It only took Sly an hour or so to fully get a grip over his new form which restored his temporarily lowered level and as a bonus getting his ass kicked so badly also gave him another four levels setting him at a nice even thirty. I flat out told him at that point that his training was complete and that he was ready to protect Birch from basically anything he encountered. From what I understood of the professor position this was true but I wasn't omniscient so anything after that level of difficulty I simply couldn't predict.-
I did however tell Sly how it should train from now on if it still wanted to get stronger for whatever reason. It wasn't anything special really as all he needed to do was continue mastering every single move he had all while continuously pushing his body to get stronger. Thanks to this though I suddenly found myself with several days of free time to do whatever I wanted. I didn't accept the rewards for completing the quest though since if I suddenly had a pokemon from nowhere near this area without leaving it would set off several suspicions in the people around me.-
Once I set off on my journey though I would do so since I could then say I found whatever I got off the routes. I would be best in my opinion if I got a pokemon native to Hoenn but I wasn't really picky in that regard. Still with my free time I chose to start working on my spearmanship skill as it might come in handy if I needed to deal with people in the future. I should point out that while simple guns like revolvers were a thing in this world they were only useful against really weak pokemon or normal humans.-
Ability users such as psychics or elemental abilities could stop bullets fairly easily and the things were totally ineffective against an aura user like me. A quick thin coat of aura and the bullet would pancake against me harmlessly before falling to the ground. It was due to all these reasons that guns never really advanced past the revolver phase in this world despite science reaching such weirdly high levels. Thanks to this almost useless nature of guns in this world cold weapons like swords , spears and knives were still very useful.-
Since I was merely training with the skill I didn't need to actually have a real useable spear and could settle for a length of sturdy plastic pipe that had a stone tied on the end of both sides. The only real requirement for weigh I had with these stones was that one needed to be slightly heavier than the other. The reason for this was because in an actual proper spear the spearhead needed to be the point that was favored weight wise in case the user wanted to throw it. But the difference couldn't be so great that the spears head pulled the spear hard downwards in the hands.-
There was a very specific balance in weight needed for this to be accomplished and these two stones I picked out just barely accomplished it. Lee had the plastic piping I used as the handle as well was the rope I tied the stones with. So after making sure the stones wouldn't come off I began to practice the most basic of movements with my makeshift training tool. Straight thrust , retract slashes , side slashes , side smashes , pommel strikes and blocks to start out with all while making sure I had the correct foot placement.-
These movements worked certain muscles in my hands , arms , back , chest and legs as I tensed and released them during my training. It surprised me to notice that my body was very quickly adapting to these movements making each strike smoother and less effort intensive. It dawned on me at this point why the transformations my body underwent were in abilities to begin with. It was about foundation and potential for what the human body could achieve. Why was it that some people could excel at sports or athletic things with far less effort and even go further than others for the same amount of effort as others?-
It was literally how they were built , shape , muscle configurations , chemical balance , size , all of these things and more that were set from birth determined what a persons upper limit was regardless of how hard they trained or worked. Sure natural talent could be surpassed by itself with sufficient skill but a skillful talented person was pretty much unbeatable in fair competition. Improved body and perfect body didn't refer to a simple thing like muscle strength or something that could be achieved with mere hard work but rather a perfect foundation that had the potential for endless growth.-
My body was quite literally perfect for all future improvements I under went from fighting to crafting skills my body was designed to quickly adapt and grow for all of them. I couldn't help but grin widely when I figured this out and started to push this adaptation to it's limits by going through these movements faster and faster. The air whistled and howled as my makeshift weapon moved precisely but like a blur as I pushed my body to it's limits.-
Sweat began to pour from my body like steam under the suns rays and my own body heating up from my elevated heartrate and the friction of my rapidly moving muscles. The sound and sight of me training left the few people living in the village in awe and even seemed to excite my pokemon. I eventually reached a point when my body could no longer adapt very quickly and my ever increasing power and shifts in movements started to lose their precision. Sure what I was doing was nothing special by pokemon standards and was even greatly lacking in fact but for a human it was pretty awesome.-
Finally I swung the makeshift spear one final time before remaining still and relaxing my body. I was covered in sweat but I didn't mind at all and observed my makeshift spear with a content sigh. It felt nice to learn something new and implement it without any issues. I checked my status and wasn't surprised to see that my mastery of the skill had risen by a stage to the journeyman level. I pretty much had the basics fully figured out and useable at this point. I knew my speed will decrease as I improved and chose to enjoy the feeling of progress for now.-
Grasping the basics of a skill was never difficult to begin with which is the only reason it took so little time at all in this case but it will take much longer after this point. "Goodness Alex you never said you knew spearmanship!" Birch said as he walked over with a bottle of water. "It never came up and I figured it might be a good Idea to refamiliarize myself with it before I leave for my journey , who knows it might come in handy." I said with a shrug while gratefully accepting the water which I immediately downed.