Inside the Lunar Essence Residence, many different emotions filled the atmosphere. There were members interacting with each other—members lounging and unwinding—members on the training ground diligently training. All in all, the residence was currently filled with many different personalities.
At that moment, Kaiden's presence welcomed the guild and many people ceased what they were doing and greeted him.
"Hello Guild Leader!"
"Hi Guild Leader!"
"Sup, Leader!"
"Hello all, all present swordsmen please follow me. Actually, scratch that—all physical classes follow me to the training ground."
Nodding, a mass of people trailed behind Kaiden as they made their way through the expansive and outside to the barren fields. What greeted them were training dummies made of odd materials stronger than wood and arena-type construct.
"One by one, proceed to the platform and show me your skill."
Shockingly, the first to dash upon the stage was Practice with a cheeky grin across his face—seeming as if he was waiting solely for this moment.
'Haha! I can show the Guild Leader the fruits of my analysis of his video!'
Drawing his sword, Practice to a natural front stance with his blade. In the next instant, he brandished his blade in a flurry of violent strikes—hacking away at the training dummies.
Finishing, he retreated back to the crowd as he smiled at Kaiden.
Rubbing his chin, Kaiden raised his eyebrow, "What do you call that swordplay?"
"Haha, I named it the Storm Blade Dance."
"Nice, the violent nature of it complements the name. With that being said, your strikes are far from refined. However, that is what we will achieve with time."
Turning back, Kaiden continued to evaluate the current condition of guild members. Overall, he found that they all possessed talents but rather they were diamonds in the rough—well except one.
'Oh? This one moves like a veteran. Perhaps he is even slightly higher than me in skill right now.'
"You there, FlashLight, come here for a second—I have a couple of questions."
"Okay."
Approaching, a man carrying a lance with long brown locks of hair, a slender jawline, slightly tall build, and greenish eyes approached Kaiden. Judging by his appearance, he looked to have a few years over Kaiden.
"Your skill is above the others, if I may ask—have you experienced a Cellular Phenomenon yet? Your control over your strikes is slightly better than even mine."
"Yes, I have, 3 years ago to be exact. I've had time to hone my skills with the Inhuman Control both mental and physical. However, it has yet to breach the first realm."
"I see, why is that?"
"Because, I have no method to hone the quality of my Inhuman Control—those are extremely cumbersome to come by. Either you luck upon them or join an established guild with a contract that entails insufferable stipulations."
Nodding, Kaiden was currently stuck as he would also approach this dilemma in the future but presently he was stumped—without a solution.
"Haiz...we can only approach that when the time comes."
Returning back to the crowd, Kaiden took the stand as he brandished his two swords.
"I will show you two things currently. One—the method to hone your strike and focus. Two— what you need to focus on when you're battling. It isn't as simple as increasing your attributes. I learned the hard way heh."
Placing the Nightfall Blade on the ground, Kaiden readied his stance with Angurvadal as his stance dipped slightly and most of the force resided in his legs. Shifting his hips, Kaiden executed a Thrust at 92%.
The best part about not being in battle mode is that your skills didn't have a cooldown. Although, the use of skills wouldn't increase Skill Proficiency outside of battle. With that being said, it wasn't useless to train your skills. Why? Because the higher your Completion Rate of your skill the quicker you gain Proficiency.
So, if you trained to the point where your Completion Rate was consistently above 90%, your accruement of proficiency would be a world above ones who just used their skills for battle. In essence, honing your skills inside and outside of battle situations had their benefits.
The expressions of his guild members became one of pure shock. Why? Because even though they were talented—they were hard-pressed to execute a skill over the 76% benchmark. They lacked control over their strikes and refinement of their style to break through that barrier.
"How many of you here have experienced a Cellular Phenomenon?"
Crickets could be heard in the silence as only 3 people raised their hands. They were FlashLight the Lancer, a Rogue named SilentStrikes, and Symbolic Soul the Paladin.
The things these people all had in common were that they were above 20 years old, the rest of the guild were basically in their adolescence.
It was to be known that the older members of the gaming society already existed inside guilds, adventure teams, or went solo—rarely joining guilds. With that being said, the staff of many upstart guilds was young people unless that guild lucked out and caught the attention of reputable conglomerates.
'However, it yields the best result if you build your guild from the ground up. Why? Because I can build nothing but loyal and reliable members. Bonds are the unspoken chains that hold us together and they should be more valuable than any material gain.'
As Kaiden's gaze focused, he fell into a serene battle state—a state of abrupt enlightenment. Granted, this was caused by the hellish will training he experienced with Kairo. As a result, his Concentration was in a very sensitive state at this moment and he was moving purely off instinct.
His next Thrust rose to 93% as his scapula twitched exerting more power. The following Thrust after that rose yet again to 95% as his wrist flicked, executing a precise strike. Once again—time became a fleeting concept for Kaiden.
Time and time again, Kaiden thrusted his sword. However, his strikes stayed stagnant at 95%. This was done subconsciously as Kaiden was engraving the posture for a 95% completed Thrust in his bones.
He was intent on not enforcing his will on his swordsmanship for one reason. Kaiden realized the hidden requirement to perfect your unique swordsmanship was to first perfect the swordsmanship before thinking to enforce your will.
