Leige watched the sun rise from the comfort of his bed, closing the last book of the night.
He was rather interested in the topic of Qi, because one book soon led to the other, which then lead to another, and subsequently led to him reading the whole night.
Martial power, also referred to as Jin, could be divided into three categories - Hard Jin, Soft-Hard Jin and Soft Jin.
Going from Hard to Soft, Hard Jin used the most muscular power.
However, all types still required a strong physical body, something Leige still had to work on, and of course, a sufficient supply of smoothly circulating Qi.
Obviously, Qi in this case referred to human Qi, the life force or bio energy in every cell of the body.
The two branches of Yin and Yang were manifested into Internal Jin and External Jin, Internal (Yin) meaning the internal Qi's circulation, and External (Yang) referring to the physical strength of external movements. Only when these two worked harmoniously and supported each other would one become truly strong.
Jin could also be divided into Yin Jin, referred to otherwise as Defensive Jin, and Yang Jin, commonly called Attacking Jin. Another category of Jin was used for when Qi was manifested into a physical form, called Emitting Jin.
...What was Jin though?
Well, in the last book he read, which had a very helpful keyword section, Jin was described in two ways.
The first was 'unyielding, powerful, strong', and the second was 'Qi-Li'. Qi-Li, which he had found out previously in a book he had read before to be the muscles which were supported by Qi.
Using only the muscles was considered Li, but with a concentrated mind leading the muscles, Qi would flow and enliven them.
As stated before, there were many types of Jin, but they all had one thing in common, which was the flow of Qi.
Both seeing something happening, for example, when the person pushes another, and sensing motions or energy from other people were both types of Jin.
These could be enhanced and improved depending on the amount of Qi flowing to the skin. This therefore meant that the higher level of Jin, the more Qi used and the less muscular strength needed.
Now, this was the main reason Leige wanted to focus on Qi. Physical strength could be reduced as long as his level of Jin was high.
Through concentration and a meditative mind, Leige would be able to develop his entire being to work more efficiently in combat.
Of course, he would need to work on his physical strength as well. In the books he had read, Dim Mak, what he interpreted to be Kyusho Jutsu back in Japan, would aid him in his physical combat, although he would still need to learn to fight properly as well.
After all, Dim Mak, a martial art technique that utilised the acupuncture points in the body to inflict damage, would only be useful to him if he knew how to dodge, block and fight the opponent as well.
An example of the Dim Mak technique was a rather well-known attack. Leige, when he was Haruka, knew about it as well, although in the Japanese term.
Luckily, since it seemed that the creators of this game only focused on developing the plot of the story rather than other details, everything that the creators themselves didn't change were based off Earth as he knew it.
Well, not like it really helped in this situation since he was venturing into a topic completely unknown to him, but he did find himself remembering a lot that was similar to his time on Earth from time to time as he was studying.
So, the move that made him recognise Dim Mak, or fighting using acupressure points, was the stomach-9 point, or more commonly known as the 'delayed-death touch'.
With the alleged ability to cause knockout, death, and delayed death, there was a reason why he had been slightly interested in it.
Some martial artists claimed that the stomach-9 point was false, and that it wasn't dangerous because there had been no documented cases in which people had been seriously injured from blows to the carotid sinus or carotid artery.
However, Leige thought it made sense.
After all, although he wasn't a doctor, he knew that if the carotid artery was damaged by blunt trauma, it could potentially be lethal.
"Young Master, are you awake?" he was brought back to reality by a loud but clear voice, followed by two sharp knocks.
"Yes." he replied, watching as a young girl walked in with a bold glare.
...He was going to think that it was fairly refreshing for a maid to not be so scared of him, but looking at the maid, all he could sense was pure hatred.
Inspecting closer, Leige scanned her unnatural, purple hair and matching purple eyes, which were currently narrowed as she continued to glare back at him.
She had to be someone in the story, her unnatural hair was a telltale sign. But who was she?
It was moments like this when Leige really wished that he had been in a situation where the game and the plot was fresh in his mind, like if he had died while playing it or something.
Because he only knew about it from his assistant, insignificant characters like this really didn't ring a bell.
Well, he was at least thankful that he knew the basics of the plot.
"Who are you?" not really caring about formalities, Leige wanted to find the answer to his question.
The purple haired maid snorted disdainfully, looking at him up and down.
"Angelica La Verne." she replied curtly, waiting for her dismissal by the door.
Leige continued to stare at her, furrowing his brow.
Yeah, he had no idea who she was.
"...How long have you worked here?" maybe if he knew her backstory, he could connect her role to the main plot.
This time, her eyes widened in disbelief as she scoffed.
"Young Master," she spat out with disgust, "You do not even recognise your own classmate?"
...What?
His blank stare only irritated her more.
She could accept him not knowing her name, but not even recognising her face?!
Meanwhile, Leige was still trying to connect her to the plot.
What was she meant to be?
An obstacle?
A love interest for the heroine?
Ah.
"Are you connected to..." hold on, he forgot the heroine's name again.
How could he describe the heroine's appearance without seeming like a total freak?
Huge boobs...
No, that still sounded strange.
But they were the noticeable part of her body, if Leige was to be honest. They looked so comfortable to sleep on.
Angelica sighed irritably, glaring at the brat she was forced to serve.
"Yumi?" the school's new princess, and Angelica's new best friend. They had connected over being rather poor, and she had given Yumi a tour of the school since she was the class representative.
However, lately she had seen Leige harassing her!
Of course, when Angelica inquired about the matter, the carefree Yumi simply giggled, shaking her head.
'Leige is my friend!'
She would reply.
But how could she trust Yumi, that sweet, poor girl, even being forced to drop honorifics when addressing Leige!!
Only two days after she came to this school, she was being harassed by the idiot bully!
"Ah yes, Yumi." Leige recalled, secretly thankful that Angelica had intervened before he called her 'the blonde girl with big boobs'.
Angelica narrowed her eyes again as Leige confirmed who he was asking about.
Why did he want to know?!
Was he going to ask what Yumi's type was?!
Was he going to ask what Yumi's favourite food was?!
Was he going to ask to deliver a confession to Yum-
"Alright, you are dismissed. Thank you for waking me up."
...
What?
Angelica lost her glare for a moment, stunned.
He didn't want to ask anything? About Yumi?
Taking another glance back at Leige, she slowly left the room, still unsure about what had just happened, completely losing her previous ferocity due to confusion.
Leige, on the other hand, didn't think about the matter any longer after getting changed, only assuming that she was Yumi's sidekick or something, not caring enough to wonder why she was working here.
It did feel nice to wear clean, fresh clothes everyday. In his past life, he had been way too lazy to iron his clothes, although he had enough decency to put his clothes in the dishwasher.
Finishing brushing his teeth, he started to head downstairs, noticing but not really caring that Angelica had abandoned her duty of escorting him to the dining room.
She had to prepare for school as well, after all.