Will had yet again run out of things to do. As he sat, sighing in lamentation, basking in despair of his boredom, he suddenly had a brilliant idea. To pester the people in the carriage with him.

“Hey, got anything intewesting in those boxes?” He pointed at the boxes in question, not that there were other boxes.

“I'm not sure? It's not like you'll find anything particularly special.”

Will was upset. His brilliant idea ended up being useless. He'd have to come up with something else.

He remembered something. He still had that Cloud Steps footwork that he'd basically been completely neglecting. It's not like he didn't have reason to do so. It was pretty useless without any actual attacks to use with it. It's not like he couldn't just do a regular swing, he wasn't that inept, but the second he started doing it, the footwork would probably fall apart. And when it came to just surviving without fighting back, the Wind Dance footwork worked better anyway, since he could just use it to run away.

But the Cloud Steps footwork did have one advantage. He could easily practice it in enclosed spaces. Though the Wind Dance footwork worked in enclosed spaces as well, practicing it was something best done in an open area.

But useful or not, he was told to learn them both, so he decided to get to practicing. He stood up, stood in the middle of the carriage, and got to work.

It only took three steps to realize. This was hard. Though the carriage had enough room to practice, especially with how small he was, it was still cramped. He had to be careful not to bump into anything. The carriage was also, well, a moving carriage. And they didn't exactly have asphalt roads out here. But hard as it was, it felt better this way. He'd have to be able to use it in bad conditions anyway, and any progress in a situation like this would show even bigger results when he did it in regular conditions. He hoped that was how it worked at least. It could just make him only able to use his footwork while riding in a moving carriage, but that didn't seem like it would be the case.

And so, Will continued practicing. Then, Sarah decided to chime in.

“Practicing footwork in the carriage? I didn't expect that from you. But it's certainly a good move to accelerate your progress. If you can handle it. If you can't, though, you'll just end up making progress even harder.”

That brought up something Will hadn't thought of, actually. If he couldn't do it right, he'd just end up memorizing the steps incorrectly, and then he'd be even worse. Luckily, that wasn't something Will had to worry about as much. The only way he could misremember it would be by editing the document he made for it. And he had no plans on doing that.

So he practiced. And Yingran and Lanhua watched in growing awe. They were just a bit confused at first. The kid seemed to just be stepping around like a drunkard. It was only after the first hour that they were able to see something impressive. It was like every once in a while the kid would almost turn cloudlike. The kid didn't look any different, but the feeling they gave off was different. Then, as quickly as it came, it disappeared.

After another hour, they couldn't tear their eyes away. By now, the cloudlike feeling didn't go away. Instead, it just got stronger sometimes. Like it was even more like a cloud. They knew by now that this was true martial arts. Even more so, they could tell it was incredibly profound. They'd both seen martial arts in action before. They'd even seen people just practicing footwork before. But the types of footwork they'd seen didn't feel nearly the same as this.

It felt as if others were trying to become one with the concept of becoming like a thing. The footwork this young cultivator was practicing, skipped all of the nonsense and just went straight to becoming a cloud. It didn't feel like someone made it by examining a cloud and trying to replicate it through martial arts. It felt as if it was just the way to become a cloud. As if it wasn't even made by anyone, like it simply was.

And yet, this young cultivator was simply letting them watch. As if to say they were free to copy every step of it and use it themselves if they could. Except, they felt like they actually could! That was the attitude people would take with martial arts that require a genius to practice, or martial arts that were so widely available as to be public knowledge. But this was neither! This was the kind of martial arts that one would keep hidden and only show to people when they used it to kill them!

But the two weren't scared. Will was unlikely to kill them now. It would've happened already if it was going to, and it hadn't. So they just kept watching, trying to memorize a bit of it, in the hopes that it may one day save their lives.

Will practiced for four more hours. He'd usually get bored of something like this a lot quicker, but the challenge created by the moving carriage made it incredibly engaging for him, even with the slow progress. The challenge wouldn't have been enough to entertain him if he wasn't getting better, but the progress, though slow, was still noticeable.

