Marvelous Martial Arts (A Marvel Story)

Mason had assumed they knew about it, which was why he had mentioned it so offhandedly. It was well-known in the comics as well that while in his rock form, Ben did not age. Apparently, he had been wrong in his assumption.

Reevaluating what the Fantastic Four knew about their powers, Mason added, ”You may perform your own tests, but I am quite certain of my claim. But what Ben here has is only immortality of the flesh. Even if his body never ages, there will come a time when his spirit perishes. True immortality is not so easily achieved.”

He turned to the rest, ”You all show some special characteristics in your Three Treasures, but they are effects. Still, overall, you remain well within the parameters of what I would call ’normal’ humans.”

They were still clearly shaken by the revelation of Ben’s possible immortality, but Reed recovered remarkably fast, saying, ”I see. I expected as much, although I must admit it would have given us a simpler answer if you did feel a difference. Still, I believe that this guidance I mentioned before did exist, only that it was an internal one. I drew some similarities between your case and ours which were absent in the normal person, but if you felt nothing… strange.”

Mason scratched his head, deep in thought, before offering, ”I think I follow your train of thought, and maybe I could try something else. But it’s quite… unique. How familiar are you with the notion of Dao?”

”Vaguely. A fragmented whole beyond intellectual understanding, the way of the universe. Something which may only be understood through enlightenment, a mystical view of the laws of the universe.”

Mason glared at Reed, wondering how that could be called a vague understanding. He let go of it, since that was probably considered vague in Reed’s opinion, and Mason snapped his fingers, applying the Concept of Push from the Gravity Dao.

Ben stood completely still; Johnny and Sue had their hair blown back, and Reed’s face undulated like ripples on a lake. A disappointingly weak effect, considering the work Mason had put into understanding it, but it was to be expected.

While they looked at him with questioning gazes, Mason explained, ”You will have to forgive my poor mastery of it, but what I just did was to apply my understanding of gravity to you, applying the concept of repulsion to you. In the same way, I can apply the Concept of Ignition from the Fire Dao,” a flame flashed in the palm of his hand, drawing a much greater reaction from them this time, ”to create fire.”

Johnny looked appalled, though not for the reason one might expect. ”You’re trying to steal my power! I’ll sue you!”

He was promptly smacked in the back of the head by his sister.

Meanwhile, Reed looked like he had forgotten all about the original point of the meeting, his neck stretching as he closely examined Mason’s hand, personal space all but forgotten as he asked with fervor, ”Are you telling me you are forcing your understanding of the Dao on reality?”

Mason had not shown him his skills in Divine Sense before this day, seeing no point to it. They had been more focused on the Treasures themselves than what their awakenings allowed him to do.

”Not forcing, no. As you said, the Dao is not something which can be transmitted into words, but it would be more accurate to say I am drawing out what was already there. You should think of it in matters of union, not forceful takeover.”

He looked at Johnny, adding, ”What I did was a traditional test, but Reed has given me an idea. Although your powers do not appear to stem from cultivation, since I possess a rudimentary understanding of the Fire Dao, I could inspect Johnny through it if you are fine with it, of course. Although this shouldn’t hurt you, you can still refuse.”

Johnny rolled his eyes at him, snorting, ”As if I could after you said all that. Let’s get it over with already. What do you need me to do?”

”You can start by creating flames. Enshroud your hand in them, for example. Make it as cool as possible, please.”

Johnny made an entirely unnecessary flourish with his hand, and suddenly it was covered in bright orange flames. He looked smug about it, as if to show how easy it had been to him, when Mason had only managed to create a flash.

Unfortunately for his pride, Mason’s attention had been pulled entirely to his hand as he projected his Divine Sense.

The first thing Mason felt was how cool the flame was. It did not feel any hotter than a candle, perhaps even less, which should have been impossible with a flame that size. But then, what truly struck him was how natural it felt. His senses told him this was no mystical flame, and yet he had seen Johnny create it out of seemingly nothing.

Not that Mason had ever felt a mystical flame, but Johnny’s fire felt too strange, as if it was contradicting itself, in a way.

