Re-birth: The Beginning after the End - Chapter 131

Chapter 131: THE TECHNIQUES PART 3
For the next week, the siblings practiced under the three keepers’ watchful eyes. Each dawn found them in the courtyard, learning to fade into the world around them. Lady Wei refined their control of the Breath of the World technique until their presence could blend seamlessly with the morning mist. Lady He drilled them relentlessly on their Permission Barriers, testing them with increasingly subtle probes until they could maintain their shields even in sleep. Lady Xu pushed them to understand the spaces between spaces, though maintaining the Dimensional Shift for more than a few heartbeats still left them trembling with exhaustion.

The days blurred together in a haze of practice. Li Wei approached each technique with scholarly precision, documenting his progress in careful notes each evening. Li Hao’s frustration gradually gave way to determination as he learned to turn his natural unpredictability into an asset. Li Hua’s innate adaptability served her well, especially when working with the more abstract concepts of existing between moments.

It wasn’t until they could maintain all three techniques simultaneously that Old Guo stepped forward to begin their next phase of training.

“This past week,” Old Guo rumbled, his voice deep as the earth, “you’ve all learned to conceal yourselves. But the world is full of those who refuse to accept what they cannot see.”

He took a slow step forward, his presence vast, pushing into the space around them like an approaching storm. “If a man cannot find you, he will search. If he cannot see you, he will probe. And when that fails, he will try to force you to reveal yourself.”

Li Wei’s gaze sharpened. “Spiritual probes.”

Old Guo nodded. “Yes. And if you cannot block them, you are already lost.”

Without warning, Old Guo lifted a hand. A pulse of energy shot toward them, sharp as a blade. Li Hua felt it immediately—a force not meant to physically harm, but to tear through defenses, to pull at the threads of their hidden cores.

A probe.

She clenched her jaw, instinctively tightening her spiritual energy. Wrong move. The probe latched onto the resistance, pressing deeper.

Li Wei was struggling beside her, his face strained in focus. Li Hao let out a quiet curse, his energy flaring in reaction.

Old Guo shook his head. “You resist. That is why you fail.”

The pressure grew sharper.

“Probing is not an attack—it is a demand for information,” he continued, his stance unmoving. “If you fight it, you confirm that something is there to be found. Your resistance is proof of your existence.”

Li Hua gritted her teeth. It made sense.

“So what do we do?” Li Hao growled, sweat forming at his temple.

Old Guo raised a brow. “You learn to cloak your core in the void.”

He waved a hand, and suddenly the pressure stopped. The force of the spiritual probe dispersed like mist before the wind.

“Again,” he ordered.

Li Hua exhaled slowly. This time, when the next pulse came, she didn’t resist. Instead, she imagined her core wrapped in shifting void energy, weightless and formless. Not empty, but undefined. Not something to be sought—because there was nothing distinct to find.

The probe passed right through her.

For a heartbeat, there was nothing.

And then, the world snapped back into focus.

Old Guo nodded. “Better.”

The next hour was spent refining the technique. Li Wei took to it quickly, his analytical mind grasping the mechanics behind not resisting, but dispersing. Li Hao struggled at first—his instincts screamed to push back, to fight. But he was learning, slowly, how to let go. Li Hua deepened her focus, drawing on the stillness of yesterday’s lesson. It was not about disappearing completely; it was about ensuring that if someone reached into the void looking for her, there was nothing solid to grasp.

The moment they had begun to grasp the Void Cloak, Old Tang stepped forward. Where Old Guo’s presence had been overwhelming force, Old Tang’s carried the weight of ancient secrets. His eyes held that same knowing glint Li Hua remembered from their previous encounter.

“If Old Guo teaches you how to make others find nothing,” he began, his voice carrying centuries of wisdom, “I will teach you how to make them find something else.”

Li Hua’s spine straightened like a drawn bowstring, recognition flickering in her eyes. The words stirred something deep in her memory—echoes of Mo Xing’s lessons on the thousand veils technique, where each layer of deception built upon the last until truth and illusion became indistinguishable.

“Concealment,” Old Tang said, moving in a slow circle around them, “is not just about hiding. It is about controlling what people perceive.” He reached into his sleeve and pulled out a small stone, holding it up to catch the light. “If someone searches for an ocean and finds a lake, they will think they have found what they seek. They will stop searching.”

The siblings exchanged glances, understanding beginning to dawn in their eyes.

Li Wei was the first to catch on. “You’re saying instead of making our presence disappear completely, we should alter it?”

Old Tang’s lips curved slightly. “Precisely.” He gestured for them to sit, his movements carrying that same careful precision she remembered. “Now, you will learn how to create a False Core.”

Old Tang guided them through the delicate process of altering their presence, his instructions precise and measured. Each word seemed carefully chosen, as if he was sharing secrets that had waited centuries to be revealed.

“The human mind,” he explained, his fingers weaving patterns in the air, “seeks patterns. Expectations. Familiarity. If you give them something that fits their expectations, they will believe it.” His eyes held a knowing gleam. “The strongest deception is not absence, but misdirection.”

The training was unlike the other trainings. Instead of hiding, they learned how to create a false signature—a fake inner core, one that gave off misleading energy. It was like learning to write with their opposite hand while maintaining their normal handwriting with the other.

Li Wei, ever the methodical one, made his energy feel weaker, like a low-level cultivator. His analytical mind approached the technique like a puzzle to be solved, each layer carefully constructed and maintained.

Li Hao made his signature scatter, making it appear unstable. His natural unpredictability served him well here—the chaos in his false core felt authentic because it matched his temperament.

Li Hua took a different approach, the approach Mo Xing taught her. She focused on layering her presence, creating two overlapping auras—one false, one real, like a mirrored illusion. Each layer told a different story, making it impossible to determine which was truth and which was deception.

“Good,” Old Tang murmured, watching them work. His eyes lingered on Li Hua’s technique, recognition flickering in their depths. “Now, let us see if you can maintain it under pressure.”