Cysandoth led Alfred back to their courtyard instead of taking him to the lockers. Alfred understood this action despite his anxiousness to get his hands on the weapons. 'Foundation is key…' he repeated in his head. 'I'm acting too much like a child. If I rush now, I fear that bad habits will transfer over through reincarnations.'

Cysandoth then turned to Alfred. He noticed this, so he stopped and met his master's gaze.

"I will be gone for the next week until Friday. You have enough to do until the tournament without my guidance. After Joku, you will move on to Nidas al-Djol and the three 3rd Division techniques I have written down for both of them. Only after mastering all of that can you move onto Kororo."

Alfred saw a folded piece of parchment flying towards him which he promptly caught. He opened it to see a list of six (presumably) 3rd Division techniques.

"Don't forget your memorizations and refinement."

Alfred bowed instead of asking questions sensing how off his master felt. 'You're making it maddening for me not to ask what you're doing.'

As Cysandoth left, Alfred went right back to Joku. His goal for the day was to attain a 100% completion rate for the first level, eventually leading up to mastering the stance in the next two days (maybe including the 3rd Division techniques).

He started off by going back to the second exercise. The familiar wisp was still aligned with Alfred who then began to walk around. Although he could barely feel it, a few small shocks were administered. Although he was surprised, he already knew what they meant.

As he had earlier that day, Alfred adjusted his movements so slightly that, if someone was watching from the outside, no difference would have been observed. However, this was intentional. Another note on the page Alfred had memorized explained it perfectly:

'The second exercise was originally completely focused on making sure your idle stance can flow perfectly into anything, including Joku itself. This unintentionally created the orb mentioned earlier. Other than Junanbi practitioners, nobody should notice any changes. Again, remember that this is arguably the most important exercise from this entire technique, so make sure you don't slack off.'

Alfred took a few minutes to figure out how it wanted him to adjust to different situations. Eventually, he even was able to keep his form up consistently through 4th level Isolation footwork speeds.

Now, he began incorporating random bursts of shadow-fighting into it to engrain switching between the two into his muscles. The movements, he found, actually did help, as swapping felt as if it was automatic. Nevertheless it took hours before he finally felt satisfied enough to move on to the third exercise.

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Alfred had spent four hours reaching the 95% threshold, and he could feel on the brink of jumping that last five percent. He had started the third exercise at 75%, so his progress was relatively quick.

Once he felt ready, Alfred stopped his recovery and began his (hopefully) last fight of this level.

As expected, a wisp with his same features materialized in front of him and took a neutral Joku stance. Alfred immediately shot forward and began the fight, as was routine.

Alfred threw two light jabs before feinting a big left hook by throwing his arm out to the side. The wisp lifted his arm up to block the feint and went for a counter, but Alfred had already started up a body kick. It landed cleanly at the center of the wisp's chest, sending it reeling. Alfred pressed forward, but had to yank his head back to dodge an oncoming front-kick sent at his nose by the wisp.

In that moment, the wisp regained its balance and shot a roundhouse kick at Alfred. He reacted even before it happened by leaning back out of the trajectory while rotating clockwise around the wisp.

The wisp continued his momentum and threw a back-kick at Alfred's head. Alfred's repositioning, however, gave him a slightly more advantageous position, so he was able to easily pull back and dodge the kick. Alfred didn't give the wisp any time after dodging and pushed in.

Alfred connected a one-two on the wisp's guard, but the wisp landed a low kick to his knee. Without stopping, he threw a left cross at the chin of the wisp, but it was already shooting its own cross at him, so they were both forced to slip the blow.

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Alfred pushed into the clench and began throwing knees at the body of the wisp. In that situation, it went for a leg sweep. Alfred jumped the attempt, but that forced him out of the advantageous situation.

This time, the wisp was the one who took the initiative. It pushed in with a string of quick punches at Alfred, which forced him into a constant battle of bobbing and weaving through them all, leaving him no room for counters. Still, nothing truly connected due to his reflexes and now proper form.

Eventually the opportunity came, and Alfred took advantage of it. He did a full duck of a rare hook and landed a strong hook of his own to the liver of the wisp. Alfred slid up on the bending over body and got an uppercut through the guard. In the moment where it was stunned from the uppercut and the liver shot, Alfred smashed a sidekick into its torso. He followed the reeling figure and swept its legs.

The wisp hit the floor and attempted to roll out of the way, but Alfred soccer kicked its neck and then chin, fully knocking it out.

The wisp quickly disappeared and reappeared a few meters away at the ready, but Alfred stopped the exercise.

