A new tab had appeared on his status screen.
Status | Skills | Quests | Inventory
First Stance of the Sword
Tier: Mortal
Progress: 0%
An expression of a Mortal-tier truth uncovered by the Hero Alexia Xancrest. Through centuries of battle and meditation, she perfected her understanding of the truth and infused it in the First Stance of the Sword, creating a sword style that draws out its complete potential. A technique that has since received the acknowledgment of the heavens and become permanently entwined within the eternal tapestry.
Luke read the description of the skill over and over again. With every reread, he came away with more and more questions.
Eternal tapestry? Truth? There's even more layers to all this cultivation stuff than I thought. Luke ran his hands through his hair as he watched the rest of the people watch the holographic avatars of the Hero. Even after hours, they were still enraptured by the masterful techniques on display.
Occasionally some of them would break free of the trance, have a mini panic attack, and go right back to watching it.
Shaking his head, Luke raised his sword again. I don't know why, but something tells me that I could watch that recording replay a million times and I'd get no closer to mastering the technique than if I had only seen it once … Still, I should probably watch it again sometime. For now, though, let's see how far I can get on my own.
Recalling the hero's movements, he pressed his sword down, unsurprised when it didn't budge. The same sense of resistance overcame him and stopped his movements as before. Frowning, he pressed harder until the veins in his arms were bulging with strain and his arms were shaking with stress. Not relenting, he pressed onward still until sweat flowed freely from his body and gathered in a shallow pool underneath him. His arms started to burn with the pain of his exertion, but he would not give up. His palms ripped open where he was gripping the sword, covering the handle with blood and sweat, and even then, the blade did not budge. Not even the tiniest fraction of an inch.
Red-faced and breathing heavily, he collapsed to his knees.
There's something that I'm missing. Brute force clearly isn't the answer. Whatever's stopping me, it isn't something that I can power my way through. There has to be a trick.
Stumbling back up, he slashed his sword down—frowning as it moved easily through the air.
There's no resistance when I'm just slicing through the air. But— He recalled how the hero moved. The rise and fall of her chest. The way her knees were just slightly bent. The position of her shoulders, and how she gripped the sword. He pressed against the empty air, and his sword once again didn't move. When I try to do it the way she did, something stops me.
Is it because I'm doing it wrong? He mentally compared his own stance and the hero's. Shaking his head in the negative when he realized the way they stood was identical, at least when accounting for the differences in their bodies.
Truth.
The hero uncovered a truth and built her technique around it, according to the description that the Seed gave me. That's something to work off, at least.
He turned back to the podium displaying the hero's avatar, straining his eyes as he watched it move. This time, he didn't resist the urge to draw his own blade in response.
Imitating her stance, he once again tried to copy the movement of her sword. Once again, that same mysterious force stopped him.
Frowning, he lowered his sword and just watched. A light bulb went off in his head.
Truth. Truth. Truth. That's the key. There's some principle guiding her every movement, and without knowing what that principle, what that truth is, I'll never be able to learn.
How do I find out what it is, though? It's not like she's tracing letters into the air and spelling out the answer. Right? He watched the tip of her sword just in case, smiling in disappointment when no letters became apparent. That was a long shot anyway.
Blood oozed from a torn blister on the palm of his hand and traveled in a straight line down the length of his blade, dripping onto his foot.
Ew, he thought, suddenly aware of how gross he was. I should call it for today. Sleep on it and come back to it with fresh eyes.
Sheathing his sword, he found Spiros and Arya still sitting in front of their respective podiums, meditating on the technique. Turning to the wall, full of open tunnels, Luke attempted to go through a random one, only to be stopped dead in his tracks.
Great, another invisible force. Just what I need. He walked up the length of the wall, idly pushing against each entrance, until he finally found one that didn't reject him. Although the privacy is kind of nice, he thought as he walked through.
The room was mostly as he left it, but he was surprised to see that a door had appeared on a wall opposite the bed, and that a plate full of food had appeared on the table again. Ignoring the food for the moment, he poked his head through the new door and was pleased to see that it was a washroom. Kinda creepy—torches and stone bricks aren't really what I would call my preferred décor—but it's better than nothing. His eyes fell over the large tub, equipped with a rectangular showerhead on top. Definitely better than nothing.
A few minutes later, he sat down heavily on the mattress, enjoying being clean way more than he'd thought he ever would.
This isn't terrible, to be honest. It sucks that I can't leave, but it isn't terrible.
Idly wrapping his palms with a Band-Aid he found in the cupboard in his washroom, he ate his fill and turned in for the day.
The next morning found him standing a distance from the podium, with his sword drawn and held loosely at his side as he watched the hero once again. He ignored the throng of blue- and black-robed individuals milling about. Most were still seated in front of the podiums, but more than a few were sparring in the rings.
One woman had even managed to release a monster, some kind of large wolf, from its cage, and then found a way to bring it into the arena where she was desperately trying to fend off its attacks. A blue-robed disciple standing just outside the ring with a bow, arrow already nocked, pointed toward the creature, following along with every move it made, with narrowed eyes, in case the woman fighting it needed help.
