Chapter 008

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“ “ for speech.

* * for actions.

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A few days after Leofric’s testing, his great-grandfather Meldwin appeared at the villa where they were staying. He had a talk with them and explained to them their ancestor’s intention. Initially when Ealric learned that his son was going to stay here, he was a bit distraught. After all, his wife doted on their son a lot, and would surely be disappointed if he returned alone.

However, his mood instantly changed for the better when his grandfather explained that there was a possibility of his son being under the personal tutelage of the ancestor. Although the requirements were a bit harsh, his son had to become a Journeyman Warrior by his coming of age ceremony at 16, but he would then receive personal tutelage by a saint!

That was a humongous opportunity for the growth of his child, and it was not like he could oppose the decision anyway… As far as he knew, the present ancestor had not taken any clan member as his disciple in the past two centuries. Surely, his wife would be excited for the prospects of their son, even if she was pained at their separation. If his son was accepted, that would wipe off the annoying grin of his adulterer cousin Graham!

Labasi on the other hand had mixed feelings about this arrangement. Although he was happy that Leofric was favored by the Ancestor of the Wayne clan, his duty was to the Turner clan and in turn to Goldyna Turner Wayne, Leofric’s mother. After training and nurturing Goldyna since her childhood, he had parental affection for her, over and above his duty to the clan.

He had taken charge of Leofric’s training at her request. Initially, he was a bit apprehensive as he thought himself far too old to train an arrogant noble brat who was spoilt and pampered since birth. However, he quite liked Leofric’s attitude to training.

He also plainly stated to Ealric’s grandfather Meldwin, the bandit ambush they had faced while coming. He stated his concerns about Ealric’s safety on the return journey if he didn’t accompany him back. Listening to this account, Meldwin had frowned. After some thought, he had agreed to dispatch a company of around ninety warriors.

The company was led by a member of the Vainy branch who had just become a Grandmaster Warrior! He was looking to be posted somewhere where he could focus on his cultivation, without the distractions that usually accompanied livelier places. He commanded three platoons led by Master Warriors, who were his sworn martial brothers from childhood and were immensely loyal to him.

Although for other company and platoon leaders a posting in the remote frontier town of Dawndenn was not very appealing, to the leaders of this company, and its constituent platoons, it was what they were looking for. The rank and file warriors were raised in an environment where cultivation prowess, be it martial or magical, was respected. Their leader was a Grandmaster now, and this earned their loyalty as they too hoped to advance further in the martial path under their commander.

Leofric, to his father and tutors surprise, was quite calm about this development. After the private conversation with the Ancestor, he was expecting further interest in his development. He enjoyed training, but he would miss his parents as they wouldn’t be able to visit him too frequently.

On the other hand he had a chance to train under a sage by the time he was sixteen! Given the reverence sages enjoyed, he could tell that this was an immense opportunity and he shouldn’t squander it just because he would be a little homesick! This doubled his determination to train harder and cultivate with more diligence; and it was not like he could oppose the decision…

Within a week his father left with a company of warriors to Dawndenn. After a sentimental goodbye, he entered a meditative state in the courtyard as soon as possible to ease his somewhat turbulent thoughts. Seeing this, Labasi chuckled as he pondered how to proceed with his training.

Initially, he had helped him build a solid foundation for both magical and martial cultivation. While the rituals and exercises helped stimulate his meridians and strengthen his body, meditation helped enhance his spiritual force. If his student had a decent affinity to be a mage, he would have proceeded with a regime primarily designed to enhance his magical cultivation. In that case, martial cultivation would take a lower priority, just enough to keep up his rank as a warrior with his rank as a magus.

Increasing in ranks a warrior was much easier than cultivating as a magus. Although magi had more destructive potential, they were weak in close combat and were usually accompanied by warriors so that they could unleash their devastation without getting stabbed through their heart.

A warrior on the other hand was good at dealing with few enemies in close range, but human wave tactics consisting of hordes of lower ranked warriors would cause their downfall. Only a dual Warrior-magus had the flexibility to deal with various kinds of threats.

However, Leofric didn’t have aptitude to be a mage so he decided to focus his training regime to a warrior’s. He was also debating internally whether he should cut down on Leofric’s meditation time and focus more on other aspects of martial training. Although having a strong soul and higher spiritual force was a good thing for both warriors and magi, the benefit warriors received were minimal at best.

However, he saw his student’s dedication to meditation and he refrained from it. To be truly strong one had to enjoy cultivating after all. He should be thankful that his pupil enjoyed at least one aspect of cultivating! Furthermore, he had a nagging feeling that Leofric’s meditation was different somehow even if he was practicing the most elementary forms of meditation.

The day after his father left Leofric woke up before sunrise, it was a habit by now. He practiced meditation for an hour till sunrise, and then performed 108 repetitions of the five rituals to stimulate his meridians. After performing the meridian stimulating rituals he meditated for around fifteen to twenty minutes.

In his training regime he had discovered that for him meditation not only relieved mental fatigue but also revitalized him physically! Almost five months back when he was just able to do 10 repetitions of the third level of body strengthening exercises, he had pushed himself the next day and attempted to do 20!

