(Nov 28)

It’s been a couple hours since we started our travel and I’m pretty bored.

Luckily for me though, I didn’t have to walk unlike most of the other soldiers.

Because we were going to confront the Kenava, the king had decided to bring along the assassins that had tried to kill me as a bargaining chip, and since I was the ones who captured them, Briggs chose me watch over them and ensure they didn’t escape.

So now I’m riding in the same carriage as the assassins who tried to kill me and my family are locked up in.

At first, I watched over them carefully and paid close attention to any suspicious movements, but after the third or fourth hour of nothing happening, I got bored.

They’re very securely locked up and they don’t seem to be in any condition to try anything, so I relaxed a little.

Since I had a lot of free time, I decided to read some of the books I borrowed from the library.

Martial arts and techniques.

The ways of the swordsmanship.

Basic fighting and combat for dummies.

These were the three books I got.

They were pretty generic manual books, but I still tried to learn as much as I could.

The books spoke of various styles and techniques created by famous warriors like fist of flowing water, the drunken fist, plum blossom swordsmanship and other well known fighting styles.

However, I wasn’t trying to learn a specific style. Instead, I was just looking for general tips or key guidance to improve my current style.

Maybe I can incorporate parts of another fighting style into my current fighting style.

Like the fist of flowing water for example, is a very difficult martials arts school where masters would train for years upon years, but maybe I can mimic parts of its style properties and use it for myself.

Fist of the flowing water style involves moving the body in a way that mimics the flow of water currents.

Normally when you punch or strike, your attack will usually come to a stop and you must retrieve your fist. This is very ineffective since it requires energy to both halt and retrieve an attack.

For example, if you swing a stick and then stop midway, you’d have to tense your muscles and use energy to stop that motion.

However, with the fist of flowing water, all the energy and force will be redirected to your attacks and will flow continuously without stopping.

This allows the user to effectively conserve their energy and launch relentlessly powerful attacks. It can also redirect the force of other people’s attacks as well.

Of course, I can’t replicate this style as a well as a master could, but this idea of flowing like water could help me.

I wanted to go and practise but I couldn’t just walk out and start training, so I decided to do some mental training instead.

I closed my eyes to meditate and visualized my own body.

In one of the books, it mentioned that mental training is a known strategy where a person imagines themself training inside a simulated world inside their mind. Most people say its incredible difficult to do since it requires intense concentration and focus, but for me, it just comes naturally.

Sven had always told me that I had a strong imagination, and it seems like that’s true. I’ve always been able to imagine some pretty vivid things in my head.

Not only that, but I think my dragon powers enhanced my mental abilities as well.

As I immersed myself in my mind, an imaginary world formed around me.

In this mental world, I visualized my body moving, and training how I would in real life.

Obviously since this happened in my head, I won’t grow muscles or get physically stronger, but I can still practise my techniques and skills.

I tried to imitate the fist of flowing water technique by imagining my body as water, flowing and attacking.

But I failed.

It looked like I was doing some sort of weird dance and not a martial technique. This result wasn’t much of a surprise since if it were so easy then everyone would be doing it.

After an hour of attempting, I stopped and opened my eyes again.

Even though I hadn’t moved, my body was sweating and my muscles were tense. Despite not being physically active, the magic in my body responded to my mental state of training and took a toll on me.

I’m pretty tired after that so I might just take a nap or something to relax a bit. We’ve still got a long way after all.

.

The king finally decided to stop our travel to set up camp and have dinner once the sky started darkening.

Most of the soldiers were walking under the sun the whole day and have only had small snacks to keep them going so they were all hungry and exhausted.

Dinner was quickly cooked over several campfires, and bowls of soup and bread were passed around.

Usually on long trips like these, I would eat and chat with Sven, however he didn’t come along since he had to manage some things in the city.

I just found a place to sit by myself and ate in silence for a while.

Unexpectedly though, Briggs, William, Cornelia and Alisha all sat down around me to eat.

I had thought they’d all be eating with the king or something, but instead they chose to sit with me.

That made me a little happy. Filled me up with this fuzzy feeling inside.

We ate, we chat, we joked, and it was fun.

If it weren’t for the fact that we were about to meet up with a kingdom to discuss war, we’d probably have popped open some beer to drink the night away.

Ahhhh… I could go for some alcohol right now…

Bah. I want to get drunk. Being sober is too depressing.

(Nov 29)

Another day on the road.

I’d say we’re midway to the planned meeting location so its still going to be quite a while.

