“GOD DAMNS IT!” – A furious scream resounded around the comfy cave as a fist punched the wall, a punch strong enough to crush the wall itself.
It had been two weeks since I perfected the first three styles of the Werewolf Fury, and I finally perfected the 120 stances pertaining to the Merged style, yet I just reached 99% completion on the Werewolf Fury, meaning there was something I was not seeing.
I had been over it a thousand times, yet I didn’t find anything indicating a possible improvement; I even had went out to hunt and tested all 4 styles, and it proved I was faster, stronger and way more skilled than before, but I still didn’t have a 100% mastery over the fighting style.
I went over it a last time for the day. The Werewolf Fury was a fighting style developed by and for werewolves, beings which developed an instinctive mindset, a hunter soul and a predator hunger. What the hell was what I was missing?
I had tried to predate bigger preys, on the ones I got to kill, it didn’t work, and I even had to run from some of them. I had tried to hunt, instead of just killing beasts, immersing myself in the hunt, but nothing.
Maybe it was something on the instincts? No, I had thought about it, but nothing about the technique had anything to do with instincts. I mean, instincts helped at the time of the hunt, but not on the techniques used.
Bah, I had no idea, but I couldn’t stand idle, and I needed the 100% of this technique. You may wonder why, the 100% would only be 1.000 SP more, not that big of a deal, but the fact was that when I achieved the 99% something happened.
***
A day before:
“Ok, that’s it, this is the last stance and I’ll have full mastery of the Werewolf Fury!” – I smiled excitedly, as I was about perfect the last of the stances on this style.
I passed from a somewhat relaxed stance towards the next one, which was all but relaxed, it consisted on first tensing my legs, while I lifted my arms from a laid down position, bringing them as fast as possible to the front of my face. It may seem a simple boxing block, but it was something else. After lifting my arms, I had to relax my legs and drag the right one backwards while bending my left one, at the same time I had to lift my elbows and lean frontwards. When I was about to fall, I had to suddenly tense the left leg, lifting myself in a front flip.
As I was spinning I had to take advantage of the strength of the spin to kick from up to down. Also, I decided to follow my instincts in knowing when to relax and when to tense my muscles, and it worked, I noticed no discomfort, and my leg stroke the floor with enough strength to leave a crater in it.
*DING*
Congratulations on achieving 99% mastery in the Werewolf Fury fighting style. You've achieved a great millstone on the way of the fighting, were you to achieve a perfect mastery you will be awarded a new fighting style free of restrains, meaning you won't need to achieve 50% mastery before starting taking another one.
The fighting style awarded over the full mastery of the Werewolf Fury is the Silver Clan Style. A fighting style developed by a clan of silver furred werewolves that are smarter, faster and stronger than any normal werewolf out there.
Silver Clan Style C mid tier 0.9 %
[What? So mastering a fighting style will allow me to unlock a more powerful one which would be inaccessible otherwise? Damn, I’ll have to perfect my Aikido techniques, too.] – This was eye-opening, but also presented a question. It clearly stipulated all my stances were perfect, what then, was missing on my skills?
***
And here is where I was, trying to figure out what was I missing. I couldn’t find anything, so I called forth the System.
Aikido B low tier Progress: 59.2 %
A balanced way to fight, using the strength of your oponents in your favour. An art practiced in order to defend oneself more than to atack others, it's a good choice for any non-lethal fight.
An art developed more around technique than instinct, based on the studying of your oponents, to be able to make use of their speed and size or even their technique, in some tiers, to fight them and incapacitate them. Rarely used on lethal fights, or at least not without a second technique to suply the lack of deadlyness.
Ok, I had improved even without paying attention to it, and it was quite a few tiers below the Werewolf Fury, so maybe I would be able to achieve mastery, and on the process, find out what I was missing to do so in the Werewolf Fury.
I started going over each and every stance I had ever known of the Aikido guidelines that were on my mind, correcting and adjusting however I thought better, and once I was done with the ones I knew, which was only around two hours later, proving it was much easier than the WF fighting style, I started going over the ones I hadn’t learnt on Earth.
(AN: I’m abbreviating Werewolf Fury to WF, so it’s easier to read for all of you, and easier to write it for me.)
Barely over 6 hours later, I had all the stances in the mental guide memorized and perfected, but as in the WF, I only had 99% mastery, even if I got it faster.
“Ooh, come on! What the hell do I need to do to get 100% mastery?!” – I couldn’t help but feel exhausted as I read the notice I had triggered by getting to the 99% mastery.
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Congratulations on achieving 99% mastery in the Aikido fighting style. You've achieved a great millstone on the way of the fighting, were you to achieve a perfect mastery you will be awarded a new fighting style free of restrains, meaning you won't need to achieve 50% mastery before starting taking another one.
The fighting style awarded over the full mastery of the Aikido is the Mirror Strength. A fighting style developed by a clan of fighters that despite being weaker than other clans in terms of strenght, supplying with their techniques fight on equal terms with those stronger than them.
Mirror Strength G mid tier 0.9 %
Well, time to work it out.
***
A silhouette ran through the forest, as did a Four-Armed Ape, a 5 meters tall ape with the strength of a running car. And yet this silhouette, which measured barely 2 meters and few, was the one on the chase, and the gigantic “Ape”, which constituted an over-praise on all apes on earth, was running away as if chased by the Devil.
