CHAPTER 37: BREAKTHROUGH

Since there were three weeks until the start of the tournament, both David and Chaz were putting in some serious efforts to increase their fighting power. In the time before the tournament, David's main goal was to breakthrough in his Body of Recovery skill and sort out some type of attack method. If he had those abilities, then David thought that he stood a pretty good chance of making it into the top 5 winners in the Zero Division.

Since Chaz was trying to level up in his training also, the two men continued their training under the supervision of Mr. Lester as previously planned. The tournament didn't really change their original plan at all....it just increased the urgency in the training. The old man was pretty good about pointing out weaknesses in everyone else's fighting. He would frequently add comments that would help the two improve their fighting.

"David, it has already been three days since you and Chaz started this training. How is your body holding up?," Mr. Lester asked David as the two were sitting waiting for Chaz to show up.

"My body is fine. Learning to concentrate on healing myself during battle was easier than I thought. Since I started to pick that technique up yesterday, I didn't have to put in such a large effort to heal up after training last night. I feel like I am at least 95 percent strength right now. Next, all I need to do is master the skill and make the recovery effect a passive effort. It will be nice to heal fast without having to think about it," David chatted.

Realizing now might be the right time, David decided to go in for the kill with a question, "Mr. Lester, I really need to increase my attack strength. Do you have any suggestions?"

Mr. Lester just sat and stared at David. This kid seemed to have decent body talent, but didn't master skills exceptionally quick. It didn't help that he picked the most difficult body skill to start with....most people saved it to the third or fourth skill they learned. He was a very talented elemental practitioner which means he has good mental focus. Combining the physical and mental into weapons use was a barrier to some cultivators. But David seemed talented enough.....Maybe weapons skills would be the appropriate next step for him.

As if reading Mr. Lester's mind, David started, "I have been thinking about training with weapons. More specifically, short swords and knives."

Mr. Lester still remained quiet as he was thinking things over. David thought that he was preparing to yell at him like the last time he brought this up, so he quickly continued with his sales pitch.

"My Darkness specialty lends itself to sneak attacks, but doesn't offer anything in terms of a serious set of attack techniques. In the fight with the men that killed my parents, I don't think I would have survived if I attacked them head on. I used the shadow skill and attacked before they were even aware of my presence. It seemed to work well, but the fight after that initial attack is what really made me get injured to the point of collapse. If I would have had some sort of knife skills to execute, then I wouldn't have been so lost after the first attack," David said stating his reasons for needing some weapons training.

After sitting for a minute, Mr. Lester started to speak. It wasn't Mr. Lester's normal speech....David could tell he was very serious...

"I don't know, David. You are very physically weak. However, daggers, knives, and short swords would put you really close to the enemy. Close enough that a strong opponent could grab you and rip you apart. I don't see that as being the safe weapon choice for you. Why not practice archery or guns? Then, you can just hide in the shadows and shot people," Mr. Lester questioned.

"I thought about going with guns or archery. But that just makes me a great support type fighter. I would be worthless without a good team. While I don't mind working with a team, I want my own strength. I want to be able to rely on myself and deal with my own problems.....at some point, I'd still like to try at least one distance style attack though...for those certain situations where I can't get close," David said in a definite manner.

David's answer must have been the right one because Mr. Lester smiled, stood up and looked down at David who was still sitting.

"Alright, I will help you train with knives. However, you must first breakthrough in the Body of Recovery Skill. You can't be constantly battling up close with knives if one hit from the opponent will kill you. Breakthrough in your skill and I will give you something good," Mr. Lester stated.

"What? Something good?" David asked getting excited that his opportunity had arrived.

Mr. Lester looked down at David for a second and sighed.

"Oh well, I guess there is no harm in telling you now," Mr. Lester said in a pause of sadness flashed across his face, "I had an older brother who once went to The Other. I don't know all the details but he was killed on a journey into the wilderness around the Carmine Family's city. His belongings were brought back to Earth and given to me when I had just become an entry level guard. One of his possessions was a set of knife skills that he developed. They were not special enough to warrant any attention in The Other, so they sent those notes back here with his belongings. I glanced through the notes...They were pretty good in comparison to the other weapons skills that I had seen.....but obviously they weren't good enough to spare my brother's life. When I was having issues developing my fist techniques, I stumbled across the notes in my closet. Eventually, I used my brother's knife technique as the basis for developing my own fist fighting style. I will give the knife technique notes to you so you can read them and possibly pick up a skill or two....but only after you master Body of Recovery."

