Cysandoth's predictions he gave after Alfred's first day practicing the Isolation footwork were spot on.
Level 4 and 5 went by in the blink of an eye. Despite only practicing level 4 for seven hours on Friday exclusively on the first and eventually third exercise, he had reached a whopping 95% completion rate. And by the end of Saturday, he was almost at the 90% mark for level 5!
Currently Alfred is engaged in a battle with level 5's third exercise. Plastered on his face is a crazed expression featuring crescent moon eyes and a thin grin spanning ear to ear.
Different from past third exercises, Alfred is figuratively running circles around the wisp despite not reaching 100% completion rate. Each step Alfred takes brings him closer to that fabled 100% mark, and each step gives him a greater feeling of control that he is abusing fully.
The martial arts of this world are a boon so great, that if he can master them, could bring out the full capacity of HSM. Such a feat not even the supersoldiers of the reincarnation it originated from could accomplish.
The super suits and enhanced bodies of the super soldiers where HSM originated were limited by technology. At a certain point, nothing could be done to catch up to the power of tier 4 HSM despite there being an additional level after that. Martial arts, though, are different.
For example: The Isolation footwork at level 3 has more or less been accomplished on the earth Alfred was from at the highest levels of athletes. With level 3, his previous ideas of "this amount of power = this amount of speed/power/etc." still applied. His body was provided the framework to do what he wanted.
Level 5 is much different, though. At first, Alfred felt it was only slightly faster than level 4, which was only slightly faster than level 3. Back when he hit a roadblock at the 30% completion rate mark though, he had an epiphany.
Obviously, something wasn't clicking. Even a baby could see that. So he thought back to the video he memorized. The movements of the wisp were too unnatural. It was like he was looking at a dragonfly… but on the ground… somehow. The videos were in so much detail that he could see the type of ground it was moving on, but despite the weight of some jumps and the speed that it would sometimes come to a stop at, no footprints were shown.
It was only then after a (relatively, in his mind) long deliberation that he concluded: 'I need to get creative. I have no comparison to anything I've ever done, so I can't treat it as such.'
Just then, he decided that even at a measly 30% completion rate he would take on the third exercise.
As expected, he got stomped, possibly even worse than he would have at other levels. Alfred knew that if Cysandoth were there, he might die from suffocation due to his laughter. With that beating he took, though, he felt his conclusion was correct.
He opted not to refine for recovery, and instead began to sprint as fast he could towards a smaller tree off in the distance of the courtyard.
Millimeters before he reenacted a Tom and Jerry skit, he spun 180 degrees and body position changed to a peekaboo stance that he poorly imitated from a boxing video he saw in his first life, and then dashed the other direction instantly. This all happened quite fast, but the unusual part about it was the fact that he did this with his then leading stride leg off the ground.
In the millisecond that it happened, the leg snapped to the ground as if he were trying to curb-stomp it. The speed he achieved through this successful execution was not something the power he exerted should have accomplished, but it did.
To reiterate: the actual KPH reached was not far outside his physical abilities, and the movements were definitely not "inconceivable", they were just… weird. Now that he felt it, it truly would be next to impossible to predict if you didn't know the technique.
'When I master this,' he thought, 'and even more of those 4th Division techniques… the potential of tier 1 HSM will be fully reached. I- I might go so far as to say that, within my äura level… tier… zone? Whatever. Within that area, I would be nigh unbeatable in a one on one, assuming we both are in a set up fight.'
Alfred sighed while thinking more realistically. 'Such a claim can only be on paper. There's always a bigger fish, and there'll always be a niche way to assassinate or trick that I couldn't reasonably predict. Just because I'm powerful compared to the past means jack.'
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He looked down at where he spun around.
'No marks apart from some slightly tilted blades of grass. So strange…' he thought. 'It's like I really am a bug now.'
...
Back to the present and Alfred had finally reached 100%. The feeling of mastering an entire footwork felt freeing, in a sense. Knowing that he had just one week before been so limited in his knowledge and training that only one 4th Division technique made his chest feel so light, he couldn't help but give an almost unnoticeable satisfied grin.
Alfred noticed that Cysandoth was currently sleeping, a rare sight for Alfred to see.
He approached the tree and cleared his throat, which was enough to alert his master of his presence.
"Master, I have mastered the 4th Division Isolation footwork," Alfred said while bowing.