Pondering for a moment, Mason suddenly reached out, grabbing Johnny’s hand in his own. This earned a surprised yelp from Johnny, and shouts of caution from Susan and Ben, but they stopped when they saw Mason did not appear to be harmed.

In reality, the flame did cause pain to Mason, but it felt closer to placing his hand on a hot radiator than touching direct fire.

Physical contact made everything much clearer, and Mason got an inkling of how the flames were produced. To his Divine Sense, the flames had a devouring property, taking something from Johnny’s body. This was nothing mystical; if he had been a normal human, his flesh would have constituted the fuel for the fire.

But since Johnny’s flesh was intact and he was not burning to his death, the fire was taking something else.

Finding out the fuel of Johnny’s flames was not Mason’s goal, though. Instead, he was far more interested in the flesh that was resisting the fire. It was not particularly tough, but it had a similar devouring capacity as the fire itself.

Mason finally realized where the notion of a cycle came from. The flame was sucking something from Johnny to burn, and Johnny’s body was sucking the heat from the flames to both protect him and create energy. Scientifically, Mason was pretty sure he was missing something, since no cycle should transmit energy with zero loss, and the energy did have to come from somewhere originally, but he did not care to find it out.

It was all very fascinating, but Mason did not find what he had been looking for.

When his flesh started blackening from soot, Mason finally retrieved his hand, channeling Chi through it to heal the damage.

”So? Found anything?”

”No. Reed gave me some inspiration, and I thought that maybe Johnny possessed some special affinity to the Fire Dao, which could have served as this ’guidance’ Reed mentioned. Maybe it does exist, but I could not feel it. Sorry, Reed, but as far as I can tell, there is truly no connection between your circumstances and cultivation.”

Reed sighed, ”It’s fine; it was far-fetched at the start. Besides, you’ve given me a lot to think about already. Do you think I could observe your… manifestation of the Dao more closely?”

Mason chuckled at that, inwardly musing that Reed was a true scientist through and through. ”Yeah, that’s fine. Before that though, have you had any insights into my own condition? Not to sound selfish…”

Reed looked perplexed, and Susan instantly translated, ”That’s the look he gets whenever he doesn’t know. Doesn’t happen often.”

Ben scoffed, ”More often than you’d think.”

Reed glared at the two before revealing, ”I can’t give definite answers about a subject I know next to nothing about, and which I thought was pure fantasy only a month ago, but most of the conclusions I had been brought to hinged on what I thought I understood about our own powers. That’s why analyzing your manifestations of the Dao would be very helpful. Still, I do have a hypothesis, which might help you understand how to break past the limits.”

”I’m listening.”

”Quite simply, it all depends on the Spirit. I believe you mentioned to me before that the Three Treasures are supposedly equal to one another, and that they begin mixed together and will end back in harmony. Sue’s findings say otherwise.”

He looked at Susan, who perked up and explained, ”Reed did most of the work; I just had a realization while watching his work. As you know, we managed to equate what you call Chi with bioelectricity. In other words, it is an actual energy present within your body, something that can be detected and quantified. But for your Breath and Spirit, we never found anything. What if… we shouldn’t try to? What if for those two Treasures, there was truly no physical manifestations of it?”

Mason looked at the two and directly shut off the idea. ”I can assure you with 100% certainty, the Spirit and the soul are definitely present within our bodies. It can’t exactly be said to have a physical manifestation, though…”

Mason trailed off with a frown as he fell deep in thought. He was onto something; he could feel it, yet the idea remained just outside of his grasp. It was this frustrating feeling where he could tell the idea had sparked in his mind for an instant, but he had failed to grasp it, and now that he tried to recall it, it eluded him.

Still, if there was one thing he was certain of, it was that he disagreed with Reed’s intake. Although the Spirit might play some role, breaking through to the next level would not solely depend on it. Mason knew that the Spirit may look superior to the other two Treasures, being the end of the road and granting such control over the other two, but he remained convinced the answer lay elsewhere. He believed so precisely because of how strong his own Spirit was, which took away from the mystery most others held it in.

Recognizing the state Mason was in, but being unable to help whatsoever, Reed waited for a few seconds and offered, ”Getting an actual manifestation of your Breath through the Dao might help us pick up on this energy. Sorry we couldn’t help you.”