72. Training Montage

Two mechanical tendrils ending in a three-clawed hook sprouted from Liam's left shoulder blade as he crouched down right in front of the roots where the injured otter was maintained alive by the Tree of Souls.

Liam conveyed through detailed and precise pulses of emotions to Eywa that were equivalent to the words, 'Can I move it?'.

The empathetic bond that thanks to the proximity to the Tree of Souls with its pressure resulted in it intensifying and clarifying new heights. Their familiarity with the others' emotions eased this unique method of conversation, similar yet distinct to his tames.

And even if it decreased the further he was from the small tree until it returned to normal it was still a very noticeable increase, a truly relaxing one that made sleeping in his house here one if not the best experience. It gave him a feeling of home in a way…

He was not less stressed, or worried about the future thoughts, it just wasn't so much a part of his daily life while here, and with the bonus of being far from anything else he deemed irritating. A small piece of heaven for him and his tames.

Nodding at the affirmative response he got from the All-Mother he plunged the two artificial arms deep in the pond, the small cameras on them letting see and work with efficiency and precision.

He tried to delicately pry the wounded baby from the death grip of what he assumed to be the mother.

'Cutting it is.', Liam remarked as he concluded trying to pry the limb open would be more complicated potentially leading to damaging the filament of the tree.

One of the claws grasped the unconscious otter by the nape while for the other a diamond blade as sharp as obsidian popped out of one of the metal digits, then he incised the scaly skin of the wrist, then a blubber-like substance of the tendon and muscles, the blade going cutting like a hot knife through butter.

In under a minute, the left and right arms were tendered into useless bags of flesh and bone leading to the death grip disappearing, then he began to pull up with the other moving with extreme care as to damage the furry tendrils keeping the otter alive.

As soon as the otter's body was out Liam carefully put it in a clean towel, its body was cold he could via the thermic sensor but it was normal for that species he wasn't sure but considering the current state of the otter it likely was too low.

Water was expelled out from two operculum that were until now sealed, at the back of its nappe which after one furry tendril dug in the chest to the otter breathing again, if rather slowly and raggedly.

'It's not as bad as it looks.', Liam thought with some relief as he placed the otter with the towel on a flat rock and immediately began studying the wounds. He didn't put much worry into what Eywa just did, if she didn't see a point in him, not them trying to save the critter then it would have already been dead.

The two back flippers were bitten clean off and half of one in the middle suffered the same treatment. It was bad, more so for such a little animal but nothing vital was touched, crippling injuries certainly but far from fatal be it directly or indirectly with him around.

He was far more experienced and knowledgeable than when he did his first surgical operation. If the butchering of a teenager's hand could be called that, looking back on it not a lot could have been done with the current resource but Mìruk would certainly have less scar and overall damaged tissue.

It was what it is, it could have been worse and nobody died.

As he began to work on the wounds the fuzzy filaments covering them moved back giving him the space necessary to do so, each of his precise movements having an equivalent reaction from the tendrils as one worked on cleaning, disinfecting, and closing the wounds while the other kept the hemorrhage at bay and so much more biological function stopping the otter from dying.

Bizarrely, this was a unique if morbid 'couple' activity, never before had both done something quite like this and neither did find it unpleasant. It demanded both attention as they worked to save and keep the pup alive.

Barely ten minutes later all wounds were sutured by a biodegradable organic polymer silk, but the otter didn't wake up, yet it very much was alive, breathing and heart beating weakly yes. But it was consistent and its body temperature was higher than before too, all good signs.

"Can't do much more than that. I fear the rest is up to you little buddy.", Liam said as he switched the towel for a clean and bigger one which was in mere seconds covered in furry tendrils in the same manner the otter was.

He was going to take care of it, he took care of the wound, like it was now even if healed it will die if released in the wild due to the crippling nature of the injuries and that it was a pup, one of unknown age but likely no more than a few months.

He didn't do things half-heartedly or stopped halfway through either, a cybernetically augmented alien otter riding his shoulder was quite an enticing prospect too. He wasn't a difficult man. An opportunity presented itself; he wasn't going to spit on it.

He needed to make some concrete progress on cybernetic as well, two birds with one stone, he had many plans, and while cybernetic augmentation was quite literally impossible for him with his regenerative capability it was not the case for his tames and others who could benefit greatly.

