‘No, that won’t do. If mom was in that exact same stance and made the exact same attack with the same strength and speed, would my counter work? Impossible…impossible…’ Ebony fell into a trance as the short exchange ended. He repeated the whole exchange and had the image of his mother overlap with Lucas. With that speed and power, he evaded the right way but no matter how he thought about it, none of his counters would actually work.
He fell onto his butt and contemplated as he replayed the exchange while coming up with different counterattacks.
“Her spear would curve there…it’ll split into two to guard and counter…she’ll just push the spear to a sweep there. My openings…at that speed there are 44 ways to hit me. 47? If I move half a step, I’ll get stabbed. My legs would get cut. Decapitation there…” Ebony fell into a trance as his memories surfaced and overlapped with his current battle experience. After 10 minutes, sweat beaded and rolled down his head and back. He hadn’t simulated training in his head to this degree for a long time. He tested it out in real battle and let his body do the work but reviewing battles mentally was something his father trained him to do.
“...I can’t counter her at that speed. I’ll slow her down by 5%” Ebony continued the simulation and he could only see his ass getting beaten.
“Too fast. Slower.” He mentally took away the spear user's speed. He could evade the attacks since he was just repeating the same attack pattern and then countering. He would first redo every step exactly as it happened with Lucas. As long as it didn’t work, he would repeat that with other counters he could dish out in that particular position. Every position he placed himself in, every kick, every punch and any transformation he pulled off to change his counters only got countered. In fact, just observing her body placement already cancelled out most of the so-called counters that he thought of.
“Slower…” He gave up on the previous simulation after an hour. More beads of sweat formed. He was beginning to get drenched. With the spear user in his imagination getting slower, he came up with even more possible counters to her counters. With his current Intelligence, his brain was sparking off at speeds an unclassed boy could never. He made tens, hundreds of thousands of attempts. Maybe even millions. The sensation of all his mental deaths was all real. Ebony forgot about this mental technique that his father taught him. He had no time to wonder what triggered him to start this training all over again. But this mental exercise was what gave him the combat experience far beyond his age.
“Slower…” 3 hours passed before he gave up on the previous duel that he repeated an unknown number of times.
By daybreak, the spear user standing in front of Ebony had already dropped down to the same speed and power as him. He already repeated the duel with his opponent having the exact same physical ability as him for half a night and probably millions of times. He wasn’t aware how many times he simply re-simulated the battle over and over again as fast as his mind was going.
❅❅❅
Ning Xin’s Intuition soured after the battle between Ebony and Lucas. Something was up and she didn’t know what exactly.
Lucas was strong, she saw the battle between the Lizardman and Cap Dwarf.
The duel started and Ning Xin’s Intuition continued to alarm her in an odd way that wasn’t dangerous but bordered between discomfort, opportunity and pain.
Perhaps the others weren’t able to see it or only Lucas who was in the midst of the duel couldn’t sense it. But as Ebony’s long-time sparring partner she could gauge it. Her Intuition about the battle itself was that Ebony would win without a doubt. That was odd, she thought that with the data she got from the spar between Lucas and Cap Dwarf, Ebony shouldn’t have a complete, effortless victory like her Intuition told her.
But the instant Lucas moved, she understood his loss.
Ning Xin had almost complete control over every muscle in her body. She was very sensitive to the movement of muscles, even her opponents. Ebony had far greater perception when it came to observing an opponent’s physical state but she learned a lot from him the past few years. Not through conversation but through combat. She picked up a few of his ways at an unbelievable pace.
Ebony’s prediction of his opponent’s movements would go all the way down to observing his opponent’s muscle contraction, joint placement and all other micro actions down to breathing, gaze, heart rate and who knows what else. Perhaps, nowadays he was tracking the movement of mana in his domain. Rather, that was definitely what he was subconsciously doing.
Now she could see that all of Ebony’s muscles, joints, placement of strength, where his toe pointed, all of them were already aligned to dodge perfectly before Lucas even raised his spear. When Lucas finished raising his spear, every step after that was predicted by Ebony and it definitely played out the way he predicted. This was what her Intuition told her as the battle progressed.
