Lazy Salvation Balancing Madness

Ashen soon learned that even when he curbed his stubbornness and greed to learn everything at once, problems still arose, as if the universe refused to let him go without struggle at every turn.

At first, everything had indeed gone as he expected. He absorbed the puppet's moves smoothly by lowering the complexity and building up slowly from there.

But the more he learned, the harder it beca to learn more, until it ca to a point when he simply couldn't keep going.

Initially, he didn't understand why this was happening. It was simply as if his body was rejecting the techniques from a certain point, and when he tried to force it, he was t with spasms, tremors, and distorted posture.

The only way forward after that was to undo everything. So he summoned a replica of his original self before the grafting and started mimicking it like a disabled man who was learning how to move all over again.

For a mont, it looked less like a human body and more like a creature trying to rember what shape it used to be.

But this failure wasn't entirely useless. He learned sothing valuable from ssing with his body.

Muscle mory isn't actually stored in the muscles themselves, but in neural pathways. And each learned motion is essentially a neural routine: when triggered, the brain fires the entire pattern automatically.

So when Ashen "grafts" multiple techniques together, say, a runner's stride pattern and a jumper's launch motion, he's not just layering skills. He's stacking competing reflexes.

When these coexist, the body tries to execute both reflexes simultaneously. The result could range from misfired muscle contractions, inefficient movent, or even self-sabotage.

It's the physical equivalent of two pianists trying to play different songs on the sa keyboard.

So it was no wonder that he failed.

In the end, Ashen had to compromise for now and curb his greed even further by discarding the skills that used the sa muscle groups and learning a combination of techniques that would not interfere with each other.

Thankfully, this thod worked, which cented his assumption that different muscle groups equaled less conflict… unless he started trying to sprint, stab, reload, and ditate all at once. Then even a lucid drear's brain might short-circuit a little.

The result was half-baked at best compared to the final puppet, but compared to his original techniques, he was miles ahead.

But this was only a temporary asure. In his mind, making contradictions coexist may be hard, but never impossible.

Inside the central hall, where the Ashen-puppet usually resided, two people could be seen standing across from each other.

One skinless and grotesque, while the other normal at first glance, but the numbness in his face and the fire that burned behind his pupils told a different story.

Whoosh—!

They both moved simultaneously; the skinless puppet showcased a movent technique that rendered the sound of its steps nonexistent, and Ashen shadowed it with perfect precision.

But unlike the puppet's vacant eyes, his were completely trained on its muscles, studying with intense concentration every micro-movent with his hyper vision.

This skill, which he was reconfiguring the neural pathways governing the lower half of his body for, was Silent Footfall.

This was only a temporary choice to adapt to his newly promoted position from a regular soldier to a scout after his recent performance over the past three months.

If his position changed, he could always reset his body and relearn more compatible skills for the situation. This way, his adaptability would beco his strongest trait.

Ashen was glad for this because he was forced to recognize that it was not strength that was the most defining factor in surviving in war, but being adaptable.

Silent Footfall's training didn't last for more than a couple of hours per day, and that was because Ashen decided that if he wanted to be adaptable, he ought to learn more than just skills convenient for the situation.

Taking a deep breath, Ashen willed himself to leave the area of the training halls, and he smoothly transitioned to another area. It was a deserted space, with only a transparent circle that shone at irregular tis.

Ashen hesitated for the first ti as he approached the circle.

And it wasn't for nothing that he wavered, as he had configured that space to simulate extre situations that he could find himself in real life, to be prepared if they ever happened for real.

As for how extre... Well, it was enough for even his current determined self to pause each ti he had to go in there.

But hesitation only lasted for a mont before he decisively stepped in, and the mont he did, a dozen Narkals were summoned to flank him from all sides.

This sequence was easy, but it was ant to help him acclimate ntally in case he was surrounded by enemies and not panic.

It didn't take long for him to dispatch them, but a dozen more were summoned alongside archers that rained arrows from the back.

Ashen would have normally reacted to the arrows by sound alone while keeping his hyper vision on the lee fighters, but suddenly, every voice vanished.

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His hearing was stripped.

But even with that handicap, Ashen could still compensate with his powerful eyes as long as he kept his field of vision wider and paid attention to his flanks.

He spent a couple of minutes fighting with no hearing, but just when he got comfortable enough, his sense of touch was also stripped.

The feedback from his feet on the ground, from his hands clutching his weapon, from the way his spear vibrated when a stab rang true… every tactile cue had disappeared, and he was forced once again to rely on his eyes to confirm what he usually knew from touch alone.

Now, he glanced to the ground more often. He also didn't divert his attention until he visually confird that a Narkal was truly dead and not faking it. Even the stabs of his spear beca more hesitant.

And this ti, he didn't even get to adapt before his sense of sll was also stripped away, magnifying every disadvantage he already had.

The Narkals never stopped coming, of course, since he made it that way, but also because they were that way in reality.

But even with four of his senses stripped, Ashen still considered things tolerable up to this sequence. Proof of that was that he still hadn't let a single scratch touch him until now.

But when all his senses suddenly ca back, he didn't rejoice, because in the next mont, he beca blind.

That was when his hell truly began.

He transitioned from a veteran soldier to a stumbling ss really fast, and the Narkals picked up on his blindness, not wasting any ti taking advantage of it and making things worse.

Not even a minute in, and he was stabbed and slashed more than seven tis. He was barely standing by then, and one more slash at his neck ended him.

