The energy darts and body blades while nice are something Jason can figure out on his own. War stomp, despite its common rarity has one special little quirk to it. Everything else on the list would use his Energy. Full stop, nothing more. War stomp on the other hand says it can use any resource pool. This means not only energy, qi, or mana but also things like health, stamina, or experience. As it stands he already knows how to use energy so manipulation of it is only a matter of practice. A skill which would let him use everything else? That is a completely different kettle of fish.
Energy came easily enough to him from his past experience. Other resources like health had been abstracted by the game though so Jason didn’t have a clue where to start. War stomp was more than just a clue though. It was the Rosetta Stone of resource use. He could use the stomp with anything he wanted and feel how they worked.
The only thing that held him back from picking it right away was the common rarity. If it was a skill basically anyone can learn, then he could pick it up in the next town. What tipped it in the end for him though was while he can learn it in town the lessons would only be until he picked up the skill. With the dream learning he would get what would amount to personalized lessons for at least a week. Though with his sleep schedule that might be stretched to a couple weeks or even a month.
This might even be better for him as it would let him digest what he has learned and potentially use it in a fight. One session with a trainer would never match this. Plus it would let him test the skill with stuff like experience which would be a bit too expensive to use in practice. In a dream that wouldn’t be a problem and he could find what each thing did to the skill. With his decision squared away the rest of his watch passed.
He trades off with Rosha and is soon asleep. However a peaceful night's sleep is not what he gets. Instead, Jason is soon stood in the middle of a large dojo. To each side are numerous practice dummies. A quiet cough comes from behind him. There stands a woman. Her skin weather-beaten with a deep tan. Scars criss cross her body or at least what can be seen of it. An intricate leather and metal armor cover her. She keeps her head down as Jason stands there.
Jason has experienced instructors like this before so he doesn’t try to speak up. Instead, he respectfully kneels down on the wooden floor then lowers his head and meditates. An hour passes and the both of them have stayed still and silent. Another hour and the night is half over before the trainer speaks up. “So the System has found someone with enough patience for me to bother with before I leave. Let us both hope you can manage as I don’t have many centuries left here and few pick a common skill when given a choice of rare ones. Now stand up and stomp that dummy furthest back.”
Without a word, Jason stands up and heads to the back of the room. Off to one side is a simple wooden torso. You could barely even call it a dummy. Jason had never trained in any special stomp but he knew the basics. Knee comes up and he slams it back down. His heel shatters the chest as his strength is great enough for ordinary wood to mean little to him.
The trainer bends over to inspect the shattered dummy. Jason stands to the side unfazed by her suddenly being there. It had been a common tactic among trainers in his past life to get a jump out of new trainees. She flips one shard over and nods, “Decent strike with an actual force behind it and not just a mindlessly increased strength stat. You’ve either spent more time on training than fighting or not put points into it.” She turns to him, “which is it?”
Jason bows, “Respected teacher, my cultivation technique gives no stat points on level up.” The trainer glances over at him, “Well at least you can’t ruin yourself with false power. Though I guess I should teach you some of what it will mean for you. But first look at this piece of the dummy.” She picks up the shard and hands it to Jason.
He turns it over a few times. “From what I can see it comes from near the center of the chest. The one end has a slight dent which should be where my foot impacted and the other was crunched from being forced into the ground. As a whole the shard is about as long as my hand and three fingers across. Along the edges I can see it was half tore away from the rest and half sheared.”
The trainer nods, “good, you have excellent observational abilities. Though you did not mention at what point it was sheared. Right at the top, the force of your blow was able to separate the wood cleanly. However as the force of your kick was transmitted, it weakened to where it couldn’t just separate the wood. This is unavoidable. A physical attack will face the restrictions of the physical. More force would just put this off. Even a god’s strength can’t split a moon-sized chunk of wood. Technique can go a long way in solving this problem.”
She lightly smacks a nearby dummy without any technique. The dummy shatters to the same extent that his had. The trainer picks up a piece. Unlike the shard Jason was holding, this one was clearly just tore apart with no shearing. “I used the same amount of force you did. This shows two things. First you can shatter a bigger chunk of wood without any problem. Second your training is decent enough that we might be able to get deeper into the skill with the time we have.”
Finally we get some insight to how this cultivation technique is beneficial... also thanks for the chapter!
To be honest Jason doesn't even know if his cultivation technique would be beneficial or not. He believes it would be but he is trying something wildly different.
TFTC!