Cysandoth was awake at this point, so he jumped down from the branch he was napping on. Apparently, not awake enough, because he tried to pat Alfred's head to no avail. "Good job," he said despite being swatted away by Alfred.
"Sir, I have a question before I go back to the slaughterhouse," Alfred said.
"Mhm~"
"... how are martial artists categorized?" he asked.
Cysandoth leaned up against the tree, "Simple. The ranks are: Civilian → Apprentice → Competent → Advanced → Master. You can also count havin' a manifesto as a rank higher than Master, but the general physical abilities without the manifesto stay within the realm of possibility of a 'regular' Master."
Alfred nodded. "Thank you. That is all of my questions."
"-Before you go- I'll let you know that tomorrow, I'm going to assign to you a few 4th Division techniques for you to learn. None of them are at the level of technical and theoretical complexity of the Isolation footwork, but mastering them all will take longer."
Again, Alfred nodded, this time without saying anything.
.
.
.
Sunday's events were quite frankly underwhelming when compared to last week's, but one upping that should take a bit. At least, that's what Alfred assumed.
He still paid attention, as lots of the battles are worthy of study at his level. As a bonus, after mastering the Isolation footwork, he felt he was more able to properly understand and respect the apparent effort that the other slaves were putting into their arts.
Still, Alfred couldn't wait for that evening which happened to be quickly approaching.
Alfred arrived at the canteen before any of the other usual slaves, and he took advantage of this by filling his plate up in record time. He vacuumed down the food almost without blinking, and rushed out.
When Alfred entered the Courtyard, he saw his master sitting next to the grimoire waiting for him. Cysandoth also noticed Alfred, and he motioned for him to come over.
Alfred sat down next to his master.
"I'll get straight to the point," Cysandoth said. "You will be learning the fundamental striking form that was also developed by the original master of Junanbi called 'Joku' roughly translating to "The shadow steps alongside you". Once you master it, a few of the classic 3rd Division techniques will be added into your training, but this should generally set up your body to be ready to display your full potential of those moves."
He flipped to Joku's page, which just happened to be a few pages ahead of where Alfred had memorized.
"Next is your dual weapon stance. This is the first art that you'll learn that is not directly from our ancestors. It's called 'Nidas al-Djol', and it comes from a small and extinct eastern-noble family similarly named 'Nidas'. It is surprisingly well suited for the Isolation technique when it comes to speed-oriented fighters. Well enough that our ancestors deemed it worthy of leaving it virtually unedited."
Again, he flipped to the page containing the instructions and exercises for Nidas al-Djol to make sure Alfred knew where it was.
"Last but not least is the two-handed stance called 'Kororo', roughly translating to 'Fool's Remedy'. It was developed by my master, actually. He made it after fusing many of the good ideas of the other two handed arts he had studied."
Cysandoth showed Alfred the page. Alfred took note of a relative lack of notes. Only two people seemed to have written on it, and that added up.
"Joku," he started, "comes first until you get new weapons. I'll take you to the armory tomorrow."
Alfred thanked his master. After receiving the book and moving towards the center of the courtyard, he opened to Joku's page. Alfred read: 'Joku's main objective is to provide the disciple with countless opportunities to get clean strikes in. You will learn to mask and eventually remove subtle and unconscious body cues when striking, preparing to strike, and when defending attacks. This stance is heavily reliant on the teachings of the Isolation footwork, and will require at least mastery of said footwork to properly learn the stance.'
The description of it left Alfred intrigued. He made sure to memorize all of the notes before moving on to the videos. Said notes contained things he might find useful later, but currently they held no meaning to him.
From opening the video screen, he saw that there were 3 levels of Joku. The first level was obviously far more fluid and natural looking than Alfred's attempt at initiating what he's seen, but nothing strange had happened yet. Alfred also noticed a few ideas from the Isolation footwork subtly pop up in a few circumstances.
On the second level, Alfred clearly saw hints of the weirding effect that the stance would eventually display. Whenever Alfred attempted to guess when a punch would be thrown, a small delay seemed to occur.
Following that progression, level 3 made it so Alfred could't predict at all when the wisp would throw a punch. The wisp seemed to be able to throw feints so good that Alfred swore he saw its shadow continue on with the attack. On the opposite end, actual punches came so suddenly that he couldn't imagine how they had any power at all.
All that he saw exited him to no end. So, after memorizing the videos, he moved on to the first exercise.