The training yard behind the estate was not that big.
It was paved in stone, and had a short wall around it. In the corner, there was a wooden post that the person who lived here before must have used.
On the wall, there was a rack with three training weapons. it had a dull sword, a wooden pole, and a dagger that wasn't sharp at all.
With the green book open in his hand, Holden looked around. He realized that in his whole life, he hadn't found many things he liked more than a place meant only for working.
He read the Gale-Step entry through before he did anything else.
The core of Gale-Step was a weight-transfer principle. It explained how power travels from the ground up through your muscles. By shifting your weight just a split second earlier, you could gain speed without using more strength.
He closed the manual and set it aside.
He took one slow step, following the book's instructions. He moved from his heel to the front of his foot. His weight moved forward smoothly.
And his body remembered doing it a hundred times.
As his foot landed perfectly, His legs and hips adjusted to the new information instantly.
He took another step.
It was not graceful, at first.
For the first few minutes, Gale-Step felt like a beginner move, despite his power multiplier. He couldn't get the timing right. He kept walking laps around the training area, taking his time until the technique started to sink in and feel right.
After the first hour, he was moving faster than he could think.
His feet knew where to go and when to move before he even told them what to do.
He started to run.
Whoosh.
He was moving too fast for the space. He hit the far wall in just four steps and had to change direction.
He ran laps around the yard. He began making sharp turns while keeping his speed up. He was pushing himself to move like he would in a real, close-up fight.
He reached the Master level without even noticing. Forty minutes later, he hit the Ultimate level, and that's when he stopped running.
He stood in the yard, catching his breath.
He then sat down on the low wall.
He looked at the red manual sitting beside him where he'd put it two hours ago.
He opened it.
He'd read it once in the archive, enough to understand the shape of it. Now he read it properly.
The breathing pattern for Asura's Ignition wasn't hard to describe at all.
It had four stages, and each one had its own timing and flow. It told you how to guide your inner power gently rather than forcing it.
The manual did not mention what happened when any of those four phases went wrong. It seemed to assume you already knew the danger, and if you didn't, you were about to find out in a very personal way.
He set it down.
He sat in training yard and let the 100x multiplier settle into what it was about to be asked to do.
He breathed in.
He found the first phase.
He felt a sharp feeling in the place where his cultivated energy lived.
His multiplier fired.
The feedback came back like huge wave of information. He felt a hundred versions of that same sensation, each one slightly different depending on a variable he'd adjusted by a fraction, each one telling him where the form had been off and by exactly how much.
He adjusted.
Breathed again.
Crack.
It was still off, but less.
He adjusted again, but smaller this time.
Crack.
The sensation changed. It was still sharp, but different now.
He held the breath.
He moved the energy, carefully, through the first phase as the direction the manual described.
Something moved.
Something inside him that had not moved before, moved.
He let the breath out slowly.
Then he did it again.
Phase two was more difficult than phase one. Phase three was even harder. He got stuck during the third phase, but his power multiplier helped him get through it after about forty minutes.
The sun had gone down by the time he achieved the Perfect tier.
His body didn't glow or look different at all. But on the inside, it felt like all the energy paths he had been practicing with for hours.
He held it for ten seconds before letting it go. He followed the instructions and let the energy wind down slowly instead of just cutting it off.
Holden sat quietly and listened to the sounds of the academy outside. He could hear voices and footsteps.
He thought about Silas.
If you manage it, come back and tell me how.
He was going to have to go back to the archive.
He checked his hands, but they looked fine. There were no burns or signs of what he had just been through. From the outside, you couldn't tell that anything was different. He felt for his pulse at his wrist. His heart was beating slowly and calmly.
Come back and tell me how.
He picked up both manuals, and kept them back inside his jacket.
The system screen appeared at the corner of his vision.
[Gale-Step Footwork: Ultimate Proficiency.]
[Asura's Ignition: Perfect Proficiency.]
[System Stats: 50 KP]
| Multiplier: 100x |
[Fighter Rank: Rank 1 (3-Star)]
The sun was setting, and the training yard was getting dark. From inside the house, he heard Maeve making noise in the kitchen, even if she didn't exactly know how to cook yet.
He stood up and went inside.
Maeve was busy at the stove, looking very focused. She was stirring something with a wooden spoon. To his surprise, the food actually smelled like it was going to taste good.
"There's enough for two," she said, without looking up.
"Good," he said.
He sat down at the kitchen table.
The evening light came through the window. It put a patch of yellow sunlight on the table where he was sitting.
He sat in it for a while.
He thought about the academy and the challenges it would throw at him. He realized just how far he still had to go to reach his potential. He wasn't sure what the future held, but he knew his life was heading toward something much bigger.
Then Maeve put a bowl in front of him and said, "I made rice. I've never made rice before. It might not taste good."
He looked at it.
"Looks fine to me," he said.
"Don't just say that."
"It looks genuinely fine."
She sat across from him and looked down at her bowl with a frown and said,
"I think I added too much water."
"Maeve."
"It's slightly mushy."
"Maeve, I ate stale bread for breakfast yesterday."
She looked up.
"This," he said, "is the best rice I've ever had."
She gave him a look, trying to figure out if he was being serious or just teasing her like usual.
Then she picked up her spoon.
"It is pretty good," she admitted quietly.