Soverick’s mental transmission rang out in the communication network. “Can we return to the matter of my training now?”
SQUARESKULL answered immediately. “Yes. But first, spectators must leave.”
The seniors turned to leave the training room under SQUARESKULL’S glare. “Don’t forget SLEEP DEPRIVED DEMON.” He said.
JUST EVILNESS picked up the second senior that was still out cold on the ground and they left. Only when they had gone did SQUARESKULL continue.
“The spear form is a part of a warrior’s instincts. We will move on to technique next.”
Then he waved his hands and some structures began to rise from the ground. SQUARESKULL pointed to one of them.
“That is meant to train your aim and thrust. It will throw balls at you which you must strike with just the tip of the blade of your spear. In the first exercise with it, you will remain stationary while the balls come at you.”
He started the machine and gave a demonstration. The machine will throw balls at a high speed toward SQUARESKULL while he executes spear skills at them.
“Watch my form and learn from it. Thrusting is a very simple and basic technique. It requires strength and agility. But what it needs the most is accuracy. The ability to track and aim truly is a very important aspect of thrust. We are not supposed to start with moving targets but I don’t want to waste your time. We can revert to stationary targets if you fail miserably at this.”
SQUARESKULL was thrusting his spear as he spoke. It was a casual thing for him to do. He wasn’t even looking at the balls as his spear went forward to knock them back. Soverick knew that he was using his divine sense to track the balls but it was still an impressive act.
“That’s it. Easy, right? Any questions.” He stopped showing off and asked soverick.
“I think I got it. But do I have to use this heavy spear?”
“Yes, you do.”
So soverick took a stance with the heavy spear and began training his thrusting technique. He knew the act was more difficult than his teacher made it seem. The balls were very fast but not fast enough for him to find it difficult to track them. They were just fast enough that a single lag or delay will result in missing the ball entirely. He had to match his thrust with their speed and accurately predict their course.
This was different from the accuracy and precision training he did in the second stage. He wasn’t using any form back then and he was using a blade. But now, he is using a spear with a spear form. A blade and a spear are very different things.
In reality, SQUARESKULL isn’t aiming for the balls but where they will be at a certain point in time which is much more difficult than hitting stationary objects. So apart from the thrusting form, he is also predicting the future positions of the spear. Sometimes his movements were slow, sometimes fast as a blur but he would always hit the ball. His teacher was right about something though, hitting stationary objects would have been too easy for Soverick. What he was wrong about was that hitting moving objects will be difficult for him.
Soverick had watched him move several times. He accounted for the fact that the bodies of transcendents don’t work like normal physiques. For example, the center of gravity works differently with transcendents. They can shift their center of gravity however they like by shifting their body mass.
So he focused on the shift in form as Karak moved and tried to mimic them. It was difficult at first to mimic a transcendent. The simple moves were not as simple as he had expected and the spear was very heavy to thrust with. But he began to make progress as he collected data and made adjustments.
He understood that he was missing something important in the fluid movements that SQUARESKULL displayed so he abandoned finesse and focused on functionality. And the functionality of the movement is to thrust the spear. His understanding of spear form helped him to thrust. When combined with his ability to make accurate predictions of the ball, hitting the balls became very easy.
SQUARESKULL watched as the blunt tip of the spear struck the balls out of the air. Soverick had been going at it for more than 4 hours now. Which was admirable in itself. He had expected soverick to drop in one hour tops for the simple reason that the spear was heavy. Thrusting with something that heavy will not only affect the accuracy but it will tire the arm out. No matter how diligent someone is, once their arm tires out, then they will stop training.
‘He will get tired in the next few minutes or an hour at most.’ Karak estimated how long it will take Soverick before he can’t continue. Coupled with his expectation that Soverick won’t be able to master the exercise in a day, means that he will fail and Karak plans to berate the boy then.
