As soon as I got the necessary rest and a quick light snack we continued on with offensive actions, which is what I had been waiting for all day.

“Before we begin offensive action I want to end your lesson on defensive action with a quick note you should always keep in mind, and that will also help you be better offensively, as both go hand in hand.”

He took back his position on top of the large rock he had before. For some reason whenever he did that I would start to get goosebumps.

“Whenever you are defending against any form of attack the three forms of defensive maneuvers you should perform by order of importance are evasion, deflection or interception, and blocking. No matter what you should always prioritize not getting hit, if that becomes impossible then deflect or intercept the attack’s path of progression this can often set you up for nice counter-attack situations, at the risk of taking a little damage. If all those fail, and you have no other options only then can you block. The reason being that it is the most dangerous of the defensive maneuvers, forcing you to take damage as best you can often with negative results.”

He took a pause and gave me a knowing look.

“You may have noticed I made you do evasion training in a weird order, that is because I wanted to make you do dodging in the type of combat situation you were least comfortable with, all the way to the one you were probably most familiar with. I also hardly gave you instruction as although blocking is the maneuver you least want to do it is the one amateurs like you need to learn how to do first, as it is more likely you will get hit than be able to dodge at your current skill level.”

He grabbed a medium-small rock and started to chuck it up and down with his hand. The old man really liked to torture me psychologically didnt he.

“Furthermore I also had you practice evasion training with stones first as I wanted to reveal to you a little dirty secret Martial Arts Experts and Rankers know but never talk about. That is that most of the fights between high-level Experts and Rankers are long-distance Ranged battles. And so most of your fighting knowledge in the real world outside of the Martial Arts paradigm will mostly be on your ability to evade, handle, and counter-attack an opponent who is adept at long-distance battle. This reality is the true reason the Warrior class including Martial Artists struggle so much in the Ranker World. Their lack of ranged abilities has become a huge burden and acts as the Wall all members of the Warrior class have to overcome if they truly want to succeed and survive as Experts. Of course, this will be a Wall I will help you overcome.”

The old man's words made me hearken back to the first real Ranker battle I had seen and experienced first hand.

Indeed almost three-fourths of the combative moves they used on each other were of long-distance and wide range. Likus used powerful beams and unorthodox abilities to strike from long range, while almost all of Kini's arsenal consisted of powerful and effective long-range techniques.

That could've been the difference in power, and why Likus was forced to perform the ultimate sacrifice despite his fearsome speed, strength, and vitality.

I also thought of my battle with the Clansmen and it finally dawned on me why I had managed to survive and reach this point in my journey.

I might have not had fighting ability or any ability for that matter, even less an exceptional physique or constitution, but at the end of the day I did have something that those Clansmen lacked and that was Range.

The Magical Slingshot and its powerful Ammo made me a threat at a long distance even more so than perhaps a regular Gunner or a regular Marksman.

Just this fact alone has allowed me to avoid any direct and fatal damage and given me a large margin of error that has allowed me to stay alive.

It seems my combat instincts and tactical mind were sharper than I thought. Perhaps I should pay more attention to my marksmanship.

“Okay now that that's out of the way, let's move on to offensive action exercises. Following the logic we just went through, I want you to throw rocks at me for half an hour and try to hit me. If you can do it well, you can skip today's resistance training.”

“We're still doing resistance training?!”

“All the training we did yesterday will be the basic training I will have you do on a daily basis you'll just do it towards the end of your scheduled day, now enough complaining grab some rocks, and do your best to hit me.”

I quickly grabbed some rocks and started to chuck them at the old man in a fit of rage.

I really wasn’t looking forward to resistance training. I had basically already undergone some of it in my attempt to dodge the rocks so my body was already aching.

“Focus, control your emotions, you won't be able to hit me if you throw rocks at me in that state. Even the act of rock-throwing consists of stance, posture, and technique. Do your best to figure out the best combination!”

The more he talked the angrier I got, but he was right. I had to calm down if I wanted to even have a chance of glancing him with a rock.

After half an hour of stone-throwing and completely failing at my task, we moved on to a different exercise.

He had me try to hit him with a stick. Again I also failed at that miserably despite thinking the closer proximity would give me better odds.

Finally he had me try to successfully strike him any way I could similarly to the first time he asked me to strike him.

The only difference was that this time I had unlimited attempts for half an hour. Not surprisingly despite trying, with every part of my body, I was capable of striking with, I still failed.

“I will now impart to you my knowledge on tactical skill and tactical action which you can use to contemplate and learn from your exercises today and use to improve on them tomorrow.”

He went back and sat down on the now-iconic large stone he liked to sit on.

