Wiish, Bang!

Another rude awaking came the next warning, but while he had still retaliate the same instant he was woken he calmed down without needing Vince’s voice to bring him back

“Ya gotta be more vigilant in yer sleep, I could have killed ya a thousand times over and ya wouldn’t even know how ya died”

“Right now about anyone could kill me even when I’m awake, no need to be needlessly on guard”

“Haha always looking at the bright side ain’t ya? Well since yer so full of spirit today you might as well hold on for eight hours, if ya don’t we won’t be skipping night training”

Shun nodded his head and followed Vince toward the forest again, this time on the way he saw the female guard he had spied on…met yesterday, she was followed by many guards and was not wearing a helmet like the rest of them, Shun guessed that she wasn’t a mere guard but could be a squad captain of sort

Once Shun and Vince were at the forest Vince turned around, and launched a strike at Shun’s head!!

But the strike met empty air, because before Vince turned around Shun had already started darting toward a nearby tree

Vince just stood there awkwardly holding his hands in the air, he never thought Shun would begin before he even had the chance to turn around

‘I wanted to teach him about being vigilant to surprise attacks even in plain sight but the boy’s way ahead of me’

Still a grin found its way to his mouth instead of a frown

“Hehe boy you better hide quickly, I won’t be going easy on you”

Vince entered his own stealth before heading in Shun’s direction, he looked at the ground for footprints, the branches for movement and focused his eyes to spot Shun’s figure

‘Stealth is like wearing a black coat in the dark night, it blurs you into the surrounding but anyone with enough experience can discern you, it doesn’t need any detection skills but merely the training of the eyes and ears

“Found ya”

He whispered as he spotted Shuns figure leaning on a tree with eyes closed

‘Why does he always close his eyes? He can’t be afraid can he?’

Those thoughts passed through his mind for a second as he approached Shun, the momentary distraction would never have occurred to him during combat but to him this was just a game of tag, nothing to take more seriously than taking out the trash

Puff!

That’s why he almost received a kick to the face, thankfully his year of honing his combat skills made him instinctively block with his armguard

‘He noticed me?! How?’

Before he had the time to make sense of the situation he saw Shun head toward another area populated with shrubs and trees

‘Luck? No that kick was too precise, maybe I let down my guard for a second so he noticed me’

He tried to find and approach Shun again, but this time he approached much more carefully and cleared his mind of any wandering thoughts

‘Can you still find me boy’

Puff!

The answer was yes if the kick to the head was any indicator

‘Its not luck nor my neglect, he’s actually able to perceive me, but how? He had his eyes closed all this time, no even if he had them open he shouldn’t be able to spot me’

Trying again he went after Shun speedily and approached him again and the result was

Thud! “Mmmf”

A solid hit on the shoulder blades

‘What the hell is going on?’

The more Vince tried to understand the more he got confused which led to a long chase that lasted for hours and hours….

“Haaah haah haaah”

Shun was taking labored breaths as he laid on the grass but his curled up lips told of his good mood

‘Haha I like that look of confusion on Vince’s face, if only he knew that the longer time he gave me to hide the better I would be able to use Lucid Search then he would never have been so carful in his approach’

Still even with his confusion Vince let Shun suffer hella lot of pain, plus those hits Shun had to let in intentionally so as to not give out his skills information and to confuse Vince more

“Boy tell me honestly how did you sense my approach”

“Haah, well, haah you make a lot of noise when you move, my eyes aren’t that good, so I have to focus a lot on my hearing just to hear the slightest sound”

Shun tried to bluff his way out but he only received silence from Vince, still he insisted on his explanation by remaining silent and looking Vince in the eyes, a few minutes passed before Vince gave a sigh through his nose and turned around

“Go back to your room, you made it further than eight hours so we will skip night training, get some rest and be ready for tomorrow because it’s gonna be much harsher than today”

With those words he vanished into the forest

“Ahh I forgot to ask him about the bath, sigh, I will have to ask those guards for it”

After he got enough energy to move about he went back to the walls, then he asked around for a place to bath, but he was surprised by the welcoming tone of the guards, it was nothing like that of the ones in the castle

‘Maybe because they man the walls so they would still look up to those who hold epic skills? No maybe they don’t even know what skills I have, well whatever it may be I’m glad things are like this’

Once he took a super scrubby bath that melted the fatigue right out of him he went to bed to sleep again

‘I can feel the blood pool getting larger, is that normal? It should be because im using it till its emptied, well it can only be a good thing if I have more space to store some blood element’

While he reviewed todays training he drifted on to another sleep…

Whiish, Thud!

