Arts

Waking up Eric sits on the bed. After sleep, his mind is fresh now. He starts going through the details of the 4 arts he gets from Lee.

First is:

* [Basic blade style.] - Blade Art for absolute beginners. Practicing it will lay a foundation for blade wielders.

The Basic Blade style has 5 stances in it. Cut, Slash, Stab, Block, and Parry. Each stance has many variations in it. Like cut has 3 variations, Horizontal Cut, Vertical Cut, and Diagonal cut. Slash has 2 forms Forward slash and backward slash. Similarly, other stance also has their variations.

Once all stances are learned you now enter the path of blades.

Second is:

* [Hyper breathing] - Breathing art increases stamina and decreases energy consumption.

Hyper breathing is a breathing art and it has 2 stages in it.

- stage 1: [Blood control]- You can control the blood flow of different parts of the body. This will help to increase the control of that body part.

- Stage 2: [Hibernating state] - The body will only consume a minimum amount of oxygen and energy. Decrease the wastage of energy.

Hyper breathing help to gain more control of the body. It can decrease the wastage of energy and increase digestion.

Hyper Breathing is perfect with Gluttony training. They both complement each other.

Third is:

* [Clown steps] - Weird movement for dodging and making the enemy confused.

Clown steps have many jumps, rolls, and falls move. Each of them looks weird but performing them will confuse the enemy as they mix with many faints in them. It's a weird art with no preset move but situation-dependent counters. You have to study and predict opponents and then counter them with clown steps.

The good thing about the clown step is that it requires more dexterity than agility.

Last:

*[Mind Eyes] - Increase focus and sense of presence around you.

It is meditation art that needs to circulate mana through the eyes and brain in a fixed pattern. Like the hyper mind, it has 2 stages.

- Stage 1- Improve your Eyesight and level of concentration.

- Stage 2 - You can Feel the change in mana from the surroundings.

Each art has different effects based on the level of mastery. Arts with stage need required mastery before the next stage can be used. Eric is very satisfied with his choices. Although basic blade art is very simple and easy to counter mixing clown steps will surely be difficult to counter.

Eric sat on the floor and start mana art which is given in the manual to form the core. He only needs to absorb the dark element in his core then he will become a warrior once again. Mana absorption is not difficult for Eric as he already has the experience. The atmosphere around the academy has far more concentrated mana than the mortal villages.

After absorbing dark elements in his mana core which is fragile stabilizes itself. Dark mana first enters the walls of the core and strengthens it. After completely strengthening the wall little mana fills the core.

After filling his core with little dark mana he stops. He decided to not proceed further as that may cause misunderstanding. He has to wait for the next 20 days as Eric plans to show his talent just an A - grade. Showing too much talent without any backing will only cause problems. He wan to become the center of attention but not based on talent but based on his power.

After making up his mind he starts shifting things in his room. Things like a bed, table, and shelf he shifts all this in the kitchen. His main room is now fully empty. After sitting in the center of the room he once again starts thinking about the arts. This time a blue status screen appears in front of him with the names of all art on them. This is not the universal black status screen but the blue status screen of Legacy.

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#ARTS

* [Basic blade style.] > * [Hyper breathing] >

* [Clown steps] > *[Mind Eyes] >

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When he focuses on blade style, it shows all 5 move names in the art. At end of each name is a video of Lee performing that move and explaining them. This is one of the benefits when you learn arts that are given by legacy.

Eric starts focusing on clown step and Basic blade art first. He picks up his blade for blade art and follows the same movement shown in the video. He starts practicing simple cut and slash multiple times. For the next 2 hrs, he kept swinging his blade.

After finishing blade art training he is physically exhausted so he sits down and starts practicing Hyper breathing. This helped in calming his fast-beating heart. After 1 hr of breathing next, he starts jumping and rolling in the room. This continues until he once again tired himself. Once again he starts doing hyper breathing. After 1 hr this time he starts using his little energy for the Mind eyes training.

He only has a little energy, and for now, he does not plan to increase his mana limit that is why he has to collect energy and uses it then again collect it. This cycle repeats itself for half an hr.

Although he is physically fine but using energy made him mentally exhausted. He quit training for today and sleep on the bed in the kitchen. The only space he does not need in his house is Kitchen space.

