg movements.

According to his memoire, he achieved the Lower Proficiency of the Primal Step in an entire afternoon.

But with Eren’s talent, or lack thereof, he’d be lucky if he attained that in three days. A week if he truly struggled to comprehend the concept.

He’d have to train day and night again. No breaks, even if he was still exhausted from concocting the Physique Accelerant Paste.

It wasn’t likely the United Governments would give them more than a week of break in between the tests. He had to be prepared by the time they were called by Kaiser.

If the first test was any indication of the next, Eren guessed that the next phase of the License Exam would require them using the Primal Step to traverse some kind of difficult terrain. It was only the natural course of events.

That was why he opened the meridians in his feet first. He was anticipating a test based on Negative Reinforcement. His chances of passing the next test seemed unlikely if he didn’t.

And even if his guess was wrong, it was still better to cover all of his bases. He’d need to learn Negative Reinforcement sooner or later.

He took a deep breath and stepped on the wall. Then, he Reinforced the topside of his feet, leaving only a small area of his sole without Ræzoň.

Suddenly, slivers of yellow flames billowed from the haze of red aura in his feet.

His feet stuck to the wall like a magnet.