As he had found something he deemed interesting and in line with his goals, he immidiately set to reading through the book.
The book seemed pretty easy to read, though it contained some unfamiliar words and references, in general it tried to teach you the do's and the don'ts of combat, the intro contained common sense like «don't turn your back on a threat.» and such, further into the book there was a set of movements that seemed wierd and out of place described as «sage feet», he decided to finish the book first before coming back to try it. After some descriptions of combat with different weapons and what to watch out for, there was a ... meditation technique? It had a breathing rythm and everything, though it seemed to map out a bunch of «limiters» in the body, Cola had no idea what it was referencing so he just ignored it and moved on. After finishing the book he decided he had to try that «sage feet» thing he read about.
After flipping the book to the start of the illustrations he tried to imitate the movements but it just ended in a bunch of awkward stances that made him fall over out of poor balance. Thinking about it he concluded it was something akin to the «tai chi» of his old world, a martial art made to improve blood circulation and balance for old people. He did get a wierd feeling from his joints while performing the moves but he dismissed it as it wasn't very prevalent and had no effect on him as far as he could tell.
But because he had nothing better to do, he picked up the book and while looking at the illustrations he tried to use the moves in order to travel in a particular direction, he found it wasn't particularily faster than walking normally, but since it was there it was probably useful for something.
Thus he had decided to walk in a wierd fashion while looking at a book in a direction that no particular thought was put into.
After a while he could feel that balancing the moves became a bit easier, and as he had pretty much memorized the movements he closed his book and concentrated on walking with «sage feet» the more he became familiar with the moves the more small changes came to make it easier to walk, and the more autonomous the movement became in his brain, before he knew it he had been walking like this for a few weeks already.
But he felt bored by now, the «sage feet» was already pretty much autonomous by now and it resembled something from the ministry of funny walks, so he decided to try that meditation thing mentioned around the end of the booklet.
He sat into the common lotus position, a position made to make you relax but not fall asleep, and he began breathing the way the book showed, he could feel his mind calm down and began contemplating different subjects almost unconsciously, until he noticed the breathing rythm was broken long ago.
Thinking about it breathing is already autonomous; he would have to make this breathing technique the default breathing of his if he didn't wanna worry about it, so despite not doing the meditating, he would concentrate on correcting his breathing according to the rythm, luckily it didn't restrict the speed at which he breathed so he could just breathe as fast or slow as he wanted, this meant the rythm wouldn't get in the way of differing levels of exertion.
But getting the breathing to become autonomous was hard work, he even tried sleeping with the rythm while semi-consciously correcting the way he breathed.
But it still took several days before he could take his mind off of the breathing and still maintain the rythm.
After all of that the result was that if he walked he would throw off his breathing rythm and if he breathed it would throw off his walking rythm, until one day, after about 5 months of fucking around in the forest, he saw the ferret again, and immidiately broke into a sprint to get away from it, and unconsciously or not, both the breathing and the walking technique synchronized and he suddenly got an explicable feeling that even though he was running at max capacity... he would never tire. As if fully exerting his body was just the same as walking.
And at that moment he realized something, it was the main line of teaching in self-defence classes and the number one defensive technique taught to all human beings at a very young age... running.
Those sage arts had been teaching him to run away from trouble, and from the realization and inexplicable irritation aswell as an admiration for the maker of those sage arts bloomed.
«But i'm still being chased by that ferret so...» thought Cola as he looked back towards the ferret, but it had given up long ago, as he was thinking about it the first thought that came to mind was that the ferret had recognized him and gave up on trying to bother him as it would only experience a loss.
And like that he continued to wander the forest for several years, whenever beasts of magnitude would bother him they couldn't actually harm him so after having a taste they seemed to leave him alone.
«I should try to get out of here, finding that hut was a stroke of luck that probably wont repeat itself for several years, and the boredom is killing me» such thoughts were swirling in Colas' head, but he had no idea how to get out of this forest except walking towards the smaller trees in general, except the variance in tree height left him confused at best, after a while he decided to walk in a spiral until he could determine the direction the forest would ebb out.
Though i say walk, by now he had gotten used to «sage feet» and the breathing rythm, and with its' inexhaustible stamina he just ran everywhere, as it was faster and didn't cost him anything more than walking, except it did cost more energy, but he would easily replenish it by assimilating lifeforce.
Actually by now you probably wonder how he senses things and such, at first it had been wierd as he could only sense the lifeforce in his surroundings, he couldn't feel, he couldn't hear and he couldn't see, but the life force he saw managed to paint a vivid enough world for him to understand his surroundings, then he by assimilating lifeforce managed to get eardrums and eyes and a sense of smell and so on, until he had a full body and eventually he even regained his ability to feel through his flesh. Though his eyes and ears and most other senses were still a cluster of lifeforce burning in a particular manner in order for him to percieve things. This made it seem like his head was a burning skull until his head gained flesh, now you could only see the flames reflected in his eyes.
Though these flames burned nothing but life force, likewise the energy and ability to think properly came from a selfmade organ made of lifeforce by instinct, once he gained flesh, he also gained a brain, significantly speeding up his thoughts.
But at this point he looked like a middleaged man with white streaks of hair amid his coal black hair and beard, with his eyes containing a white flame the whole spectacle gave him a wierd sort of atmosphere that he would routinely break by using the wierd moves of «sage feet».
If he stood still he would look like an educated scholar or hermit with the clothes he picked up from that hut, but it would break into someone that looked properly insane immidiately when he began walking, and the way he was walking was already unconsciously using «sage feet» making him an uncanny being sprinting through the forest in wierd patterns.
He had figured out how to exit the forest after a few days of walking in circles so he immidiately set to travel out of the forest in search of fun and strength.