It also helped that the footwork was so cool. He finally felt like he could actually use this footwork to survive someone attacking him. Though he'd probably just run away usually, if some old guy ever challenged him to survive his attacks for one minute, he'd stand a good chance! That wasn't a scenario he'd really needed a survival method for that much, but it was nice to have. Unlikely as it may be, it was a scenario that wasn't certainly possible in a place like this.

As he was practicing, he felt the carriage turn to the side a bit, then stop by the side of the road.

“Why awe we stopping?”

Xu Lanhua answered his question.

“We're setting up camp for the night.”

Will had forgotten about that. It made sense, considering he'd woken up pretty late. While it had only been some hours for him, they were probably up a lot longer than him. They also weren't cultivators, so they actually had to rest at regular intervals. Well, that was less a cultivation matter and more of a lost child in the woods matter, but the cultivation at least made it not as horrible to do.

“Want hewp?”

Xu Lanhua considered it. While she didn't want to burden them, they did offer. And if the kid just decided to do it even if she refused, it would be better if she at least gave instructions on how. She decided to accept the help.

“Sure. Thank you.”

“No probwem.”

With that, they went about setting up tents. The tents were pretty nice looking, as far as Will could tell. Though, he wasn't really much of a tent expert. He was more the type to sleep in random uncomfortable spots in the woods. Well, that or hospital beds. Or cribs? Basically, he'd never slept in a tent. And he didn't really want to. He'd have to wake up to get in the carriage in the morning if he did that, and that was annoying.

And so, against everyone's hopes of finally finding out the gender of this small cultivator by which tent they chose, Will just said he'd be sleeping in the carriage.

Everyone decided to skip dinner tonight, all of them still full from the venison they had earlier. As everyone went about their business doing the things people usually do before bed, Will decided to practice his Cloud Steps some more, this time outside.

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As expected, the results he'd achieved in the carriage seemed even grander in normal conditions. It was certainly exciting. He continued practicing for two more hours before finally hopping into the carriage, because, again, he couldn't get up without hopping, and tucking into bed for the night.

—

Will finally woke up before noon. Not much before noon, only two hours, but before noon nonetheless. He got up and immediately started practicing his Cloud Steps footwork.

After four hours, he felt himself getting a bit hungry. He looked at Li Yingran.

“I'm hungwy. Can you cook? I'll pwovide the ingwedients.”

Li Yingran nodded.

“What would you like?”

Will looked at his rings. He had a lot of options, some more appealing than others. Like the one that looked a lot like a person made of lightning. That wasn't very appealing. Sure, he'd eat it if it was all he had, he doubted it would have any of the repercussions actual cannibalism had, but it wasn't high on the list of things he wanted to eat. Of course, that was assuming that the ‘lightning’ it was made up of was actually meat. Something he hadn't actually checked.

On the other hand, the chicken he had looked quite appealing. The chicken wasn't an exception to his rule of taking the most impressive beasts. He would assume that if he was just looking at the thing, but having seen the fight, he knew the truth. This thing was damn powerful. It was ridiculously fast. So fast there was a chance he wouldn't have picked it up not because it was weak, but because he hadn't been able to see it as more than a yellow flash and wouldn't know that it was the chicken. It was only thanks to his good eyesight and careful watching of the battle that he knew. This chicken was the one that managed to kill two of the really giant snakes. As they teamed up on it too. It only died in the end because it was sneak attacked after it was worn out.

He took out the chicken he had and pointed at it.

“Can you cook this?”

Li Yingran and Xu Lanhua stared at the chicken. Was that a lightning chicken? That was a thing? The lightning deer seemed like what they'd imagine a spiritual beast to look like. They were expecting the kid to bring out that again. Maybe even some other kind of beast. But this was a chicken. It was also a lightning one as well? They assumed the kid would have something other than lightning spiritual beasts, but now they were starting to doubt that.

