A small figure stood in a grass field that seemed to stretch as far as eyes could see. If someone looked at the figure a bit closely they would be to sense that it wasn't a real person as it would seem like the figure was missing some of the finer details, for example, it had no ears to speak of and its eyes were a bit out of place, it was as if the one who created him was an amateur painter.
Only someone who had known him for a long time would be able to interpret that the small figure was actually Jon. Jon looked around for a moment before he closed his "eyes" and when he opened them another figure suddenly appeared in front of him out of nowhere this one being a bit more adult sized.
But the new figure was even more bizarre as it only had the basic body shape and was even less detailed as there was only a shadow in the place of a face. While it would be quite hard to see any similarities between them, this figure was actually based on Jory Cassel.
By now it was easy for anyone to comprehend that it wasn't a real place, and they weren't actual physical figures instead it was an imaginary one, and the figures were the construct of Jon's mind.
At some point in time, both of the figures had acquired swords of different lengths from somewhere. Jon took an offensive stance with the figure in front of him mirroring him, and suddenly at some unforeseen signal both of them started attacking each other with swords.
The taller figure fighting Jon was based on Jory because he was the one that he dueled the most in the training yard which means that he was familiar with all of his habits, quirks, the way he moved, and all the different kinds of moves he was likely to use in various situations.
As they went back and forth, the smaller figure started improving his combat ability slowly but steadily. He used his agility to the fullest and started to find better postures to use with respect to different positions of his feet which slowly improved the efficiency of his muscles along with his attack speed.
Ever so slowly Jon started to get a sense of how to apply more strength while using less energy and how to dodge the sword coming toward him in such a way that it would leave him in a better position to attack, he was basically making dodging into an offensive maneuver.
Jon didn't just train with the sword after a period of time had passed he switched to a spear and started practicing with that.
In this place he had a kind of omniscient view of the whole fight, he was able to see all of his various muscles from a 360° Pov, which helped him a lot in being able to see all the mistakes he made unconsciously and experiment different ways he could rectify them and improve.
After the spear, he trained with a sword and shield, and he even changed his dominant hand from time to time. Even Jory changed his weapons after Jon went through one cycle of all the weapons he was training in. He was able to train himself to fight against different kinds of weapons like spears, swords, shields, etc.
The figures on the field kept on fighting without ever getting tired, they just moved from one weapon to another which helped a lot in improving Jon's hand-eye coordination and getting a perfect feel for the correct depth for each weapon as well as the best range for each weapon.
Time was meaningless here so he didn't how long had passed but suddenly Jon could feel his face getting warm, and before he could think about that he woke up and the field instantly disappeared as Jon opened his eyes to see sunlight streaming through the window on his face as he was lying on his bed.
All the image training Jon had been doing using various weapons was actually in his dream.
As Jon started to get better at being a warg and as his mind developed over months and years, the quality of images he could conjure in his mind started to improve by a lot. But unfortunately, it was still very slow going as he was still not at the level where he could imagine moving figures in his mind consciously.
And that was when he found this dream hack.
While he was having a normal dream one night he found out that it was very simple for him to control things he could do and imagine in the dream consciously. And due to his mind being a lot more active in dreams, he was easily able to do image training here, which he had found impossible to do during the day.
It was as if his body was able to focus all the resources that were used to do other things while he was conscious solely toward running his mind.
And while he couldn't do it very consistently as he was only able to stumble on this about once a month. It was still very useful since whenever he was able to remain aware in his dreams he was given a god-like view of his various fighting abilities and his combat strength improved by a lot every time that happened.
He was hoping that as his mental strength improved and he warged into more and more animals, eventually he would be able to do Image Training consciously which would have an immense impact on his combat.
After he got out of bed, Jon went through his usual morning routine quickly and after wearing comfortable clothes left for the training yard.
As almost all of the veteran guards had gone to fight the Rebellion with Lord Stark, there were no appropriate opponents for him to train against in the training yard, and Ser Rodrik too left just a few days ago, so after warming up Jon started going through the forms.
And the lack of a sparring partner didn't hamper him that day as he had time to digest the gains he made during his dream training. Every time he went through a training session in his dream, he struggled to sync his body and mind the next morning. It was something he struggled with as his mind was able to come up with moves so rapidly that his body just couldn't keep up, so he had to train to bring his mind to be in line with his body.
As he was midway through his training, he saw Robb entering the training yard. He quickly joined him after warming up and picking a wooden sword along the way.
"Where were you?" Jon asked when Robb was close enough.
"Oh! I was with mother," Robb said while going through his forms, "She was a bit stressed as Father's letter arrived from the Westerlands. They just reached there and would be going on a ship toward the Iron Islands from there with the King,"
"Yes that would do it," Jon nodded as Lady Stark was far enough in her pregnancy that she was moody all the time, so the news of her husband going to war would definitely be something that would set her off.
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