"Near death? A special method combining breathing and self-hypnosis? It must be very amazing!" Ayrin immediately became excited. "Teacher Minlur, what should we do, please teach us!"
"You… A method using the edge of death to forcibly stimulate as much of your potential as possible, aren’t you scared of it?" Moss looked at Ayrin, speechless, his face paling in spite of himself.
"How is it, are you afraid, brave warrior?"
Minlur looked at Moss and laughed. "Haha, this is indeed a ultimate strength only true brave warriors dare to pursue!"
"Since it’s only an arcane method and not really dying, then why would I be afraid." Ayrin turned around and looked at Moss. "Moss, don’t tell me you’re afraid of a little thing like that?"
Moss suddenly felt ashamed. He shouted, depressed, "Since even you aren’t afraid, what would I be afraid of!"
"Very well, with both your special bloodlines, your stamina reserves are much higher than ordinary people. When the time comes, the strength you release will certainly be very good, haha." Minlur laughed, excitement written all over his face. "In this case, let’s start right now!"
"Come, hold your breaths! You two, you’re not allowed to breathe!"
"No matter how uncomfortable you feel at first, whether you feel you’re really about to die or not, you absolutely can’t breathe before I let you!"
"Can’t breathe?" Moss still wanted to ask something, but seeing Ayrin beside him obediently close his mouth and immediately pinch his nose, he swallowed down his question and obeyed as well.
"Mhm mhm, your bodies are really much stronger than ordinary people. Three minutes, can you feel this warm-up?"
On the side, Minlur held a few small hourglasses and measured the time, laughing bold and loud all the while. His teaching style was entirely different from the calm and mild Carter.
"Warm-up?" Moss’ face was already flushed red from lack of air. When he heard Minlur’s laughter, he felt the urge to spit out blood.
He could already feel his vision go black again and again. His chest felt like a dried desert where grains of sands rubbed against each other. Countless ants seemed about to drill out from his muscles to breathe out fresh air. This sensation was already extremely uncomfortable.
So much so that he would rather Ayrin beat him up again instead of suffering such an uncomfortable feeling.
"So uncomfortable! I wonder how many minutes teacher Minlur can persevere for!"
Ayrin also started to feel frantic from the uncomfortable feeling.
Time flowed by, minute after minute, second after second.
"I can’t do it anymore! I’m going to die! I’m really going to choke to death at this rate!"
Moss felt his vision go thoroughly black, golden stars filling his brain. His chest felt as if it’d split into countless pieces. He couldn’t bear it any longer, and subconsciously let go of the hand pinching his nose, about to roar, about to breathe as if his life depended on it.
"You can’t, it’s not enough yet."
Minlur shook his head the moment Moss let go of his hand. His hand shot out a speed difficult to imagine and immediately clutched Moss’ throat.
All the muscles in Moss’ neck shrank in his clutch. Even when his nose recovered its freedom, he still couldn’t breathe in any fresh air, couldn’t make any noise.
A violent terror started to pervade Moss’ body.
This terror was many many times stronger than the fear when facing a formidable enemy.
Moss even felt as if countless blocks of ice were melting inside him; his body shivered from head to toe, started to sink, started to fall into a bottomless abyss.
He had no idea how much time went by when a voice came to his ears, seemingly from the sky.
"Now’s more or less good enough."
A tremendous "boom" even went off in his mind. Fresh air gushed into his nose like a broken dam.
"Ah!"
He howled miserably, as if he escaped from hell.
"Very good, worthy of a special snowflake Liszt took a fancy to. It seems you really have the potential to learn the secret skill "Gate of Life" in the future!" Minlur’s attention was entirely focused on Ayrin at this time.
Ayrin’s body was trembling nonstop. His face was already purple, but he still persevered!
"I can’t! Teacher Minlur hasn’t told me to stop yet! I can’t give up!
"Bastard! I can’t concede defeat!
"I won’t believe I can’t endure on!"
Ayrin’s vision had already gone black, but his roars still echoed nonstop inside his mind.
"This guy Ayrin, he’s actually still persevering?"
