Hou had woken up from the dream world, while he gained a new goal, he still needed to continue his previous one to start.
Now however, Hou had magic. Magic manipulated laws, and Hou concluded that spirits must be a combination of laws.
With his new technique, he should now be able to use spirits more efficiently. Spirits have 2 main types of laws, the laws that create their power and the laws that make them form into spirits.
Hou could not do too much now, but once he strengthens his soul more though he can awaken Araxis, he was the original creator of the spirits and should be able to manipulate them.
Hou knew these basics but also gained much from the memory packet Araxis gave him. Right now Hou wanted to check himself how spirits are.
Hou sat down and closed his eyes, he recalled the vibration from before and, in a state between sleep and wake, he removed his consciousness from the material world. Instead Hou was in the astral world, he could not see the spirits still though.
'Hmmm it seems it won't be that simple, I'm in the material world and so must be a separate astral world fir my current 'realm'. To see spirits I need to be in the astral world corresponding to the qi/spirit world. This is tricky, I must rely on witchcraft and scrying. Usually you use witchcraft to effect the physical but I know it can also go the other way round.'
Hou went back to his body and opened his eyes. Hou quickly moved, he flew out of his tent in the middle of the night using his false spirit wills.
Hou flew out, and through the physical blood dome; when Hou entered his dream he placed his blood formation that protects the sect in the material world.
Hou flew out and went to a remote mountaintop. On the mountain was various flowers and plant life. They were not healthy from the miasma but they were alive.
Hou sat and attempted to scry into the astral world corresponding to the spirit world. Presumably the two astral worlds had separate correspondence with physical things.
Hou successfully scryed, looking at various plants and seeing different colour lights. All the plants however had a tinge of purple, presumably the effect of miasma.
Picking up a flower, Hou looked at the lights. While scrying and looking at the laws, one can gain some understanding of their meanings. Hou looked deeply at the lights, focusing on the strongest light, a vivid orange.
He contemplated on it and a meaning surfaced in his mind,
'This is a law corresponding to growth, it is what makes the plant absorb minerals and grow. And this law is made of more laws, there's an absorbing law in there..'
Hou decided to pick up loads of different materials, when Araxis wakes he might be able to take in spirits with materials.
Hou collected material then flew back to the sect, going to sleep. He would need to get back into sect life once he wakes up.
The next day, Hou woke up early and brought in Hamar and Hafar into his tent.
"Welcome, come in, come in. Sit down and continue doing your practice."
Hamar and Hafar both nodded and came in, sitting down on the floor.
Hou also did the same, not preparing his acupuncture needles and poison. Instead, Hou astral projected and looked at the laws around the two. Hou had no mana or special body so could not practice any magic but could look into the two's inner workings. Surprisingly, Hou could see the Etheric body which Yue had instructed him on.
Hou wanted to see what wills look like in the astral world.
Once Hou saw this, he wanted to attempt acupuncture without Yue's help. Hou stopped projecting and instead activated scrying, while also growing spikes from his skin. He then condensed some paralytic poison closing the needles in it.
When Hou moved to place the needles, he could see where Yue was instructing him to, there were points across the Etheric body.
'this must be where wills travel across through the body'
Hou placed the needles with even more precision than when Yue instructed. Hou could physically look at the points he need to paralyse.
Hou saw Hou looked at Hamar and Hafar sitting for an hour and once an hour passed, he woke them up. They shook their bodies, feeling stiff from being paralysed for so long while sitting down.
"Sir Hou, I actually did it! I could move the will around manually!" Hamar informed Hou.
"Me too, I could just about shift it" Hafar chimed in.
"Good job, the next step is to put your will into your blood, then you can move the ability I bestowed around your body. That is the main idea. With your strength abilities you can either have little strength throughout the body or with simple movement have extreme strength in one place."
"Woah, that does sound extremely useful, I can even think of some applications with swordsmanship!"
"Well actually Hamar, I want you to learn something else. Let Hafar continue but I want you to do something else for me. Hafar leave for now, I want to talk to Hamar." Hou carefully informed Hamar to give up this thing he's been learning for weeks.
Hafar nodded understanding and left to pack for today's march.
"Hamar I've recently gained knowledge of something that would help you immensely. However, I want you to give up other abilities and focus purely on this new technique."
While in the dream, Hou had found that qi and managed were incompatible in a body, if Hamar wanted to become a knight, he would have to release all of his qi, and therefore parasites and abilities.
"... Do you think it's worth it, can I at least keep my arm?"
"Sadly, you cannot, but. I do think wholeheartedly that it is worth it, and very suited to you"
"Then why should I reject your offer, tell me"
"Well, this power is called aura...