For the next 20 days, Eric continues to train in all four arts. It required months to just learn a single art and to completely master it years required. Eric's main focus is blade art and clown steps. Gluttony cycles also need a year to complete and this year he wants to train both these arts as much as he can.

After these 20 days although not much, he is swinging his blade correctly. After finishing his daily morning training and taking a shower he walks out of the room. He turns toward the left where Jin's room is. The room has no sign outside it indicating Jin also forms his core. Walking toward the reception desk he can see that only a few room door has no sign on them.

Reaching the reception there is only a single warrior present there. There are no students there. Eric politely spoke to the warrior.

"Hello sir, my name is Eric and today I formed my core."

Nodding his head warrior starts writing on some document and asks.

"What is your element?"

"Dark element."

"So, Dark element, A potential. Which type of path do you want to follow."

"Physical warrior path."

"OK, Did you collect your weapon"

"Yes sir"

"That's all I want to know."

Saying that Warrior handed him a manual of basic information regarding the physical path and a wooden plate.

"Insert your mana into the plate."

Eric following the instruction inserted his mana into the plate. Suddenly words start appearing on the blank plate.

....

Name - > Eric

Natural Element -> Dark

Potential - > A-

Academy coins - > 150

.....

Seeing the Academy coins he asks the warrior.

"Sir academy coins. "

"ahh yes, As you have A potential you will get 150 coins per month. To use these coins you have to use your plate to transfer them. You will get these coins per month until a list of level 1 warrior forms. Keep your plate safe, only you can use it and in case you lose it you have to pay 50 coins for it."

"OK"

"You can control the size of your plate by injecting more mana in it. You can go now."

Thanking the warrior Eric walks away from the reception desk. He controls the size of the plate and makes it small badge size and put it in his pocket. He walks out of the building. Reaching the open ground around 20+ students were practicing. As he scans everyone they also scan him.

He can see there are 3 groups and others are practicing individually. He spots Jin. Jin is practicing with his dual sword in some kind of art. Jin stopped working after seeing him. He starts walking toward Eric. Reaching him, Jin cheerful spoke.

" Haa I beat you."

With a poker face, Eric replies.

" What is your potential."

"A, I walk out 2 days earlier than you."

"Leave that, Tell me what type of art you are practicing."

"It a complicating attack art for twin swords."

"That will do, I am going to take out my blade and use you as my training dummy."

Saying to Jin Eric runs toward his room. He wants to badly train with Jin to improve his training speed. Coming back to the ground with his blade which is wrapped in white leather. Eric and Jin face each other. Jin also has both his swords wrapped in bandages. Voicing out the countdown they stare at each other.

Both of them decide to fight each other before beginning their training. As the count down reach zero Jin start running toward Eric, Eric took the defensive pose. Jin slashes both swords toward his chest. Using the width of the blade he blocks it.

Not minding it Jin side steps toward the left going for the stab with his right hand. Eric blocks the attack. Using this opportunity Jin's left-hand slashed toward his stomach. Tilting his body at a weird angle Eric dodge it and do a backflip to gain some distance.

Eric and Jin both have a smile on their face. Once again running toward each other this time Eric performs a vertical cut. Using his right-hand Jin blocks it and slid toward Eric. Eric pulls back the blade and performs a kick toward Jin. Jin has to block it from his left hand thereby increasing the distance once again.

Both continue to fight. Jin has a more refine sword style. Whereas Eric follows more of a barbaric style he will use his whole body to perform some weird movement confusing Jin. Many times Eric made mistakes but he manages to recover fastly from them.

In the fight, Jin is ruthlessly attacking and Eric is narrowly blocking or dodging it. At some point in the fight. Jin is huffing as he ready himself for a final attack. Eric is looking completely beat down. There are many blunt marks on his body. Seeing Jin ready for the final attack Eric is ready to try to parry it.

As both clashes, Eric can successfully parry Jin's right sword but the Left sword finds its mark and hit him in the side of the neck. He Collapses to the ground whereas Jin starts laughing.

This mark the end of their first fight with Eric 0 and Jin 1.

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So any one reading this? Do comment.