Foundation

After taking a slight pause, I didn't think about Adele anymore. It was a bit exciting to see just how determined she was, but much more important was that I used my time efficiently. This was a very hostile world and I needed to do everything in my power to prevent any tragedies in the future.

I continued my run and eventually even lapped Adele. My body was working great nowadays and would probably only improve from here. I did find it very disappointing that I couldn't reach the point of exhaustion that I needed for mana training though.

Soon, I decided to stop and try a different aspect of training. I couldn't be sure how effective it would be, but thinking back on many stories I read that covered a similar situation to mine, the main character would often practice different strikes and movements with a weapon. Of course, I was at a horrible disadvantage in that I couldn't be sure of any proper movements or attacks that would achieve results, but I wanted to see if that worked.

I moved over to a relatively empty area and tried thinking of a few attacks. For one, I went with a very simple movement of pushing my left leg to the front and shifting my weight to stab forward. This would probably be regarded as the most basic move of a spear. I tried doing that a couple of times with the intention of figuring out if I could improve the movement.

I did it for a few more times when it all just started to blend together. I was still roughly going through the movement sure, but I found myself cutting corners, allowing me to speed up the number of times at the cost of quality. This was probably the exact opposite of what I wanted to achieve. I stopped and tried to think of a different approach.

I wanted to get any ideas that would let me train better so I directed my gaze at the other trainees. They assumedly had a good routine set up so I figured I could get some good ideas.

Looking around, I eventually spotted a whole group of trainees going through sword movements while another, presumably an adept stage, stood in front and observed everyone's strikes. They would all move in unison after a command to strike and the instructor in this situation would go around and point out obvious errors.

Although this looked like a decent approach, it simply wasn't possible to implement the same for me. I guess it was still very possible for me to just switch to the standard weapon and start to learn the sword. I would immediately have access to a bunch of peers and seniors that I could learn a lot of information from, but I still didn't like that option.

I seriously doubted I could catch up to the average level of expertise with the sword let alone become a master. Instead, I still preferred the advantages that came with a very long range of attack and at least in this world, the unorthodoxy of such a weapon. Nobody used it so if I got even remotely good with it then I would have the advantage of nobody knowing how to fight against me.

With that said, I still needed to come up with a plan for my training. I was about to look around again for inspiration, when I noticed someone approach. I looked over and saw Adele struggling to run towards me while obviously exhausted.

"What happened to copying my training? There's no way you ran as much as I did."

She bent over to help catch her breathe and only replied a little bit later.

"It is regrettable. I'm afraid my body simply can't compete. I've only done a fraction of the run and although I'm certain I could force myself to complete it, I noticed that you were going through unique thoughts over here. I would be a fool to ignore the opportunity to observe you challenge obstacles while being stubborn of copying you exactly."

"Are you sure you didn't just get tired and want to give up?"

She frowned very hard. It was a bit amusing seeing how scrunched up her face could get.

"Hmm, you might be right. I think that might have influenced my decision to stop. I'm sorry, I need to take a second to think."

She then turned away presumably lost in thoughts. I just shrugged at her behavior. That was definitely a new one for me. If she wanted time to think, who was I to stop her?

I turned away and looked around at other trainees. There were many different kinds of training routines happening, but I eventually gravitated towards a specific one. Over to the side, there were numerous wooden dummies set out for trainees to practice hitting. After closely observing the trainees there, I soon thought that this was a much better method than 'air' training.

Looking very closely at the expressions of the trainees, I could see them frown or get excited after certain hits. Thinking for a bit on why that could be the case, I realized that after hitting a physical object, you could get a very rough sense of how effective that hit was. Whether it be the rebound of the attack on your hands or small nicks and scratches in the target, there was feedback readily available. And if there was one thing that determined a good training method, it was readily available feedback.

Now satisfied with a new direction, I prepared to walk over, but was stopped by Adele.

"Thank you. You have reaffirmed my belief. As you have said, I think I was indeed swayed because of my exhaustion, but seeing you come to a decision just now made me realize that this is more important."

I raised an eyebrow at her.

"Are you sure? You might have got an insight, but can you be sure it is correct? After all, you haven't gone through everything exactly as I have today. Maybe you are still taking shortcuts."

At my words, I could see her bit her lip clearly frustrated once more. I just laughed. I could definitely keep her second guessing her motivations all day.

Not paying her any more attention, I made my way over to the training dummies. This area was a bit more crowded, but I didn't let that stop me. I claimed one dummy as my own and started to see if my thoughts earlier were correct.

I tried doing a few different attacks with differing foundations and motion. Each attack that connected with the wooden dummy sent vibrations down my arm and would leave behind various scratches. Continuing with this, I started to get a feel for the positions I had to take to get the strongest attacks. Especially with something like how crouched I should be, this new method gave me definite feedback whereas before it was anybody's guess as to what was good.

I smiled seeing this method was workable. I might not be able to know what a good strike was, but I would definitely be able to compare two similar strikes and see if one felt a little better than the other.

I was now fired up to try all kinds of attacks and see what they felt like. Yet, before I could start, I was interrupted by Adele again.

"You've made a very interesting point just now. I think it is very true that I can't truly empathize with your thought processes simply because I haven't done everything you have done. I may very well make incorrect assumptions because of this, however, to do that in the first place, I would have had to have lived your entire life. I'm going into this with the idea that I don't know your thought processes, so it doesn't really matter if I make the wrong observations along the way. I will continue to observe you and see if any assumptions that I make turn out to be wrong later, thereby finding the correct answer amidst fakes."

"Man, you really thought that one through huh?"

She smiled as if I praised her.

"Yes, it was quite difficult, but now I can get back to copying you without thinking about that stuff."

I then smiled in return.

"But you don't even have a training weapon. How can you copy what I'm doing?"

Her smile immediately turned into a deep frown once more.