Although Zhao Wei had won, he knew that in both fights, he had mostly improvised. In the heat of battle, the attacks he did wasn't something he'd like to repeat. In fact there were too many moments where he was vulnerable. He'd only won against Kitsi by using a trick which weren't always reliable in the heat of real battle.
What he was lacking most in was a style. He had the strength, reflexes and speed but he felt that they couldn't be used to the maximum. So he decided as soon as possible, he'd have to learn some fighting arts.
These were mostly, hand to hand, footwork and weapon specific as far as Eyisha told him. These could be found in the castle library and unlike the Tantra or Chi paths, these could be studied as a person was only required to understand the main theory behind the move itself and a lot of time to perfect the art for use in different situations.
Hence usually a person learned up to 3 arts at a time and spend several years practicing them before they either perfected them or gave them up in order to switch with a new one as time was limited. Of course it was also dependent on difficulty and compatibility of the person with that technique.
For now, she taught him one of the most basic foot-works she'd learned, the swivel steps. These were originally just the basic form of movement for the Naga tribe where their movement forward was like that of a snakes. But a certain human had come to their village and observed them to create these steps.
It wasn't only for humans however as they found that if they followed the points set by the human, their power and speed could vary without depending on additional pushing themselves. It was like comparing a normal person and a sprinter. Even at the same leg strength, the sprinter would be faster because they would push their legs and body posture in a certain way that maximized their forward momentum.
According to their history, a talented Naga had pushed these steps to such a limit that they could glide on water without creating any ripples.
Zhao Wei couldn't help but want to learn such a technique. The basis of this technique from the human side was that the position of running was side ways while the more powerful foot would be on the front side. The gist was that the front foot would slide back and forth in a curve as it moved forward, the back foot would follow the front, acting like a single snake body, the back following the movement of the front one.
In theory if the pressure from weight is spread out in a large surface area any surface it stood on wouldn't break apart. Much like Zhao Wei as he stepped into sand, the surface would crumble and his feet would sink. On the other hand the Nagas tail would spread their weight around letting them glide on the sand.
In theory, it was good. In theory. Zhao Wei gave it several shots, at the end of several hours of flailing his legs around he still couldn't move forward, instead several times he'd dig a pit from his m. Eyisha couldn't give him any pointers as the only human the Naga's have seen using this technique was the creator so many centuries ago and even he only formed the basic level.
What impressed her was that even though he didn't see any progress in the technique, he never stopped for a second, not even to rest. Even for her own people, they would only practice it until they saw a little progress and were able to use it a little before switching into another skill. There was no one who spent their every free second doing something so mundane.
But Zhao Wei never even asked about other arts. Just continuous practice. The only time he'd stop was when they needed food or he needed sleep. At first he was quite bashful and trained in his own quarters, but after some time he was comfortable enough to do it on the deck. After a few days they all understood that if he wasn't doing something productive, he was training.
In the morning as long as they were moving forward, he could lock the rudder and leave the movement of the carriage to Myra. He would move his legs on the deck continuously or switch to other regimens he'd taken up over this time. At night when they'd camp he'd train in front of Eyisha in the sand and repeat his other regimens.
They couldn't help but respect his attitude and perseverance. All of them knew that doing things like training was monotonous and repetitive. And more than not the results would only show far in the future Every moment was just stacking the bricks, and until the final piece is put into place, it's still just a broken house.
He was filling the pieces of the foundation, the way Eyisha saw it, she didn't even know how big a house he was planning to build.
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As they supposedly got closer to the village Zhao Wei noticed one thing, there was less life. Over the course of several days they took, from time to time a beast would crawl up to ambush them whether night or day. The longer they went the frequencies became lesser and lesser to such a point that they hadn't met another beast for 2 days straight.
One day in the middle of the morning hours, they stopped, Zhao Wei looked out to see a large rock formation protruding out from the dunes. The sands sifted from between it's cracks and it was riddled in holes like a bee hive and should've crumbled years ago.
They entered through on of the holes, Kitsi turned to him and said, "Please don't make any noise, if we're found then there would only be death waiting for us..."