Unfortunately, in the realm of dreams, not even death could allow him respite.

He revived a couple of seconds before his last death, which allowed him to dodge the neck slash, but it was only that slash, as many more kept coming.

He tried to hear the strikes before they ca and sll the monsters to gauge how close they were, but such tasks were nearly impossible without years of dedicated training.

The only reason Ashen kept at it was because he was sure that, despite his clumsiness, he was leagues ahead of soone who had never gone blind or lost any of his senses already.

He had seen them before. So of the Narkal champions had many uncanny skills, and skills that gave temporary loss of senses were never off the table.

Those who had to face the terror of being stripped of their senses never lasted more than a strike. They beca like pigs in a slaughterhouse—ready to be slaughtered.

And most of all, he didn't want to overly rely on his hyper vision to the point where being stripped of it would make him entirely useless.

The torture of blindness didn't last for more than a couple of minutes before the switch happened again, restoring his vision in return for robbing his other senses.

But it was never the sa; he had been doing this training for more than a month, two months if counted with the double ti granted by the dreamscape.

So he had thought of various scenarios, and those sa scenarios manifested in this self-inflicted torture.

The battlefield sotis turned smoky, covering most of his restored vision. Other tis, it beca pitch black. Sotis the setting changed to swamps, deserts, or forests.

It was never the sa.

As the hours went by, Ashen arrived at the sequence that he most detested.

A bone in his shoulder suddenly cracked on its own. It barely fazed him as he wielded the spear through the pain with almost no change in expression, but then his entire left arm was cut off.

Ashen had to bite back the slew of curses that threatened to spout out at his past self for thinking that if he ever lost an arm, he could instantly adapt with this training.

But he didn't waste ti in transitioning to holding his spear in one hand, balancing the shaft across his forearm.

His strikes beca less powerful when he used this posture, but he just had to focus on hitting only the most vital parts, such as the eyes or the ears.

Suddenly feeling his stomach spill out its guts, even though he hadn't taken a hit there, finally did it for him, and he was only able to last a minute more before blood loss evoked intense dizziness, which allowed one of the Narkals to hit the back of his head with a hamr, finally ending his suffering.

When he ca back, Ashen stayed there, numbly looking at the space with a vacant look for a couple of seconds before shaking his head.

"Enough for today."

This training made his body rember the stress patterns without actual physical damage, giving him adaptability. But he sotis felt that he would go crazy before adapting.

This made him seriously think of his ntal health, which had him rember sothing in the description of his Lucid Dreamweaving skill that he often ignored.

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Lucid Dreamweaving (Basic):

—Allows the user to enter lucid dreams while asleep.

—Grants limited control over dreamscapes.

—Improves rest quality.

—Heals ntal and emotional wounds with continued use.

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'Using it improves rest quality and heals ntal and emotional wounds with continued use.'

Even without tangible proof, he was certain that these elents were present; otherwise, he didn't think he'd hold on until now. But then he thought, 'Isn't there a way to amplify them?'

That way, he could keep pushing himself more in training without risking fracturing his psyche and overwhelming himself.

That idle thought beca an urgent requirent when he sotis confused real n with their skinless counterparts and had to take a second look at the soldiers in reality, or when phantom pains reminiscent of his extre training kept assaulting him even though he was perfectly fine physically.

The Healing Sanctuary was what he ca up with to combat this.

Simply, it was a resting place for him, but unlike what he called it, it had no inherent healing qualities.

The Sanctuary worked more as an optimization of his own sleep and neuroplasticity, not supernatural healing.

He was not fixing wounds; it was more of allowing his body and mind to repair at ideal efficiency, guided by his lucid control.

The mont he reached the healing sanctuary, the first thing he was greeted with was the changed air.

It had a faint density and a gentle pressure, like being underwater. It slowly quieted his intrusive thoughts, muffling the ntal noise.

It wasn't only the air; all his senses rejoiced upon coming here.

That was because he tuned everything precisely: warmth exactly at 36.5°C, faint scent of clean rain, ambient sound frequencies that matched human rest-state alpha waves. It was a sensory balance that would be almost impossible to encounter naturally anywhere else.

Looking at the sky, he glimpsed abstract shapes of shifting orbs and geotric constellations that he felt embodied specific emotions such as rage, grief, or serenity.

Looking at those shapes sohow made him process and release emotion, instead of suppressing it.

But his most proud masterpiece in this sanctuary was, without a doubt, the ground that felt like soft moss beneath him.

This was also the reason why he called this the healing sanctuary, even though it was taphorical healing.

The ground had a neural conditioning layer, and when he lay down, the dreamscape slowed his brainwaves, simulating optimal sleep cycles, going from deep to REM and then back to deep sleep. So, rely lying here literally accelerated recovery ti by forcing proper sleep architecture.

But simulating deep sleep within the dreamscape, which was basically the REM realm, made him achieve deep sleep conditions within REM, effectively making both cycles overlap, and reaching "the ultimate sleep efficiency hack".

Ashen even had to make failsafes to kick him out of this place; otherwise, this perfect resting environnt would probably paralyze his brain to not want to wake up ever again.

Thud.

For now, Ashen had none of these considerations. His only thought was to just lie down and rest.

"Crafting such a perfect place to sleep, I'm truly ant for the sloth pathway... hehe... Haaah... so... tired...Zzz...Fwoo... fwoo..."

As if stirred by that careless remark, an unseen red fla wavered faintly, its glow edging toward orange but never quite reaching it.