Li Yingran quickly shoved it off and got to work. Two hours later, they'd finished their meal, Will had stored away the leftovers, and they were back on the road.

Will continued practicing his footwork for four more hours before the carriage stopped for the night once again. Just like the day before, everyone was full from the food from earlier. And just like the day before Will practiced for two more hours on regular ground before calling it a night.

—

Will woke up at the same time he had the day before, two hours before noon. The carriage had already been moving for a minute or two this time from what he could tell. Today would be the day they reached civilization. It was quite exciting. He was curious about what would happen there. Probably nothing much, it didn't seem like it was all too special of a place from what he remembered, but it would at least be nice to have a change of pace. He decided to get out of bed and start practicing.

But as he got into position to begin, Sarah stopped him.

“Wait. You've practiced enough for now.”

Will disagreed. Practicing footwork was the only thing keeping him from being bored out of his mind. And he wasn't even that good at the footwork yet, either.

It was a bit snarkier than necessary, but he was a bit annoyed at her after what she said. The sword felt equally annoyed at his snark.

“Yeah, obviously. Why the hell would I just tell you to stop practicing if I didn't have something else for you to do? You think I'm trying to stop you from progressing too fast? You think you're some peerless genius who I need to slow down so I don't run out of things to teach you? Sorry to break it to you, but you're only talented in memorization. Other than that, you're barely talented enough to not fail a beginner self-defense class for mortals.”

That… hurt. Especially since his memorization speed was due to his usage of the Document Manipulation section. Well, he knew he wasn't talented already. Why would he be? The closest thing to a martial artist in his lineage would be someone who did boxing in high school. In this universe he probably didn't even have that. At best there was someone who was better than the other kids in the village at the ‘beat each other up with sticks’ game. Not that he needed to look at his family trees to see how much he sucked. It was pretty obvious. He stopped thinking about his lack of talent and listened to Sarah's next words

“You've gotten the basic footwork styles to a decent level, so now it's about time you learn how to actually use a sword with them. Here.”

Will received another package of information, this one bigger than ever, which he quickly copied and embedded into his memory. The movements it contained were numerous, but every one of them reminded Will of rain. Even so, there was a huge variety. The movements seemed to be grouped up into categories, with each category having hundreds of slightly different variations of the same movement. And for every single movement, there was an astronomical amount of information to go with it. What steps from the footwork styles it was compatible with and what movements it could chain into. And for each group of steps compatible with the movement, and each chainable movement, there was a list of which steps the steps compatible with the chainable movement were compatible with, along with ways to chain into it for each of those steps. Not only that, for each set of steps used with the movement, chainable movement, steps used with the chainable movement, and method of chaining it, there was a whole list of pros and cons, when to use it, and other miscellaneous information attached. And that was just the information for one movement. Each movement had that same ridiculously large amount of information to go with it. It was absolutely insane! Will moved on to look at some of the movements. There was also a lot of information about switching between the two footwork styles without the sword movements as well.

There was one he saw where the user would swing their sword from left to right, and would be chained with other movements upon reaching the target to create the effect of making a ton of shallow cuts by almost bouncing the blade off of the target less than an inch and immediately swinging it back again, repeatedly.

There was one where the user would swing the sword fully across, with the sword only making contact with the target at the center of the swing, where the sword reached the farthest. The light contact made it easy to chain it into other movements quickly.

There was one that was just a light stab, that could chain into other light stabs very quickly.

Will was amazed. He never expected this to be so… in depth. Will was broken from his awe by Sarah's laughing.

“Pfft, you really thought I'd make you memorize all of that, didn't you? I was joking! It was a joke! Here.”

