Wiish, Bang!

A sudden impact was the first thing that he felt as he awoke from his sleep, his instant reaction was to kick toward the person he felt close to him, but his leg was caught quite easly

“Easy boy, ya don’t wanna start the training in this tight room do ya”

The sound of Vince brought down the urge to retaliate further, once his blurry eyes adjusted to the dim light he found out he was still inside the room allocated to him, this made all his sudden tension go away

“C’mon don’t dally about let’s get going’

Shun followed behind Vince, they passed by the guard’s and headed outside the castle, they kept walking for a long time, long enough for the sun to peek out, before finally reaching a forest filled with trees, it was dense enough that barely any light was capable of passing through

“Alright here is a good spot, let’s start your training”

Vince turned around toward Shun and smiled

Shun waited for Vince to explain what the training was but he only saw Vince go behind a tree

“??”

Bam!

A hit to the head knocked him down to the ground

“Oh? I thought ya were perceptive mate? Are ya still groggy from the morning wake up or are ya a masochist ai?”

‘This dude… is he doing it on purpose or is this really his training’

Getting up Shun looks toward the now further away Vince who once again goes behind a tree, but this time Shun didn’t let his mind wander, he focused on the slightest of-

Bam!

“Boy why are ya still sleeping? Next time ya won’t be getting up if yer this sloppy”

‘Sloppy? I didn’t even have the time to squint my eyes, there is no way I will spot him like this’

Shun started taking this very seriously, especially since Vince’s tone about him not getting up had no hint of joking in it

The sound of Vince was getting further away as he headed toward another tree, Shun who was about to get up stalled his movement a bit

‘C’mon a lil more’

Vince was getting closer to the tree while Shun tried hard not to make his stalling obvious, and at the moment Vince went behind the tree

‘Now!’

Shun instantly activated quick step toward the nearest tree followed by a barrel roll and the activation of stealth, he didn’t worry that Vince had seen his quick step as he had made sure it was the exact moment that Vince had his visibility blocked by the tree

‘He will find me in seconds if I stand still, I have to find him first’

With that line of thought he activated Lucid Search, hoping to make a surprise attack, but the second he existed his body he saw a hand chopping straight at his head from the right

‘Fu-‘ Thud!

He barely had any time to enter his body and jerk away his head in the opposite direction, but with how little time he had there was no way to fully evade the hit, which landed painfully on his shoulder blade

“Sss”

Shun took a sharp breath as the pain vibrated through his body, shoulder blades were quite sensitive to attacks and Vince didn’t hold back on that chop

“Hoooh ya avoided a knock out, and ya had the decency to try and hide from me, I give ya two out of ten, keep trying to dodge fella”

Vince walked behind another tree a bit further from Shun, this time Shun scrambled to his feet before Vince even reached the tree and moved around the tree behind him so that Vince could not see him use quick step, he made use of the tree to bar Vince’s sight and entered stealth, and this time he weaved through the trees fast and found a bush, which he used to camouflage himself while entering Lucid Search

‘Come on!’

Again he saw a chop heading toward his head, which he only had the time to avoid barely resulting in his other shoulder blade getting hurt

“Mmf”

He muffled his urge to groan, and rolled away, he didn’t give Vince the chance to say anything before he darted toward the next set of trees preparing for the next attack

Vince looked a little surprised at the boy before smirking to himself as he muttered under his breath

“Interesting boy, let’s see how long ya can hold out”

Thus the game of cat and mouse began, muffled groans and rustling continued on for a long time into the day

……..

Seven hours later back in the castle walls

Plop

“I wanna die….”

“C’mon it wasn’t all that bad, ya were pretty okay for a nooby”

Hearing Vince talking as if it was nothing Shun gave him the stink eye, only god knows how many hits he took today, shoulder blades, elbows, back knee, you name it, where ever it hurts the most he was hit there

“I’m pretty sure yer out for the day, so night training will have to wait until you have better stamina”

After saying so Vince closed the door and left Shun to recuperate his strength

‘If was just not bad how bad would it have been if I hadn’t had those two skills’

The two skills Shun meant was the Spiritual Blood Pool and the Therianthrope-Crow

Yes, it was these two skills that made Shun go beyond what any normal teenager could do, it wasn’t his will nor his personality, though they may have had a good part to play as well

‘From what I understood from the books the first one could store the blood element so that it could be used to cast more abilities than one would normally be able to, but since it’s the blood element rather than other it could actually be used to replenish stamina’

That’s how he had been able to go for a whole seven hours, and how he could withstand all those injuries since they soon faded with the help of blood elements

‘Then there is the Crow’s affinity with darkness and stealth, it really helped me out and not just with getting better at stealth but also with the instincts that guided me on what to do’

The Therianthrope-Crow of the Other category actually belonged to a sub category of the Therianthrope-Skills, which had four grades of its own: Instincts > Heart > Soul > Shift

Right now Shun was on the instincts grade whereas his instincts were that of a crow, that included his reaction speed, perception, and thought process, and while it didn’t overcome his own thoughts it had become a part of him just like muscle memory

‘I can see these skills being of great use to me, but I wonder how the others are faring with their legendary rank skills, their comprehension must be off the charts’

When those thoughts came to mind he quickly shook them off and adjusted his seating to lean on the wall, then he entered his Lucid Search

Lucid Search had helped him greatly in the forest as it was his only way of spotting Vince, since the spiritual world was different from the physical one Vince’s stealth became obsolete, but Shun wasn’t sure how effective it would be against higher rank or grade of stealth

‘I feel it’s much easier to move around now, hmm let’s see how far can I go from my body’

Thinking so he started hovering around, going through the walls, roof and ground

‘Wooohooo, heh this is sorta fun’

While he was going up he suddenly felt a pull on his mind

‘This must mean I shouldn’t go further, hmm how far is this? Feels like its teen meters’

Just to check it was ten meters in all directions Shun started darting through the surrounding rooms and halls which were mostly deserted as guards were usually at their shift at this hour

‘Hmm the light is on in here?’

When he was going through one of the rooms above him he saw light as he went through the ground

‘Hmm a bath? Ahh right I need to bath, I should ask Vince about it tomorrow, I can’t really move too much right now’

As he contemplated he started looking around, but when he turned behind him he caught the sight of a guard…ess? Catching sight of the soaking women he froze in panic, but when he remembered that she couldn’t see him he gave off a sigh of relief

‘Thankfully she’s fully soaked in foam else I’d feel guilty if I saw anything untoward of her’

Still he didn’t leave as he felt the need to try out how insensible he is so he started to wave his hands in front of her face

‘No reaction at all, this skill is just great for reckoning and spying, now I just need to read lips and id be the best spy ever’

Suddenly the women opened her eyes and looked around, her eyes wandered trying to find anything suspicious but after spotting nothing she shrugged and closed her eyes again to soak

As for Shun he was practically swallowing his words, he could feel his physical body soaked in sweat right now

‘I hope that was just a women’s intuition’

He got back to his body and then tucked himself to sleep, he had enough messing around for now

‘I also…want a…bath…’

His thoughts started wandering off into the darkness