“You set me an impossible goal! And comparing me to Aika would be like comparing her to you! I can’t make that run in the time you allotted me. It’s impossible!”
“And when you saw that your goal was unattainable, what did you do? Did you keep running despite the knowledge that you wouldn’t make it? Do you push on, or did you give up?”
Roy opened his mouth to argue but snapped it shut again. He had given up, just as Irusaru had said.
“You missed the entire point of the exercise,” his teacher continued. “But that’s fine, because you’ll get to run this course again tomorrow, and this time, you’ll only have forty-four minutes to complete it!”
Roy groaned, but Irusaru wasn’t done with him.
“Good. Now that you’re all warmed up, we can begin exercising. Down on the ground. Push-up position!” he snapped out.
Roy had watched enough exercise training back in the Shah clan to know what that was, and so, he dropped to the position.
“You will not use any Essence for this, either. In fact, no Essence use at all unless I say so. Now start pushing.”
“How many?” Roy asked.
Though he’d only just gotten down on the ground, he could already feel the strain on his arms, shoulders, and chest.
“Until I tell you to stop!” the old man snapped again, “Now begin!”
Muttering to himself under his breath, Roy began doing the push-ups. Though he was strong from his work around the Shah village, he’d never actually done any actual exercise. The push-ups worked an entirely different set of muscles than he was used to using, and as a result, his arms started burning after only ten. He knew that if he sent Essence to his arms, it would ease the pain and help with the exercise, but he also knew that Irusaru would sense it the second he did.
By the time he hit twenty, his initial smooth up and down motion had been reduced to arm-quivering, jerky movements. But every time he looked to Irusaru, the old man just rolled his finger in a ‘go on’ motion.
Roy gritted his teeth as he went down for his twenty-ninth. He felt something in his arm twinge, and he fell to the ground. Instead of just lying there, he forced his arms under him once again and attempted to push himself up.
Muscles screaming in protest, and feeling as though they were tearing themselves apart, Roy forced himself to complete the push-up.
“Very well. You can stop now.”
Roy collapsed to the ground, panting for breath. He’d had no idea that simply lifting himself up and down could be so difficult.
“On your feet! Did I say you can rest?” Irusaru’s voice snapped through the haze of pain and Roy forced himself up onto his feet. He’d barely gotten his feet under him, when the next set of instructions began.
“Jump in the air, bringing your knees to your chest. Begin!”
And so, the day went on, with Irusaru assigning him with one exercise after the next, never giving him more than a few second’s reprieve before assigning him to the next one. Finally, when the sun was beginning to disappear behind the lip of the basin and Aika had emerged from the Dungeon, did he call a halt to the day’s exercise.
He then led Roy in a series of stretches and told him to wash off in the pond.
“After you have washed off, we will begin Martial Arts training.”
Despite his exhaustion and aching body, this got Roy excited. Quickly washing the sweat from his face and drinking from the cool pond, he stood, his hair dripping onto his shoulders, before the old man. After a few seconds, Aika came jogging over, looking just as fresh as she had that morning.
“Are you joining us for the Martial Arts training?” Roy asked curiously.
“Yes,” Irusaru replied, his old and weathered face cracking into a grin. “She is going to be your sparring partner.”
30
“I thought you said we were learning the Martial Arts!” Roy exclaimed as he felt his face coloring in anger.
“We are,” Irusaru replied calmly. “I case you’ve forgotten, the Martial part of the Martial Arts involves learning how to fight.”
“But I can learn all that from books,” Roy answered, feeling his annoyance growing. “I already know plenty. What I want to learn are the real Martial Arts, like proper techniques and how to effectively use Essence.”
Roy knew that he hadn’t exactly mastered martial combat, but he was fairly sure that all his practice would put him well ahead of other Martial Artists. Besides, it wouldn’t make any difference if he was too weak to actually hurt them.
“So, you believe that you know it all, do you?” Irusaru asked with a raised eyebrow.
“I wouldn’t say I know it all,” Roy said, feeling his face flushing with embarrassment, “but I know enough to take down anyone at my level of advancement.”
Roy saw a glint of something in Irusaru’s eye then and saw his lips pull up in a grin.
“If you’re sure about that, how about you take on Aika in a match? If you manage to defeat her, then I’ll skip the martial training and move right on to Essence control.”
“That’s hardly a fair fight!” Roy said, looking over at Aika to see what she thought about it.
“Oh, don’t worry yourself. She’ll be fighting with the same limitation as you. No Essence use at all, only martial combat.”
“That’s still not fair. She’s at Orange. At that stage, she’ll have advantages that I couldn’t hope to match!”
“Really? And what advantages would those be? Do you even know the difference between White, Yellow, and Orange?”
Roy gritted his teeth in annoyance but shook his head.
“I figured you wouldn’t, so allow me to enlighten you. At the White-Belt stage, your body will begin ridding itself of impurities and waste collected over your life. As a result, your muscles will be strengthened, and your reflexes, enhanced. You will also require less food and sleep. This process is referred to as Stage-One Body-Restructuring.
“When a Martial Artist breaks through to Yellow, their body is further rid of impurities, strengthening it once again. This is Stage-Two. Only after the Martial Artist has completed Stage-Three, which happens when advancing from Orange to Green, is the process complete. With this, the body has been completely re-forged in Essence, and can now handle the strain of creating and manipulating Qi. The completed process is generally referred to as the Core-Body.
“This process will then repeat itself, staring with Qi, but will finish at Red-Belt, with the Perfect-Body. From what I’ve heard, the process once again starts with Chakra, though I’m not sure what the complete form of that looks like, since no one in this part of the world has ever achieved it, and all knowledge of its existence, has been erased.
“Getting back on topic. Until a Martial Artist reaches Green, their body enhancement only comes into effect when they are channeling their Essence. Now, I’m not saying that it would be possible for you to kill a Yellow-Belt if you got into a head-on fight with them. What I am saying, is that if no Essence is used to empower their attacks, the blow would only be as hard as a normal attack.
“Hurting Aika would be impossible for you, no matter how hard you hit her, so I’ll watch the match. If you manage to land what I believe to be a finishing blow, I will call the match in your favor. Does that sound agreeable to you?”
Roy thought on that for a few long moments, filing the information away. So, it appeared that there was no major difference in actual strength when it came to White, Yellow, and Orange unless Essence was involved. But defense seemed to be another matter entirely. Since this was a technical fight, it was about as fair as Irusaru could make it, though he still had a few questions before he would accept.
“Are there differences in the Body-Restructuring for different Essence types?”
“There are, and there aren’t,” Aika cut in, sounding cheerful as ever. “All Restructured bodies gain the same traits: greater speed, enhanced strength, an extremely durable body, sharper senses, and so on. The differences come with how they are balanced.