Speed? He was reacting before his opponent even moved. It wasn’t anything new to her but he seemed many more steps ahead than usual against Lucas.
When Lucas used his water spears to block off his evasive movements, Ning Xin went into what Ebony called bullet time as her concentration spiked. She stared at every part of Ebony’s body and his position.
Mental Acceleration revved up to new heights and she imagined Ebony flickering away behind Lucas to land a kick. Then he was back at his original spot and she imagined he simply ignored the water spears, shifted the physical spear aside and punched Lucas just like one of his previous parries. The water spears simply scattered after freezing on contact and they weren’t able to pierce his body. He wasn’t even using his gravity magic to redirect any force…
She watched as the scene repeated. Ebony stood in front of 5 spears and his body was in a position that allowed him to do a front kick, he just had to shift between two water spears as Lucas didn’t distance the two spearheads enough. Ebony would have his torso right in between two water spears, his neck would tilt just enough to dodge the physical spear and he would have gotten close enough for his front kick to land on either the body or the face. Whichever he felt like. To Lucas, it would probably look like Ebony got stabbed just to land a hit or it would feel like his spears phased through Ebony and he would receive an attack.
The possibilities kept popping up in her head. Ebony had placed himself in an extremely advantageous position but the problem was Lucas was too stiff. Her spike of concentration ended before she could continue seeing the possibilities. The longer the exchange went on, the more she recalled how she used to feel when facing Ebony.
Lucas’s spear mastery was too stiff. When he went on the offence, every bit of his muscles were poised and tensed to give all the power he could put in. When he went on the defence, none of his muscles could react to change back to offence to give a good counter.
Ning Xin had thought the Lizardman had been the first decent spearman she had seen from the Imperials after his duel with Cap Dwarf and the more agile Athena. Now, that thought was crushed. She had learned her flaws from battling Ebony over and over again and covered those almost immediately. At most, she would make the same mistake twice or thrice. After a few years of daily spars that lasted hours and hours, she had covered a lot of her openings and flaws.
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
She had seen Ebony spar with other swordsmen, axe wielders, dagger wielders, knife wielders and even other spearmen like Mark. However, he never appeared as overwhelming as he did at present.
Ning Xin didn’t just learn from her own battles, she also learned from others. She never felt like she was a true genius but her confidence against Lucas had shot through the roof.
“I drive on auto, you drive on manual.” Ebony used to tell this line. She sort of understood what they meant but at the same time not really. It felt as if every single micromovement and placement was planned and calculated, it probably was but Ebony didn’t have to think in his mind before telling his body. It both happened at the same time, or his body was ahead. There was no other way he could keep up with her speed. On the other hand, after learning his methods Ning Xin simply pushed her observation, thinking and acting speed to the extreme.
She also had muscle memory but she preferred absolute control over her body.
There wasn’t much magic at play during the duel, as if both parties agreed to keep magic to a minimum. Hence, she knew that this wasn’t all that Lucas could do. Lucas probably felt it the same way as her, if he kept going the same way he did he would only meet the same results. If he used some strong water spells, he should put up more of a fight.
She wanted to go talk to Ebony but he just sat down and fell into a trance. She knew how to tell whenever he fell into one of his trances.
Seeing him that way, she went to clear and wash the dishes from dinner. There was no need to scold him for fighting right after a meal since the battle wasn’t that fierce or intense.
When she returned, she saw him drenched in sweat.
Nobody stayed to watch him as they imagined that he was just meditating in silence as usual.
Her annoyance from Intuition continued to intensify.
“He’s gonna leave me in the dust if this continues. I can’t just let that happen.” She was even more determined to get stronger and better. She didn’t know what he was in a trance for this time but her Intuition about what was happening was too strong. It was as if it was telling her what was happening.
Despite that, she was worried that this wasn’t just a normal trance or training. Ebony continued to sweat and he was practically soaking wet after a few hours.
“I want to know what he’s thinking, what he’s seeing!” This particular thought throbbed in her mind over and over again. His mana signature was actually unstable and it continued to destabilise through the night.
By midnight, she started to sense the helplessness that Ebony was afraid of.
