千鬼道流の誕生

 

After the 5^th day since arriving at this seemingly isolated island the monster that came to the beach has drastically lowered as the GREYWOLVE monsters see potential dangers in coming to the beach and mostly strayed away from it.

 

Because of that I was able to gather provision and raw material for making arrows including other necessities such as food for my sustenance.

 

But it would be bad if don't get to increase my battle prowess anymore and fighting inside the forest with almost zero familiarity and with only a practiced bow hand is a fool’s errand.

 

So I had to do some luring to get them to come to the beach. I then became the live bait and lured monsters to the beach and once there, I would think hard to get back to the ship to activate the 《RETURN to SHIP》 skill and snipe to my heart’s content.

 

Eventually it became a repetition of this strategy and on the 10 day I was able to increase my confidence in using the bow in a short span of time. I also got to increase my Magic Cores.

 

.MAGIC CORES             : 97 {

• FIRE               : 20
• WATER            : 19
• EARTH            : 20
• WIND              : 17
• LIGHTNING         : 21

}

 

The numbers indicated in the Magic Core Storage are still far from being able to remodel or create rooms but at the pace I am going it would not be a distant dream.

 

After repeating this battle tactics, after the 4^th week my trusted bow finally knocked its last. A small tear, fell out from my eye. I was now bowless, as I buried the small bow near the beach.

 

Without the skill to create a new bow, I am unable to continue to use my Deck Snipping Strategy.  I am forced to learn how to fight differently. It was time to learn close quarter combat... it's time to train.

 

While my deck sniping strategy was indeed foolproof, it was time to move from sniping to a more direct combat, if I want to get a feel in the truest essence of combat and gain more Magic Cores.

 

Using the knife that I only used to craft my makeshift arrows until recently, I now tried to carve pieces of hardwood into a sword's shape for the use of my training.

 

If I want to take make a living as an adventurer in this magical world like in the template, being versatile is necessary and using a sword allured my inner child.

 

“Finished!!” the weight of the makeshift sword seems like a problem at first, but it should be enough for training so that I can get used to wielding metal weapons.

 

Thanks to my constant hunt here at the beach, monsters almost never come and so decided to use it as a base to train. I still made sure that Grim-chan is still at the open sea so if I ever need to bail out and I could get back using RETURN to SHIP skill.

 

*****

 

In the previous world I have never swung any weapon, aside from the fact that there was no need to because our life is protected by the so called peace. I simply was not fit for it due to my asthmatic childhood so it was hard to get used to, but I practiced anyway...

 

Thankfully, I was a hard core anime watcher and whenever I watch cool anime fights, I always do research on the references they used. I also watched videos on sword fights and somehow remembered them. A bit ironic though, that I remembered the shows I have watched and yet my name and origin completely eludes me.

 

While I did not have anything else to base on other than the shows that I have seen in the previous world, I started my training using them as references.

 

I did vertical, horizontal and diagonal slashes using two hands, then one handed to practice the muscle in my arms, used the soft sands to make wide turns and short swings.

 

I also practice muscles on my legs by sprinting and other cardio-vascular activities to train my endurance and did them all in repetitions. At first my muscle stress was so painful I could hardly move for a day, but as they say there is no glory when there is no pain and persevered.

 

After getting used to the sword, I experimented on different type of weapons (made off wood of course) that might be more suitable for different situations:

• Axe,
• Hand to hand combat
• Hunting daggers,
• Kampilan,
• Katana,
• Knife,
• Kodachi,
• Kris,
• One-handed Sword,
• Scythe,
• Shotel,
• Spear,
• Throwing daggers, and
• Two handed claymore.

 

With my new found freedom and unexpectedly expandable timetable, for the next 3 whole months I worked like crazy, day and night and trained with the makeshift weapons and garner as as much training with each as i did with the sword. Each time it was destroyed I would make another one and train again.

 

I also went out and harnessed my inner otaku by adding a cool name to my techniques and it eventually led me to even name my own fighting school. While I did think it was childish, for some reason the potency of the attack seems to have enhanced after I had named the school and even calling out the names of the skills.

 

And so the martial arts school exclusively for me –Techniques of a Thousand Demons Ways was born out from my childish yet earnest training.

 

"…Right!" with my attacks coming to shape in a form with its potency I pumped myself and from there I trained some more. Using the same beach, cutting some trees to craft some makeshift targets for practice and trained more than I can count.

 

I also did not neglect my archery skills. After all it was also part of my Martial Arts School. I had created a makeshift bow using soft wood and some twine while it was good to have a feel of training with the bow it however could not be used for hunting.

 

While I was not considered too fat nor too thin in the previous world, I always considered my body a slab, but now muscles that I did not know existed started to form as I continued with my trainings.