He let Eywa take care of the rest, he did study and train in his past time on that domain but monitoring an entire unknown organism on the verge of death without specialized equipment was very much out of his domain. Cleaning and suturing wounds are quite not on the same level.

A small Arachtek similar to the one he used to hack the Valkyrie more than two years ago but better in every aspect materialized above his left palm.

The robot came to life, standing up like a massive spider-scorpion hybrid; it skittered at blinding speed along his arms and then down his armor. It jumped on a higher-placed root and its multi-purpose camera locked on the unconscious pup.

With a view of the otter from the machine, Liam finished putting non-edible parts of the animals he hunted in the water as fertilizer before he gazed at the young Tree of Souls.

He was all too aware that he was gazed back but in a manner so utterly alien to humans, he sat on a rock and stayed this way, breathing deeply and bathing in the silence and sound of water running.

It was pleasant and he stayed here for a few minutes until his stomach called for nutrition. Standing up at that he cracked his neck before walking up to his house, changing his armor for a much more confident black pair of shorts then he prepared himself a feast for an entire family with only quality, taste, texture, nutritional value, and quantity being of the most importance.

He wasn't in the culinary school nor the kitchen anymore where nothing short of perfection was acceptable, it's not that he didn't appreciate putting time and effort into this part of this form of art he loved.

The problem was that the ratio of the time invested in appearance and the quantity of food produced at the end was not worth wasting a third of the day for his daily intake.

Though a minimum of effort on appearance was put into his cooking just not to the multi-Michelin star levels and even if it would be far better than most could ever hope it still irked his perfectionist side slightly he couldn't do both, as of now that is.

He preferred form and function working together but between the two the latter was more important. Yet he strived toward having the two.

After having his fill he switched his armor off for a much more comfortable pair of gray shorts before he walked out of the house and followed the stream to arrive at a flattened field full of short dark green grass.

Hidden by trees with only a portion of its roof bathed in the powerful sunlight was a shed built of wood, placed on its wall or below on the ground if too heavy or large were several structures of many shapes some were intact while some damaged and other broken all made of stone.

Taking his heavy-duty boots and socks off he appreciated the cool feeling of grass below the roots of his feet and as he advanced toward the wood structure as the enthusiastic step of Gladius approached from behind.

Smirking slightly as the faint sound of familiar wings beating entered his ears at the same time he grabbed the two of one large stone structure that was a vaguely ugly humanoid figure as tall as he was with an arm spread like an eagle.

Placing his hand below he left the half-a-tone worth of granite until it was high enough for him to put himself under around its midsection. Then he let go of his earlier hold and grappled both sides as he stood the entire thing resting on his shoulder and kept from falling by the hold of his arm.

Walking at a moderate pace Liam saw Gladius grab with its beak a hardened clay pot and with its claws, a broken piece of stone with a flat side, on its back was a malformed rug weaved of plant fiber the tetrapterons made for the great austrapede.

It was for Gladius to train its ability to produce abnormally powerful sound without leading to injury or damage in anything but what was aimed at.

It was more complex than it seemed and progress was slow but there was and now the bird could aim and modulate its scream in particular directions.

Step by step was the way to go as always, and this training was also mental as Gladius needed to understand what it was working with, vibration, and how it interacted with the world. It was an exercise of extreme focus needing to be careful to avoid injury to itself and others.

The sound emitted has the potential to kill him, it was melting his internal organs while he pummeled Gladius' biological parent to death.

The effects on others would be as horrifying to describe in detail as it would be fatal. Acoustic weapons, no matter the origins, should never in any case be underestimated.

As for his quad squad of tetrapterons? They opened the door of the shed by themselves and did whatever they wanted to do.

They helped one another put thin plate-shaped weights on various parts of their body then took flight to begin exercising which Liam could guess would in the end devolve into a childish fight to exhaustion in the mud.

'Here should do it.', he thought, placing the statue in a premade slot on the ground and verifying if it was held securely before he began wrapping his hands, tibias, and feet in dozens of layers of a thick clean white bandage.

