Hearing his master’s description of the Martial Style, Alnea thought that mastering this Five River Flow Style would be a little more difficult than the other two Martial Style. After all, this Martial Style was not based on controlling his body’s strength like the other two, or so he thought, as he opened the scroll, and glanced through it.
The principle of the Five River Flow Style was to let his movements flow like a river, ultimately using the opponent’s strength against them. The requirements for his body’s movements, and his control over them, was much higher than what the previous two Martial Styles had asked of him. To make proper use of the Martial Style, his movements had to be smooth, and fluid, guiding the attacks of his opponents, deflecting them away from him.
When mastered completely, and used in conjunction with compatible water element Aspects, the Martial Style could allow Warriors to defend against a force five times greater than their own. And it was not just physical attacks that the Martial Style could help defend against, but ranged attacks as well, unless the elements of the ranged attack would counter the Martial Style. Even in that case, the defence would only fall slightly, and not by much.
With such great capabilities, there was no denying the fact that the Five River Flow Style was one of the better Lowest Grade Martial Styles. And much harder to practise than the other Lowest Grade Martial Style. Yet as he saw the description of the Martial Style, and how to train for it, Alnea felt a little awkward in his situation. Although it did not focus on controlling the strength of his body like the other two, the Martial Style still emphasised on mind body coordination, another thing that the Oathkeeper Style had given him quite an experience of.
Still, he was not sure how much of the Five River Flow Style he would be able to master just based on that experience alone. After all, the Martial Style really was different from the other two he had mastered. So not letting the awkward emotion, or the excitement take hold of him, Alnea started with the lowest level moves of the Martial Styles. And in just a few moments, after completing the first of those movements, he knew that he had already mastered that level.
As such, he followed on with the moves of the next level, moving on to an even higher level after practising them for just a few moments, which once again, he seemingly mastered in just one try. In the end, he reached the limit of what he was physically capable of learning, after which, he took a furtive glance at his master, and gulped in hesitation.
“Surprise?” Alnea said, while his master looked at him in annoyance.
Maybe he really was getting a little too cheeky, he thought. The way she was looking at him at the moment reminded him of the times his mother glanced at him when she usually got annoyed with him. Not surprisingly, her looks were almost always followed by a session of scolding. Sometimes, she even twisted his ear and smacked him on his head. An annoying habit of his mother, which he had thought that she would get rid of when he would become a Seed, yet she still continued treating him like that.
He was not a child anymore! He was going to become the greatest Wanderer, and demanded some respect from his mother. Unfortunately, he could not convey that to her. He was too scared of what would ensue after that. Maybe he would have to become a proper Wanderer, a False Wanderer, like his father had been, to get the respect he deserved.
Till then, he would have to deal with his mother as he had always dealt with her, by acting cutely with her. Though he hated doing that, survival instinct was a thing that forced miracles out of people. And that same survival instinct was telling him that at the moment, to calm his master, he had to… do absolutely nothing. Even before he could think of doing anything, the annoyance in his master’s eyes was already gone, replaced by a strange, and curious light, as she got lost in her thoughts. After a while, she once again replaced the scroll on the table with a scroll from her ‘Dimensional Pocket’.
“This is Martial Style specialising in Agility, Thousand Thoughts a Moment,” his master said, as she placed the scroll on the table. “As the name implies, the Warrior who created this Martial Style envisioned using his Aspects to gain the ability to react to a thousand attacks simultaneously. But just like the creator of the Thousand Arms Style, the Warrior overreached for himself.
“The Warrior’s talent and comprehension limited the Martial Style to Three Thoughts a Moment. That is too inefficient a use of Aspects. A False Warrior with good foundations would be able to do that without the help of any Martial Styles, let alone a True Martial Warrior. That is why this is considered a Failed Grade Martial Style. But for you, this should be enough.”
“A Failed Grade Martial Style? But weren’t the Martial Styles that you took out yesterday all of the Lowest Grade?”
“They were,” his master said, “but I need to check something, so I replaced the previous Martial Styles with this this one.”
“What are you checking, master?”
“You will know soon enough,” his master said. “Follow the instructions in the scroll, and see how far you can master this Martial Style. Let us see if you can surprise me once again.”
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“Yes Master,” Alnea said, following the instructions of his master, and opened the scroll to study its contents. The core concept of the Martial Style was increasing his reactionary abilities through his mind and body coordination, just like the Five River flow Style. But unlike the creator of the Five River Flow Style, the Warrior who had created the Thousand Thoughts a Moment had not been able to incorporate his Aspects into his Martial Style. Maybe his Aspects were incompatible with his ideas, Alnea thought.
