Chapter 9

The first two were depressing, they attacked when they should keep their guard up, they let me invade their territory without pressuring me and they fell for all my feints. It didn't take long and they were groaning on the ground. They didn't get in one clean hit, only some stomach punches, which I could negate by simply turning my hips a bit and flexing my muscles.

I hope the ex-soldier is a bit more challenging. We start with a small nod to signal that we both are ready and take our stance. It didn't take me long to notice that he at least some of the basics of fighting. He didn't fall for the feint, that is my lowered front guard. Seeing that I correct my stance and draw closer, invading his reach. His answer is a quick kick at my lower body. I use my right to block while stepping forward, its really easy to break a kicks strength by doing so and the loss of footing destroys most of his opportunities to punch, while I am free to do so. Noticing his mistake he kicks the ground to keep his distance. Another error. I follow him and now that he is without any stable footing its easy to let him hit the floor. A single low kick does the trick. At least he knows how to break his fall.

“You shouldn't sacrifice your footing so easily, quick low kicks are ok, but don't go for something above knee level. The risk isn't worth the gain, even more so if you use melee weapons” I reprimand him, “We can start with a group fight now, if you want, that is you three against me.”.

Mumbling something about payback time the two I battered before joined the ex-soldier and we got ready for the last round. The two instantly tried to charge me, while the third one stayed behind waiting for his chance. I dodge the first swing, that is way too wide by the way, and outmaneuver the two by placing us three in a straight line, with one of them standing in the middle.

My revenge is a fast good aimed strike to his flank hitting his liver. One down. My soul warned me of the sneak attack the soldier tried, sidestepping his attack on the back of my face my elbow meets his solar plexus. Two down. The last surrendered, his first smart action of the day. What an anticlimactic fight.

“You only used your right arm to attack didn't you? And more importantly how did you dodge the last one?” the soldier asked after regaining his breath. “There is more to this changed world than what meets the eyes and I only had to move on the level of an ordinary human, just with enhanced reflexes and senses. I can teach you how to obtain that and how to push your body way beyond what you believe is your limit. But I don't know how long it will take you to obtain it. You would have to stay here.” I say. To further deepen my point I take a blade and cut my left fore arm and heal it right after a bit of blood drips to the ground. Wiping away the blood I show the flabbergasted group a fresh scar.

I left the group and the small family that joined them during my little spar to further discuss the matter and their options and returned to my smithy, preparing to finally test it tomorrow.

Happy with my work I decide to take a look if they need some help in preparing the supper. As I enter the room silence emerges. Six people step forward and like the cliché in martial-arts movies bow their head and say “Please teach us the art of fighting.”. I burst into laughter. “Guys that is just hilarious, you just had to ask, not to pay me any respect. You will loose it and curse me anyway.”. Getting back my composure I ask “How long will your group stay here?”.

“We want to stay for the winter.” the spokeswoman from before says, “But we would appreciate your help for some preparations for our stay. As I saw food for us won't be a problem, but our cattle also needs something to eat and grain and potatoes ain't a proper diet for them. We need hay. And I know where to get it.”

“The valley.” I assume. “Right.” she responds, “As for transportation we can make our cattle carry it, tractors are a really bad idea by the way, they attract those hunters, but we could get some carts. All we need is protection.”. “How long till we have to move?” I ask. “Maybe a week, there isn't any snow yet and the grass is still long in this area, although there isn't much of it.” she says. “I will need three days for preparations, then we can move out. In addition there is something I want to teach all of you, so I would appreciate it if everyone could meet up in the front yard tomorrow morning.” I say.

After all is said we eat and prepare some improvised beds for everyone and get a good nights rest. The next morning I teach everyone about their soul, with the though that if more people experience it maybe someone will discover something new, I also tell them about the possibilities I have and in general encourage them to experiment with their soul. A different view point is sometimes all that is needed to make surprising discoveries.

After that business is finished, I heat up the forge. Soon the sound of metal hitting metal fills the room it takes me almost all day to get a crow's beak hammer right, my first try failed at the eye, the hole where the handle is fixated. The rest is really easy and doesn't require any special tempering, it would actually be detrimental to harden it. It just needs to cool down slowly, to ease the stress of the material.

