"Alright so first, I'll have you learn the Traditional Thai Stance," Sun said as he got into position and almost immediately began unconsciously bouncing back and forth. As he moved around, he explained the key points to the stance.
He gestured to his feet and legs first, saying, "Your legs should be shoulder width apart, dominant foot behind for most cases as it will be the one to generate your hardest-hitting strikes. I don't know how much you know about martial arts in general, but for Muay Thai, your body faces the enemy; don't turn your body to shrink your profile."
Next he moved on to the hand position, saying, "As for your hands, you probably already noticed how high my guard is. You want to keep your hands head-level. The bouncing you see, we call rhythm and it’s practically the most important fundamental part of your stance. It helps to better check against any incoming attacks while also masking when I decide to attack, simultaneously allowing me the ability to quickly shift my weight."
Elizabeth was confused with regards to some of these terms so she had to remind Sun to give her a refresher course as she had absolutely no experience with fighting.
"...So, your profile is the area of your body you expose to the enemy," He said as he turned to his side, positioning his torso such that it faced almost perpendicular to Elizabeth. He continued explaining, "For our style of fighting, your legs make up half your weapons. But as you can see, by turning like this, while I might become more evasive and harder to hit, I've effectively lost the use of my legs as weapons since they are not aiming at you; or, the enemy if we were to be fighting."
He turned back to his earlier stance and began to talk about his hands, "The guard I mentioned is the position your arms and hands take to shield you. Maybe you've seen karate or boxing where the fighters have their hands a bit lower and farther from their faces. But for us practitioners of Muay Thai, the elbows are often more important than our punches. The higher raised position of my arms as well as their close distance to my face allow me the ability to shift my weight more easily when conducting elbow strikes."
Still talking about his hands, Sun said, "As for checking, that simply refers to being able to catch or intercept attacks.” Mirthfully, he rhetorically asked, “You see how my stance is practically begging for someone to hit me? So much of my body is exposed while my hands are apparently only covering my face, but in the grand scheme of things, the stance is set up to pretty much bait your opponents into carelessly attacking.”
“When you learn how to properly fight, you'll be checking with your arms and legs much more often than in other common martial arts, which will balance out the risk you take for exposing yourself," Sun concluded.
After the explanation, Sun instructed Elizabeth to try adopting the stance. To no one’s surprise, she failed miserably in her first attempt. Unlike most of everything she had learned since she became involved with deities and the Cataclysm, the Muay Thai she was learning did not come from a magical book; she couldn’t simply download all the information she needed, so to speak, and had to learn the old fashioned way.
Keeping his stance, Sun guided Elizabeth as she tried to assume proper form. “Arms a little higher… Fists a bit closer to your face… Keep your back straight… Your legs are a bit further apart...”
Eventually, after most of the directions elicited additional corrections in the same palace, Elizabeth gave in to her frustration and whined, “Ok, this obviously isn’t getting us anywhere. I don’t have the experience nor control to follow you with just verbal instructions.”
“I can help you with that,” Jane suddenly said as she appeared behind Elizabeth.
Jane had been silently watching nearby and had approached Sun and Elizabeth… menacingly. Jane then slowly and deliberately began moving Elizabeth around until she was in a perfect Traditional Thai Stance.
“Now...” Sun took a second to recompose himself as unbeknownst to Elizabeth, Jane had clearly dragged on the process of adjusting the novice’s stance with the overt intention to tease Sun in the process. Glaring daggers at Jane in clear distaste for her little ‘prank,’ Sun said, “Try to follow my rhythm as we go through all the basic attacks.”
He had Elizabeth execute upper body attacks first, going through jabs, hooks, and crosses with both her arms. Only after Elizabeth could perform ten subsequent attacks of every kind without detracting from her form did Sun move on to elbow strikes, leg kicks, and knee strikes.
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Eventually...
[Martial Art: Art Of Eight Limbs (Muay Thai)
Level 1
Experience: 0/10
Grade: F
Description: Widespread on Earth as a combat sport descendant of Thailand, Muay Thai is characterized by the use of fists, elbows, knees, and shins.
Current Effect: Unarmed combat at the Mortal Stages yields a 6.25% buff to Strength and Defense.]
Not five minutes later, Elizabeth paused, confusing everyone around to witness her progress as her expression quickly flickered through emotions of happiness, satisfaction, disappointment, ending in frustration and annoyance.
‘Where the fuck are my experience points?’ Elizabeth grumbled to herself with enough projected intent that her question reached P.