After Moss breathed roughly for a spell, as if his life depended on it, and finally recovered his clarity of mind, he saw Ayrin still holding his breath and looking as if he truly were going to topple and die at any moment. Yet his body actually radiated a desperate vigor. Moss suddenly felt ashamed, wishing nothing better than to dig a hole in the ground and drill himself inside.
"Alright! You can breathe now!"
With a feverish voice, Minlur directly stretched his hand out and slapped away Ayrin’s hand covering his nose.
"How is it, did I succeed?"
Ayrin breathed in big gulps, and asked immediately the moment he recovered his clarity of mind, "Teacher Minlur, how long did I persevere for?"
"Twenty three minutes. You actually managed to persevere for so long without going through any meticulous training, just directly holding your breath. The innate gifts of your body, your capacity to endure, there really isn’t any difference with dragon bloodlines." Minlur couldn’t resist shaking his head. "Apart from dragon bloodlines, there’s no other bloodline with such a formidable ability to endure, in my opinion."
Moss felt very ashamed when he remembered that he himself persevered for ten minutes at most. A thought arose in his mind in spite of himself: "This guy shouldn’t be really from some mysterious dragon bloodline, right?"
"Alright, now that the feeling from a moment ago is still fresh in your minds, now I’ll start the next step of my teaching." Minlur looked gravely at Moss and Ayrin, without allowing for much pause, "This secret skill I’m teaching you guys is precisely a method of self-hypnosis that stimulates some nerves and neurons in our bodies and makes the body and consciousness believe that we can’t breathe at all, while in fact, combined with a breathing method, we actually breathe in even more air during that time than we would in ordinary circumstances!"
"In our consciousness, we will feel a sensation of suffocation like that of a moment ago, but in reality, our bodies are actually breathing desperately. On one side, the body’s suffocation is just like using our subconscious mind to squeeze out the grease from the tiny particles inside our bodies and ignite them, while the great amount of fresh air continuously rushing inside is like pouring oil on the fire, making the intensity of the fire even fiercer. Only under such a dual stimulation will you guys achieve the ultimate strength at the most violent time with your punches, or maybe with the power of your arcane skills!"
"In ordinary times, you’d reach your limits only after holding your breaths for this long, but under such a stimulation method, added to a mobile fighting style’s fast consumption in a match, you guys can purposefully use this secret skill very quickly on a tournament field or in a genuine battle!"
"This secret skill is our Holy Dawn Academy’s ‘Holy Body Ignition.’" Minlur watched Moss and Ayrin with a fire burning in his eyes. He said in a loud voice, "Ayrin, Moss, your bodies are already far stronger than ordinary people, so you already have the ability to fight against people at a higher arcane level by relying on physical strength. By the time you guys grasp this secret skill… I’m very much looking forward to the scenes of you guys facing an arcane master with already two open gates, or even three open gates, and sending them flying in one punch!"
"So we still have to attack by surprise!" Ayrin also started shouting excitedly, his enthusiasm soaring, "Teacher, I saw Ivan in action. A high-level arcane master like him with three open gates has really powerful arcane skills. If not for him underestimating me, or my successful surprise attack, there really would have been very few opportunities otherwise."
Minlur laughed loudly, and said once again in a great voice, "Ayrin, I precisely like your temperament that tells it as it is. Don’t forget though that not every arcane master with three open gates is as powerful as Ivan. Ivan is a well-known figure among them, he’ll definitely become an extremely powerful arcane master of the kingdom in the future. That’s the reason why someone already had him in his line of sight, no matter if it’s because of clan Lannister or Evil Dragon followers or some other reason, and tried to eliminate him while he still suffered from heavy injuries, before he can become even stronger!
"Also, you said it yourself, you’re still too slow right now. As long as your invocation speed is fast enough, as long as you keep pursuing this goal, pursue the goal of excavating the ultimate power of each arcane skill, then maybe your opponent might be very powerful, and maybe he’ll have some powerful methods in hand, but he won’t even have the time to use them, and the only thing he’ll be able to do is to take blow after blow from you!"
"I understand, teacher Minlur!"