Satisfied with my new weapon I let the material rest and get some rest. The next day I optimize a handle for my new weapon, using a wooden shaft and some leather. In the afternoon I train a bit with the six vict.... ehm volunteers, most of them don't know a thing about actual combat, only a bit brawling. I have to start with the most basic stuff, like how one maintains a proper guard and where to go to outmaneuver an enemy,also how to punch and kick using the force of the whole body, that concept was especially hard to grasp for most of them.

The last day of the preparation time I used to get everything in order for our travel. Organizing our food, how and where to rest, luckily we had a map for that and of course getting in touch with our big hairy travel companions, I don't want to startle them when I approach them. It would be a sad way to die.

We departed the next morning, all our herders had to do was leading the matriarch of the herd. We passed the ghost town without any incidents, we took our first rest in a hollow, I used the surrounding hills to scout our surroundings and cover us from anything watching the mountains.

A few hundred meters ahead of us I see a group of four hunting soulless, I call my six apprentices to come to my observation spot and watch me deal with them. The four are currently feasting on the corpse of a cow. Taking my time I sneak up to their location using the brushwood as cover, its moments like that that I am happy that those monsters once were humans, any other animal would have smelled me long ago, but those guys didn't and their eating was way louder than any of my steps.

They only noticed me when I started my attack. Wielding my hammer and my sax at the same time, which is an easy feat when one has as much mental processing power as I have, I lunge out of my cover and swing my hammer at the closest one to my right. Simultaneously I hack at the leg of the guy to my left, immobilizing him for the moment. The one to my right dies through the thorn on my hammer and the one to my left falls to his knees, looks like I hit a tendon. I back away to have a tree in my back and begin to fight the last two.

It doesn't take long and I am the last one standing, its really lucky they fight relying on pure instinct. If not they could have stalled for time to get the injured one back into the fight, which would have allowed them to slowly deal with me. Taking my time absorbing the soulmist I wait for the group to catch up. They don't lead the herd too close to my place of carnage,the smell could startle them.

“You really went easy on us, huh?” the ex-soldier greets me. “Those guys are simply to dumb. They lack all the concepts I taught you. Only in a prolonged fight do they start to dodge, but I fear for the moment those guys get some battle experience. They can learn and they most probably will.” I respond, “That is why I train you, I don't think I can fight alone forever.”.

We continue on track, always observing our surroundings. While walking I think about how I could get stronger. Sure I could increase my muscle mass, but that would be detrimental after a certain point, too much muscles lower my agility, which is a main aspect of all martial-arts and melee-combat in general. Ironically the ones that have to build up the biggest muscle mass are archers, controversially to most RPGs. An archer needs a lot of strength and since its almost impossible to use a bow while moving, agility isn't of any essence. Ones aim has to be true, but you don't need to be flexible or fast for that, you need strength to steady your aim, a good eye and lots of experience.

A meele fighter on the other hand relies on agility to parry incoming attacks, most weapons aren't made to block a blow, they will get damaged and completely blocking consumes lot of strength and endurance. It might even lead to injuries. Even with a shield its easier to redirect an attack than to block it, some weapons may even penetrate your shield if you try the block, my hammer for example.

So should I try to increase my muscle density? No that is a dead end, there is only so much place for the filaments in my muscles. So maybe I should use my soul to simulate more effective filaments.

Coming to that conclusion I try to separate another part of my soul, like I have done before to create the mental image of my body, but this time it isn't static, it has to be a dynamic process. After establishing that I give that segment full permission on my knowledge from my studies, although mostly mechanic and electricity oriented it still provided advanced knowledge about physics.

After that I was left with just barely enough soul mass on my command to establish my soul-sense. It didn't take long after that till we arrived at our destination, it is a farm, with a huge silo filled with hay. I can also see before mentioned carts. I take a quick patrol around the area. It is save.

We prepare a fast meal and let the cows graze, we will stay here for the night. We use the remaining sunlight to modify the carts, so that they can safely get pulled by the cattle. When night falls we go to sleep, but not without a night guard.

The night passes without problems. We quickly load the carts and move out, since the hay is highly compressed we hope that we won't need to make a second trip.

AN: @ Shadebladez: The chapter was already written before your reply, hope you have some fun with the thoughts about body modification.