That was an enormous jump in exertion, and after enduring the protests of his body he somehow managed to complete it. After that, he was physically exhausted and aching all over so he had entered meditation to escape from the discomfort.

To his surprise after an hour of meditation, he was as good as new! While he couldn’t complete 30 repetitions, each repetition was much less strenuous! From that day, whenever he exerted himself physically, he would meditate for a short time and a large portion of the accumulated fatigue would leave him, making him feel energized!

Since then instead of meditating continuously for a couple of hours before sunrise and sunset before his rituals and strengthening exercises; he would meditate an hour before the rituals, roughly twenty minutes after performing the meridian stimulating rituals and another forty minutes after performing the strengthening exercises. This had enabled him to be more attentive during his lessons and he felt more energetic later. It had also helped to increase his progress in physical strengthening by roughly thirty percent!

After he meditated for twenty minutes, he started the third level of body strengthening exercises. He pushed himself and he performed 900 repetitions of each of the six exercises! This was very good progress for this kind of regime which strengthened the foundation. In roughly 10 days, he had progressed from 850 repetitions to 920 repetitions, around 7 per day!

Although at the first level he could exert himself to increase his daily repetitions by 9-11, the exercises then were much easier. Although the increase in daily repetitions had reduced to seven, it was still humongous progress as generally even an increase of five repetitions per day was considered excellent progress at the third level of body strengthening!

Initially, Labasi was a bit puzzled as Leofric modified his training regime. Instead of admonishing him, he opted to endure and observe the results before passing judgment. He was surprised to see the accelerated pace in his physical strengthening regime. He concluded that meditation between exercises helped to bolster his willpower, which in turn allowed him to push his body to the limits and surpass it!

After performing 920 strenuous repetitions of each of the six body strengthening exercises, Leofric sat cross-legged, formed his hands into the seal shown by his teacher and started meditating. He easily slipped into a practiced trance and breathed in deeply.

A small amount of the ambient elemental energy swirled and entered him. The elemental energy traveled towards his Central Dantian. After reaching it, there was a faint pulse as it dissipated along the meridians, and quite a bit of it was absorbed by the surrounding bones, muscles and organs.

Leofric felt a comfortable vibration throughout his body and he felt refreshed. Two thicker strands of elemental energy traveled to his lower and upper Dantian respectively. In his lower dantian, similar to his central dantian, most of the energy dissipated through the meridian channels and a portion of it was absorbed by the surrounding muscles and organs, strengthening them while a tiny portion of the elemental energy reaching the lower dantian was converted into Qi.

A little over half of the stream of energy which reached his upper Dantian was converted into a tiny sliver of spiritual force. This caused Leofric to feel a somewhat strange but comfortable mild shock pass through his spine. After meditating for approximately forty minutes Leofric opened his eyes.

He saw that his teacher was waiting for him with a slightly muscular young man in his twenties. The young man had tanned skin, almost the color of wheat and was only wearing a loincloth. He had long black hair and had traces of a beard on his face. His eyes looked dead and there was a tattoo on his forehead.

Leofric: ‘That tattoo means he is a slave. Why has teacher bought a slave?’

Labasi: “So you are done with your morning exercises. Now that you have the strength of a Novice Warrior, it is time to begin the next phase of your training.”

Labasi then arranged five stone talismans on the ground around them. Each talisman was made of what looked like baked clay and was a couple of inches in diameter. There were intricate geometrical shapes and runic carvings on it. The talismans formed a circle with a radius of ten meters around them. Labasi then chanted for a few seconds under his breadth and tapped his feet.

There was a mild rumbling and the ground deformed itself. Two concentric circles rose from the ground. The outer formation was around three inches wide and five inches high; and on top it sat the five talismans arranged equidistantly. In comparison, the inner circle was only a centimeter thick and a couple of centimeters wide and had a radius of around three meters.

Intricate shapes appeared on the ground between the two concentric circles and formed what appeared to be a formation. The five talismans started glowing with an ocher yellow light and a transparent, almost invisible membrane formed over them in a hemisphere. After watching the spectacle which unfolded in a few seconds, Leofric was amazed.

Leofric: “Teacher what was that?”

Labasi: “Oh that’s just a formation to ensure our privacy. Nobody below a sage can bypass it without me knowing.”

Leofric: “Was that a spell you used, teacher?”

Labasi: “No, just a few alchemical talismans. I will talk to you about Alchemy later. For now let us proceed with your martial training.”

Labasi then placed a hand on the slave’s shoulder and chanted under his breath. The slave’s body gradually started turning into stone. After several seconds, every part of body below the slave’s neck was turned into stone. This was a Journeyman rank Earth Spell “Petrifying Touch”.

Although it wasn’t too effective against opponents of the same rank or higher, it was very effective to restrain significantly weaker opponents! There was terror in the slave’s eyes but he had resigned himself to his fate. If he had enough power to revolt here, he wouldn’t have been enslaved in the first place!