"…" Seeing Ayrin and Minlur talk to each other, each sentence louder than the previous one, both of them looking like their enthusiasms surged higher and higher, Moss was once again a little speechless. No matter how you looked at it, the current Minlur and Ayrin were exactly like a pair of crazy primitive barbarians.
"Come, brave warriors!"
"Unbutton the lapels of your jackets, gulp down the free air under the starry skies! The air is filled everywhere with nutrients for the body and scattered arcane energy!"
"Come, brave warrior, stimulate your nerves! Surpass your limits!"
"Come, yell with me! Let us pursue the road to ultimate strength!"
"Teacher, do we really have to shout this slogan?" Moss said in a weak voice.
"Of course, shout with me!"
…
"Huff… Huff… Huff…"
Several days later, under the dimness of the night shrouding Holy Dawn Academy’s secret training field, Ayrin rested his hands on his knees, his breaths extremely heavy.
His face seemed in extreme pain, and his entire body seemed to twitch fiercely with every breath he took.
Observing him from beginning to end, Minlur suddenly yelled in a loud anxious voice, "Stop!"
When Ayrin once again straightened up, Minlur asked, eager and nervous, "Is your body actually feeling some burden? Ayrin, does your body feel very painful? It shouldn’t be so painful right now!"
"It’s not that, teacher Minlur!" The pained expression on Ayrin’s face vanished the moment he straightened up. He said in a very natural manner, "It’s just that usually, when breathing so desperately like that, the whole body feels like it’s inhaling air, so the opponent will certainly notice it. I’m thinking that if I get knocked down by the opponent and fake an especially painful look, then pant heavily as if my life depended on it, then in that case the opponent won’t pay attention to it and won’t suspect me of possibly using some kind of trick."
"You were faking it? You want to confuse the opponents during the match, so you already began practicing now?" Minlur stared blankly all of a sudden. At his side, Moss also stared blankly.
"Yeah." Ayrin nodded as if it were a very normal thing.
"Amazing!" Minlur couldn’t resist giving a thumbs-up. "No wonder Moss’ tactics are so insidious as well. Alright, you keep at it, let’s see if you can succeed this time!"
"Alright, teacher!" Ayrin shouted loudly, then immediately rested his hands on his knees, looking in extreme pain, breathing extremely hard.
"I’m starting!"
Ayrin’s eyes contracted inexplicably all of a sudden, as if his consciousness shrank back inside his body, or if someone severed it off in this instant.
At the same time, he started to sprint at flying speed, his body transforming into a blurry gust of wind.
"Bring it!"
All of a sudden, with an explosive roar, he charged in front of a row of huge wooden piles standing upright, and battered a ruthless punch on the first huge wooden pile directly facing him!
"Boom!"
The air in the whole secret training grounds vibrated violently.
Moss’ eyes widened as far as they could.
He saw the air around Ayrin actually diffuse a red halo of light under the rapid shocks, as if Ayrin’s body caught fire!
And in front of Ayrin, these ropes tightly wrapping around the huge wooden piles directly shook and shattered to pieces then flew out. Rain seemed to descend over the entire dense woods with a radius of several hundred meters!
The huge wooden piles slacked, left the ground, then toppled backwards one after another.
"Seventeen huge wooden piles!"
"I did it!"
Ayrin stood still in front of these toppled wooden piles as if petrified. The next instant, with a Ah, he started shrieking excitedly again and again. His body was tiny compared to these huge wooden piles lying on the ground, but a terrifying aura radiated from him.
"It’s nineteen piles." Minlur shook his head, also a little shocked. He said, "I actually secretly added two piles… I originally thought that your body’s potential was stronger than I thought and that you could manage eighteen piles. I didn’t imagine that the ropes wrapping around all the nineteen piles would be entirely jolted to pieces. Your body’s potential is still higher than what I imagined."
"I did it? Even two more piles than what teacher Carter requested?"
Ayrin counted blankly, and realized Minlur was indeed correct.
"I can actually shatter the ropes around so many wooden piles?"
Ayrin inexplicably closed his eyes, bent down, and rested his hands on his knees. He felt a weariness gush out from his very bones, yet at this same instant, fires ignited one after another inside his heart.
Bring on the next match. Iron Forest Academy, I’m already ready!
