[] Train With Yato
- [] Resistance: Mental
- [] Resistance: Physical
Mental: 12 + 10 + 2 (Yato Bonus) = 24
You and Yato spend more time upping your mental fortitude. Hiroko will likely be expecting you be as susceptible to her charms as when she first met you. You'll be happy to defy her expectations on that front. This session's more of Yato getting you to mediate and center your mind....which means more of him yelling at you whenever your thoughts wander to other things. Even so much as thinking about how your brother's doing is enough to get a mental lashing. It's annoying, but you further improve your mental defenses. Low Level Mind Manipulation shouldn't have much effect on you now.
Physical: 0 + 10 + 2 (Yato Bonus) = 12
You moved to your physique once you were done with the meditation. This one was a big trickier to improve. Yato's spiritual and mental attacks were hard to deal with, but ultimately wouldn't leave any traces of him doing it. This though, would require him to physical hurt you thus leaving marks you'll have to explain to anyone who noticed. Good thing your uniform had long sleeves.
Yato explained the principle of not tensing up when you're about to be hit by an attack, instead letting the force flow across your body to lessen the pain. It was a difficult thing to do as you had to fight against your bodies instincts whenever he would try to hit you with your own fist. By the end of the session you were battered and slightly bruised, but you had made some progress on learning the technique.
[UMT: 35]
Just like before, Yato moves on to teaching you the other aspects of the Unyielding Mountain that you were more prepared for it. First, he teaches you the Reflecting Wall Technique again, but the mental variant on it. Where your soul drew energy from your body to create the barrier, your mind would draw energy from your soul to make its. Other than that, it's the same move. You keep practicing it until you can do it instinctively without needing time to prepare. By the end you can use the Reflecting Wall: Mental Version Technique quickly in combat. (Reflecting Wall Technique: Mental Version will now automatically activate in Combat)
Then he moves on to teaching you how to apply the technique to your physical body, increasing its resistance to normal attacks. (Passive Upgraded! +10 to Resist Physical Based Combat Actions)
From there you can make a good guess as to what he was going to teach you next. Though you were still surprised when he told you about it. You would focus your mental energies and form a "cage" around your soul. This cage would be used to defend your spirit from attack, but would put your mind at risk due to the amount of concentration required to keep the cage up. This Technique was named, Spirit Guarding Cage. (Gained Technique: Spirit Guarding Cage)
[] Train With Yamato
- [] Empathy: Motives
Motives (Hayato): 0 + 15 = 15
5: Now that you know the basics about how others feel, it's time you moved to the motives behind the feelings. These are a bit more difficult for you to understand because, well, you can't understand what would motivate someone to do specific things. However, you'll willing to give it a try. You start small with understanding the most basic of things that would motivate people to act. Things that would make someone get a drink from the fridge for instance.
10: From there you move on to slightly more important things. These motivations usually either come from some outside stimulus or from a certain circumstance a person finds themselves in. By the time your thinking is done you begin to understand more advanced things that would motivate people to act. Such as, making them apply for a job.
15: Things start getting harder here. You've managed to grasp the reasoning behind the basic motivations...for the average person. An average person would be motivated by, usually, average things and circumstances. However, those same things might not motivate someone who was considered above or below average. At that point, things start getting more complex and complicated. However, you do start on the path to being able to understand what motivates the less and more fortunate.
Motives (Yamato): 0 + 10 + 2 (Hayato Bonus) = 12
5: Teaching Yamato these things proves to be harder than the time you taught Yato about people's feelings. Not because he didn't understand what you were talking about. He repeatedly demonstrated that he understood what a person's motivation was. However, he would constantly present it as a logical statement without understanding the emotion behind it. Or refusing to see it. It took a lot of persistence on your part, but you finally managed to get him to understand the emotional reasoning behind basic motivations.
10: Being on a roll, and this being the only time you've seen your bro this emotive in a while, you continue to explain the concepts that you're trying to get across. Things go smoother this time, but you can't help feel like something's...wrong. Like your brother is learning and taking the things you're saying to heart, but doesn't want to. Either way, you do manage to get him to understand the emotional reasoning behind more advanced motivations.
