[Ishmael]

“Stiff, far too stiff.”

I swung my fist hard into an earthen golem. The soft dirt packed together and absorbed my attack. The roots of the moss that grew as its skin and hair tried to grip my hands and arrest me in place. My stubbed claws heated up and burned the plant life away.

“I told you already, you’re not being thoughtful enough.”

Grendel stood nearby, closely watching each of my attacks, my stances, my follow-through; everything about my fighting ability. He broke it apart like a pageant mother living vicariously through their child. Nothing was good enough, everything had a flaw that was keeping my punch from being suitable. My footwork was too narrow, my shoulders were too tight, and my punches weren’t properly placed.

I pounded into the golem a few more times. Each attack into the lumbering beast ripped more and more dirt away. It slammed into the ground, ripping trees out of their roots and throwing sprays of dirt and rock into the air.

My wings carried me out of the way of the danger and allowed me to deliver a devastating dropping attack atop the golem’s head. The creature’s dirt skull collapsed for significant damage. Like a sandcastle, the golem’s form disintegrated into a messy pile atop the ground.

“Not nearly good enough,” Grendel criticized.

“It died all the same,” I said with a shrug. “Just like all other things that I have faced.”

Grendel sighed and shook his head. I felt like the problem child that had been sent to the principal's office one too many times. Too bad for Grendel, his life depended on teaching this stubborn child appropriately.

“Yes,” Grendel agreed. “But, you could have done it so much faster. It took you eight strikes to kill this golem. With your stats, you should be killing it in no more than two hits.”

“You can do that?” I asked with a raise of my scaled brow. “I’d enjoy seeing it in action.”

“I see,” Grendel said to himself. “It seems that you are a visual learner. Very well, I will show you what I mean.”

Grendel led the way through the trees and over the hill. The Dungeon was a wide open area with large fog banks keeping the entire region hemmed in. All manner of forest creature dwelled within, but the primary target of today’s lesson was the earth golem. Large and slow with a sizable amount of health to keep it alive, this monster was the perfect beast to practice attacks on.

The ground nearby rumbled as another rose from its dormant place to attack the intruders. It made a rumble like a rockslide and raised two massive arms over its head. While I flew over the shockwave, Grendel ignored it. His potent regeneration ability served him well in taking hits without much consideration.

He casually walked towards the golem. His shoulders rotated to loosen up and his neck twisted to either side.

They both moved to strike the other, but Grendel’s punch landed first. It did not initially appear all that powerful to me; no stronger than the attacks that I had inflicted upon the beast. Yet, unlike my attacks, the entire midsection of the golem was obliterated by a single fist. My eyes went wide as the golem’s torso tumbled off and turned to soil.

“It is as simple as that,” Grendel said, wiping the dirt from his hand. “I know that I am Level 38 and you are only Level 25, but this is something I could have done at Level 30.”

“What is so different?” I questioned curiously; doubting that someone’s attacks five levels above could be so much more impactful. “What did you do that I wasn’t already doing?”

“There are a few things. The first is the form. You have a terrible habit when you attack. It is clear that you were physically prodigious in life.”

“I was quite strong,” I replied.

“And you have grown over-reliant on that natural strength that you possessed,” Grendel admonished. “These beasts are not as frail as people. It is a lesson that you should have already learned. Tell me, are many of your battles tenacious fights to your last scraps of health.”

“Typically,” I answered, ignoring the fights where I inflicted [The Great Decay] upon my enemies. “But, isn’t that how it is supposed to be? A gripping fight to the death is what we should all be dreaming for.”

Grendel looked at me with a look of revelation in his eyes. I could almost see the invisible light bulb appear over his head as he pressed a hand over his mouth.

“Oh, so you’re insane,” Grendel said with the same gravity as if he had discovered the cure for cancer. “No wonder that Charles sent you here even though you are so woefully ill-equipped to take on the Master. Only someone like you would have the mentality necessary to go up against someone of his reputation.”

“Thanks,” I replied snidely.

“All that aside, your form could be better. At your talents and current stat totals, you can take on demons several levels higher than you fairly comfortably. If you had the fighting skills, you could probably challenge me right now. But, that over-reliance on your physicality is holding you back. You’re clipping your own wings.”

“Would I have been able to harm my Senior Brother if I had the skills you’re teaching me?”

“It would have wounded him, but it would not have changed the outcome,” Grendel replied honestly. “A gap of thirty levels is not that easy to simply overcome.”

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“What else?” I eagerly demanded.

“Outside of your form, your target selection is poor,” Grendel pointed out. “You are striking at anything you can get your fist into. I know that it is not abundantly clear, but different locations do different damage. If you hadn’t struck that golem in the head, you would have had to strike it a few more times to finish it off.”

“Alright, and doing those things will allow me to kill the beast in one blow?”

“No,” Grendel shook his head. “Those two things will allow you to kill the golem in four strikes. Once you do that, I will provide you with the final thing you are missing. That is how the Master wishes for you to be trained.”

“Then, let’s find another golem,” I said with a hungry smile.

I scoured the hills and forests before I heard another welcome rumble and grind from a nearby golem. I rushed the creature before it had the chance to set its feet. I smashed it directly in the middle of its earthen body with as much force as I could muster. The golem crumbled slightly and took a thunderous step backwards, but it did not explode in the way that Grendel had done it.

“Better placement, but your shoulders were too stiff again,” Grendel critiqued. “Your plant foot was too short and you lost too much speed.”

