Third Person POV
[Ding! New Task.]
[Task: Do Push-ups (0/1500)]
[Reward: 100,000 Aurel points]
[Ding! New Task.]
[Task: Do Pull-ups (0/1000)]
[Reward: 100,000 Aurel points]
[Ding! New Task.]
[Task: Do Sit-ups (0/1500)]
[Reward: 100,000 Aurel points]
[Ding! New Task.]
[Task: Catch Blitzscale (0/50)]
[Reward: 100,000 Aurel points]
"That was one fine time to show me money, these fishes are scaring me shitless."
[You would have done it either way.]
Alaric started struggling to remove the artifact that was on his waist.
[Dumbass, press the center of the buckle, it will remove itself.]
Alaric pressed it and the black cloth that had become similar to a weighted vest zipped back into the belt, and with a click, Alaric was freed from the artifact but it fell on his toes.
Alaric yelped and jumped on one leg while wincing for a few seconds before shaking the leg which was hurt then leaning beside the water.
"Haahh… that thing is unreasonably heavy," he looked at the Blitzscales in the tub.
[Are you really planning to actually catch all of these?]
"I don't really have many options here, it's the only way."
[Only way to?]
"To learn how to focus on multiple things. I need to learn to distribute my concentration to actually learn [Fireball]."
[Oh~ So you actually knew you were mentally unable to learn it.]
"Well, I haven't been stopping you from talking but you seemed to not say anything about me not training so I knew I was right about my conclusion."
[You are. I was actually having fun seeing you blow away fifteen times a day but then again it is good to take a break.]
Alaric pulled the sleeves of his black tunic up, "Alright, any tips on how to not end up on a Blitzscale's dinner menu?"
[Simple,] Boon said, his tone far too casual for Alaric's comfort. [Just improve your pull-out game.]
"I don't think I like your humor."
[I do. Oh! and don't go deeper than your wrist unless you're really confident about catching one. Once you've got a good grip on one of them though, anything goes.]
Alaric turned his attention to the water. The Blitzscales weren't much bigger than the span of his hand, but their darting movements made them annoyingly hard to track. With a sigh of resignation, he plunged his hand into the tub.
The cold water bit at his skin, and he felt a faint flicker of movement brush against his fingers—before it was gone. Leaving his hand with a scratch.
[Wow, slow and sloppy,] Boon quipped. [You've got a few healing potions on you, right?]
Alaric nodded begrudgingly, inspecting the scratches on his hand.
[Good, because I'm pretty sure both your grandmother and Lily forgot to factor in the need for those.]
"Great," Alaric muttered, holding up his injured hand. "So I'm basically the only person here who doesn't want me to die today."
[Oh, come on. Those are barely scratches. You'll survive a few dozen more.]
Alaric let out a long-suffering sigh
[Anyways, what you did is absolutely wrong.] Alaric looked at the panel with a frown, "Why is it that I can't do a single thing right on my first try? Just once, can I not be the universe's designated potato?"
[Not that, you stupid potato. The whole purpose of this activity is to sharpen your focus, but we are aiming for something different so doing it the normal way won't help you. Use both hands, we will be catching two of them at once and the second thing is, to find the easiest one to catch in the group. Last time, you threw your hand in at a random one.]
Boon's voice instructed Alaric, he looked at his hand and then at the fishes.
"Look for the easiest one to catch…" Alaric muttered looking at the movement the Blitzscales were making, 'easiest one… easiest one… who is easy to catch in a group? If I consider my family as a group… Mother and father are simply impossible to catch, Granny is also strong enough to not be caught. Valen and Caelum, Nessa, Eirlys, and Lily… they are generally together, catching them won't be that easy either. So that leaves Aurelia, she is stronger than the maids and butler so catching her would need greater effort even though she is always alone. Easiest on the catch therefore is someone who is secluded from the group and— There!' Alaric's hand swiftly entered the water and came out.
[(⊙_⊙)]
"Hello there, fish-Alaric," he said, giving the struggling creature a playful waggle before tossing it into the empty tub.
[You actually did it…], Alaric stared a the floating panel with a grin, his brows waggling.
[Well you still didn't actually do the job. (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.). You have to catch a fish with each hands.]
Alaric blinked, staring at Boon, "Your name doesn't suit you."
[Hehe~]
Alaric groaned, looking at the remaining 48 Blitzscales he noticed the restlessness. Lily wasn't wrong—Blitzscales get jumpier with each one caught. Alaric was finding it hard to keep track of them so he decided to wait.
Alaric continued watching them for a while until they finally calmed down. He tried again but he caught only one. Clicking his tongue he threw the one he caught back into the tub and tilted the other tub so the Blitzscale that Lily had caught returned to the group, "Even in numbers would make it look good."
