CH10 Influence of Predecessors
***
Five years later...
In one of the sparring rooms within the War King Palace, a teenage male and female faced each other in a spar.
Neither side seemed to hold back as they exchanged coordinated blows and kicks. If one looked closely they would quickly realised both of them used the same fighting technique, a fighting style optimised to fighting humans rather than beasts.
The male teenager was clearly the better versed in the fighting style, however, the female made up the difference with superior speed and reflexes.
The girl also edged out the boy in physical strength however the difference was negligible compared to the difference in the aforementioned speed and reflex which were the balance makers in their fight.
Suddenly, the girl sped up even further by propelling herself forward with her mana. She grabbed hold of the boy's shoulders, preparing to drive her knees into his midsection.
But the boy was prepared.
He blocked the knee strike by pushing her knees back down, then he used the repel from the action to jab at the girl's chest to push her back. The move caught the girl off-guard and she found herself on the ground after the boy executed a low spinning kick.
"I give up!" The girl yielded when the boy mounted her and threw a punch towards her face.
The boy's fist stopped before her face.
He chuckled and helped the girl up.
"How could you hit my chest, Leo?! Don't you know I am in my developmental stage, what if I become flat-chested because of you!" Zora grumbled.
"Big or small chest doesn't matter in a fight. The most important thing is survival." Leo said with a straight face.
"You say that but don't forget I caught you the last time looking at the chests of the big-breasted maids in the palace," Zora said teasingly.
Leo wanted to blush but he forced himself to keep a straight face by faking a cough.
"I told you. I was lost in thought. I didn't know what I was doing and it was just a physiological action of a growing male." He argued.
"Yeah, right." Zora rolled her eyes.
Leo wasn't exactly lying.
Over the years, he realised that there were residual effects of having the memories of the Martial Sovereign and the Grand Space Pirate King in his mind. At times, he subconsciously mimics either of them and takes decisions as if he were them.
The Grand Space Pirate King was a lover of voluptuous women. Leo found himself unconsciously staring at the chests or butts of women who were endowed in either place whenever he became lost in thought.
He was pretty certain he now had a reputation as a lecherous young master amongst the maids of the War King Palace, for if someone as naive as Zora had noticed, there was no way the experienced maids of the palace didn't.
Leo couldn't help sighing.
The implanted memories were both a blessing and a curse.
The fighting style he and Zora were using was not taught to them by Rowland. It was one of the easier basic fighting styles in the Martial Sovereign's memories.
Zora abandoned the fighting style taught by the War King, which was the basic fighting style used by the recruits of the DoomMane Guild, in favour of learning the fighting style Leo used unconsciously a few times.
The boy was sceptical about teaching her the fighting style at first, but to his surprise, the Arcane Sanctuary didn't care when he gave her a few tips which allowed her to grasp the style. If anything, he felt like the Martial Sovereign would be happy to see his style passed down.
But this wasn't to say the Martial Sovereign's basic fighting style was better than the one used by the DoomMane Guild, things weren't that simple.
The styles had different objectives.
The Martial Sovereign's basic fighting styles... No, in fact, all of the Martial Sovereign and even the Grand Space Pirate King's fighting styles were optimised to face humans or humanoid beings.
The DoomMane Guild's fighting style on the other hand had been optimised for years to teach recruits how to face beasts and monsters, who were the true enemies of humanity in this world– unlike the Martial Sovereign and the Grand Space Pirate King whose main enemies were fellow humans and/or intelligent humanoid species.
Clap... Clap... Clap...
The two teenagers turned around and saw the War King, Rowland Kroft, walking towards them.
"Your unique fighting style gets more impressive the longer I watch it. Maybe I should learn too." Rowland cupped his chin. "Battles happen between humans all the time as well, it wouldn't be a waste to learn something optimised as a countermeasure."
"You don't need to flatter me, uncle. We both know this is just child's play to someone like you. It might be useful at our level, but certainly not at yours." Leo said. "Maybe when I reach your level, I will be able to create something more suitable."
"Ha-ha." Rowland laughed. He looked at his nephew gratified, "It is good to see you have kept your confidence through your training these last five years. You have certainly come a long way in this time. To think you would be able to fight a mana user at an equal footing using only the power of your flesh."
Zora looked at Leo with a bit of pity. He had been pretty much tortured by Rowland these past five years.
At first, the people at the War King Palace either looked at Leo with pity or disdain for his condition and weakness. However, after they saw what he went through in the name of training under the War King without so much as a complaint, all the disdain disappeared.
The training regimen Rowland prepared for Leo pushed the teenager well past the point ordinary instructors pushed even the most elite trainees under the DoomMane Guild.
None of the guards at the Palace or even visiting active Guild members could see themselves going through the regimen like Leo did, at least not at his age.
Everyone agreed that Leo would have been a prodigy if only he could use Mana...
Unfortunately, the world was cruel. There was no place for 'could have's and 'what ifs'. There was only place for power.
So while the people at the Palace now respected him a little for his efforts, that was about it. At the end of the day, the fact remained that he would always be weak!
On Leo's part, under the influence of the memories of the two past users of the Arcane Sanctuary, plus the secret knowledge that he had a path to unparalleled strength, the teenager could care less about what anyone said or felt about him.
His suppressed emotions and cold rational thinking process caused him to ignore his surroundings and focus solely on the thing that mattered to him, which was growing his strength.
The training regimen which others saw as brutal, Leo saw it as a godsend.
(To be continued...)