First day of my lessons.

After getting interrupted in my meditation by the old man , I went outside with the booklet in my hand with a broad smile on my face. Even not bearing any fruit of my meditation could lower my mood right now as I was going to start training my first Martial Art.

[Phasing Flash Step]

‘Finally! A Martial Art technique I can train! Now… let's see...'

I read the first few pages that were explaining the first step in learning this technique. But after reading everything about the first step, I got confused. Not because it was too complex but because of the opposite.

“Step one! Duck walk: do the duck walk while constantly squeezing your lower half of the body. Try to be as silent and as light as possible with your steps. When you can move without moving dust on the ground with a 1 metres per second then you can move to step two heel to toe walk…”

What? A couple of pages fully explaining the duck walk and how it should be done? Are you kidding me?

“Step two! Heel to toe walk: do the heel to toe walk in the exact same manner as the duck walk, silent and light. Strain every muscle on your feet yet don't force the ground. When you can walk at 4 metres per second without moving a single dust particle can you move to step three : silent jump… “

These exercises all want me to do the exercises to the point where I can do it silently and without moving even one dust particle. Can I even touch the ground? Like jumping as high as 5 metres and landing silently and without moving any dust is going to be impossible without Will!

I didn’t know what to say because at first, I thought this was just a joke to make me do duck walk like an idiot. But the more I read each page again, I could understand the reasoning that has been written with their aspects as well. If this was more of a guide to walk perfectly, I could have believed that.

And besides, Having the foundations down to the bone will most likely affect my execution of the movement art… So let’s just start without complaining much.

Or so I said but doing this perfectly was really hard. Like doing a step that was truly silent nor moving any dust in 10 minutes. I duck walked around the field. Or to be precise 20 steps in this field. I had to do the silent and not dust moving style from the beginning, making me fail countless times until I made it to the 3rd step. I am moving as slow as possible now and only speed up when I’m confident of doing this perfectly without thinking much.

Great plan, Laith… we will be stuck here for months!

Four hours passed painfully slow but I didn’t mind much when I stood up and went back to the hut with wobbly legs. The old man didn’t say anything about the way I trained, only watching from his chair in front of the hut. I swear I could see a slight smile so maybe I am doing the right thing?

Day 2 of my lessons

After the failed meditation, I went back outside again and right into that duck walk position. My movements improved slightly over the time. I did 30 silent steps in the first hour, in the second 50, in the third I stepped 100 steps and in the last one I almost reached 300. Way to go! I got too excited at my fast improvement and trained for another hour, achieving 500 steps in an hour and a strong beating from the old man.

But it was worth it! In this way, I could spare one more hour for the next steps. But repeating this is something I’d rather not do. Even if it meant having more time for the other three steps which didn’t involve any kind of Will. And wasting 2 days for the first technique was a bit frustrating for me.

Day 3 of my lessons

I managed to walk about the speed of half a metre per second, which was amazing progress for me! This meant I can do 1800 silent and motionless duck walk steps per hour and with my estimations, should be able to finish the first step tomorrow and start with the second step.

Am I a genius or what? hehehe!

After finishing the four hours, standing up was another hurdle I had to overcome. My legs felt like they were filled with jelly only. And I could never get used to this feeling. Thank god that since we started these lessons, the old man stopped giving me that disgusting goo and gave me actual food.

And it was delicious!

Day 4 of my lessons

I finished the first step by the end of the second hour. 3600 silent steps in an hour. I was relieved that I finally finished the first step. Since this made me feel awful afterwards. But this speed with the silence and motionless step felt nice!

On a side note, I finally understood what the old man meant with me being able to control my body better when I start to train this Art. This was only the first step, yet I could understand my lower body far better than I used to. And just unconsciously, I’d walk slightly quieter. Before this training, if I’d start to sprint, I’d have used a lot more strength, making me break the ground a little.

Wow… my steps can break the ground! I really did become stronger…

Now that I could control my strength to a certain level, I could also run faster without running out of energy as fast. I felt like flying when I just ran around a bit to see if there were any changes, making the old man make fun of me for being such a child. Hey! I’ll have you know that before, I was slower than your average human! And I achieved this control in 14 hours!