[Pfft! Just say you didn't like the fact that you failed.]
The few days of peace ended and Alaric's days of ear-bleeding taunts from the neutral and ethereal-sounding voice along with the torturous labor his grandmother called training began again.
For a week, Alaric could barely even catch ten Blitzscales. Of course, he was catching two of them at once.
The physical training was one thing, Alaric's days of passing out began again. Every day he would pass out at one place and wake up at the other because the guards who came to train would find him sprawled on the floor like he was dead.
It took two months for Alaric to even be able to reach the twenties when catching Blitzscale. He realized a twenty-minute plank was indeed the easiest part of his training because he was already done with it.
The Blitzscales, in Alaric's eyes, were moving as if someone was out to snatch their soul from them. Taking away twenty of their dear members has made them extremely agitated. Putting his hands in the water and failing was too dangerous right now because, in this agitated state, these fishes weren't thinking anything, unless Alaric managed to catch one of them they were sure to leave him with more than scratches.
Alaric was certain he could catch a few more if he tried to catch them one by one but that won't be helping him.
[Alaric, cut it out. You're fighting when they have the advantage.]
The panel flashed making Alaric sigh, he knew Boon was right.
[You are five whole cultivation stages behind in the name itself. Not to mention a Ranked beast is stronger than a cultivator if they are at the same stage. Yet you are trying to brute force your way into thinking that would work.]
"Then what do I do?" Alaric flopped back, sitting cross-legged with his face buried in his hands, eyes still fixed on the Blitzscales.
[Just sit there and watch. Don't try to catch them, just pay attention to all of them and start telling me every unique thing you notice about them.]
Alaric didn't have any reason good enough to not do it so for days to come he decided to turn the four hours of catching Blitzscale into watching Blitzscale.
At the beginning, Alaric noticed, quite literally, nothing but he kept staring at the fishes like a fool. He would wake up early and do this so no one would see him and think that he was losing his sanity.
Slowly Alaric began to notice that each Blitzscale might look almost the same but their needle-like fronts are unique. He slowly started noticing how insane their body control was in action, they judged the distance of their impact with their fronts and completely halted their motion by moving their fins to swim on the opposite side.
Alaric later began to notice how the word lazy is an understatement for them because unless they are being fed they will try not to move at all. They still end up moving every few seconds otherwise they would end up sinking deeper and for some reason, Blitzscales don't like going to the deeper sections of the water.
One day Alaric noticed something, "Boon, are they getting accustomed to the smaller group?"
[Why do you think so?]
"They are slowing down."
Alaric heard Boon chuckle [Try catching them. Go for the two you think are moving the slowest.]
Alaric glanced at the floating panel with a confused expression but decided to do as it said.
Alaric had his eyes on a few. They looked desperate, almost like they wanted to be caught—a perfect target.
Alaric's hands flashed into the water and came out in an instant, Alaric saw that the Blitzscales tried attacking him.
The water bubbled, the gurgling of bubbles being the only noise around resounded in Alaric's ears.
Alaric looked at his hands, two Blitzscales were restlessly flailing in his hands.
"I did it… Why the hell would you hurt me then?!" Alaric screamed at the tub, his hands were bleeding more than when he attempted to catch one and failed.
[They thought you were food. You caught the two Blitzscales when not just the ones caught but the whole group was unaware.]
"Maybe they got used to me not attacking them?"
[Nope. Blitzscales never forget their attackers. It wasn't them—it was you. Your vision is sharper now. Watching them for so long helped you pick up on their patterns. You see, but your eyes don't show you what you need until you train them to. You've gotta know what to look for. It's also the trick to focusing on more than one thing at a time. Just know all of them so well that you can predict what would happen to the rest when you try to do something to one of them.]
Alaric's jaw dropped. "Right," he said it like a tune, "The Blitzscales are under the water, it is impossible for me to catch them if I try to grab them at the spot I see them, especially when I snatch twenty members of their group. I instinctively reached for the spot I knew they would move to when my hands entered the water and the whole group didn't notice that since they thought I missed and that is also why they are even more restless now. They are scared shitless because they didn't even realize what happened before two more of their own went missing."
After a full-on monologue about how he caught the Blitzscales, Alaric slapped his palms on his face, fell back, and rolled around. "Uggghhhh~ I am so dumb. I didn't even realize the images I am seeing are refractions of Blitzscales, not reflections."
[I am definitely surprised that you can explain all that yourself but not figure it out. This is a new sort of stupidity I am experiencing that requires emotional support and guidance to be cured.]