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Two weeks later after the Ant incident.
"Hup…"
In front of a three-story stone house. A figure could be seen doing jump rope exercises.
He was shirtless and barefoot, he wore a baggy pants that flapped in the wind as he jumped multiple times. His black hair and determined face glistened with sweat as well as his well toned body. His muscles were defined and compact, he had a fair skin complexion that had been enhanced due to extraction of impurities from his body.
On any normal day, jump rope exercises are a very common thing, but when the fact that he's doing it on top of a pond without sinking was added, then it would be a completely different thing.
Yes, this is Raven doing what he's best at. Doing abnormal things yet again.
This task was formed to enhance his control over energy. Compared to people at his age and cultivation realm, his body holds more energy thanks to his cultivation technique and solid foundations. To many people, this should be a blessing already but this hardly matters since without proper control, then these benefits will only help him to last longer than his regular foes.
Energy Control is a very underestimated topic for people at the kingdom, it was so underrated that not even the Institute talks about it and it's benefits.
See, energy control provides plenty of nifty things. A few examples are: Wall Climbing, Water Walking, Physical Enhancement, and etc.
Depending on the users intent and finesse with energy control, they would he able to do a lot of things. Just like what Raven's doing right now. Doing jump rope exercises on top of the pond without sinking.
This activity requires are very strict energy control as water isn't a solid matter for anyone to stand on. He had to constantly provide just the right amount of energy so that the water surface won't cave or allow him to sink in whenever he stepped on it. He even took this up a notch by dispersing the energy whenever he's on the air and apply it once more before landing.
After a while of doing jump rope exercises, he placed it back on his spatial ring and decided to do acrobatic maneuvers on top of the pond as well. He did cartwheels, hand stand, finger stand, tumblings, long jumps and every sort or acrobatic activity he could imagine without sinking.
And when he got tired, he simply sat on top of the water (still without sinking or getting his pants wet) and recover his lost energies. His proficiency with energy control allowed him to basically do this unconsciously, the exercises that he did earlier was to help him sharpen his instincts and do this just like it was natural for him to do so.
After recovering for an hour, his reserves were full once more. He then stood up and jumped high into the air. As he fell down he kicked his legs towards the side which propelled himself to go off course before landing on the surface of the water. He did this once more and this time he added a little more force to the kick which propelled him even further.
Next thing he knew, he would jump very high, kick side to side using both of his legs to slowly go back down to the water surface.
Anyone would gape when they saw how he trained, this exercise was too demanding! So much so that even some knights won't be confident to do what he just did.
Raven was basically doing Air Maneuvering Exercises, while allow him to change how his body maneuver mid-air. Once he mastered this, then his nimbleness and agility would be boosted greatly to the point that even assassins would be ashamed of comparing themselves to him. He would be the nightmare of Archers since he could just calmly evade their arrows even if they shot him mid-air. And it's limited to his legs alone, though he hadn't mastered it yet, he could also do the same thing using other parts of his body.
Complete mastery of this exercise will allow him to literally run on air! How awesome would that be?
Normally, to do half of the things he could do with energy control, one had to spend years to achieve it. As for Raven, the fact that he is someone who experienced a Soul Rebirth definitely helped him by a great deal. During his previous life, he too spent years upon years to polish his energy control to an impeccable degree. He might lost his touch for a few things, but this is just him retracing his steps.
On a side note, Paul turned fourteen 7 days ago and Mark also 2 days ago. They didn't bother to return home and just had a little celebration with the crew. They received gifts from their parents too!
For Paul, the dean and his wife decided to unfreeze his allowance, which means that he won't be having any financial problems again, provided that he won't give them any reason to freeze his account once more.
For Mark, he received a variety of fancy clothing. Which he deemed somewhat useless as he wasn't fond of wearing fancy attires in the first place. He received at least a whole cabinet's worth of fancy clothes, all thanks to her loving mother along with a letter telling him to meet some…friends and get to know them better.
If it weren't for the fact that this came from his dear mother, Mark wouldn't hesitate to threw all of this things out or burn then since their worthless. Raven just comforted him by saying that he could just sell them if he truly didn't want them.
Speaking of selling things. Raven could literally swim in gold right now.
He managed to sell of the unimportant stuff that he stashed away from the colony during these two weeks. He did it smartly by not selling it on bulk and constantly using his disguise. Raven went to pretty much every store and sold at least five things to each. Then he would go the next day using another disguise to repeat the same process again.
On top of this, he also received some bonus from his father.
See, Luis was heavily rewarded from the mission and the court allowed him to keep the resources he gathered during the raid. The Ant meat was a hot commodity and every person who tasted it raved about it. Luis became a supplier of Ant meat and he already closed a huge deal. There's antiques that the ants hoarded, those were also sold at a high price.
Thus, the Hawk Forces enjoyed a Red Envelope Day (something like huge payday). And of course, little Raven was also rewarded and received crates of ant meat and at least two years worth of his allowance.
So in conclusion, Raven didn't need to worry about financial problems cause that ain't gonna happen.
"Oh?"
Raven's eyebrow rose as he felt quite a disturbance on the backyard. Without any second thought, he used his ocular technique and saw that there a fierce energy fluctuations happening where the rest of his crew were training. His eyes brightened up, he jumped away from the pond and ran towards that backyard to confirm his guesses.
He was right. Someone was about to breakthrough.
His vision adjusted for a bit a confirmed who was the one. He stepped closer and saw that it was the fearsome redhead, Ellen that was experiencing a breakthrough.
The rest of the crew saw him arrive and Paul was the one who immediately asked: "Bro, is she about to…"
"Yes." Raven confirmed for him. "She was about to breakthrough to Marrow Cleansing Realm."
This honestly came as a surprise for them, no one was expecting a sudden breakthrough, they thought that it was just like one of those days where they would just polish their skills and move on. The rest were feeling happy for her but for some reason, Ellen had this frowning expression on her face.
"The process must be painful for her." Anne whispered, but was heard by all of them. They too started worrying for her but Raven dispersed their concern.
"That's normal." He explained, "Just like I explained before, it would feel like your blood is boiling. That is due to the cleansing process using Energy, it would progressively be more painful but nothing that she can't handle."
And right as he said that, there was a small scaled explosion that happened around Ellen's body. It kicked up fierce winds that blew onto their faces but weren't threatening to them.
It sounded like a loud shattering of glass which was a big sign, when they saw her exhaling foul air and slowly opening her eyes, it became very clear to them that the process went without any accidents.
"Congratulations on breaking through to Marrow Cleansing Realm."
Raven smiled and offered his hand to life her up. The crew cheered and gave their congratulatory speeches as well.