I went back home, I kept training my spells. I tried casting a spell that stops time but no matter how much I tried I couldn't make it. I guess it was impossible to stop time.
I had dinner and slept.
Next Day, I did my morning routine and practiced more. When it was time to train with dad, he told me to wait for him at the backyard. I didn't know what he was planning but I didn't ask, I would find out later.
I kept training until dad came home. He came here with Ralf and the two guys that we saw in his shop last time. They were in a cart pulled by two horses. At the back of the car, I could see some wooden object.
They hopped off and came near me. Dad looked back at the two guys in the car and said:
"Install it in the backyard." The two guys hopped off the cart and carried a wooden construct. It had a large cylindrical trunk and many wooden hands sticking out of it. I look at dad and he said:
"That is a wooden dummy. You would be using it to sharpen your reflexes and reaction time. The way I see it, is that you should practice dodging faster and unpredictable strikes and the wooden dummy is the best way to do it.
Another thing your weapons are ready." I was excited, finally my weapons are ready. I look at Ralf with anticipation. He stepped forward towards me and said:
"These are the things I made for you. First, I like to call these silver bullets.
They are iron balls coated with a layer of silver. When it's thrown with a great speed it won't kill whoever it hits.
These on the other hand, are golden needles, they are extremely sharp and posses a huge piercing power when it enters something it will inject poison from its tip. You can charge it with poison just by submerging the tip in it." He said as he handed me two crates. Each crate was holding more than 2000 piece of the weapons he made.
I placed the two crates in my storage ring and thanked Ralf. The two guys came back from the backyard and got in the cart.
Before Ralf went, he looked at dad and said:
"It will be ready in a month." "Good" Said dad as Ralf got in the cart and went back to his workshop. He then told me to follow him. He arrived at the backyard, and I saw the wooden dummy installed into the ground dad got near it and said:
"Come here Eddy, try to hit this" I walked to it, there was many wooden hands stuck at the dummy at 4 different horizontal levels, my head, chest, stomach, and knees. I step forward and hit the hand sticking out from the chest level.
It went around the trunk, and when I expected it to come back a wooden hand hit me hard at the side of my knee.
"Ahh" The aftermath from being hit was me holding my knee which felt numb. "This is a Mu ren Zhuang or simply a wooden dummy. It is one of Ralf creations that we use in the army camp to train soldiers sharpen their reflexes. Just as you hit a wooden hand it would be pushed triggering a mechanism that will randomly move a hand from any level to strike back at you. You can't know when or which hand will move. Furthermore, there are targets on the trunk that would shine using mana stones. You would have to tap on those lights before they go off or the difficulty of the training would increase. You can increase the difficulty manually and the speed at which the lights appear and disappear will increase, the speed of the hands when coming to hit you, and also the numbers of hands hitting you at once.
There are 5 levels of difficulty from lowest to highest:
Warrior, Knight, Executer, Warmaster, Overlord." I was curious about something:
"Dad, what level are you in?" "I am an Overlord, Ha-ha-ha" He said while sticking his chest out and raising his head up. He seemed pretty proud of it.
"So, I am reducing the amount of laps you should do, instead you would be practicing with this too in the morning and for 2 hours after lunch. After that we will have combat together. For today, you would be familiarizing yourself with this till dinner then we start the new regime from tomorrow." Dad said as he returned to the house. He showed me how to set up the difficulty level.
I started with the warrior level. I started by hitting the hand on my stomach level. It went around and I saw a hit coming to strike my head, I quickly duck down barley dodging it.
A red light was shining at the chest level on the dummy's trunk, I extend my arm to throw a punch, and suddenly I feel pain from my knee.
I get back and lie on the ground holding my knee cap from the pain. This machine's strikes hurt badly.
I return to the machine and I kick at the knee level, the strike was coming from the stomach level, I hit it back with my left arm then throw a right punch to the light that appeared on the chest level. Just when my fist was closing in to the light, the knee level hand comes striking back. I jump as I lower my head to avoid any possible strike from the top and pulling my legs upward.
The strike from the bottom barely misses me and my punch connects with the trunk.
But the light was no more.
Suddenly, I was hit on my chest that threw me back again. I didn't know where that hand came from. I look up and saw a hand sticking out from the trunk just next to where the light was shining before.
There are hidden hands.
I thought I could pull it off. But even the easiest level was so hard.
I wonder how strong dad must be to be able to beat the hardest level.
After a month.
It has been almost a month since I've been training using the training dummy.
I am able to hold my own with the warrior level and would even beat it sometimes. I tried using time acceleration on my eyes and I was able to hold my own against the Knight level but as I was only enhancing my eyes, I was short on speed and my body couldn't keep up with the speed of the dummy. I still didn't want to use it on my entire body, because it would tire me in a short time.
Endric finished his academic activities and he did his own workout and practice with dad.
When he went against dad, they would go to a forest to clash. They used magic in their battles and their fights were very amazing. Endric was very proficient with his thunder affinity. He would coat himself in lightning and dash at extreme speeds towards dad. Even with enhancing my eyes by ×20, I was barely able to follow him.
I could enhance my eyes even more, but it came with intense pain in them, and my head would feel heavy.
Endric would shoot thunder bolts from his arms, and construct weapons with it. His Shadow affinity made him able to blend with shadows, and even enter them and travelling between them.
My dad was very strong too. Way stronger than Endric. He had two rare affinities: Ice and Lava. He can shield, attack, and constraint with his ice affinity. He only used the lava affinity to make Endric not rush in recklessly.
His lava affinity was really strong. The heat from it was enough to make it hard to breathe.
Every fight finished with dad's victory. Even against Endric he wouldn't go easy on him.
I never had a spar against Endric. I wasn't confident about winning. I couldn't even react properly to the second level of the dummy let alone against that terrifying speed of Endric.
I didn't invest any time in making new spells; I just kept practicing the ones I already know. I began to use the bullets and needles that Ralf crafted for me and they were pretty good.
The needles could even penetrate the entire trunk of the tree when I use it with Heaven's cannons. The bullets would make scratches and small holes in its surface. I requested that they won't be deadly.
When we were having dinner today, dad turned to me and said:
"Eddy, tomorrow we would go to the academy to register you. I want to know if you'd like to go there with a gate or running there." Tomorrow should be the day I register, but the classes would start two weeks from now. Endric's would be a month from then.
"Let's take a gate there and get back running" I wanted to go there early and see the city.
I was excited to experience academy life.