‘Tsk, tsk,’ P’s disappointed clicking from beyond the void gathered Elizabeth’s attention. ‘What do you mean, “where are your experience points?” Have you seriously forgotten the nature of your Goldfinger so quickly?’
‘What do you mean?’ Elizabeth narrowed her eyes as she thought, ‘You said so yourself that my life was turned into a game. Shouldn’t my Muay Thai be improving the more I use it? It certainly worked that way for Cooking...’
‘You are correct in assuming that your Skills should improve should you use them,’ P said, pausing perfectly to see her Chosen respond in a most aggrieved manner. ‘However,’ P darkly added, ‘That is only true so long as you are actually gaining proficiency, or dare I say “experience,” with your Skill.’
‘When you cooked the last couple times and got experience, you did so because you had your meals to show for your effort. Now, you’re just mindlessly drilling the basics of your martial. There’s no weight behind your attacks. You’re not pushing yourself to strike faster, harder, more precisely… Obviously, you’re not learning anything new nor becoming better.’
‘Damn,’ Elizabeth bit her cheek as she realized the error behind her misunderstanding.
In the RPGs that she so dearly loved, simple repetition was all it would take for her characters to progress and gain experience. In hindsight, she felt like smacking herself for even subconsciously accepting this game mechanic would apply to her as well as P specifically explained the nature of her circumstance; her Goldfinger and its ability.
No, she had not literally become a video game character. That was just the example followed for P to contract her as her Chosen. Elizabeth’s life had become like a video game thanks to the power of her Goldfinger, but the whole of reality hadn’t changed to adapt her into a game-character-like existence.
It was the reason her Status Function didn’t include a health bar. It was the reason she wouldn’t be able to just repeat the motions for a particular skill ad infinitum and expect to become a grandmaster eventually. It was also the reason Elizabeth had to quickly dismiss the idea that she might be entitled to a full recovery when she eventually Leveled Up.
“Tsk,” Elizabeth clicked her tongue as she accepted the fact that she would need to actually put in the effort to become better, before she returned to striking at the heavy bag.
Atid, who had been watching her quietly shift through her expressions, was at the precipice of going over to her and seeing what the problem was, when he and the others were stunned by the intensity Elizabeth gained when she resumed training.
Gone was the tame, methodical person that had been calmly learned under Sun and was doing her best to learn the basic attacks of the dojo’s main martial art. In her place was some sort of demon that aimed to strike with all the force in her body… Every. Single. Time…
Then, Elizabeth realized she was losing efficiency as she could be training both her Muay Thai Skill and raising her Stats with Innate Strength Conversion at the same time. From that point onward, true chaos ensued as the non-Practitioner members of Atid’s Dojo that had been fortunate enough to be present witnessed Elizabeth petite, probably less than fifty-five kilogram, frame start absolutely blasting her heavy bag around.
It might have been impressive if she such a performance came in a momentary burst of power from a trained athlete. But Elizabeth was a new face. More disturbingly, she could continue to fling about her heavy bag for as long as her body held Inner Strength; in other words, much longer than anyone her size and weight had any right to…
Elizabeth herself, though, was entirely oblivious to the scene she was causing. She probably hadn’t even realized the dojo had started filling in with others beside Atid, Jane, and Sun, as the totality of her being was invested in drawing out the most Inner Strength to increase her Stats and gain the most experience for her Muay Thai.
Against the heavy bag, she could prioritize the gains to her Strength while also slightly improving her Speed and Endurance. Beyond that, she could shadow box beside her heavy bag to prioritize the gains to her Speed, followed by her Endurance. And finally, she found that through resistance training, she could increase her Defense and Endurance in that order.
With Atid’s Dojo, doubling as a fully fleshed out gym, Elizabeth had no shortage of tools and equipment to keep her training relatively balanced. With her Stats and Muay Thai increasing proportional to the effort she gave, she kept her motivation up for the whole day.
In what felt like no time at all, closing time for the dojo arrived and Elizabeth almost didn’t want to go back home. No one had bothered her since Sun left her alone to develop her form, making the dojo about as pleasant as her home as she got to spend the whole day grinding like a mad man.
Then again, because she had so maniacally pursued progress, she had yet to eat or sleep, or… take a break for anything other than using the dojo restroom or to recover her exhausted Inner Strength.
Elizabeth paused as a curious thought struck her.
Just a week ago, she had been a gaming potato that would not leave the shelter of her home lest the world was coming to an end. Yet now, here she was actually training and improving her body. Ironically enough, it really did take an apocalypse to get her out of her previous lifestyle.
‘And yet… This really hasn’t been too bad,’ Elizabeth thought somewhat unsure of herself.