Zel was left there standing with his mouth wide open. He finally pieced together that not only was Kai a body master so was his grandfather but now he understood why people would flock to the training hall studying under a body master was the chance of a life time.
Unsurprisingly his first thought was how he could use this to his advantage being the worlds former smartest man made him understand Body Masters better than almost anyone with the research he himself had done on Body Masters he even helped develop some new methods to practice to reach the first level as the levels after that were all about talent and hard work so specific methods were hard to create.
Body Masters had been a phenomenon for the last two hundred years but the higher stages only really started showing up after he invented his Ranked fluids. There were energy supplements before that but his fluids completely changed everything and they had only been around in the market for about 50 years to say all the benefits they could bring were known wasn't exactly true. The problem was S and A rank fluids were barely ever consumed you at least have to be a body master to consume them safely unless they were in micro doses plus they were expense to buy 10,000 to 25,000 credits per bottle with most of them going to the military or hospitals and they were primarily used in extremely small doses to heal damage and for sever medical emergencies.
"Wait Gramps does this mean all pro gamers are Body masters" Zel asked with obvious fear over his face.
"Haha no of course not.. some of the very top ones are but most are teetering just below the first stage."
To Zel this made sense he knew becoming a Body Master wasn't easy a lot of it had to do with fighting in intense situations over and over but gamers were put in life and death situations in game constantly to his knowledge plus the constant practice pros had to do he didn't understand why there weren't more Body Masters running around.
"Your wondering why huh" his grandfather could see the confusion on Zel's face.
"It mostly has to do with it being a virtual body, a persons real body also has to be trained so they can feel the changes better while they do fight enough to break the threshold in most cases they cant seeing as you don't exactly have to be a real life martial arts master to fight in a video game and skills from the game can make up for martial knowledge."
"Well why don't more pros train in real life" Zel asked?
"Well honestly I'd assume not enough benefits and it takes way to much time why would you spend hours and hours trainning in the real life when all your fighting is gonna be done in game plus while it makes you superhuman in real life levels equipment skills and your class can make up for most of the advantages in game so instead of working out why not work on skill combos and moves you cant even try to do in real life even if you are a Body Master plus the higher levels cant even be shown to their full effect in games and you still might break the threshold eventually even without the extra training."
To Zel this sounded like a lot of wasted potential but remembering the insane training the military had to do to even have the ones they had he understood that it wasn't likely for people to subject themselves to that when they had better things to do.
As the fight finished up Kai and Zara stepped out of their respective pods.
"Body Masters are truly different thank you so much for the experience without skills it felt like i could never match you" Zara sweet voice rang out in excitement.
"You're welcome your decision making was very sound and most of your technique is at the pro level as far as I know your footwork could use work but you almost caught me off guard a couple times with skills involved you definitely would of had the edge I don't think I can match you in skill timings and animation cancels." Kai replied in a flat matter of fact tone.
Seeing as they had more training to do Zel and his grandfather said thank you for the demonstration and made their way back down stairs. Zel snuck peeks at Zara as they walked away but forced himself to focus. Zel finally had an idea of what to do but he wasn't sure how to bring it up to his grandfather or whether or not he'd even say yes but he had to try.
"Hey gramps" Zel finally set his mind to the first stage of his plan.
"Oh huh whats up" his gramps said smiling still happy that he had shocked his nephew.
"Can you train me to fight"
Zel's grandfather was caught off guard "Huhh Yah of course!! Wait wait you mean in the game hmm I could show you some stuff but that skill stuff is beyond me" his excitement quickly tappered but was still there.
"But why you never really like VR games?"
"No gramps I want you to train me in real life and in VR and cause I really wanted to give New Orbius a try plus I would get to train under a cool and magnificent Body Master like your self." Zel said shamelessly with a wink.
"Your right I am pretty cool huh" his grandfather said while running his had through his hair and flexing his muscles. Zel almost coughed up blood at how shameless his grandfather was.
His grandfather had noticed the weird enthusiasm Zel was showing to training but chose to ignore it in favor of spending more time with his nephew.
"You know how serious the training is gonna be and you still want to do it" as Zel's grandfather said this the air around him seemed to change. Zel honestly did know how hard it was gonna be from the few memories he had from when his Grandpa tried to teach the old Zel how to fight when he was younger but he couldn't start playing with how he was now and this was probably his only way forward so he steeled his heart and nodded his head yes mentally preparing himself for the future torture he was gonna have to endure.
"Hmm ok we'll start first thing tomorrow. I think ill have to get a couple bottles of C rank fluid in case anything goes wrong." Zel grandfather whispered the second part but the evil grin and glint in his eyes didn't escape Zel's notice....