The silhouette of course was Lyon, and until a few minutes ago, that Ape was not scared at all, in fact, it had dared to challenge Lyon when he found him drinking from a pond, which the Ape considered his.
A few minutes before:
*GRAAAAH!* - I lifted my head from the pond I was drinking from and looked towards the origin of the loud scream and saw the Ape. It was bigger than the other apes I had faced, and it had a second pair of arms. A grin appeared in my face, it was time for some beast to appear, I had been waiting to test whether its new mastered skill in Aikido were somewhat useful in a real fight, and to try and achieve the 100% mastery, to find what I was missing.
I hit my chest with my right arm twice, producing a thump sound that the Apes here interpreted as a challenge, winning thus, a fiery gaze and an angry opponent, who felt insulted I was the one that issued the challenge.
The Apes in this forest had two types of challenges, the first one was the one coming from the weaker Ape, looking to steal the position of the dominant one, was to win any of the two, the other one would end dead. The second one, thought, came from the stronger one. This gesture was interpreted as a challenge to subdue, the dominating Ape issued the challenge, and if the second Ape accepted, and lost, the dominant one would subdue him, and the Ape would find himself ‘working’ for him, if the second Ape won, thought, the first one would die.
As such, it probably felt insulted that I considered myself the dominant one in this challenge, which earned me an enraged opponent, nice.
The giant Ape dashed towards me with all the intention to finish me in a single strike, but what he didn’t expect was that after anchoring my feet to the floor, and dodging its first strike, I would use its own dash to launch him over myself. Ooh, it was nice to see a flying ape.
*CRASH!* - Theeeere goes the tree. - *THUMP*
I dashed towards the Ape before it got up, and as he tried to stand up, I pulled him up and threw him again to the other side.
*THUMP* - [Hahahaha, this is fun!]
I couldn’t help but feel good; the thing about Aikido was that it used not only your strength but the opponent’s, and it worked pretty well. As soon as the Ape got up a second time, I let him come at me. It jumped this time, not allowing me to use its dash against him, pretty smart. But I did something different, I jumped towards him.
He seemed surprised, and so was I, Aikido was not based on jumps, so this was more akin to a different martial art like Karate or Taekwondo, but it felt right at the moment, and once on the air I just needed to pick his extended arm between mine, and put my right foot on his chest. Then it was just a matter of making him spin, and he hit the floor head first.
I got up and stretched when I heard it.
*Ding*
First step walked through, you have achieved a 99.1% mastery in Aikido.
Mirror Strength G mid tier 0.9 %
“YES! I AM DOING IT! Ok, Ape, get up, we need to fight more!” – I couldn’t help myself, this fight could allow me not only to get the 100% mastery over Aikido, but to find whatever I was missing on the WF, so I couldn’t let it escape.
The Ape got up, somewhat dizzy but mostly angered, and threw a punch to me. I was about to throw him over, but then I saw him trying to throw a second one disguised. He used something I wouldn’t have thought of; he hid the second punch beneath the first one, because it was its second right arm the one punching!
I tried to dodge both but the second one got to punch me on the stomach, throwing me into the air and making me crash into a tree. I walked out of the tree and snapped my neck back into place, baring my teeth. I looked angry at the Ape, just as he did a few seconds before, and then dashed as fast as I could towards him.
When I was about to reach him, I jumped into something similar to the last stance of the WF, the vertical kickdown, making a front flip towards its face. The Ape lifted its arms to block my leg but, on the last second I flexed my leg, which until now was hiding me and the Ape found himself looking at a fist going straight into its face.
I heard its cheekbone crack, probably not broken, but definitely damaged, just as the Ape flew towards the floor and crashed there almost unconscious.
*Ding*
Second step walked through, you have achieved a 99.2% mastery in Aikido.
Mirror Strength G mid tier 0.9 %
"Hahahahaha! You're a miracle! I should name you, what do you think about the name Bob?" - I couldn't help myself, so I named the responsible for me achieving a .2% increase in mastery.
"KRAAAA" - The Ape seemed horrified, not about me naming, though, not at all, Bob was fitting. The only reason to seem horrified was by my strength. Yes, absolutely yes!
"Ah, he ran away?!" - As I was distracting myself with stupid thoughts, Bob got up and started running. - "Don't run Bob! I need you to keep fighting! Just 8 steps more and I'll have a 100% mastery! DON'T RUUUUUUN!
Present time:
And here I was, running after Bob, who had decided to run away from me as if I was some kind of monster, how dare he. I decided it was time to catch him, and so I empowered the muscles on my legs with Kinetic energy, and dashed with all my speed towards Bob.
"STAY STILL BOB! I WON THE DUEL AND YOU BELONG TO ME!" - I shouted as "furious" as I could being that I was all but furious, I was happy as a clam, but I had to seem angry, or else how would he understand to stop? Either way, it seemed to work, Bob suddenly stoped, and kneeled on the ground, his front touching the fresh soil just in front of my feet.
[Waw, he understood me? Only one way to confirm it.] - I was surprised, but mostly hopeful. Even though I was a lonely man, that didn't mean I didn't like a conversation once in a while, so if he could understand me that would be magnificient, wouldn't it?
"Stand up, Bob, and look me at the eyes." - I talked with a neutral voice, trying not to convey intention besides the intention expressed by the order given. Surprisingly Bob stood up and looked at me straight to the eye. - "So you understand me?"
[I dO, MaSTeR.]