This was a training area, his house was large because it was adapted to his current and future body type, it was a basic six-room building, cuisine, and living room connected, a chamber with King sized bed, a bathroom, a crafting room, and a large basement serving as an all-purpose storing room.

Plugging his ear with a wireless earbud he put the music to the highest level before spreading his leg apart, hunching his back slightly over, and putting his hand forward as he put them into fists with the thumb out, then after a deep breath he began attacking the stone status

From multiple sets of punches to a plethora of kicks many of which required a great deal of body control and strength almost to the point of being called acrobatics, each hit led to the whipping of the air then that of flesh hitting and the low reverberating sound of something cracking.

It was inhumanly fast, brutal, and concise, to the point with no fancy or unnecessary movement, each hit calculated to be the fastest with as much force necessary. It wasn't a fight per se for Liam but a way to familiarize himself further with his body and build up muscle memory.

Training this way was not optimal, it was only him correcting potential mistakes for his movement to be the most optimized as he hit a piece of stone alone with his body part covered by clothing to avoid shredding his kids to the muscles.

Using robots was an option but he didn't have the digitalised knowledge of even one martial art in Hell's Gate. Doing one that would learn from him was an option but that wouldn't magically recreate martial art, adding that making such a robot and it being remotely strong or durable enough for him to not break it by mistake was not possible yet.

And the most important of all was that martial arts for him were in many ways very unadapted, the current ones were made with the idea of an opponent not being so far from the scope of human strength that any technique possible and experience was moot.

There was one for AMP suits fighting but that was clunky, slow, and clumsy adding that nobody alive was an expert on it. The only thing he got was footage and even then it was not much help for him directly, he wasn't going to use one that was obsolete for him.

He needed a training partner capable of similar physical feats and one better than him at fighting in terms of skill which wasn't that much of a rare find for the latter. He couldn't improve without someone capable of teaching him but most importantly keeping up.

No amount of technique for someone way weaker than will stop a punch with the strength to go through a carbon fiber skull as if it were a wet sheet of paper ending in them being killed like a bug.

Jake was a better fighter in terms of pure skill and experience, it was factual but it was also factual that he could kill or immobilize the Avatar in a dozen ways before the ex-marine's brain could begin to process anything close to a fighting strategy.

He was a cheater through and through when it came to this, one stupidly strong but that didn't change that he was one to use underhanded tactics when opportunities were given. In a fight to the death ending as the living one mattered.

And he would be fighting in armor with more gimmicks and tricks but in the end, simply venting on a poor stone until it broke apart was quite a relaxing experience.

It wasn't painful either as he put adequate protection and didn't use his full strength which could lead to him breaking his own more fragile bones and a feeling of being hit back, it was a balance to have.

His strength wasn't magical, at a base level it was far above what was humanly possible but it was enhanced by the fact he had access to his available strength at all times to the point of even causing self-injury, which happens often when doing what he was doing right now but they would heal in short times.

Almost a quarter of an hour passed like this as he never stopped alternating between body parts used, his upper body glistening under the suns with the accumulated sweat as he moved with a smile on his face.

He only stopped when one of his kicks ultimately ended in causing the statue to crack and shatter from the middle due to the constant hits that were more powerful than a sledgehammer in kinetic energy. He simply changed and took another statue before continuing.

After this, he took a bath, cooked and at least worked on some alternate project while listening to music then hit the snooze button. This was how the next few days passed until he suddenly woke in the middle of the night.

A signal through the empathetic bond and one from the palm-sized robot spider ended his light sleep. Without bothering to put the cloth on he rushed out in a pair of boxers outside to be met with a confused, and terrified pup trying and failing to crawl away from him.

Grabbing it was risky but there weren't a thousand options so with a towel appearing in his left hand he moved catching the otter in less than a second.

"Feisty aren't you, Cupla? A good sign.", Liam said rather happily, christening the momentary wild pup who in the towel growled threateningly at him while its three segmented jaws opened wide showing growing teeth as it viciously bit his covered thumb, but it was barely able to close around doing nothing aside from amusing the post-human.

It was doing this all the while trying to escape, which was in vain as well, the only option for Cupla to calm down was sadly to let it exhaust itself to sleep which didn't take long as he entered the living room the otter had stopped moving but it was breathing perfectly fine.

*

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