Leofric observed the proceedings in silence. Slaves were like cattle; to be bought sold and slaughtered. Although his parents didn’t approve of keeping slaves in the clan estate in Dawndenn, they were an exception. Slavery was a thriving industry with many influential players in it. They were mostly unlucky victims of prisoners, bandits or those who were too deep in debt.

After the slave was petrified neck down, Labasi’s hand was covered with translucent orange flames. The flames on his hand concentrated at the tip of his index finger, which was glowing in a deep shade of orange now. This was the Novice Rank Fire Spell, “Burning Hands”.

Labasi had such a high degree of understanding and mastery of the spell that he was able to modify it to concentrate at the tip of his fingers! It was only a rank 1 spell and a master Magus like him could modify these spells almost without any thought! Labasi then casually pierced one of the slave’s eyes with his glowing finger and blinded one of his eyes. A hoarse scream was heard from the slave.

Labasi then methodically blinded the other eye and pierced both his eardrums, rendering the slave blind and deaf. The slave was still screaming. Annoyed, Labasi shot down a small fireball down his throat, burning his tongue and vocal cords and shutting him up.

He then ripped off the loincloth off the slave and burnt all his hair with a burning hands spell. His fist and a part of his forearm were then transformed into what looked like grey polished granite. This was the Intermediate Rank Earth spell Earthen Hands.

This spell would harden the hands of the caster into stone, greatly increasing physical offense and overall defense for the transformed part. However, this spell was not too popular among mages as to take full advantage of it, unarmed close combat was essential. Furthermore, this spell couldn’t be simultaneously used with the Expert Rank spell Rock Skin which greatly increased defense over the whole body.

Labasi then poked the petrified body of the slave as if his finger was a chisel. When he was done, there were 54 dents all over the slave’s body, mostly concentrated on the torso; although there were a few on his head and neck and quite a few on his limbs. He then completely petrified the slave and addressed his student.

Labasi: “Now observe carefully Leofric, the 54 dents you see are the various meridian openings or pressure points that every mortal has. Attacking certain pressure points in the right way, will temporarily disable a part of the opponents body.”

Labasi: “Now, being a warrior physical close combat attacks are your mainstream. While weapons will provide a significant output of your offense that does not mean that you should be helpless without a weapon.”

Labasi: “Usually these meridian openings are useful for Qi cultivation and battle arts; they do have an application in direct unarmed combat! If your opponent is lightly armored and you are unarmed, attacking their pressure points will disrupt them and give you a significant advantage! Doing that to a statue is hard enough, but to do so in combat will require a lot of training and attention.”

Labasi: “These pressure point attacks are extremely effective to those at Journeyman Rank and below. A perfectly executed attack can numb and disable the targeted part for a several minutes to several hours depending on their strength.”

Labasi: “For Experts to Grandmasters, the effectiveness of pressure point attacks is greatly reduced. While applying some pressure on this meridian opening here near the shoulder-blade here will turn a Journeyman Rank cultivator’s left arm limp and unable to do anything except flop uselessly for fifteen minutes; the effects are greatly diminished on someone of Master Rank.”

Labasi: “Using the same finger stab on a Master will allow him to use his left arm with around 60% of his speed and strength for a couple of minutes at best. Still, that is a significant advantage in combat where life and death can be decided in the blink of an eye! Furthermore, if your opponent wants to forcefully regain the use of his arm, he will have to waste quite a bit of Qi to flood and enable his channels! Any questions?”

Leofric: “Teacher, you mentioned that these meridian openings are useful for Qi cultivation and battle arts. What is a Battle Art?”

Labasi: “To put it crudely, think of battle arts as spells for warriors using Qi instead of mageforce. While their destructive potential is larger compared to normal attacks, they consume a large amount of Qi and aren’t as destructive as offensive spells.”

Labasi: “They usually take a couple of moments to prepare which leaves you open for counter attacks! So only those who have a good mastery of battle arts can use them seamlessly in melee combat! Also, learning too many battle arts is detrimental to your future growth. Once you become a Journeyman I will explain more about battle arts to you. For now let us focus on these pressure points.”

From that day, every morning Labasi would bring a fresh slave and petrify it to show Leofric more about the pressure points. He diligently taught which pressure points temporarily disabled which part of the body and situations of how to sue them in combat. After petrifying a slave, he would encourage his student to point out the various meridian openings before he marked them.

Most of the time Leofric got it wrong; but ti was to be expected. After they were done with a slave for the morning, Labasi would smash it with his powerful fists, turning it into powdered fragments. Once Leofric asked his teacher why he would dispose of a slave daily, and wasn’t that expensive to procure a new slave every day?

His teacher had replied that, this knowledge of using pressure points was extremely valuable and he couldn’t risk it leaking. As for the expenses of the slaves, Labasi was happy to tell him that his great grandfather was taking care of it, so using up a rank 1 slave worth a few hundred gold coins a day was not a problem at all!

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A/N: Sorry for the delay in chapter. To make it up it is a bit longer than the last one! I am really loaded in RL so expect sporadic updates to both my ffs till late Nov to mid Dec. Thanks for the understanding.

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