The trainer focuses on Jason. A sensation he recognizes as being analyzed purely through a greater powers perception sweeps over his body and his hair stands on end. She nods and hides a smile behind her hand but her eyes show her glee. “Yes, we will be able to get much farther. It rates my skill common because anyone can get their hands on some partial version of it. Mostly because I had hoped someone would advance it on their own so I could find someone worthy that way.”
“You, however might be able to make use of some of the deeper aspects. At the very least you don’t seem like a fool who will only use it with the first resource they train it with. Anyway, the first step is to improve your technique a bit. Not that what your currently doing is bad but my skill requires a little more finesse from you. Watch this.”
She knocks one of the nearby dummies over and stomps on it. Jason was watching but the sheer speed used was too much for him. He could only see vague shadows of her motions as it reduces the dummy to sawdust with a single strike.
She knocks another dummy over and this time she does the stomp at a more reasonable speed. This still reduces the dummy to sawdust but Jason is able to pick up more this time. The motions are like his, but perfected. He can however notice a couple changes he can make. In fact, Jason is about to go attempt what he has learned but the trainer has different plans. She waves her hand and over ten dummies are now on the ground.
One by one the trainer appears over them and stomps down. Each time from a different angle. A layer of sawdust covers the floor but she doesn’t stop. Now not even bothering to knock them over she starts a display of acrobatics as she stomps them from all sides. Jason is frozen before this display of prowess as every dummy in the room is broken one by one. Each stomp a work of art and it reduces him to a state of shocked absorption.
He doesn’t even notice when she finishes. Instead, Jason collapses to the ground as insight after insight assaults his comprehension of how to fight. The trainer stand off to the side with a smug little smirk on her face. For the rest of the night Jason stays there unresponsive. Even when the morning comes despite his body waking up, he stays unresponsive.
That is until Rosha smacks him a couple of times. While this gets him up Jason spends the rest of the day shambling around in a daze. Luckily nothing attacks them that day. As night comes though he makes a decision. When night comes and it is time for his first sleep period he doesn’t settle down into cultivation. Instead, he logs out because he has to know.
Jason crawls out of his pod and heads into his living room. From the corner he grabs a beat up punching bag leaned up against the wall and drags it to the center of the room. He just had to know if what he had seen was possible outside of the game or not. Sure once you cultivate enough power even the impossible becomes possible but at the core of his being, he felt that what the trainer had showed him was different.
The punching bag now positioned he wails on it. One stomp after another but they all lack something. However with every move Jason changes something. With time his stomps become more refined though still not quite what he had seen. It almost feels like he reached a peak. He knows though that is just a limit and not the true end. Stomp after stomp he continues to attack the punching bag which has now started to lose some of its filing.
A half hour has passed for him when there is a breakthrough. With one final move he raises his leg and it descends like a meteor from the heavens or divine lightning coming down to challenge a mortal. The punching bag, despite being constructed of a high tech composite, shatters. A cloud of fibers rise up as the filing falls down.
Ignoring it all Jason steps away from the mess and sits down with his legs crossed. As he meditates on what happened he can sense all the energies and they more in a natural spiral around him. He ignores it all and focuses on the move just now. NeoRealm is beyond the real but real in a strange way.
Obviously most of the normal skills and powers would not work outside of the game for a normal person. Jason also has to admit he is not quite a ‘normal person’ but for now he is close enough. The pure physical techniques though can crossover. That shouldn’t be possible with his current understanding of the game. Something is different and his core cultivation in the game might be in danger. On the other hand it works so he will have to delve into it deeper.
Time passes and his alarm to get back in the game goes off. As he opens his eyes, he is just in time to watch the little automatic cleaner robot finish its job. Now there is no evidence of what he had accomplished. He can only shrug at the impermanence of modern society despite how they have built such edifices to their future. As he gets into his pod, he leaves a final command for the house to order him a new punching bag.
Back in the game he comes to just in time to start his watch. Rosha grumbles a little at him that she worried he wouldn’t be back in time but otherwise the camp seems to be fine as he starts. Things can’t always go his way, so all throughout his shift various wildlife decides to drop by. Nothing threatening but enough to keep him on his toes.
TFTC!