[Bonus chapter]A New Camp (4)

Lucius kept still for a moment, standing in a neutral stance with both his feet facing forward. As if in a bid to catch some unknown enemy off guard, he threw out a high head kick.

He quickly twisted on the heel of his foot still planted on the ground, and attempted to shoot out a spinning kick, but failed mid-way and fell over.

[+2 Agility.]

He picked himself up and tried once more. And again he failed.

[+2 Agility.]

This went on for several rounds and each time his agility increased ever so slightly.

~I think I got the hang of it,~ he thought to himself, as attempted to pull off the move once again. Success.

He kept the rhythm going, throwing out a different type of kick with every twist. Eventually, the kicks began to pack more of a punch and with every rotation, they gained more momentum behind them. Until finally, he used a kick to swing himself into the air, somersaulting before slamming back into the ground with a palm strike.

[+40 Agility.]

~Kukk,~ Lucius thought in annoyance. Though the trick worked out, it wasn't what he had been aiming for.

He had planned on landing back on his feet and throwing out a few more kicks, however, he had still gotten a good amount of agility anyway.

After resting for a bit, he decided to try again.

High head kick, spin kick, spin kick, jumping spin kick. Fail.

[+3 Agility.]

Getting dizzy from all the kicks, he decided to take a bit of a rest.

"What do you call that?"

Lucius turned to look at where the voice was coming from. It was Ghost, sitting on a small pebble not too far away from where he had been training.

"Ahh, so it was you," Lucius whispered before turning to look at his hands.

"It's called martial arts," he answered after a moment.

"Martial Arts?"

"You want to try?" he asked, before standing up.

"I could give it a go," Ghost replied, walking towards him.

"Okay, first lesson. Stand on one leg while I train," he instructed, before getting back into the neutral stance he had been in earlier.

"Stand on one leg? So I'm not going to do all the flying stuff?" Ghost asked, kind of confused with why he was making her do this.

"You need balance to be able to do this," he replied, before throwing out a crisp high head kick.

"Balance?" Ghost asked, staring at Lucius in awe.

"Don't worry about the theory. Just do as I say," he responded, before twisting over, dropping his outstretched leg and shooting out the back leg in one fluid movement.

[+10 Agility.]

~So combinations give higher overall stat points than individual moves, huh~ he noted, before throwing out another combination.

[+7 Agility.]

Meanwhile, Ghost tried and failed to stand on one leg. Throughout the 30-minute session, Lucius had amassed 130 points into Agility, 30 into strength, and 50 into stamina.

Meanwhile, Ghost couldn't even stand on one leg for more than a few seconds.

"This is hard," she sighed as Lucius sat exhausted behind her.

~Well, normally people would use their arms to help with that. But I still think your progress isn't that bad,~ Lucius thought to himself as he side-eyed Ghost's attempts.

However, now that he thought about it, he was probably the strange one here. Regardless of whether or not he knew the moves, he was fairly certain he shouldn't have gotten this good in such a short amount of time.

The only viable conclusion he could come to was that the stat points somehow modified his body at an unnatural rate. And since it seemed he was the only one here whose body worked on stat points, everyone else would be limited to a natural progression.

~But does this mean the stat points I gain from these will plateau with time?~ he wondered. Remembering how the stat points he used to gain from dragging materials around would slowly reduce over time.

~Perhaps as I get used to it?~

After resting for a while, Lucius woke up the leaflings to continue the march.

***

Along their journey, Ghost would use up any spare time she got trying to balance on one leg. Though try and try as she might, she couldn't seem to hold it up for more than five seconds.

A few leaflings noticed what she was doing, and thought that it was a fun game, so of course they tried it as well.

Several of them managed to hold it for at least four seconds. A few of them held it longer, some even going to seven seconds.

Though they seemed to be having fun with it, Ghost couldn't help but get annoyed at the fact that newbies had beaten her already.

~Well you only started a few hours ago,~ Lucius thought to himself before calling them all to sit around him.

"Photosynthesis session," he shouted, and they all quickly got into position.

Once again, the gap between those with endurance, and those without it became larger and larger. The difference in sizes was becoming more apparent, and a few of the leaflings were being left behind.

This time a few more of them managed to survive to 20 minutes, before passing out. Alpha, Ghost, Hannibal, and Pagan were the only ones left past the 30 minutes mark, and at 45 minutes only Pagan remained.

An odd sensation began to travel through Lucius's body as photosynthesis continued. He could feel that something was welling up, he wasn't sure what exactly, but it felt close.

So he decided to carry on. An hour passed, and the feeling only got stronger, but due to their limited time, he was forced to stop.

"I-I was so close," Pagan groaned.

"Close?" Lucius asked, thinking that it was only him who had felt that sensation.

"I was close to it," Pagan responded, his eyes pleading with Lucius to go again.

"Close to what Pagan?"

"I-I don't know," Pagan replied, a faraway gleam in his eyes.