He was wrong about how long it would take Soverick to tire out. The boy’s stamina was unnatural. He was also wrong about how long it would take soverick to master thrusting at moving objects. Soverick had taken more than 2 hours. He didn’t even consider that the boy could master thrusting today.
‘Something is going on here.’ SQUARESKULL was beginning to suspect something about Soverick the more he watched him.
At first, the boy’s movement had been jerky. He recognized what was wrong immediately. The boy was trying to copy him. It took all his willpower to hold himself back from laughing, but he snickered to himself. The display was like someone that couldn’t walk trying to run. It was simply funny.
He had omitted the foundational technique for thrusting, which is hitting stationary objects. He knew Soverick was a genius and would be able to overcome this challenge after some time but he was hoping that the lack of the basics will stump him for a while and tone down his pride.
But the boy began to mimic his high-level movements. It was honestly strenuous to endure. He watched the boy stumble and fall over on his face all the while trying to keep from laughing. The boy couldn’t even stand right talkless of hitting the balls.
Soverick wouldn’t be able to master thrusting at this rate. The boy had made things unnecessarily difficult for himself. It seemed that he would get to swope in and berate him as he had expected. He could admire the boy’s unrelenting effort. Even though his effort will burn through his stamina due to his very inefficient movements. Then the boy started to change after an hour of fumbling around. His movement lost the jerking and his feet became sure. He began hitting the balls soon after. But it didn’t end there. SQUARESKULL noticed the application of spear form which almost made him curse. The boy was already fusing spear form with the thrusting technique.
‘How did things move so fast?’ he questioned himself.
He was supposed to start by thrusting at stationary objects. Next will come moving objects while the boy remains stationary. Then last will be both the object and the boy moving. It will culminate in the acquisition of necessary accuracy and judgment of spatial positioning using the spear. He realized that he wouldn’t get to swope in anymore. Worse than that is that there is no more need for the third thrusting exercise because Soverick had acquired the necessary skills.
SQUARESKULL sighed. ‘I hate my Job.’
Most times the students were poor and lacking. They do stupid things and refuse to improve. Those kind of students are stressful. Rarely does he encounter the perfect student. Obedient and quick to learn. Those are the kind of students that he looks forward to teaching. Then there are the praiseworthy geniuses, the ones that brighten up his day and make him proud to be called Teacher. They will soak in his words of wisdom and teachings like a sponge.
Of all kinds of students, extraordinary geniuses like Soverick are the worst. Their excellence and improvements are not because of you. They only need the beginning of a lesson for them to come up with the middle and the end themselves. You will be ashamed as a teacher if you dare attribute their success to your efforts. It is a secret mortification worse than the open shame you’re allowed to feel for a dumb student.
The exercise had devolved into something of a game the more SQUARESKULL watched. Soverick’s movement became fluid and efficient once more. He became capable of shifting his balance with the spear in tow. He tried and succeeded in hitting the balls while standing on only a single foot. He still hit the ball when he turned his back in the direction of the ball. He could hit the balls with the butt of his spear without looking at them. It was enough for SQUARESKULL to know that he already mastered omnidirectional thrusting response. The ability to provide an accurate thrusting response towards an attack from any direction while being in any position.
‘How did we get here so fast?’ he asked himself again. This time he had a concrete suspicion and he couldn’t wait to confirm it.
“That’s enough,” He shouted.
Soverick shrugged and stopped what he was doing. He could always resume his training later.
“That’s good enough. Let’s try something else.”
He had to determine if what he suspected was right. So he switched the exercise from thrusting to sweeping, cutting, deflecting, and bashing. They skipped the basic stage and moved on to the advanced stage which required performing all these actions against a small but fast-moving object. He made sure to demonstrate them to soverick and sat back to watch him train them.
The more he watched, the more his suspicion was confirmed.
‘Mother High Heavens above. It is true.” He exclaimed inwardly.
He had his suspicion confirmed, but he wasn’t too happy about it. The prospect of secret mortification just got worse.