Stopping the duel for a moment in order to fulfill Alec's earlier demand. He then practices the sweeping kick with the help of the sparring dummy.

Following the steps for it with a series of slow movements. He started by quickly lowering his stance, then immediately put his hand on the ground. Utilising this position to build up momentum from that, he then kicks his one leg forward. Keeping that one still until his moving leg reaches the peak of it's swing, he then allowed the other one to move as well.

Finally able to complete the sweeping kick, Alec does a small celebration by doing a fist pump in the air. After which, he went back to the initial position in order to resume the sparring. That he asked to be at a slightly lower difficulty this time, in order to not get beaten as quickly as he did earlier.

The fighting started from the other side this time, as Alec sidesteps a couple attacks and gets hit in a few places. Not at the level for him to be knocked down, but in one of the areas he got hit made him not want to be again.

Regaining a slight upper hand by going on the offensive in the fight, he finds an opening to strike a punch in the area where he had felt pain the most. To his visible surprise, the practice dummy got affected in the very same that Alec himself did, as it faltered for a moment while backing off a little.

The immediate thought Alec had after this was.

'Okay. This dummy isn't good. It's pretty darn amazing.'

Finding out that his attacks were not falling on an unaffected object Alec's interest in sparring grew. Causing him to collect a few bruses and overdoing it, to the point of exhausting his stamina fully.

Picking himself up a little to rest in a better position, for which he call upon the rope using it's name.

"Gordian."

It then swiftly moves toward in his direction, that he without a pause in between shapes it to be a comfortable seat. Able to take a due rest that he needed after having such a good physical workout done.

Myr then told Alec about going to get to an ointment for him. Where in between that, Alec felt the bruise with his one hand while holding his other one on his chin, looking like he was deep in contemplation.

"Maybe..."

With just a single word said under his breath, Alec's contemplative mood then ended. After which he takes off his shirt, and wraps it tight around the bruise on his arm. Keeping it there even when Myr arrives, who held an ointment which before handing to Alec asks a question.

"And the reasoning behind this is?"

Slowly loosening the tight wrap on his arm, Alec then answers.

"Back when I was little whenever I used to get hurt often. It wasn't anything severe like fractures or broken bones, just some cuts that I was told to wrap around as soon as possible. Bandages were one such thing, that pulling after waiting enough time-"

Although the bruise on his arm was not gone completely, it was much lighter than before he wrapped the t-shirt around it.

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"-always got healed by itself. This used to make me think that the bandage was what healed me. Only after my base of knowledge grew did I understood that was not case. It can be so now though, can't it?"

There was a quiet unmistakable confidence in those words said. Making Myr understand that those words he said, were something he definitely needed to utter to himself.

With that done he applied the ointment on to himself, and get up from the seat to head towards the lower floor again.

In the middle of escalating downstairs, Alec then says.

"I really feel like wanting to learn how to better take care of my body now."

Towards which the spire's keeper then said.

"That starts with a good meal, and taking a decent rest. Other than that understand which things you can't live without first, and make a list by going further down to things you need but are less necessary. Which ones come to your mind related to this?"

Listening to this made Alec think about a concept called Maslow's hierarchy of needs. One he learned back when he was in college. It has a total of five levels that he speaks to Myr.

"The most important is psychological needs. Such as air, water, food, shelter, sleep, etc. Next is the safety needs that for at the moment is personal security, health, and resources I can utilise. Then comes love and belonging towards their community. After that is need for self-esteem and respect, and finally comes the self-actualisation needs. This was part of my education, and something that stuck with me even now."

Looking at Alec speechlessly for a moment, Myr then says.

"The accumulation of knowledge in your world, and ease of access to it is clearly admirable."

Hearing this Alec couldn't agree more himself. Missing the internet and that accumulation of knowledge even more. This made him feel like wanting to atleast build chess or some board game.

*****

The next few days he improves his physique with the help of exercising. Then practicing in more spare and improve his fighting technique. Meanwhile learning about how someone with his physique should be moving around.

Nearly allowing him to be able to overlap his own image with it. That how someone of his own body shape and weight, moved just slightly better than him. That was including his own improvement, which he did not see as much until he started to face and then utilise some unique moves.

Including the weaving and sidestepping from boxing, using the throw technique from judo, and axe kicks that made Alec to include stretching into his routine.

Other than that Alec tried a couple more uses for his invocation, that in the end he was unsuccessful in being able to fully realise.

Some of those included with him trying to make a remotely controllable clone. That he began by making a puppet through the reference from the sparring dummy. Finally when he succeeded in buliding one, through the aid provided by Myr, Alec then tried to puppeteer it by immersing himself into it.

Doing that made him black-out, and wake up a few hours later. Still in his body completely having failed at creating this project.

The other application he had failed to use his power for was to either increase or decrease his own weight. When he envisioned this aspect and tried to invoke it, Alec immediately felt quite short of breath. Feeling like his lungs to be squeezing, and his ears to be ringing loudly.

Stopping himself from having to suffer that pain, Alec then gives up on this application of his ability.

Next he tries something much more feasible yet failing at it. That was having the ability to be able to walk on water, which he knew would be really useful. Upon trying it again and again, Alec was able to find limited success at it. Exerting his entire strength he was able to stay on top of it, which showed failure at even a slight bit of movement from the water.

The things that brought Alec the greatest benefit in his ability included him raising his weight lifting limit. As this allowed him to lift even heavier objects through the use of Invocation. Other than that were him using the rope in a wide variety of gym machines as he learned how to control the rope more thoroughly. Able to tense or slack it at will, without any uneasiness like he had earlier.

Noting this thing on his many page full diary now, Alec then writes another line before sleeping.

The line he wrote read, 'Long range detection'.

*****

Out in the sea, but still within the safer periphery of the tower, Alec held a couple of utensils. Such as cups, pot, plates, and a few sheathed knives. All of which has the word 'float' carved on to them.

Each of them then Alec throws away in full force at random direction and then blindfolds himself. Then he steps forward in a particular direction while blindfolded, meanwhile not falling in the sea due to the help of the stone platform created by Myr. Alec keeps walking forward, and although he could not see there was the pot which he had thrown.

The earlier process repeats with Alec being able to locate, and then pick up all the items he had launched away at random. Picking the final one he then says.

"In my mind each of these objects are like a beacon. It is so easy since I have fixed a strand of my hair in each one of them. This will help me keep track of the islands that I'll find in the way."

Although quite rare there were still a few islands that were in this sea. Only they were difficult to track of due to being no guidance from stars or many landmarks around.

This new application of invocation would allow him to combat some of that. While for the rest of the many problems he had some other ideas.

Those which he could only apply after getting back inside tower, where he wanted to go inside after walking blindfoldedly and nearly falling a couple times into the waters.

Again they headed towards the tower, meanwhile Alec juggled the items he had in mid-air. Playing like this in order to put off his mind from the storm. That he was getting used to a little bit, but not completely yet.