“Tactical skills are the fundamental skills that are necessary for executing a winning plan before and during the fight. Although one of the important characteristics that is valued in War is the knowledge and information you have on your opponent, the fact of the matter is that fights and battles are unpredictable, and you will never know what will go down, so having a conventional game plan dependent on perceived rules and conditions is useless unless you're trying to die. But a competent fighter will have knowledge of these fundamental skills to better adapt or control said unpredictability.”

He raised his finger and paused for a moment.

“First knowledge and skill to adapt and manipulate your terrain. The terrain is all-important whether it's a one on one or an army vs an army. Without this skill, you are surrendering yourself to the unpredictability of nature.”

He raised his second finger.

“Second positioning, never corner yourself or put yourself in a position where you cant escape and always try to have the ability to put yourself in a position where you have the advantage over your opponent. Whether it be high ground, weapon superiority, skill superiority, or even just stance and posture superiority all these help put you in a position of victory and put the momentum on your side.”

He raised a third finger.

“Third, know how to put enough or the adequate distance between you and your opponent at all times. Perhaps you specialize in close-range combat and long-range puts you at a disadvantage. You still want to be careful at what capabilities your opponent has at different distances. As we just discussed this scenario is all too common but never just rush in without proper tactical distancing analysis. Perhaps a mid-range battle is what will give you the victory, always remember this, the fact that you can touch your opponent at close range for more lethal damage also means that your opponent can do the same to you, so never be rash.”

He slowly raised his fourth finger.

“And finally fourth timing, know when to strike, when to defend, when to run, when to hide, timing can be the difference between a successful attack or a broken arm, timing can allow you to escape with your life or perish, never be too proud or eager be patient and decisive, these are the traits that will make you a master in timing.”

He lowered his hand before raising back up again and lifting up his thumb.” “I might have lied perhaps there is a fifth skill, actually, in reality, there are tens of tactical skills you can try to actively work and improve in a fight, the battle isn't just in the physical plain but in the mental one as well, but there is one that takes precedence over them all and can be applied to further improve them all, and that is SPEED. Speed is everything speed will better allow you to control the terrain, speed will always give you better positioning, speed will make you a master of distance, speed will make you the sovereign of the timing arts, speed in the mind equals speed in battle. In Martial Arts and Fighting SPEED is everything.”

“Old man for as much as you emphasize on speed, you hardly ever make me improve upon it.”

The old man raised his eyebrows.

“So you're telling me I’m not training you hard enough, maybe I should add a speed exercise, maybe I’ll make you carry a stone on your back all day.”

I started sweating bullets. That sounded horrible. Why the hell did I have to open my mouth.

“Old man, I'm just kidding. I think I'm plenty fast enough already or I'll work on it later when I perfect every other fundamental first.”

“Don't be an idiot, why would I make you do that, that will only ruin your posture and back we don't want that. Besides almost all the exercises I’ve given you can be accomplished if speed as a skill is applied in a proper way. How would you hit me with the rock if your eyes and hands aren't fast enough? Same with all other offensive action exercises. And inversely how can you dodge a rock if you're not fast enough? And the same with the rest of the defensive action exercises. You will learn to be fast in the transition between stances and postures as well or else suffer for it. You need not worry about not getting faster boy I’ll make sure it happens.”

I was starting to get a clear picture of what the old man was trying to achieve with his training. And although it was tedious and harsh I was definitely starting to get excited about the possible results I could get.

This might have been the best decision I've ever made. The road to become a Martial Arts Expert had opened up for me.

“Okay old man we’ll do it your way.”

“That's good you should have more faith in my methods. I've yet to steer you wrong, now let's finish up with tactical actions. These playoff of tactical skills, the difference being you are purposely doing an action that will change the status or state of a battle if your action is successful. Mainly being to disable, debuff, trap, exhaust, and deceive.”

“I can understand what most of those mean but what does debuff mean.”

“To debuff means to negatively affect or reduce your opponent’s access to his fighting resources whether they be tangible or intangible. Something as simple as an intimidation tactic is commonly used as an effective and easy-to-use debuff in order to lower resolve. You can see why this would be something you would want to use in a fight, the same applies to the rest of these fundamental tactical moves they put your opponent in a compromised position in which you have all the control and they have none, you can use them in conjunction with tactical skills to get better and more effective results, now while you finish the rest of your physical training contemplate on how you can use the last two fundamentals to achieve success in tomorrow's exercises.”

After the long lesson, I finished the day off with two sets of efficiency training, strength training, and finally, the dreaded resistance training, although it was harder since I was already tired from the added training form earlier I somehow managed to finish them.

It was right on time for dinner and after that my long-awaited time with my beast hide sleeping bag.

I had managed to get through the fundamental training and I was actually feeling proud of myself. In fact, the truth was I was actually already feeling stronger and more adept just with all the knowledge the old man had imparted to me.

A Ranker’s life is one of learning that was a fact and something that became more evident to me as time went on.