He had read about it the notes and scrolls his master had given him in the past few months that trying to create a Martial Style that did not conform to one’s Aspects was the greatest taboo for Warriors. That was also the reason why condensing Aspect Ocean was the restriction for creating Martial Styles. Only when Warriors have completed forming their Aspect Oceans, would the core of their Aspects be finalised. Creating their Martial Styles before that happened made no sense, as it would most probably result in deviating from their Aspects, rendering it practically useless, like the Martial Style in front of him.
As he read through the scroll detailing the Martial Style, and how to practise it, Alnea started to find the similarities between the Thousand Thoughts a Moment Style, and the Five River Flow Style. Although they went about it differently, their essence was the same, coordinating between his mind, and his body. Maybe he really would be able to give his master a surprise, Alnea thought, as he closed his eyes, and started following the descriptions of the scroll.
The first step was to focus within himself, and then try splitting his mind into two, which would allow him to do two things at the same time. He did not have to do those tasks perfectly. At the beginning, he just had to try splitting his mind into two. The rest would come with practice, or so the scroll had read. Accordingly, Alnea followed its advice, and tried out the exercises of the differing levels of the Thousand Arms Style in both of his hands.
In the beginning, he encountered some difficulties in controlling the movements of his hands as he wished, but as he gradually acquainted himself with the process of dividing his mind, he soon learned that it was not as hard as he had thought. Rather, doing things in this way felt more interesting, and fun. Maybe, if he tried, he could do even more, he thought, and immediately afterwards, acted on that thought.
“...I seem to have reached the level of Four Thoughts a Moment, master,” Alnea said with an awkward smile after confirming his limits. “Surprise?”
His master chose to ignore his useless comment, and took the scroll back from the table, replacing it with four more scrolls from her ‘Dimensional Pocket’. “Here,” she said, as she placed them on the table. “Try them next.”
“Four at once, master?”
“Do you want me to constantly keep on swiping them, as you continue mastering them within moments?”
“...I will start practising then.”
The four scrolls that his master had taken out were naturally the Martial Styles of the remaining four specialisations; Stamina, Stealth, Sensory, and Auxiliary. And as he read through them, Alnea realised that these four were all much more biased towards the usage of Aspects, than the ones before them had been. As such, their basic requirement, the part which he could master, was not as difficult to accomplish as that of the other four Martial Styles had been.
Without even trying them out, Alnea was sure that he could easily master all four of the Martial Styles. They just seemed a little too easy. Especially the Stamina specialisation Martial Style. It just focussed on running, and how to efficiently maintain his speed, something that he had been doing for months under the guidance of his dreams. In a way, the Oathkeeper Style covered that part too.
Of the other three, Alnea spent most of his time on the Stealth specialisation Martial Style. Its basic requirements, the one he had to master, were to stop all his motions, and lower his heartbeat and breath to a certain level. At first, he had thought that the mastering the Martial Style might take some effort, but when he tried the moves described in the scroll, his experience with the Oathkeeper Style came in handy once again, helping him easily achieve the basic mastery level.
Unfortunately for him, that was not the end of the Martial Style, as its scroll came with a lot of extra knowledge of the things that he had to take care of while trying to hide his presence, and other little titbits, which Alnea found unnecessarily excessive for a Lowest Grade Martial Style. Whether it was because of his Oath though, or the watchful eyes of his master, he had no choice but to spend some time memorising all of that knowledge.
Then there was the Sensory specialisation Martial Style, which required him to practise by closing off all of his senses, except one, and training the sensitivity of that sense to a certain level, before moving on to the next. It could have been easier if he had had access to his Spirit, but the effect of his Oathkeeper Style proved sufficient for him to gain a basic mastery in just a short while.
That left him with just the last one of the eight Martial Styles he had to master, one specialising in Auxiliary functions. Self recovery, to be particular. Although the Martial Style did not have any face moves or effects, just its function of speeding up recovery made it the most valuable of the eight Martial Styles. Unfortunately, out of the eight Martial Styles, it was also the one which was the most reliant on Aspects.
As such, Alnea was doomed to not be able to make much use of the Martial Style until he reached the False Rank. On the positive side, not being able to use Aspects also lowered the difficulty of the Martial Style, making it the Martial Style with the least requirements to master. All he needed to do was regulate his blood flow according to his wishes, which he did by directing his muscles according to his wishes, of which he had gained an impeccable control.
And so, the last of the eight Martial Styles was completely mastered before he had even had his breakfast. Although he had expected it when he had mastered four Martial Styles one after another, completing his Oath in such a short time still came as a pleasant surprise to him. What was even more surprising was the pleasant feeling of the broken chains of his Oath, melting into his Spirit, and driving forth its growth, bringing him something that he had long been anticipating. The breakthrough of his Spirit Power.