In the meanwhile, I figured I’d continue reading and practising more of the book’s content.

Since I had already tried the fist of the flowing water technique yesterday, I read more about the plum blossom swordsmanship today.

Here’s a little fact about me, when I was still in my mid 20s, I actually tried to learn the plum blossom swordsmanship and tried to enter the plum blossom school.

Unfortunately though, after a year or training or so, I dropped out because I felt like I didn’t understand the essence and true meaning of their swordsmanship.

This was also around the time I fell in love with my wife so I was always distracted which might be the reason why I made almost no progress in improving…

Anyways, I do have a little bit of experience in the plum blossom arts but it’s only on the basic level and it’s been about a decade since I last practised it.

The basic understanding of plum blossom swordsmanship is that you want to become a tree. Yes, you read that right. Become a tree. Especially plum blossom trees.

You must first plant your body sturdily, with your legs apart to form a triangle with your legs.

According to this book, the strongest shape is the triangle, so by forming a triangle shape with our body, we can obtain peak stability.

With that, we plant our feet firmly into the ground and slowly extend our essence into the ground.

At the time, I didn’t understand what “extend my essence into the ground” meant, but now I realize it’s quite obvious.

You literally just manipulate your magic into your feet and spread it underground in the formation of tree roots.

This was the first thing we all had to learn before we could even start learning the actual sword skills.

I didn’t get very far into the actual swordsmanship, so the rest is going to be explained from what I vaguely remember hearing from my instructor, and what I read in the book.

Basically, you must swing and move your sword in the pattern of tree branches.

You want to relax your inner energy and become one with nature. Feel and sense all the life around you while absorbing this energy into yourself.

Imagine yourself as a giant beautiful plum blossom tree, with large branches extending in all directions.

Those branches will guide your sword.

A master of the plum arts can so skillfully immerse themselves into nature, they can make plum blossom petals bloom out of thin air.

I’m assuming what happens is that their inner energy becomes so infused with nature, it creates plum blossoms from their swordsmanship as a reaction.

I actually got to witness someone do it once and it was beautiful.

Hundreds of plum petals bloomed every time they swung their blade, and every petal was equivalent to a single sword attack, fluttering around through the air.

I never succeeded in creating plum blossoms, I only got as far as the first technique.

However, maybe this time I’ll get further.

I closed my eyes and once again entered my mental world.

A green field materialized around me as I breathed in imaginary fresh air.

I began practising.

My body became a tree.

My feet extended into the ground like roots.

My hand and sword moved like tree branches.

I felt like I finally understood the true essence of the plum arts that I couldn’t so many years ago.

But I couldn’t do it.

My heart started beating rapidly as the energy in my body squirmed around in resistance.

I couldn’t perform the plum blossom arts.

My dragon essence was rejecting all my attempts at trying to immerse myself with nature and use the plum arts.

I’m not exactly sure why but my dragon essence wasn’t compatible with the plum blossom swordsmanship.

I don’t know if there some scientific explanation for this, but I physically couldn’t do it since my dragon essence simply refused.

Its not because I lack magic control either, it must be due to one of the properties of my dragon essence.

Whenever I tried, my body heated up, my heart rate increased, and I become very energetic which is the opposite of the plum blossom arts which you want to become calm with nature.

It’s a pity since it’s a powerful technique, but oh well.

Even without it, I’ll be fine.

I ended my mental training there and returned to the reality.

That’s when I noticed the captured assassins were staring weirdly at me.

They must’ve been watching me as I was still doing my mental training.

It’s a bit creepy, but I didn’t care since they couldn’t do anything.

Even on the super slim chance that they somehow miraculously find a way to escape their bindings, my dragon instincts would warn me and I would be able to subdue them easily.

So I just took another nap.

(Nov 30)

We started travelling very early in the morning before the sun even rose.

We’re nearly the meeting location, probably only going to be about an hour or so.

I’m did some calming mediation and self reflection to prepare myself.

Since anything could happen at this meeting, I wanted to be in peak condition.

If I focus my senses, I can detect a small group of fairies up ahead.

Most of them were average soldiers, but there were a few strong A ranker presences among them.

In a few moments, our kingdoms will negotiate.

I don’t understand politics that well, but even I understand that a lot is at stake here and if anything went wrong, it could result in a war.

And no one wants a fucking war.

It’s a lose-lose situation, so let’s hope that the leaders of our kingdoms aren’t so fucking stupid as to risk the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians and troops just for a needless conflict.

I can only hope for the best…