But at the end of the day, the old man looked happy that I was enjoying myself like this. What a weird thing to see in him. He would usually be a monster that was keen on torturing his handsome, poor student to death. How can you do this to your only disciple, you fucker!

‘This monster… just like his master, ey? I’m happy that my first and probably last disciple would be the same kind of monster to the supernatural world as I was once before. When they learned about the madman, they knew that a monster had descended upon the world… if it weren’t for that, I’d have gone around fighting my peers when I was young… such a shame… but I guess this fun will be something you will have. Right, Laith?’

I started to do the second step of the 4 steps which was the heel to toe walk. I started it in the same fashion I did the first one. Slow as hell. But knowing from before and having extreme details in the booklet, I could do it faster than when doing duck walking at the end of the four hours. About 1500 steps an hour. This was good. I had to somehow reach 14400 steps in an hour so this was a good start in my eyes.

Day 5 of my lessons

This time, I finished the second step at the end of the 4 hour mark. 4 metres per second… this was way too fast for just heel to toe walking. This reflected on my usual movement as well when not only the way I stepped changed but the strength and speed behind it as well.

My feet are now used to that style of walking. This adaptation was too fast for me but something I won’t reject. It was as if the muscles at my feet had been rearranged… when I asked the old man about what was the case, he told me that this training was especially given with these details so the one training will have his muscles realigned in the best way possible. Only thing unusual was the speed of my muscles realigning. It wasn’t bad but weird that I got used to it so fast.

I didn’t start with the next step but read through the third step one more time.

“Step three! Jumping: now that the user can walk silently and motionless, it is required to make the jumps of the user just as silent and as motionless as possible. Not moving one dust particle is essential in this process. The minimum requirements for the next step is to jump 5 metres up and land without any sound nor dust. It is recommended to get it up to 10 metres for a good foundation as well as having a duck walk speed of 3 metres per second and a heel to toe speed of 12…'

I knew exactly that after reaching the 5 metres mark, I would have to go back to the other steps and begin with the other steps again. I will not jump to anything without my foundation strong enough. Even if it was so tempting.

Day 6 of my lessons

I started lightly with no even actually leaving the ground. After some slight jumps up into the air, I found my problem here. This won’t take me long but the problem was the motionless part. If I have to jump high, I’ll have to use more strength for it which will cause dust to spread. But according to the booklet, instead of only focusing my leg muscles, I should use all of my body to get up into the air. After an hour, I got the hang and jumped 2 metres high and after the second I reached 5 metres.

Now it’s time to start from the beginning and during the fourth hour, I was able to get the 3 metres per second in duck walking while only reaching 6 metres per second in the heel to toes walk.

My progress is amazing… I shouldn’t get too conceited though… know your limits, Laith!

Day 7 of my lessons.

I reached 12 metres per second in heel to toe walking by the end of the second hour and reached 8 metres high after the 4th hour when I used the last two hours to train my jumping.

After my meditation, I felt down since for the last 7 days, I never showed any results which was even slow for a normal Awakened according to the old man. Will is a part of the body so not feeling your Will is the same as not feeling your arm.

But I felt a bit better after my training as tomorrow I could start the 4th final step of this movement art. I went back into the hut with a slight sad smile which wouldn’t have gone unnoticed to the old man. But he probably left me alone with the thought that my determination should be something I should get back up by myself.

Day 8 of my lessons

I reached 10 metres with silent and motionless jumps in the first hour. This was it. The next step! And the final one for now. I opened the booklet and directly understood why I needed the foundations better when starting to do the fourth step.

“Step four! Jumping horizontally: after being able to jump vertically silent and motionless, the user should train to jump in the same manner horizontally. It is to be warned that this won't be possible without combining every prior step. At the end it is considered mastered when the user can jump 30 metres straight without a sound and raising the tiniest dust particles… I get the recommended speed and height now… If I didn't do them I'd have a hard time even beginning with a 10 cm forward jump without any sound and raising any dust…”

I started with the same manner like every other exercise by starting very slowly and motionless as possible. A 10 cm jump forward should be a good start to see how good I can do it.

