One week later.
The week passed quickly and peacefully, and now I was in the desert, standing in front of a rather large rock twice my size with my eyes closed in concentration.
I furrowed my eyebrows in further concentration as the muscles on my feet started to wriggle, expanding and constricting, creating a wave-like motion through them.
I tried to guide the motion to move up my body as I started to control my ankle and thigh muscles to mimic the movement my feet's muscles were making and fortunately succeeded. However, I almost lost control of the muscular wave as I moved it up to my lower back and only managed to avoid having it dissipate entirely by the skin of my teeth.
Once the wave finally reached my upper back, I opened my eyes wide as I started to channel it to my right shoulder and reared my fist backward. I felt my biceps enlarge and then shrink back to their usual size as I guided the wave into my fist and struck at the rock.
I stopped my fist before making contact with the rock as the muscle wave finally reached the end of its path and then exited my fist as a shock wave.
Nothing happened as the shockwave hit the rock and went through it, but After a second of waiting, the rock suddenly exploded into smithereens with pebble-sized chunks of it flying in the direction of my punch.
I smiled in satisfaction as I watched the outcome of my hard work. I Came up with this technique when I tried to figure out Rokuogan (Six King Gun). Back when we were still at sea, I had to give up training it at that time, as the constant rocking of the ship continuously interrupted my concentration.
Basically, the technique works by expanding and constricting my muscles to create a spring-like force which I then confine inside my muscles and then move it to the next set of muscles while repeating the earlier process and accumulating as much spring force as possible to be unleashed through my fist as a shock wave very similar to Rob Lucci's Rokuogan.
I had first thought to skip accumulating the force through all of my muscles by simply producing and storing the spring energy in my fists before releasing it. My fists, however, were only able to house a small amount of force, and trying to go over that limit would cause severe pain and injuries, so I came up with this method instead.
."whistle. That's one hell of a move you have there, captain. do you have a name for it yet?" came a refined, polite voice from behind me, breaking me out of my thoughts.
"I was thinking, Shogeki ken(impact fist) or something along these lines. are you done with your personal business?" I asked as I turned around with a smile, recognizing the speaker immediately and figuring out that Wilson was the one to point him in my direction.
"I had it done yesterday, but I spent the extra time getting in contact with some of my acquaintances to solicit some information that could be useful for us," He answered as he twirled his red cane, seemingly in a good mood.
"oh, you must have something good then if you're in such a good mood," I remarked as I started to walk in the direction of the town while gesturing for him to follow me.
"I'll let you be the judge of that captain. I found out that the train leaving silver town and heading into the capital in three hours will have a load of cash and silver intended for the royal family. there's also a great chance that a big shot from the five great families of the west would try to attack it." Laffite explained as he started to follow me while gesturing continuously with his red cane.
"that's useful indeed. You've done well, Laffite," I said and watched a smile of satisfaction make its appearance on Laffite's face. "the person attacking the train should have a nice bounty on his head. If he doesn't, we follow him, put him down, and take his haul for ourselves," I said as I rubbed my chin in contemplation, and Laffite's smile became even broader and more filled with satisfaction.
We then continued making our way back to town but at a faster pace until we reached Wilson, who was drinking leisurely on the deck of the tattered carvel.
"get off your lazy ass, big guy. we stayed here long enough, and it's time to move on," I said as I started to stuff my personal items into my backpack. "I'll go and get us the train tickets. you two take stock of our inventory, sell anything we don't need or throw it away if not possible and buy anything we need from the town, then pack up what we end up with and meet me at the train station in two hours."
After I had my weapons and gear tucked into my belt and my personal items secured inside my backpack, I jumped over the railing started heading in the direction of the train station.
During my short trip, I had noticed a familiar mane of red hair that I reluctantly ignored because I needed to get us to train tickets as soon as possible or risk not getting there in time to buy any if they were all sold out.
Once the tickets were bought and secured in my pocket, I tried to look for her again, but I didn't have any luck in finding her and had to give up the search, as it would shortly be the time to meet with Wilson and Laffite at the train station.
My companions didn't keep me waiting as they arrived precisely at the agreed-upon time, both wearing large backpacks filled to the brim with supplies that we might need during our journey.
We then stood at the waiting area together while making small talk, me and Wilson talking about the island we came from, our first trip through the sea, the marine's six powers, and how we learned them since I intend to train Lafitte in there once we had time.
Laffite mostly talked about his work as a sheriff. And he also informed us of his specialization in navigation, stealth, and information gathering.
We only had to wait for half an hour before we heard the train caller announcing that the train would be departing soon, and so we made our way into the train without much fanfare.