The 1000th Reincarnation

With one day left until the entrance exam, Zephyr wakes up, puts on his clothes, and heads to the training field. He already sees Yun training there. 

"You're on time. Good," Yun said, pleased that Zephyr made it on time. 

"I can see that you've practiced swinging your sword a lot since you made no mistakes in your form. However, your movement is sloppy. If you want to survive the entrance exam, sloppy movement will get you killed. Our bodies make qi much more useful than those of other sects, but if you can't hit anybody with the qi, it's useless," Yun lectured. 

"I'm going to teach you one of the Cult's most important forms, the Phantom Moon Step."

This is exactly what Zephyr wanted. The Cult's formidable force was due to this one technique. Their quick, unpredictable movement and energy-draining qi helped them almost conquer the entire continent of Kyomora. If Zephyr wanted to gain back his powers, he would need to obtain a movement technique like this to breach the other sects and absorb their divine energy stones.

"Look carefully, I'm only going to demonstrate this technique once."

Yun raises his sword and closes his eyes. He steps forward swinging his sword forward into the scarecrow, but then teleports right behind it hitting it from behind. 

"This, Baek, is the phantom moon step. This is the basis for all of our attacks. If you master this one technique, I guarantee most will not be able to beat you in a fight."

Zephyr hadn't listened to that last comment, trying to figure out what in the world just happened right in front of him. Right before the sword came down on the scarecrow he felt the qi leave Yun's body as if he formed another body with his qi and teleported into it. 

"This will probably take you at least a week to achieve even this so good luck."

Itching to try it out he unsheathes his sword facing the dummy. The first try he tried doing this he failed not moving at all. The qi he had put behind the dummy had worked but he couldn't figure out how Yun was able to somehow teleport behind it. Confused, he tried again and again until the afternoon when he still couldn't master this technique. 

The spirit that was next to Zephyr, witnessing all the failures, started laughing. 

"You were able to show me such unbelievable martial prowess in the illusion I kept you in but can't manage to do such a simple technique."

"Well if the technique is 'so simple' then why don't you tell me what's wrong?"

"And why should I help someone like you?"

"Think about it, if I die because I couldn't learn such a simple technique, what happens to you?"

The spirit thinks for a bit deciding that his best option was to help Zephyr. 

The spirit sighs realizing he can't win, "Well for starters, every single time you try to teleport it feels like something clogging you're qi circuits, right?"

Zephyr nods. 

"Then stop forcing everything out at once to teleport and instead try to open up you're circuits to let them flow naturally."

Zephyr lifts his sword to try again. Instead of pouring all his qi behind the scarecrow, he put as little as he could to only create an outline of his body and swung his sword. He opened all of his qi circuits and allowed them to be attracted to the qi he had put behind the scarecrow, and in a heartbeat, he appeared behind the scarecrow striking its back. 

"Huh, maybe you're not so useless after all." Zephyr sneered. 

"Hmph."

Zephyr returned to his house, content with the outcome of that training session. After returning, he side-eyes the cursed book. He had examined the book time and time again, but he couldn't figure out what the characters meant.

Is this an explanation for a sword art or a ritual of some sort?

"Hey, spirit, how do I use this book?" Zephyr says, feeling around the book.

The spirit sighs, "First, don't call me 'spirit', just call me Veldris. Second, it's exactly what you're thinking. It's a ritual written in blood. Many rituals at that."

Zephyr opened the book to a random page, showing a section that said, Echoing Rite. Zephyr repeated exactly what the book said. 

"Mok'lar shal'ka ash'mar ken'thor sha'karoth bel'nar..." 

A black aura surrounded Zephyr, shaking his entire room. As energy began gathering Zephyr's eyesight began to split, it was as if he was seeing two things at the same time. Then, Zephyr started hearing strangely. He began to hear what he was saying twice, everything around him was happening twice as fast, or twice as slow? Zephyr didn't know what was going on. He began to feel dizzy everything churning around him, he fell on his hands, experiencing the fall twice. Veldris panicked, if he didn't help Zephyr, Zephyr and Veldris would die. 

"Zephyr, Zephyr!", Veldris screamed. "Look at me. You have too much abyssal energy being released into this ritual right now. Force it away as much as possible!"

Zephyr's condition got worse. His breathing quickened, every action in his body being repeated again and again. Eventually, he forced the abyssal's dominion to go away, his body soaking every ounce of the energy back into his body. 

Zephyr fell onto his back, looking up at Veldris. 

"So this ritual makes everything I do repeat itself?"

"Precisely."

"Well, this could prove to be very useful if I master this."

Zephyr got up, determined he could do it this time around. He ran back to the training field, drawing his sword. Before, the ritual was unstable since he didn't control where he wanted to direct the energy. Zephyr, repeating the words he memorized in his head, channeled the energy extending from his two arms to the tip of his sword. He swung the sword downward striking the scarecrow. In a split second, he felt another blow hit the scarecrow even though he didn't swing his sword another time. 

This is a power I wasn't expecting this run, but I'll gladly take it. 

Zephyr returns to train his qi and get a good night's rest for the entrance exam the next day. 

...

In the middle of the night, Zephyr senses someone approach his house. Slowly, he gets up hiding right next to the door to catch the person by surprise. As soon as the man opens the door, Zephyr gets hold of the guy holding his blade to his neck. Right after, six other men surround him. 

What, how good are they at hiding their presence, I didn't detect them at all. 

Using the man he's holding as a hostage, he walks out the door. One step out the door, he drops the man and uses the phantom moon step to get away. As soon as he uses the ability, he runs into another man, knocking him out cold.