If you enforce your will on shaky foundational swordsmanship, then 100% would be your hard-limit. But it was the goal of humans to overachieve so why stop there?
Hence, Kaiden's competitive spirit was birthed as he decided to travel down the road of harsh training. Other than the ting of his sword repeatedly hitting the training dummies, the atmosphere was still.
The surrounding guild members keenly observed the movements of Kaiden, especially the swordsmen and lancers. Thrusting and piercing motions were the staple of a Lancer. Without that one movement, their foundation would be broken.
30 minutes later, with a calm disposition, Kaiden straightened his posture as he turned towards the members.
"Oh my god! That's why his name continuously popped up. Look at that precision, the initial control. Ugh I can't wait to reach these heights." screamed Practice.
The surrounding crowd could only wordlessly nod.
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In the background, next to the gates of the training ground—Gentle Whisper stood as she observed Kaiden's diligent strikes. Frowning with watery eyes, Gentle Whisper's eyebrows furrowed slightly, "Key…"
Creeping up behind her, MagicsSlave tapped her shoulder, "BOO! Bwahaha our little belle seems to be conflicted. Oooooh, she has a crush on the guild leader hahaha! Oof!"
Amid his laughter, the butt of Gentle Whisper's stave found its way to MagicsSlave's torso. The look in Gentle Whisper's eyes seemed to say she was ready to eat him alive.
"You! Gosh. Just be quiet already, will it kill you to shut your mouth for 5 minutes?! Mind your business!"
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"Now, these are things you must focus on when fighting monsters. This game is as realistic as possible—meaning debuffing skills aren't the only way to hinder a monster's progress. As long as they have fleshly bodies, their bodies pretty much hold the same weakness as ours."
"Additionally, when aiming at those spots it is most effective if you are able to completely pierce those areas and not just damage. For example, if you were to slash the eyes, perhaps you may trigger a Critical or the higher Vital Critical. However, you were to completely pierce—you will achieve something called an Execution Critical."
With this newly learned information, the faces of the guild members became bewildered. They were unable to understand exactly what Kaiden was talking about as the most they were able to deal were Criticals.
"Ah don't worry. I will show you guys exactly what I mean at a later time. For now, we are practicing our Thrusting skills and I will be training alongside you as well as correcting your errors."
The training ground was equipped with more than enough training dummies and spacious enough to give more than adequate room for movement. With being said, each physical guild member picked one and began to try honing their swordsmanship.
Passing through, Kaiden occasionally shifted people's stances and forms as he picked up on inconsistencies. Although the change was very small, even the flap of a butterfly's wings can have humongous snowball effects. These small gestures began shaping the way for each individual's future style.
The number of strikes each person delivered to their respective training dummies began to reach obscene amounts as the pangs of exhaustion started to show. Every person's Concentration values weren't the same, therefore, they exhausted at different rates.
The lower talented people or rather the least disciplined were already administering signs of Concentration overdraft. Their forms were becoming shaky, their forehead moist with sweat and their countenances paling. However, Kaiden didn't stop and instead continued to push them because—amid utter exhaustion is when the true realm of progress began.
'When I finish the process and routines of acquiring the building's ownership, I will truly be able to train these guys.'
"Don't stop now...continue! Show me your perseverance! Show me your tenacity to topple the current hierarchy of the guilds. SHOW ME YOUR STRENGTH!" roared Kaiden as there was a flash of reinvigoration inside the member's eyes.
"STREEEEENGTHHH!!!" a resounding roared sounded throughout the training grounds.
3 hours later, over 100 people laid heaving on the ground as their concentration was completely spent and their bodies felt like lead was coursing through it. Like they were thrown into a pool of mercury and asked to swim.
"You guys have done well. Take a break and recuperate. Additionally, if accessible. Ingest Grade 2 VitaShakes or above as soon as possible."
It was the opportune time while their minds were exhausted to ingest the VitaShakes, most nutrients would travel to their brain instead of being first absorbed by their cells.
Kaiden wanted them to experience a Cellular Phenomenon as soon as possible in order to instill the training method to them.
At that moment, a message sounded that delighted and also horrified Kaiden.
[Server Announcement: The population of the game has breached 1,000,000,000 players. In addition, World's Destiny has established a connection with every worldwide bank. As a result, the Currency Exchange Trading System (CETS) is now online and ready. The conversion ratio is 0 and will be decided by player demand. Reminder—Currency can't be bought from World's Destiny itself and only through the player to player consignments.]
'Finally! This makes things easier but….oh fuck! Now the monster's will be completely active.'
Now that this system was online, although Kaiden could exchange some of his current currency for extra funds to continue his real-world plans—the monarchs and titans now had the opportunity to flaunt their financial dongers to the players.
However, that frown soon turned into a devilish grin as he craftily rolled his hands inside each other. Based on this expression—someone was about to be played to death with schemes that would put Loki the Trickster to shame.
'No, that's the wrong mindset. I can indeed hold my own ground.'
"Why sulk when I can be the cause of the momentary financial setback of many overlord-grade and above guilds. They will not realize the grand scheme until things are too late. However, I need unaware puppets to pull this off… Hmm…"