Will received another package of information, that he also copied and embedded. This one was a lot smaller, though still pretty large. It contained a bunch of moves, made up of the movements he'd seen before, as well as a bit on switching between footwork styles like the previous one had, only a lot simpler. It didn't have the modular aspect from the other information package. Each move had one set of steps to go with it only. Judging by what was in the pros and cons from the last package, they seemed to be designed to be easy to use and functional in as many situations as possible. In other words… they were a bit weak. A move made specifically for the exact circumstances would always be better.

Sarah sighed. It was a very lifeless sigh.

“Of course you did.”

Satisfied with the reaction, Will asked a question.

“Practice it, obviously.”

“Ah. I forgot. You only know how to do ridiculous bullshit. Sorry, I mistook you for a genius or something for a moment, my bad.”

Sarah sighed.

“Just do the movements, chain some together, get a feel for it. Same as you did with the footwork.”

Will supposed that made sense. Even if he had all this knowledge, it wasn't like he could just put it into practice perfectly. Sure, he could figure out an optimal movement, but it's not like he'd be able to do it. It didn't really matter much which movement he picked if he was just going to fumble it anyway.

“I'm gonna go outside to pwactice.”

He realized that sounded like he was asking them to stop the carriage and clarified.

“Keep moving, I'ww keep up.”

Xu Lanhua nodded, then thought of something.

“Do you want us to slow down?”

Will shook his head.

“I'ww keep up.”

She nodded again and left him to his own devices.

Will on the other hand hopped out of the back of the carriage. He used Wind Dance to get beside it, then started.

It went poorly at first. Though he could keep up with the carriage just fine, and could pick his next movement just fine, his picking was almost entirely done on the criteria of which movement would let him recover from his previous fumble. It was an ever-repeating cycle of fumble, find a move that would allow recovery from the fumble, fumble, and pick a move that allowed recovery from the fumble. The only thing that he did right was the footwork, and even that was pretty bad when it came to switching between them.

But bad as he was at it, it was fun. Footwork alone was just stepping. It would only really be that interesting to someone who liked running. That would be great if Will used to do track or field or something, but he didn't. He used to lay in a hospital bed and be a baby.

But this would be fun for just about anyone. It was swinging a sword around! That's cool! Plus it was like a puzzle too, trying to figure out which movement should come next based on the current situation. And Will particularly liked puzzles. In the other universe, his reflexes and dexterity weren't good, and he was pretty awful at any games that needed that. On the other hand, when it came to puzzles, turn-based games, and other stuff like that, he was pretty good. At least he thought so. He didn't have that much to compare it with other than what the nurses said when he showed them a few times.

Put simply, it felt like he was picking moves in a turn-based RPG, but a really complicated cool one that he would've really wanted to play. Sure, he was fumbling every movement, but he was chaining fumbles, which was still pretty cool. And even if they were fumbles, it's not like they were useless. He wasn't failing to swing it, he just wasn't swinging it how he was supposed to. He could probably beat one of those bandits in a one-on-one pretty easily now, without having to rely on tricks like he did the last time.

His first unfumbled movement happened at the thirty minute mark. It was one of the swings that only clip the target. He didn't really do it right, but it was at least out of fumble territory. He assumed as such because he could feel that supernatural part of it again. The swing felt wet somehow. It was a strange feeling. It also felt like he could chain it into another a lot easier. That was something he'd been wondering about for a while actually. Most of the movements seemed a bit impractical. Not completely so, but a bit. He had guessed it would be like that, but he'd confirmed it now. Of course, the part that made chaining easier wasn't enough to stop him from fumbling the next swing.

By the end of the first hour, he could chain three of those swings together before fumbling. His other movements were getting better too, though not yet out of fumble territory.

After another hour, he'd gotten one of the light stab moves unfumbled. It had about the same effects as the swing one. All the movements seemed to share that common theme of a lot of light attacks, which fit since they were based on rain.

When he finally stopped after four more hours he no longer fumbled movements. He just did them poorly. In other words, he could perform them well enough to get the supernatural effect to show, but not enough to make it impactful.

But there was a reason he stopped at this point. Just a few minutes away, Will could see it. Rising Dragon Village.