 

*****

 

After getting a hang in creating makeshift weapons using hardwood I begun dubbing them The ‘Wooden Trial Series’ as these weapons became first of my weapon series.

 

While these weapons somehow looked kind of cool even if they were just crafted from hardwood, the potency in their attacks seem to have increased, in fact it is from this time I had decided to name them instead of just calling them makeshift weapons.

 

When I first started crafting them, I looked like a caveman using a club. No matter how much I had carved it to look like a sword, but now, they had an image of a real sword, even if they just still had that wooden image.

 

On the side note the knife I was using recently had also been chipped and had been buried near my first bow. So now I am using a sharpened stone to form my weapons. It was a bit hard for the first few crafts but eventually I got used to crafting using the stone knife.

 

*****

 

Training with the Wooden Trial Series increased together with my wood crafting skill. And I was able to get a good grasp of a certain skill that would be good for combat, which is convenient especially for Wooden Trial Series: KENKI.

 

KENKI is an application of the KI that I had gotten a hang of while practicing my combat skills. KI or CHI is an inner energy that runs through our bodies, there are many who believes harnessing this inner energy will grant you power to do almost anything.

 

I noticed that some of the wooden target I was using did not get smashed from my attacks, instead were almost cleanly slashed. At first I thought that it was just the right timing or perhaps the angle I have to hit the target.

 

But then when I truly started to become aware and started to put more effort in concentrating and was able to slice the targets, it was then that I started to think that it was not just timing nor was it a definite angle, but instead an application of the KI, since I am using a sword a dubbed it as KENKI.

 

By using KENKI I am able to embue my will to my weapon and increase its prowess, adding a sharpness that wood crafts usually lacked.

 

When I practiced for the first month with my Wooden Trial Series, I could only smash through the wooden targets which would numb my hands hard and also destroying my crafted weapons, but after getting the hang of using and becoming proficient with KENKI, I became able to slice wooden targets in half.

 

Cutting stones is still impossible though, my KENKI proficiency should still be too low or my concentrations lacking, in any event I should be able to garner it if I practice some more. So continued to I persevere and started to train with other weapons incorporating KI in all of my attacks.

 

*****

 

In college, one of my professors once told us that when we get to the real world, all of our learning will be almost unnecessary. At first I thought that our professor had gone crazy or something, telling us not to study because the real workplace would be different from what we are being taught. But then he added these words:  “Practice without theory dwindles to unsatisfactory results.”

 

I did not get it at first but years later after graduating and finally landing my first job, I finally understood what he meant mentioning those two maxims.

 

The real workplace was indeed too different, what we learned from our lessons back in college were too ideal that most if not all were simply not applicable in the workplace.

 

However, the workplace would have been too difficult had we not learned anything in the four corners of the classroom and simply being placed there without prior knowledge.

 

Now after 5 months of training with stationary and non-hostile targets, it was time to escalate my training regime. If I want to be able to survive in any battle, I will have to use the things I have trained in live combat.

 

In the previous world I have never killed anything, this goes without saying that I have never killed anyone. True that since I have arrived at this island, I have killed 97 living beings, but those kills were done at a safe distance. It was a scenario that would allow me to be safe even if I miss my target.

 

But close quarter combat is different, should I miss my attacks, it could be fatal for me.

 

With that in mind, I then started to do my luring strategy, but instead of evoking the Return to Ship skill like I used to, I readied my wooden swords for my first close quarter fight ever in life.

 

During my Deck Sniping Strategy, I was not even careful of how many monsters I lured, but this time around I made sure that only one would be lured to the beach. While it was easy to say that one can handle many enemies since I have trained, but battling one vs. many is foolish especially for my first battle.

 

My battle started as soon as the lured GREYWOLF was in the territory that I had prepared –The shoreline planted with 25 wooden weapons.

 

Just like when the pack of wolves first hunted me on this very shore, I was shaking, but at that time, I was not trained in the arts of swordsmanship and was completely caught off guard. But this time…

 

“The best defense is a strong offense.” Shouting those words I launched myself towards the lone GREYWOLF and engaged it in mortal combat.

 

Thanks to my endurance and stamina training at the beach for almost 5 months, I was able to keep up with the beast. My greatest weakness while fighting against this monster is its advantage in speed battle.

 

So I decide to use something to counter it. Focusing on observing its movement while I move with minimum actions to conserve my stamina and use versatility in attacks by changing to any of the 25 weapons planted on the shoreline.

 

“Yosha!!!”

 

It took a while, I mean just one GREYWOLF and it took it approximately 4 hours to defeat it. Well, considering this is my first ever close quarter fight, I think that this will be a good springboard.

 

So starting this day I should practice with live combat and slowly increase the number little by little.