Now, that's a real spotter, Luke thought when he first saw the spectacle. Idly, he noted that he should still be able to accrue stat points by defeating the caged monsters. Getting stronger here might even be easier than at the society. The people are a lot stronger on average, monsters on tap, and there are even some mysterious Seed-recognized skills to learn. Not bad at all, actually.
He raised his sword, focusing on the hero's avatar. This time, he didn't intend to copy her but to fight. Shadow fight.
He blinked deliberately, imagining her standing before him, her sword held over her shoulder, preparing to slash an opponent diagonally across their chest. He lifted his own blade in challenge, intending to meet her, metal with metal—only to find in the next moment, she'd expertly maneuvered herself out of the way.
His blade cut through empty air, and hers wove through his guard and stabbed into his throat. She left him gasping for breath as the vision of his death replayed inside his head again and again. Shaking his head, he gripped his sword with both hands and lifted his blade in challenge once more. Resolving to win.
A guy can dream, right?
Her sword pierced his heart and stuck out of his back.
The next time she stabbed him in the eye.
The time after that, she decapitated him.
All without breaking her rhythm.
I think she's killed me a hundred times by now. It's like, no matter what I do, her sword finds a way through. Always on the first move. How?! It shouldn't even be possible. How am I losing to a juiced-up recording?
Wiping away the sweat dripping into his eyes, he surveyed the room once again.
His eyes found a group of blue-robed people stuck in place with their blades raised. Their limbs shook with exertion as they tried to copy the hero's movements.
It's not going to work. Luke shook his head. Ignoring them, and looking over to the podium where the hero was displaying her spear technique, he easily found Spiros standing a distance away with his spear drawn. From time to time, he'd lunge or swing his weapon, only to shake his head and try again.
It looks like he had the same idea as me.
Walking forward, Luke stood just outside his striking range and waited patiently.
"How's it going?" he asked, grinning with amusement as Spiros suddenly staggered back and clutched his heart. I wonder how many times he's seen his death.
"Not good." He smiled, placing the butt of his spear on the ground and leaning against it. "I'm really starting to think we might die here."
Luke shrugged his shoulders. "I hope not."
"Me, too. But it might happen anyway. I was thinking of talking to some of the others and making a pact."
"A pact?"
"Yeah. You know, if you escape, try to come back here as a hero and break out everyone still stuck here, and if I escape, I'll do the same."
"That would be nice, but becoming a Hero—isn't that asking a lot?"
"I don't think so. If anyone can learn not one but all three techniques, I'd say they have a pretty good shot. I bet a lot of us will still be here, too. Maybe for centuries if we manage to break through to the Warrior tier. Besides, being a hero is probably the minimum amount of strength you need to break anyone out of here."
Luke leaned back in surprise. "You're joking, right? You expect people to become warriors but still stay trapped here."
"Yeah. These techniques, they aren't just some moves, Luke. You've felt it by now, right?" He pointed to a group of people straining against an invisible force. "You can't even begin to imitate the moves without understanding their core."
"Their core?"
"Yeah. I don't know a lot about it, but I remember my grandpa mentioning it when he showed us his technique. He used to bait us, say if we managed to find the core and copy his moves, he'd give us candy. None of us ever succeeded." He sighed, putting even more of his weight onto his spear.
"Still. It wouldn't make sense to give us a challenge that's impossible to complete. There's no point to all this, then, is there? Why would the hero set all this up if she intended for us all to die?"
Spiros visibly perked up at that. "You're right. Just because I couldn't do something as a kid doesn't mean it's impossible now, too."
You're still a kid. But that's the spirit! "Right. Now, what's this about a core?"
"I honestly don't know"—he shrugged—"Gramps only mentioned it to me that one time. He said we wouldn't be able to learn what he was teaching us unless we figured out the core of his movements."
"The core, huh?" Luke cupped his chin. Could the core of the movements be the truth that the technique is built around? It kind of makes sense.
His eyes were drawn toward the figure of the Hero, dancing with the spear with the same easy grace with which she moved with the sword. Her movements cleanly transitioned from one stance to the next.
Should I try to learn that one, too?
No. Not yet.
Piling more stuff onto my Path is just asking for trouble. There's no guarantee I'll even be able to advance the First Stance of the Sword—adding a spear technique onto that is stupid. I should wait until I make some progress with that first. If I keep adding stuff to the list of what I need to do before advancing to the Warrior tier, I'll never advance.
Spiros broke him out of his musings, excitedly tapping Luke on his shoulders.
"Look." He pointed to Arya. A crowd rapidly formed around her.
Looking over, Luke saw her in a low stance as she held a wooden shield at her side, straining against the same invisible force that the rest of them had experienced before. Before he could ask what the buzz was about, though, he noticed it. While still under immense strain, her arm was moving. Excruciatingly slowly, but inch by inch it moved forward.
"She's figured it out," Spiros whispered. His eyes widened in awe. Suddenly he turned toward Luke. "You really know how to pick them!" He slapped Luke's back in congratulations.
"What?"