[] Train Alone
- [] Speech: Persuasion
Persuasion: 5 + 10 = 15
5 - 15: This was fucking easy! If there's one thing you're good at, it's convincing people to see things your way through passionate appeals to emotion! All you needed was someone besides Yamato or Yato to practice with, and you found that in the various students at Raijin Academy. Your challenge was to see how many students you could convince to speak and listen to you before they had to go to class. By the time you were finished, you had managed to enrapture three other students with your oration.
When you get back to your dorm, you're surprised to find your brother playing cards with Yameko. The two are sitting on some pillows from the beds, with the cards set out on the floor between them. In the middle is a pile of Tokens that both keep eyeing when the other isn't looking. You stare at them as you walk over, "Hey you two. What's this?"
"I'm helping Yamato-sama improve his ability to trick others," Yameko says without moving her eyes off her cards, "If our encounter with Hiroko does come to blows, he will need to be familiar with the ways she attempt to fool him, while finding ways to fool her himself."
"In addition," Yamato says while analyzing his own cards, "our synchronicity in combat would improve if I were to become better at deluding the foe. Many of Yameko's abilities require both of us be able to accomplish such things."
"And the cards?"
"Cards require the player to master one of the most basic, yet powerful, tools in any trickster's arsenal: The Art Of The Bluff," her face remain still as stone as she lays her cards out on the floor, revealing five aces.
Your brother seems unimpressed as he lays down his own cards...and reveals a Royal Flush.
Both Yameko and you clap for him as your brother takes the entire pile of Tokens.
[Mental: 20]
After all these exercises to improve your mental defenses, you're starting to think about possible ways to outright stop someone from reading your mind. Hmm, maybe you could throw them off by thinking of useless trivia?
[Unlocked New Research Option: A Busy Mind]
Activities (Pick Three):
[] Go Out Alone:
- [X] Martial Arts Club
- [] Cafeteria
- [] Gym
- [] Library
- [] Faculty Room
- [] "Rewards" Center
- [] Chess Club
- [] Robotics Club
- [] Track Field
[] Go out with Yamato
- [] Martial Arts Club
- [] Cafeteria
- [] Gym
- [] Library
- [] Faculty Room
- [] "Rewards" Center
- [] Chess Club
- [] Robotics Club
- [] Track Field
Weekend Training:
[] Train Alone
- []
- []
- []
[] Train with Yato
- []
- []
- []
[] Train with Yamato
- []
- []
- []
[] Train with Yameko
- []
- []
- []
[] Train with Hose
- []
- []
- []
Relations:
[] Hang with Yamato
[] Meet up with Yameko
[] Spend time with Yato
[] Go train with Hose
Research:
[] A Busy Mind: They can't know what you're thinking if you're thinking of random crap. (+5 to all Mental Resistance Checks)
[] Diplomancy Level 1: Try and improve your ability to conduct diplomacy. If you can better get people to see things your way with words alone, you could start really getting better relationships. (+5 to all Diplomacy Checks)
Possible Events:
[] Search the School: You go looking for Monsters or Organization members. Might lead to new Relationships.
[] Find Hiroko: Even if you're not ready to take her on...you can't just let her roam free. WARNING! Could result in Combat!
[] Gather for the Confrontation: It's time to face Hiroko. You'd better call up your Bro and Yameko. WARNING! Could result in Combat!
[] Ask Yamato what's wrong with him?: It's time you got to the bottom of this. Locked until Relationship Rank 8.
[] Analyze your Parent's Stuff: Maybe there's something here that you missed. ???
Got it done.
For the record, the "+2 (Hayato Bonus)" thing, is because I realized I never explained what would happen if you trained someone with a Bonus and canceled out their Debuff. I decided that, since that's technically training with a Bonus and Normal Skill, the person being trained would get a +2 Bonus.
And, Yamato used his remaining two actions to increase his Trickery with Yameko as a helper.
