Doubtful Certainty

There were thousands of fighting techniques in Blink's world, and they often came with a name, some fancier than others. Often enough the same technique would have different names from the different martial arts practiced by schools, families or clans.

It must be noted that not all techniques were given special names. Only those techniques that are integral to the fighting style were given a special name of their own. At other times, the founder of the martial arts style also made it so.

At the Ragha Martial Arts Academy every disciple practiced the Demon Vanquishing Fist from the moment they entered the academy. The Demon Vanquishing Fist was a fighting style founded by none other than the legendary Qat'l Banwar. Other fist styles might have had pretentious names, but the Demon Vanquishing Fist was truly what its name suggested—it was the consummation of all the fist techniques the great hero used to vanquish demons.

The Banwar School of Fighting put such special importance to the forward punch that it was impossible for a junior disciple to don the black robe of a senior disciple without attaining Master Proficiency with the [Roaring Tiger] technique. As Master Tszarek was, in fact, also the Seventh Master of the Banwar School of Fighting, it was the same for all disciples of the Ragha Martial Arts Academy. There was no explanation offered as to why this was so. But whether one was a disciple of the Banwar School of Fighting or the Ragha Martial Arts Academy, the day would always start with hundreds of [Roaring Tiger] punches.

While every other disciple from his academy were baffled over the fascination with the [Roaring Tiger] technique, Blink stumbled upon the answer during sword practice. He called Berge over and demonstrated the application of the fist technique to sword play. As they were trying out the forward step into a sword thrust motion, Master Tszarek called the two of them over to explain what they were doing. When Blink explained that he believed the forward punch was the link to Qat'l Banwar's legendary sword style, Master Tszarek froze. He then sternly warned the two of them to never reveal the matter to anybody.

Qat'l Banwar was famed for his sword and spear fighting styles. What people didn't know was that he honed his sword fighting skills through his fist techniques. This was why backfist strikes and hand chops were integral to the Demon Vanquishing Fist style. But the sword technique equivalent of [Roaring Tiger] was the staple of Qat'l Banwar's sword style. Master Tszarek explained this to Blink in private a few days after the incident.

It was this knowledge that inspired Blink to create his [The Serpent Bares Its Fangs] technique. Like [Roaring Tiger], [The Serpent Bares Its Fangs] could also easily transition into a sword technique.

The beauty of the Demon Vanquishing Fist was actually its simple practicality. Unlike other martial arts systems that emphasized either speed or strength or both, Demon Vanquishing Fist could still be very effective even if one wasn't the faster nor the stronger fighter. Since demons from the ancient era were always faster and stronger than humans, Qat'l Banwar designed his fighting system in order to overcome these disadvantages. Demon Vanquishing Fist taught its practitioner the value of being proactive—of setting the conditions by which opportunities might be grasped later.

With a history of five thousand years, the Demon Vanquishing Fist style had undergone meticulous studies and innovations by the hundreds of masters that had practiced it. By the time Blink began to practice martial arts, it was already next to impossible to find flaws from the fighting style. It was a supreme martial art that had the added benefit of easing the transition from unarmed combat to fighting with a sword.

But while Blink's fist techniques were almost on the verge of breaking through the Master Proficiency barrier, his leg techniques were even more impressive. Three of his leg techniques had attained Master Proficiency level within a year of donning his junior disciple robe. If the masters of the Banwar School of Fighting were to find out that a boy had such an attainment on just his third year in the academy, they would feel like they had been living under a rock.

The three leg techniques were the [Serpent Bite], [Dance of the Rooster] and [Sunset Prowler]. All three relied on Blink's exceptional skill with the side kick.

The first technique is part of [The Prowling Tiger] series, a leg-and-fist fighting style that emphasized deceptiveness and sudden bursts of speed. The style featured rapid combinations of kicks and punches meant to overwhelm the opponent. The other two are Blink's personalized techniques which took advantage of his deep comprehension of the side kick.

[Serpent Bite] is essentially a skipping side kick. Normally, the kicker would clip his leg at the end of the skip and immediately push it, blade of foot first, towards the enemy.

As a practitioner who always went beyond the prescribed form, Blink sometimes kept his kicking leg suspended instead of kicking right away. At other times, because his fellow disciples retreated really far from him due to the abnormally long range of his skip, he would make another skip with his kicking leg still clipped ready to be thrust into the opponent's waist or hip area.

But what exasperated many of Blink's opponents was that he could skip off either leg. Add this to the fact that he would sometimes use a feint to get the opponent to betray his mindset.

The [Dance of the Rooster] would start off with a skipping side kick. Then the fighter would change the angle with a sidestepping motion, following which the fighter would raise the back leg, as if about to kick. But the real kick would come from the other leg. Whether the kick landed or not, the attacker would follow up with a rapid three or four-kick combination.

As for the [Sunset Prowler] it was nothing more than a modification of [Serpent Bite] but opens up with a hook kick (also called full-moon kick) that would immediately be followed by the skipping side-kick. The opening kick could also be a feint. Of course, it helped a lot that his proficiency with the hook kick was at the Adept level.

Blink had several leg strikes and kicking combinations for which he had an Adept Proficiency with. His proficiency with the turning heel kick was close to reaching Master level while that of his turning side kick was halfway there. His double axe kick to a turning heel kick combo was also at the Adept Proficiency level before he stopped doing it because his fellow junior disciples had far exceeded him in strength and speed they would just simply take the first two kicks to deal him a more damaging retaliation.

The concept of proficiency also applied to magic. Specifically, they applied to spells and other areas of magical practice such as item enchantment. However, that was where the similarities ended.

For one, there were no known levels of proficiency in magical practice. An acolyte just knew that his proficiency in a particular spell would steadily increase the more the spell was used. But even this certainty, Blink was afraid, might yet be proven to be doubtful.

As far as Blink knew, his proficiency with martial arts techniques rose rapidly from Beginner to Advanced level then slowed down considerably from that point on. With spells the progress was slow right from the start.

And now that Blink had also picked up enchantment, he could only feel depressed every day with how little progress he was making in his practice.

The last two batches of bandits he routed yielded over eighty weapons and thirty armor. However, he only managed to successfully enchant three weapons and one armor.

"I need a fresh batch of bandits," Blink told himself.

Then, as he looked into the forest behind him, he perceived the silhouettes of a large number of people marching towards the river.