And failed! This is going to be hard since I’d have to control my strength and moves so well I can use the friction force so well that I won’t slide in the slightest. And starting with any less won’t change anything so it has to be with the way I jump horizontally… let me read a bit more…

I tried different approaches on how I could combine the previous steps all while using the booklet as reference. But after 4 hours , I got nothing. This was bad… I did almost every way possible… what can there be else?

"You are thinking way out of the box , boy… Try to take things as they are."

I was surprised by the voice of the old man coming directly from behind me. And when I turned around to ask him what he meant, the only thing I saw was him reaching for the door knob that was far away from me. He was already at the door in a matter of moments and did it without raising any dust nor any sound.

'Take things as they are… The tip was to combine all the steps before but what if it didn't mean the things I learned but more in a literal sense…'

When I made up my mind, I immediately went into a fighting stance like the booklet suggested. I lowered my waist as much as I could while my knees bent and my arms ready to swing my whole body with it. I took a deep breath while I mustered up all my strength with all my control possible. My toes tensed up as I leaned forward. It looked like I was falling down forwards. While falling , I never let my body ease up a bit. I tensed them to the maximum, like a spring pressed together to its limits. My eyes concentrated on the 30 metres in front of me. If I am going to do this, I’ll start with a bang!

'Not yet! Not yet! Not! Yet!'

I wasn’t ready to jump yet. My fall looked as if in slow motion and just when my nose was about to touch the ground…

NOW!

I let my feet take me further than I ever experienced. I took off like a rocket with no sound nor dust and the moment I thought about it, my legs were released from the ground with such a strength yet nothing moving was so weird to see. I was like a blur as the surroundings were for me. And if I knew one thing, it was that I was high on this feeling.

I may be the lowest on the ground but I felt like the freest person in all the dimensions! The speed, the wind, the feeling of leaving the earth and taking off towards the air. It felt so liberating. Nothing like my normal vertical jump. And I saw my goal coming closer towards me with every moment passing. 25! 20! 15!10!

When I reached the 5 metres mark, I moved mid air as quickly as possible, moving my legs that were behind forwards. My legs now in front as if I was planning to kick someone were slowly descending into the ground and when I reached the 30 metres mark, my legs touch the ground just like they would with the heel to toe walk.

Nothing.

No sound.

No dust.

Absolutely nothing happened besides me turning into a blur and moving from one part of the field to the other in a matter of moments. My clothes were lightly ripped by the wind pressure but nothing else was off about me. Well… besides my flushed face and a little tear threatening to leave my right eye. But this was my right. Because… Because…

"haa…I did it…hahaha… I DID IT!!"

"Congratulations!"

"UWAA!?! WHY DID YOU CAME BACK?!"

Where the hell do you pop out from? And were you watching all the time? This is abnormal even if you have that grin on your face that says volume.

"Haaaa~ can't I congratulate my one and only student to master one of the best movement techniques steps without will in a timeframe that no normal awakened person could ever dream of doing? That's not fair at all!"

"I'm sure you had to spend less time"

"Yes but I also could control my will and body far better than you and you are not far off from my body control when I was your age now that you cleared these four steps. So you should still be proud! But I have to say, the way you fall down is a bit weird but probably suits your fighting style more… since being able to be mobile mid air can benefit any weapon."

"Is that so? I just did what felt natural."

I felt good that my posture wasn’t bad. Or else I had to completely start over again and to be fair, I was dead beat! I couldn’t do anything after that jump and the old man noticed this as well.

"Now go back to the hut and rest. We have to study tomorrow as well."

"Fiiiine!"

As I went back into the hut , the old man had a difficult expression on his face.

'what a monster…'

After a short pause, the old man moved towards the hut as well. And this was the end of my training for now. For now, I had to get control over my Will which was not showing results these days either…

But I will make it!

I hope…