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It had already been 8 days since David registered for the tournament. There were 13 days of training left until the qualifying competition.

David's body had been in a constant state of injury for this entire week of training. He had ended up with several broken bones and damaged muscles. His body looked like one big bruise. However, David's Recovery Skill was continually progressing from healing all the damage.

During an actual fight, David could now focus on healing important parts of injuries first. For example, he took a punch to the chest during an earlier round that nearly caused his heart to start fluttering irregularly. While still in combat, David had focused his healing efforts on the heart specifically....not the muscles of the chest, not the bruises forming under the skin...he focused on the part of injury that would really hurt him in battle and kept pressing his attacks against Chaz.

In their daily battles, Chaz had finally reached some tipping point also. As David's recovery skill increased, Chaz had been having trouble keeping up until the end of the 15 minute training rounds. Seeing an issue happening, Mr. Lester had took out a book and given it to Chaz to practice.

Since Chaz had already learned how to pace his energy usage in his Body of Strength, Mr. Lester had decided that it was an appropriate time for Chaz to learn the Body of Stamina.

"I know you were thinking of starting to train in Body of Defense, but that would pretty much make you a human rock....you'd be pretty much worthless except as a gate guard or something similar. You need some other skill to give you mobility to be useful in battle. Body of Stamina will decrease your overall energy usage by several times. You would able to fight with David for an hour with the same intensity as you do now in a 15 minute fight," Mr. Lester explained while handing Chaz the book.

Chaz accepted the book and started training.

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Time went by quickly. 18 days had passed since David registered for the tournament. There were only 3 days of training left until the qualifying competition. David's training had hit a bottleneck and he wasn't seeing that much progress on his Body of Recovery skill. However, Chaz was an absolute prodigy when it came to training in Body of Stamina. Mr. Lester had lost his shit when he realized that it only took Chaz 10 days to breakthrough and master the skill.

As far as David's Body of Recovery advancement....Mr. Lester started to question if David was actually training in the Body of Recovery skill. From his point of view, David had invented an entirely new skill....the Body of Abuse....it just allowed David to constantly get the shit beat out of him.

Chaz's newly mastered Body of Stamina skill completely took away any advantage that David had in the full contact sparing. David had become the human embodiment of a punching bag. However, David didn't complain....he had peaked on his comprehension of the recovery skill, but his application of the skill was growing by leaps and bounds.

He could now focus on healing small areas to increase performance, restrict healing as needed, assess the actual status of his own injuries with ease, and even heal multiple injury locations at the same time. David knew that he was only a step away from completely mastering the very difficult skill....he just needed something to push the breakthrough.

Another reason that David didn't stress over the lack of progress in skill was because he had sufficiently advanced in his fighting experience. Constantly fighting with someone that can physically overpower him, David had developed a very cautious but effective battle style. If he did not have at least 95 percent assurance that Chaz could not grab him or directly counterattack....then David would just run around without much action. If he was in a real battle, this is where he would be throwing shit and hurling insults at Chaz constantly to try to make an opening. Since Chaz was his friend and the training room was pretty empty, David had limited actions he was willing to take against Chaz...that doesn't mean he took it completely easy on Chaz....David would tease him with comments like "shoe is untied" or "zippers down" or "ass crack is showing." The comments were effective at first but quickly lost their ability to distract Chaz for a split second.

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There was only 1 day left to the tournament. David was still getting his ass whooped in the first couple training rounds for today. David was currently sitting off to the side trying to heal a broken bone in his left hand. He had tried to punch Chaz in the cheek during the last round...and Chaz had punched him directly in his hand to block.....which broke David's hand.

While David was sitting there focused on healing, his perception felt that something was about to hit him going at a quick speed. He dodged to the side to miss one of Mr. Lester's favorite racket balls that he loves to throw at people so much. The ball hit the wall besides David and rolled up to his leg. David grabbed the ball and threw it back at Mr. Lester trying to hit him in the face. Mr. Lester caught the ball and smiled at David.

"You still healing over there?," Mr. Lester asked.

For a second, David was shocked. He was still healing.....but he wasn't focusing on it. It was happening naturally. The racket ball that Mr. Lester had thrown had served to distract David from his focus on healing, but his body had just continued to heal.

"Thanks old man," David said as he got up and walked over.

"Thanks for what kid? Chaz is about to beat the shit out of you again," Mr. Lester laughed.

"Thanks.....,your stupid messing around with these racket balls finally did someone good," David responded, "I broke through in the Body of Recovery skill...now when do I get that book you promised?"