Jack had many equipments inside his inventory, courtesy of the expedition and the journey till here. He took out two random swords and gave them to his grandfather.
“I’m going to teach you the Formless Flowing Sword style,” Domon said.
“Impressive name, but you know I never care about names. Show me,” Jack said.
“You are still as impatient as I remember when it is something to do with martial arts.”
“Can’t blame me. I don’t exactly have fond memories when it comes to martial arts. You should be able to guess why.”
“Do you still want to learn or not?”
.
“Yes.”
“Then apologize first for all your rudeness just now.”
“I’m sorry.”
“All right, now be quiet. Just pay attention and listen,” Domon said as he assumed a stance with the two swords on each hand. “As you know, I always prioritize building one’s body foundation first before teaching any of my students an actual martial arts technique. It’s because, without sufficient strength or speed, no technique is useful. But as you said, there is no need to train such a thing here, and I see that due to this world’s rules, your body’s foundation is way more than sufficient already to learn this technique.”
He started to move around slowly as he continued to speak, “The Formless Flowing Sword style consisted of four phases. Each phase increased in complexities and variations. The first phase has twenty-four slashes, the second phase contains forty-eight, the third phase gives you as many as ninety-six slashes. At the highest phase, you are no longer bound by the style, it became formless and unstoppable.”
While speaking, Domon moved in a fluid motion as the two swords in his hands spun around. Each slash was like a flowing river that had no gaps. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow, but the rhythm never seemed to break.
“Every slash in the style was not fixed, it can be combined in many different ways, creating endless variations, granting unpredictability. If your mastery can reach the peak of this style, your opponent won’t be able to resist your attack. One strike will lead to another, and another, without stopping until your opponent relents and loses their defense. Each slash is hard and powerful, but can also be soft and flexible.”
Jack’s eyes were transfixed by Domon’s movements as he recorded every detail of the movements. He knew that his grandfather was a grandmaster when it comes to martial arts, but only now did he appreciated his skill. He was captivated as his grandfather continued to demonstrate the Formless Flowing Sword style with gracefulness.
When Domon stopped, Jack was silent. That one demonstration had so much information but also too short, his mind was still processing it.
“Now, you give it a try,” Domon said.
Jack stood without any word and assumed the starting stance. Peniel was rather surprised. She was expecting another wisecracking comment from the guy before he tried to practice the style.
Jack spun his swords around, trying to imitate what his grandfather did just now.
“Your talent in martial arts is always there, but you are still too crude. Don’t just try to imitate me. The essence of the style is in its flowingness. The way my body moves and the way you move are different. You will instead ruin the style if you do it exactly as I did. You have to find the harmony of movements that is compatible with your own body. Become one between your body and your swords, treat them as an extension of your arms instead of mere weapons. Guide them to move with the flow instead of telling them where to. Feel the energy. Feel the flow.”
Though he repeatedly mouthed off to his grandfather, Jack was not a hardheaded and rebellious kid. Each of his grandfather’s words was taken in by him with earnestness. His body continued to move as he focused his mind and heart in feeling the energy generated with each stroke and worked in a way that had that energy continued on without pause.
“Don’t forget about your footwork. This style is not just about slashing. How you place and move your position is also important,” Domon continued to offer advice as Jack practiced.
“Your dominant hand’s slashes are heavier than your left. You need to balance them. One should not be more than the others. You need to be able to alternate between them with ease. Otherwise, it will be easy for your opponents to predict your patterns.”
Before he knew it, hours passed. When he decided to stop, he felt that he was still far from grasping the essence of the style. But yet, he also felt that he was on the right track. This was confirmed by Domon as he said, “you did well for the first time practicing this style. I must say your past training does help some. But you are still far from even mastering the first phase of the style, you need more time training.”
Jack nodded, he thought so as well. It will not be easy. The problem was that this kind of training ate up time, not something that he could see a result in a short time. That was one of the reasons why he decided to let go of learning martial arts in the past. He was thinking about how he should go about balancing the practice of this style with his leveling activity.
“It’s quite late already, let’s rest for the night,” Domon said.
“Wait! Before that, let me help you in return,” Jack said.
“Hm? What’s there to help?” Domon asked.
“Don’t act so cocky like that. Remember that this world has different rules. As you said, without sufficient foundation, no technique is useful. Although your foundation can be said the peak in our past world. In this world, you are extremely lacking. Remember how you are unable to stop my punch?”
Domon did not reply but he didn’t refute Jack’s words either.
“To be able to increase your foundation, you need to level up. To do that, you need to kill the monsters around. I think you have done that before, but judging at your level, I’ll say you do that very rarely. We will start doing that more often tomorrow. Apart from that, you need to wear equipment, they will boost your foundations.”
“Equipment? Do you mean like all that armors you are wearing? No, thank you. I won’t be able to move with all that clunky things on my body.”
Jack rolled his eyes at his grandfather, “that’s why I said you are still treating this world the same as our previous one. Do you see my movement as rigid?” Jack said as he did a triple roundhouse kick.
“The armor in this world adjusts to our body, so you will never find one that is not your size. And although it looked rigid, it didn’t hinder any of our movements. They are magically flexible to allow any movement you want.”
Domon rubbed his beard, the old guy seemed to struggle to understand this strange logic.
“Just try it first, okay? Do you have any equipment?” Jack asked.
“I have a few inside my magic pocket,” Domon answered.
‘Magic pocket…,’ Jack was trying to halt the giggle that was fighting to get out. “Take it out for me to see,” he said.
Domon took out all the equipment inside his inventory. Jack was rather speechless seeing the collections. Mostly only common and uncommon equipment, and all of them were low-level ones.
“Let me take that trash for you,” Jack said as he collected all of them and stored them inside his inventory, in return, he took out a set of rare grade medium armor. He continuously fused equipment he had gotten in his travel, therefore he had a decent amount of rare grade equipment.
“Equip them,” Jack said.
Domon picked one up and said, “they looked difficult to wear.”
“Ugh, you are hopeless. Try to interface with them, you can equip them with a simple click.”
“Inter-what,” Domon asked, clueless.
Jack gave him an example. Once his grandfather managed to equip one, he easily equipped the rests.
“Not bad,” Jack said after seeing his grandfather in full medium armor getup.
“Yes, you are quite dashing, sir,” Peniel added her compliment.
“Thank you, kind lady,” Domon responded to Peniel, then he said to Jack, “Although I need to say, I don’t like this helmet, looks rather inelegant. I prefer yours.”
Jack had given his grandfather the Golden Knight Helmet which he found cool-looking but not wear because his current Golden Noble Headband provided a better bonus. He must say that his and his grandfather’s understanding of aesthetics was contradictory.
Domon gave a try by performing several complex martial art motions.
“What did I say, believe now?” Jack said.
“Acceptable,” Domon commented.
“Now let us take a look at your status window. I bet you haven’t allocated any of your free points.”
Before his grandfather could ask what was a status window, Jack explained to him in length. It took some time, but in the end, Domon managed to grasp the basics of it. He was old-school yet not stubborn. As expected, Domon had a tonne of free attribute and skill points. He ended spending them all into Strength and Dexterity equally since those were the stats he had more understanding with. Once he did, he could see his power and speed increased.
“I must say, this world rules are truly convenient, too convenient actually. You must not let this kind of easy attainment dulled your will. True power comes from continuous effort and disciplined labor.”
“I completely agree,” Jack said. He had learned long ago that debating his grandfather’s lecture would simply prolong it to no end. “Now, about the skill points…”
