Breathing Technique?

One year swiftly passes by with Art staying with the elven royal family. During the past one year, quite a lot has changed for him. First he turned 6 years old and had an extravagant part with Tess. Next his friendship with Tess became more solid with them spending many hours a week going out together, having picknicks and spending lots of time talking about their individual interests.

His relationship with Tess's family also increased dramatically. At first Alduin and Merial where hesitant with Art's stay but as he got closer to Tess those feelings dwindled to the point that they are now more than happy for Art to stay and threw him a party and gifts for his birthday.

The biggest change was his strength after spending a year training under Virion. Having a tutor to teach him magic made his progress in understanding and manipulating the elements much simpler than if he was by himself. His progress with martial arts and weapons also increased significantly.

Through training techniques from King Greys memories plus being able to spar Virion allowed him to make swift progress and although he hasn't mastered all of them, he at least has a high understanding of most of them.

He even reached light red stage in his mana core development and is nearing the border for advancing to a dark orange core.

…

Yet another day began with Art waking up at the crack of dawn before heading down for his daily workout. After that he sat down on a bench and started thinking about the technique he wishes to create.

'The past year I have been mostly focusing on my fire and wind element with a little of the other 2 basic elements like earth, water but haven't yet started the advanced elements. Since fire and wind have good synergy, I thought it is the most useful ones to focus on for now. The advanced elements like lightning and ice would be really useful but they are much harder to learn.

Since I have mostly focused on fire and wind maybe I should use the fire style, since I haven't seen the wind one so I don't know where to really start on making that one.

Okay, fire it is. Now I need to try remember the different moves, and since I didn't read the manga, I might need to supplement moves with some of my own or ones from King Greys memories.

Now from what I remember from the film is that there are 6 forms. 1st form: Unknowing Fire, where you charge forward at blazing speeds and deliver a single slash, aiming to kill in one shot.

2nd form: Rising Scorching Sun, which is the upwards slash attack.

3rd form: Blazing Universe, which is the downwards slash attack.

4th form: Blooming Flame Undulation, which is where the sword is swung in a circular motion allowing it to block attacks or hit multiple enemies.

5th form: Flame Tiger, which is where a barrage of slashes is unleashed against the enemy at super-fast speeds.

6th form: Rengoku, which is where you are propelled forward aiming to deliver a single powerful finishing blow, very similar to the first form.

Now there may be others like 7th or 8th form but they where not shown in the movie. For now these forms will work fine and I can work with master to maybe add forms based on what's needed. Especially since from the 6 moves, 2 are meant to be a 1 hit, 2 are for single opponents and 1 is more defence orientated. So there is a lack of multi enemy attacks but maybe I can try off set that by learning the water style or lightning style down the line.

Now for actually training and recreating the breathing technique, will be a lot more complicated. In the anime they breath a certain way to increase strength and then use the sword style to do the moves. One thing to note is that the flames and water of the moves aren't actually elements like magic attacks and are purely visual.

Replicating the sword moves is easy enough as I just have to follow what they did in the anime but the breathing technique is the hard part. Is it necessary to use the sword moves? The breathing just increases their strength so they can face the demons but I am plenty strong enough and can get stronger through mana so the breathing technique's bonuses will be very minimal.

That's the standard breathing technique though, made in a world without mana or some sort of magical energy. What if instead of breathing to inhale oxygen I instead tried doing it for mana.

Since mana greatly increases my strength more than simply inhaling oxygen then it could be worth trying. The biggest problem is that I have no idea how to do the breathing techniques. It's not like I can remember exactly how they breathed in the anime and even then, this is for a style only shown in combat, not how its trained.

I think I should start by trying to breath and take in large amount of oxygen and mana. Since I already have experience taking in mana while moving, then taking in large amounts and strictly guiding it to strengthen my body should be somewhat simple.

After that I should start practicing the sword moves. I would like to add mana to the moves to actually create the effects and make my attacks actually hot and flaming but if I instead get to a high level without mana then when I finally add mana, the techniques should be at an even higher level.

Well, I have no base or master to teach me how to breath correctly so I will have to do trial and error, and maybe ask master if he has any advice since he has many years of experience.'

Art closes his eyes and starts to take in deep breaths in a verity of patterns taking in both oxygen and mana with each breath.

…

Over the next few months, he continues training with Virion and going out with Tess, while in his free time he practices his own techniques and tries to get the breathing technique finished.

Art right now could be seen sitting down in his bed, looking like he is meditating and breathing in a certain pattern. Each time he inhales a whirlpool of air and mana spirals towards his face as he inhales.

His blood starts pumping around his body at fast rates and his veins start to bulge slightly. His body also starts to radiate a slight red glow which is also heating up the nearby air.

He keeps it up, trying to go for as long as he can. After about 30 minutes his lungs start to feel like they are on fire and his whole body starts to ache painfully.

He opens his eyes and stops the breathing technique. 'Pretty good. Managed to keep it up for 30 minutes this time. The main limiting factor preventing me from going for longer is the mana. Inhaling such large amounts, turning it into flame element and using it to consistently reinforce my body, creates a lot of stress for my body.

This wouldn't happen if I absorbed the mana into my core and then used it but because I am using it naturally it allows me basically infinite but also means its rougher and harder to use. I wouldn't be able to use it for spells and attacks but for enhancing by body in combination with increased oxygen allows me to use it for that singular purpose.

Well now I've got the breathing technique I need to practice the constant breathing version where I constantly breath with the technique but I also need to start practicing the swordsmanship. I've already created a rough outline of the moves and got everything prepared, so tomorrow I can instantly go into practicing.

Although since I won't be using a katana and instead a regular sword some adapting will have to be done. Master can help with polishing the moves to make them usable in battle.'

Falling asleep from the exhaustion of the breathing technique, he gets a good night sleep ready for the morning. Waking the next day, he does his normal routine before wanting to start on training his flame sword style.

Unfortunately, his plans where ruined when Virion arrived alone. "Okay brat. Today we are going out for some real practice. Little Tess is going to practice magic with her mother so we are going to go on a trip and get you some real practice.

We have 3 targets that you need to deal with today. You are allowed to use any method you want and if you complete all 3 without my assistance then you will get a reward. If you don't then you will be punished by being Tess's test subject for taste testing her baking.

Now come on, the targets are quite far from each other so we will have to use all the time we can. I will explain the targets when we reach them, try to keep up brat."