I grunted that I heard the feedback and set back to work. My feet moved into slightly different positioning; slightly wider. Remembering back to my limited boxing experience, I bent my knees and swung my fist upwards. My entire body twisted and rose behind my hand like a freight train.

The earth shook and the golem stumbled again, unable to react in time for the quick follow-up. It stomped into the ground and earned itself some distance.

“Good placement, better form,” Grendel complimented. “But, still not ideal.”

I took that information to try to calibrate my attacks. Back to the midsection. One, two, three massive attacks rang into the golem’s body before the next one blasted out the softened middle of its body and it tumbled backwards.

“Six strikes,” Grendel recorded. “Maybe you aren’t as mindless as I thought you were.”

But, I didn’t listen much to the taunt. I wanted to find another golem. I wanted to reach the epiphany in my fighting that was just a little further away.

The next golem, I killed it in six strikes again. The one after took five. Then, the one after that took seven. A large rock lodged in its midsection blocked my first attack and left my hand bruised from the collision.

After another couple golems, each just short of the four attack kill that I was hunting after, I started to notice the differences inherent in each golem. Their constructions varied. Some had stones in the middle. Some had thicker layers of moss that softened my strikes. Some rested near the riverbed and were made of wetter sediment. Each form required a different place to do significant damage.

My next target came soon enough. A golem pulled itself from the center of the hill. Dry sediment dripped from its body and formed small piles of dust around it. It glowed with mana and brought the loose dirt swirling around it in a small tornado. Rocks and sticks and debris were picked up to join the whirlwind.

I charged it, but stood back before I reached it. A few large rocks were embedded in its body, leaving a scarce amount of soft points to dig my fists into. A fist left the stream of dirt and crashed into the ground, spitting up the ground to join the swirling. I flew upwards to see that it was headless; just a hulking torso.

It swiped upwards to send a torrent of dirt to splash against my skin. I had to turn my head away to prevent myself from being blinded. It smashed into my chest and sent me tumbling along the ground. I spat a squirt of blood and forced myself back onto my feet.

I heard the sound of creaking wood. I turned my head to see the golem ripping a thick tree from the ground and hefting it in a single hand. It raised the weapon high over its head and slammed it down atop me.

My feet dug into the earth as I stood my ground. I put my full force behind an uppercut that hit in the center of the trunk. The tree exploded into numerous splinters and the golem took a set backwards from the unexpected disarming. It took the half of a trunk that was in its grasp and threw it down atop of me.

I punched again, obliterating the rest of the trunk and taking the attack to the golem. I broke through the dirt storm. Sizable rocks smashed into my scales, but my thicker scales absorbed the damage admirably.

My foot plunged into the ground and my left hand was already mid swing. Just below one of its abdominal rocks was a patch of brittle soil. My fist cleaved through the golem’s midsection, ripping away the dirt and dislodging the rock from its defensive position. As soon as the rock fell away, my next attack struck the golem in the soft void that the rock left behind. A massive spray of soil shot out from the golem’s back to join the whirlwind of dirt.

Encouraged by the damage inflicted, I pressed ahead. I threw one more left hook deep into the golem’s interior. I heard cracking and the golem’s top half toppled left while the bottom half fell to the right.

“Three attacks,” I said to the impassive Grendel who was watching just a few feet away from me.

“Technically, it was five. You punched the tree twice,” Grendel stated. But, before my blood boiled, he cracked a smile. “But, I suppose we can call it three. I’m not sure how many golems are even left in this place.”

“What was the final thing that I am missing?”

“You have a magic stat, correct?” Grendel asked.

“I didn’t have one for a time, but I do now,” I replied.

“You didn’t have one?” Grendel asked in confusion. “I recall hearing the Master mention that you were the enemy of Wrath. Did that designation have something to do with it?”

“I used to have an ability that raised the rest of my stats in exchange for my magic. I was unable to use spells and it started to become an issue.”

Grendel tilted his head in interest in what I said, but he did not press further. Instead, he clenched his fist and the near invisible shimmer of mana surrounded it. He threw a punch into the nearest tree and turned it into splinters.

“There are two components to the Grand Master’s style,” Grendel began. “The first is throwing the best punch possible every single time with perfect form. You began to see it yourself. Your first attack on the golem’s midsection showed that you were paying attention to the weak points. It is still rough, but I will show you the proper form to maximize your abilities.”

I clenched my fist and threw it into a similarly sized tree to the one Grendel had struck. An impact cracked the tree and toppled it over. But, it did not turn to powder like Grendel had.

“The second is mana infusing,” Grendel explained. “You know how, when you use a skill, you infuse mana into it?”

“I do.”

“You can use the same principle when it comes to regular attacks as well,” Grendel said. “In fact, all active abilities were made with organic actions infused with mana. Your spit, your bite, your iron-coated punches; all of these were actions that someone else did while infusing mana. into their bodies.”

“You can create your own skills?”

“We are not of the level that we can make skills unique to us,” Grendel replied with a shake of his head. “Infusing mana to the specific moves that I show you is by virtue of the Great Master. Master’s Master. He turned these moves into a skill once he reached his maximum level. Copying those moves perfectly under his blessing is what allows us to replicate it. For now, that is all it will be: copying.”

I frowned. Outside of my transformations, everything else I used was a hand-me-down from someone more powerful. Even the beast were able to infuse mana and create their own abilities. When I had the chance, what ability could I make?

“Please show me the Grand Master’s moves.”