NOVEL WEB Chapter 13: Swordsmanship
Holding the bokken just given to him, Lorien listened attentively to what Sodo was saying
Knowing that Lorien was a complete novice, Sodo first started talking about what swordsmanship is and its 'spirit' so to speak, he also gave some information about the other central martial arts and so on, basically an introduction to the world of martial arts
Following that Sodo finally started teaching Lorien about Kenjutsu, seeing this Lorien focused all of his attention on him, ready to follow his instructions
"You are a novice to Kenjutsu so I'll start from the basics and tell you our plan for the training..."
After saying this he continued
"There are 5 basic attitudes/positions (Kamae) In Kenjutsu,
-Upper (Jodan)
-Middle (Chudan)
-Lower (Gedan)
-Ready (Hasso)
-Lower Ready (Waki)
There are 8 basic cuts used in Kenjutsu,
-Downward head/face cut (Shomen Uchi)
-Left diagonal downward shoulder to hip cut (Hidari Kessa Giri)
-Left horizontal cut (Hidari ichimonji Giri)
-Left upward diagonal hip/waist to shoulder cut (Hidari Joho Giri)
-Right upward diagonal hip/waist to shoulder cut (Migi Joho Giri)
-Right horizontal cut (Migi Ichimonji Giri)
-Right downward diagonal shoulder to hip cut (Migi Kessa Giri)
-Thrust (Tsuke)
And finally, there are 3 'types' of Blocking used in Kenjutsu,
-Block and deflect methods (Uke genashi)
-Direct blocking methods (Uke tomi)
-Blocking and cutting methods (Uke Kiri)"
After saying all of this he stayed silent for a couple of moments letting Lorien sink everything in before continuing (M)
"Those are the basics of all Kenjutsu and there is no difference in them no matter which Dojo you learn from, It's after learning all of this does the style of each 'school' comes into shape, each school focuses on an aspect and honing it, some focus on speed ignoring defense while some others forgo attack and focus on defense, all in all, each taking those basics and combining them into different combinations/styles as to get a specific effect"
After another brief pause, he again continued
"My Dojo focuses more on Speed, our primary style is quick-draw (Laijutsu) which focuses on the ability to maintain a high state of awareness and quickly draw your sword in response to a threat"
And finally after fully introducing Kenjutsu and his Dojo's specialty he spoke about the plan
"We'll start with the Postures then the Cuts and then Blocking, after mastering them we'll finally train Laijutsu"
After saying this he then started instructing Lorien without further of do
"Let's not jump things too much, for now, let's start with showing you how to hold a sword"
And so like that the training officially began, seeing this Lorien started 'Cheating' without a second thought
[Dream/Reality] : Accelerate learning
This is an ability he learned this past month after a lot of experimenting, this ability doesn't allow him to gain instant mastery like the other ability, It just accelerates his learning speed be it memory, muscle memory...etc
Moreover, this ability is very controllable Energy consumption wise, but this also means that it's only as good as how much energy Lorien puts into it
If he were to set it to consume 1 unit of energy every minute the effect would be very different from what he would have been able to achieve if he were to set it to consume 10 units of Energy per minute
Right now Lorien set it to the same rate of his energy recovery speed, meaning it could be used indefinitely, even then this effectively allowed his practice speed to more than double thanks to his fast recovery speed
Moreover, after the Awakening Lorien's talent is very different from what it used to be, the awakening changer Lorien's soul, body, and essence, which pushed his talent to a very high level not to mention that he had good talent in the first place
So, with Sodo Torena instructing him from the side, he started by teaching him how to hold a 'sword' properly, how to swing it...etc
And after some time he'll let him pause for a while before asking him to do it again on his own to correct the mistakes Lorien makes
Surprisingly for Sodo, it didn't take long before Lorien mastered what he just taught to the point where he can't see any flaws, seeing this he started with the next step...
.
.
A Couple of hours later
'A Genius, maybe he can...'
Sodo Torena's eyes started shining and his face was filled with shock for a second which he quickly tried to hide it
In the past couple of hours, whatever it was that Sodo taught, Lorien learned it at a record-breaking speed, Torena who was on the side instructing couldn't believe his eyes
It all began when every time he corrected Lorien the mistake won't appear again, and so it didn't take long for him to not find any of them and he'd be forced to move to the next step
And seeing this he started teaching Lorien the other Postures as he was curious as to how much he would be able to learn in one day
And in just a couple of hours, Lorien became proficient in all of the 5 Postures and how to strike from them, Ofcourse proficiency is very far from mastery
Seeing this Torena almost cursed out loud
'IT TOOK ME A COUPLE OF WEEKS TO REACH THIS LEVEL AT THE TIME!!!!'
But he was finally able to hold himself back
Just as he wanted to teach him more, Sodo finally noticed that it was getting dark, seeing this he gave up and said to Lorien
"Let's stop here today, you did well, I'll be back tomorrow at the same time as today"
Hearing this Lorien finally gave a long sigh of relief as he was also nearing exhaustion, even if Sodo wanted to continue Lorien would have asked him to stop for the day
After sending Sodo off Lorien went back to his room to clean up and take a bath
'Even though this ability effectively consumes 0 energy, I can barely move because of mental exhaustion, staying fully focused for so long gave me a headache'
After having cleaned up and changed clothes he walked out of his room and towards Saigai's position as it was probably time for dinner
'With this speed, it probably won't take long for me to learn Swordsmanship, a couple of weeks or so, after that I'll use my ability to perfect it and make it fully compatible with me, it shouldn't take a very large amount of energy to do so as it's not learning from zero...'
"How did it go?"
The sudden voice woke Lorien up, seeing that it was Saigai he threw those thoughts at the back of his mind and responded
"It was great!"