The same routine from the previous two mornings occurred, this time there was no word exchange between the two as they headed to the forest again

This time before they got in too far Vince threw a black cloth toward Shun

“??”

“Blind fold yer self with that”

“Why?”

“Didn’t ya say ya can hear pretty good? Well then let’s see it”

Shun suddenly had a bad premonition about this

‘Oh boy me and my big mouth’

With no other choice he blind folded himself, then he turned around and ran to the nearest tree he recalled from memory, but only after a few steps

Trip!

He fell down, not being able to see in a forest full of shrubs trees and vines it could only lead to fall after fall and that’s exactly what happened, he didn’t even get far enough from his first fall and he hit a tree right in the face

“Hooh where is yer mighty hearing fella ey? Seems like it ain’t working for ya too well”

Vince’s words were followed by a hard kick to the gut, his boots sunk into Shun’s sides and left them blue from bruises

“Tell ya what, how about ya tell me how ya sensed me and I’ll let ya off this onetime”

Instead of answering Vince Shun grit his teeth and scrambled to get up, but he was met with another kick that sent him back down

“Don’t make this too hard lad, we need to start our training again too, just spit it out, it ain’t like I’m here to rob ya”

‘This isn’t working, if I have to avoid him I have to see but he’s not giving me enough time to enter Lucid Search….’

His thoughts were interrupted by another kick while Vince tried to persuade him again but his words didn’t reach Shun at all

‘I have to make an opportunity to use it, if only I could see a glimpse through these blinds…. Glimpse?’

Suddenly an idea appeared in his head, a very stupid but feasible idea

“Ai I won’t say this again sp-“

Vince was talking as he swung another kick toward Shun but both his words and kick were stopped half way as a fist went straight for his leg, which he retracted hastily, next he saw Shun running toward an area with dense trees

This time he didn’t dare assume anything so he followed after him and went in for another kick while Shun was trying to avoid the trees

Whiish

Unexpectedly Shun actually jumped up to avoid his kick, then he landed and rolled his way behind a tree

“Tricky kid”

Vince muttered as he entered stealth and went from the other side of the tree, he was going to see how much this farce-

Puff

Before he got around the tree a kick too close for comfort almost hit his head, thankfully he guarded against it, the rock that was thrown at his gut on the other hand he had no way to deflect

The rock his him straight in the stomach but it was really so weak, especially for a combatant like him, that he hardly felt it at all, but that wasn’t the main point, it was the fact that the boy he assumed to be no threat actually hit him

‘Just how the hell is he doing this’

Vince could only think so to himself as he saw Shun maneuver around the trees like he wasn’t wearing a blind fold at all. Which he checked that he was wearing

What he didn’t know was that Shun was madly laughing in his mind right now, he never expected his skill could be used in such a genius way

Still he tried to focus on the matter at hand instead of feeling joy as this technique required split second focus

‘Alright let’s see where he’s at’

While he ran his body turned rigid for but a second, that second was when he applied Lucid Search but he didn’t get out of his body, he only peeked his eyes out before going back to deactivate the skill, this gave him a single look around him but just a glimpse was sufficient if he kept doing this every ten or so seconds

Vince pursued at a normal speed behind him, he would sneak at Shun from different angles each time, but to Shun who could spot him like a sore thumb when he used the Lucid form no angle was too tricky, all he needed to do was strike at Vince who would cease to attack once he saw that Shun had found him

Off course, if this was a real battle, Shun would be dead a hundred times over, but as it was only training all Vince did was try to strike him, which he could not do for the entire first three hours, only in the next two hours after that could he hit Shun occasionally, by the time it was six hours into training Shun finally raised the white flag, he just couldn’t endure the mental fatigue of using the skill even though he still had some spiritual blood to spare

“Haaah haaaaah haaaaah I…surrender…can’t… move…”

“Well I guess that would do for the mourning, but since its only twelve now you should catch some rest in the noon, I’ll come pick you up after sundown, you won’t be needing this anymore”

Vince took the blind fold off the unmoving Shun, then he proceeded to walk away without another word

‘Did I convince him? Well if I didn’t then screw it, this is my limit, if he truly insists that im not using my hearing I’ll just have to bring forward my plans to get out of this place’

Shun never planned to stay in this country to become a tool for the corrupt and greedy, he just wanted to make use of whatever training and guiding he could get before he escaped, they had summoned him to this world without his permission to use as a weapon, he owed them nothing

While thinking so his tired mind started to drift off on its own, unknowingly he slipped into sleep in the dense forest as he laid on the grass……