The third exercises were built to make it so beating them meant you had mastered that level. Although Alfred had a special ability in HSM he was sure would break the simulations a little, it turns out that the masters who made them had seemingly planned for any such abilities by having the wisps just be that hard to beat.

For today, Alfred had accomplished his initial goal of reaching a 100% completion rate with the first level. Now, however, he had to spend much of the rest of the day refining and memorizing.

Apart from dinner, which only took him 15 minutes to finish, Alfred spent 10 hours on these tasks. Eight for refining, two for memorizing.

He had even gotten to the Nidas al-Djol page, but he just stuck to memorizing for now and left the analysis for later.

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The next day, he started his routine as normal. Begin the second exercise (now for level 2), eat, first exercise, refine, back to first exercise.

Level two's learning curve was a lot steeper at the beginning, he noticed. It had a lot of moving parts on the micro-level that made correct executions particularly difficult to pull off.

Still, the creators of the grimoire and technique never ceased to amaze him. As stated before, Joku was a technically advanced stance, but everything made sense over time. Gradually each of his movements showed less and less of what he was about to do without losing any power. In fact, his attacks were getting faster, albeit marginally.

Apart from the main progression of the "weirding effect", the main difference between level 1 and 2 is the main guard. It's position has loosened considerably, allowing for more reaction-based defense and for keeping the hands closer to the opponent.

The latter half of Tuesday was spent on the third exercise. Alfred trained hard against the wisp, almost forcing himself to take breaks as his progress was steady and satisfying.

In the end, Alfred reached a 100% completion rate with only 3 hours to go. However, that was only just enough time for him to complete his refinement hours that he had partially completed throughout the day while resting, so he had to skip out on memorizing that day.

Wednesday was a carbon copy of Tuesday. Train, eat, train, and train. Alfred made steady progress with level 3, and when remembering his experience figuring out level 5 of the Isolation footwork, he began experimenting using the second exercise to find out how far he could take the stance's effects.

At this point, switching between idle and striking was seamless and instant. He could be walking with a tray of food, punch someone, and catch the tray without it falling more than a few centimeters, all the while the person who was punched would have had no visual telegraphs to work with from Alfred himself.

His time with the third exercise showed him how real the feints felt in Joku. Every instinct he had, despite practicing the previous two levels to mastery, told him that he was about to get punched in the jaw, or the liver, or the nose. Instead, he would be swiftly kicked in the legs or would receive a combo, sending him into a constant defensive.

Even as he got better and began to understand the mechanics of how the feints were performed, they still threw him off, as the wisp always had the option to turn what looked like a feint into an actual attack.

Still, in the end, he emerged victorious over the wisp. Joku's level 3 third exercise left him far more bruised and bloodied than before, at least internally, forcing refinements to be done throughout the day. With five hours left in his day, he only had to spend one of those refining.

"Oh!"

'It's time!' he thought to himself. '3rd Division techniques!'

Alfred went over to the Junanbi grimoire and turned to page 319 to find the technique "Perfect Jab".

'Yeesh! That's the most arrogant thing I've read yet. If this is the same as what I've been doing all this time, I'm going to have to write my own note on the page…'

He quickly memorized the notes on the page without much thought and moved on to the description. He read: 'The perfect jab is a formula for a jab in any situation. It will increase the speed, power, and accuracy while reducing the effort and energy required to perform this classic move. This was created through a transcontinental effort and a collective hundred million hours of work. All those who worked on it are credited in its entry in the Library of Gone on the Island of the Five.'

Alfred then went to the videos, only seeing one level for the technique. 'Honestly, it makes sense. It really is only one move that's being taught here.'

Alfred activated HSM and sped up the video. It started off with the wisp walking up in the center of the frame. Said wisp got into position and threw a normal jab, no more, no less. It was, in his mind, perfect. No wasted movement, barely any major telegraphing, great speed and decent power, basically something you would see out of a pure boxer in their prime back on earth. However, as it walked off the screen, a second wisp walked back in. It took the same stance, and threw a… jab.

This one, however, left Alfred stunned. A crisp *Pop!~* emitted from the attack despite no contact being made. Alfred nearly lost track of the hand after it left its starting position, and only caught a glimpse of it fully extended. The wisp threw the same attack from differing angles. Some downward, some upward, some with the left, some with the right. It even used it a couple of times while it was diving sideways.

After it all was over, which didn't take nearly as long as the 4th Division techniques' videos did, Alfred was left with no other choice but to smile.

'I guess… it really is a perfect jab.'