Jarvis was at a loss. Here he was spending his time to guide his junior do the correct path, only to be completely ignored by said junior. "Why do I do this to myself? It's not like they're going to listen to me anyway" he lamented.
"Are you sure this is the one you want?" said Jarvis as he held up the scroll for the Black Tortoise's Shell.
"Yes, I'm certain I want that one" eagerly replied Lucas.
"Okay I'll allow you to borrow this scroll, but don't blame me if you regret it." Said Jarvis as he started the check out procedure.
"Remember the rules; all scrolls must be returned within a month, and any damage or loss of property must be compensated for out of pocket. If you share the knowledge within this scroll to any outsider you will be subject punishment ranging from confinement to execution depending on the value of the knowledge." Continued Jarvis.
"Also, your previously borrowed scrolls are due for return in a week's time, late returns are subject to a late few" he finished.
"yeah yeah, I know" impatiently responded Lucas, who was clearly eager to beginning training this new technique.
Lucas then preceded to run off in the direction of his courtyard, it seems that he couldn't wait any longer. As Jarvis watched him leave, he could only sigh to himself "I miss those days" he muttered to himself.
*
Upon returning to his courtyard, Lucas quickly shuffled into his room so that he could start pouring over the battle technique. Lucas' room was a small 2x3 meter room that only had space for a bed and desk. "I can't wait until I'm promoted to a mid-level disciple, so I can finally get a bigger room. This one is too small." He muttered to himself as he made his way to his desk. Upon unrolling the scroll, he was greeted by a diagram of a human figure, on the diagram there were 361 points these were the Aura-points of the human body. The diagram also had twelve lines that connected these points, these were the aura channels.
On the diagram some of the points were highlighted. These highlighted points where the techniques ignition points. For a battle technique to be activated the aura within the body had to be cycled through these points in a particular sequence. Cycling aura through different points in differing sequences could have wildly different effects. For this reason, there existed millions if not billions of different possible battle techniques.
The Black tortoise's Shell, focused on the aura-points around the back and shoulders. The cycling of aura through these points generated a kind of second skin made of aura around the body the thickness of which was determined by how much aura was put into creating it.
"Hmm… interesting this meshes really well with my White Tiger Boxing which mainly uses the aura-points in the chest and arms" muttered Lucas.
The White Tiger Boxing battle technique channeled aura through the chest and arms to add tiger like effects to the user's attacks, those being sharpness and explosive power.
After repeatedly reading over the directions for the Black Tortoise's Shell battle technique for an entire hour Lucas finally had the confidence to attempt the technique. He quickly packed up the scroll before taking the notes he had written about the techniques key points and stepped out of his room to the shared courtyard where he could practice.
Before he sat down to begin training, he looked in the direction of Jesse's room, "he's still in there I wonder what he's doing? Well whatever if he wanted me to know he'd tell me."
Lucas found a shaded corner of the courtyard and sat down cross-legged. "The scroll says that the minimum about of aura needed to activate the technique is 5% so I'll start with that."
Lucas took a deep breath and closed his eyes, before honing his focus on his Aura Sea. The Aura Sea was the bodies storage point for aura located at the abdomen. He slow began to extract aura from his Aura Sea until the quantity reached 5%, he then directed that aura to the required points and started to cycle through them as directed. Unfortunately for Lucas he made a mistake that resulted in severe back spasms for the young boy.
"Argh" Lucas gritted his teeth through the pain.
"Luckily I only used 5% and not anymore otherwise I might have been seriously injured myself and probably lose permission to train unsupervised" lamented Lucas.
After taking sometime to recover, Lucas began his second attempt. This time he was even more careful and took special care during the cycling process. While he didn't hurt himself this time, he wasn't successful in initiating the technique.
"This one's tough, it seems it's going to take me a while to get the hang of this" Said Lucas.
Here began the long progress of Lucas constantly attempting to and consistently failing to preform the technique. Around night fall, 100+ attempts into the process, Lucas finally had his first success.
"This really is a tortoise technique; it only works when the aura's cycled at a slow and consistent pace through the aura-points much like a tortoise!" After finally achieving success Lucas couldn't help but laugh out loud.
"But I wonder why that wasn't brought up in the techniques explanation. Well whatever as long as I keep the cycling's pace consistent there is no damage to the body. Rather it helps it."
Although the multiple failures were annoying it wasn't enough to discourage Lucas and make him give up. The main reason for this was a welcomed side effect of the technique. After about twenty failures Lucas began to realize that constant aura flow was strengthening his aura-points albeit slightly. However even a slight strengthening was welcomed by Lucas as the aura-points were the hardest part of the human body to train, even more so than the organs.
"Hmm, I remember my White Tiger Boxing had this side effect as well. I wonder if they're connected somehow? Well either way whoever it was that created the Black Tortoise's Shell seems to be a genius and if he created the White Tiger Boxing as well then I'm certain of it." Exclaimed Lucas.
"I wonder if they're anymore techniques in the library like this or if it's just those two?" Pondered Lucas.
"Well anyway it's no use thinking about that, I should start training again I've barely reached the practiced stage in this technique. At this stage I should reach the proficient stage by the start of the tournament" said Lucas.
The battle techniques of the Acies continent were split into three main stages of proficiency, those being; 1. The practiced stage (where one could use the technique during practice but not in battle). 2. The proficient stage (where one could use the techniques reliably in battle) and 3. The expert stage (where one could use the technique with ease during battle). There also existed a fourth stage called the instinctive stage (where one could use the technique instinctively as if it was a natural function of the body) however this was a stage rarely if ever achieved by any.
Once again Lucas buckled down and began training the technique. Only stopping a few times to eat and return his outstanding scrolls. After two weeks it was the day of the young miss's Heavens day celebration.