Ning Xin got restless, she couldn’t tear her eyes or mind away from him. Afraid that something she didn’t like would happen. If his sense of helplessness continued to grow she was determined to wake him up no matter what she had to do.
“I want to know what is happening in his mind!”
She didn’t realise the sheer amount of life force or mana she was pushing into her mask as she could only delve deeper into her Intuition to know what was going on.
“I have to know!”
It felt as if a second heart was racing in her head. Not even her full-powered Rampaging Mortal’s Pulse hurt the veins in her body as much.
Unknowingly, Ning Xin had knelt with her mask on his forehead for the past few hours.
All of a sudden a scene flashed in her mind. Her eyes shot open and she fell back, splitting apart from Ebony. She was just as drenched in sweat from the unmoving position.
“Wha-” Ning Xin’s eyes darted around as she got her bearings. What had she been doing earlier?
‘Was that one of those trances that he falls into all the time?’ She blinked when a brief instant flashed in her mind. She saw the exact same training field with Ebony and a Lizardman facing each other. However, there was no way that the Lizardman was Lucas. Her Intuition outright denied the possibility.
In that brief instance of the scene she saw. She saw the duel repeat at least five times. Down to the gazes, breath control and muscle placement, everything was the same. The stiff position and stances that Ning Xin saw from Lucas were used to move in unpredictable ways to counter all of Ebony’s actual counter against Lucas.
She had assumed that Ebony had shown her the flaws in Lucas’s spearmanship but what Ebony saw was that the so-called flaws he tried to make use of weren’t even an opening he could exploit. When he finally found a real counter, the next position that he stimulated from the Lizardman would always be in a spot that would further counter or evade him.
“How many times has he repeated that duel? How many steps ahead is he? Has he found a surefire way to win?”
Ning Xin was mentally spent, without her bolster or cooling she fell unconscious right there on the battlefield. With the intensified helplessness she was sensing from Ebony, it was obvious that he hadn't found a way to win for sure.
She woke up when daylight shone in her eyes.
‘As expected…’ Ebony was sitting in the same position. He was already skinnier, his mana was bone dry. He had sunken cheeks, dark eye circles and a frozen pool of water under him.
Ning Xin didn’t feel her usual morning grogginess. She didn’t care anymore. She slapped Ebony but it didn’t wake the man up. Pinching, poking and even punching didn’t work.
She dashed to the kitchen to whip up the most random meal she had ever done and ran back out.
“I made breakfast, if you don’t wake up and it cools down before you eat it I’m gonna get angry!” She roared into his ears in case he silenced his surroundings.
‘His pupils moved!’ She was happy to get the slightest response.
She was going to urge more but his pupils continued to stir and his eyelashes quivered. He was easier to wake up than she imagined. His eyes finally opened and looked right into hers, there was a moment of silence between them.
“What do I do…I couldn’t beat her even if she’s three-quarters of my speed.”
“No, the end result would be the same even if she was half my speed and power.”
“I would just last longer.”
“Unless I use magic, the end result doesn’t change.”
“And, that’s only the version of her that I remember. I don’t have data of her using magic so there’s no point bringing magic into the fight.”
“She used the limits of an unclassed human body and I used everything I’ve gained with my current body but I can’t dodge…”
Ning Xin listened to Ebony’s hoarse and weak voice without interrupting him. She wanted to say that it was all a simulation with his imagination but she knew that it was just as real as any battle. She wanted to question the part about his opponent having an unclassed human body but she doubted that Ebony couldn’t tell the difference.
“Haha. She wasn’t even using a human body that she’s used to…”
Ning Xin didn’t have any words to say, she only pulled his head onto her shoulder and embraced him.
“And you’ve gotten stronger out of it.” She muttered with confidence.
Ebony’s weakest ever arms grabbed her shoulders and plucked her out of the embrace. She let him pluck her out without resistance. He gazed into her eyes and she returned it. “Definitely!”
A bubble of warmth welled up in her. She pulled his head back onto her shoulder and rubbed his head. Resting herself against him, “That’s my man.” Unaware of what she said and unaware that Ebony had fallen asleep. Even more unaware that a few Frost Elves were sitting at the table Ebony put out for tea time and had watched them the whole night.