For an entire year, Master Jingjun had Ren doing the basic exercises for strengthening muscles, increasing stamina, getting the body into the perfect form, and tempering his growth. He had not learned any fighting techniques. The only thing he had learned in that year were the breathing arts of Shaolin. Breathing arts were ways to control the speed, rhythm, and amount of breath for a specific purpose.
Learning breathing arts had been simple. He had the Comprehension talent after all. But Ren had soon realized that comprehension wasn't limited to copying. Shaolin had dozens of breathing arts; one for conserving energy, one for healing, one for explosive power, one for training stamina, and so many more. And after learning all of them, while meditating at night, Ren had an epiphany.
He merged them.
With Comprehension working at full power, it took him one night to fuse the breathing arts into two. He named them Breath of Life and Breath of Battle. These arts were powerful enough to be listed as skills in his system.
Breath of Life was for daily living. It had the passive effect of slightly increasing stamina, perfect oxygen use, and smooth circulation. It conserved energy and kept him at peak efficiency.
Breath of Battle was for fighting. Using it would place his entire body in its strongest, sharpest state.
---
After an entire year, it was finally time for Ren to start learning martial arts.
He stood in front of a hitting board; a rectangle of wood mounted on a wall, covered by a thick layer of cloth and ropes. On it was painted a circle the size of a bowl. Beside him stood Elder Jingjun, who was going to show him the basic fist techniques.
He said, "Jingyuan, today will start training in the most basic fist form, the straight punch. I will demonstrate. You watch, learn, and then practice."
Ren nodded, and then watched, as the Elder took a firm rooted stance, curled his fingers into a fist, and hand moving with his waist and entire upper body, he punched. With a solid thud his punch struck the center of the painted circle. Ren watched his every move with Greater Sense, and Comprehension working to track the trajectory of every part of the body, and understanding why everything moved the way it did. With the just demonstration, Ren had understood what exactly the straight punch was, and he was ready to practice it.
So, under the watchful eyes of Elder Jingjun, Ren punched the board again and again, slowly but surely approaching the perfect form of the fist.
---
Three months after starting his martial training, Ren had mastered all the basic moves; the straight punch, the hammer punch, the forward palm, the lifting palm, the pressing palm, all the forearm blocks, the elbow strike, the knee strike, the front kick, the side kick, the low sweep, and the snap kick, to a level where it was muscle memory for him. But these were only basics, not real techniques or arts. Techniques were either combos of moves, or complicated single moves, or combos of complicated moves. And after three months of learning basic moves, Ren was going to learn his first technique; the basic Shaolin technique, Linking Fist.
Linking Fist was a series of punches, palm strikes, kicks, blocks, and stance transitions. It was not used in fighting, but rather for beginners to understand and practice an important aspect of martial techniques; flow. Flow was the continuous movement and transition of a martial artist between attacks, stances, positions, and forms. Linking Fist was the foundational art for that.
And so, Ren watched from the side as Elder Jingjun stood in the middle of a sparring platform, ready to showcase the Linking Fist. By now, everyone in the monastery knew that Ren was a prodigy in learning all kinds of things, and you needed to demonstrate something once, and he would get it. It had drawn him much appreciation from his fellows, and some senior monks would come to him if they didn't understand something in a technique manual. And so, Elder Jingjun, without explaining anything, directly performed a series of punches, kicks, blocks, and palms in different stances which flowed into each other. Ren memorized it all, with all the transitions, and then started practicing.
However, just as he had completed one entire set of rather rough transitions, and was going to start the next one, something surprising happened.
[Ding!]
[Congratulations to host for learning his first martial technique! You have received a reward!]
[You have gained the Talent : Battle God]
[Check status for description!]
Ren started the next set of movements as he opened his status.
--
Host : Ren Alaric, Still Depths
Talents : Buddha Core, Eternal Zen, Comprehension, Battle God
Skills : Greater Sense, Mind Speed, Breath Of Life, Breath Of Battle
Innate Magic : None
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Talent : Battle God
Type : Physical/Mental
Description : Your body and mind possess the ultimate potential for battle. Your physique will evolve during rest toward the ideal form for martial arts. Your capacity for training approaches the infinite. Your mind absorbs techniques into muscle memory with unnatural speed, and your instinct for combat borders on prophetic. You have reached the peak potential for battle.
--
Damn… Just damn… A talent with 'God' in it… Well, it's definitely powerful!
[Don't get used to it, host. This is one of the most powerful talents I can provide, along with Buddha Core.]
[And Eternal Zen is a talent even more powerful than Battle God or Buddha Core.]
[The description of a Talent, Skill or Innate Magic gives only the surface level knowledge of it. There are multiple facets of these things which are for you to discover by yourself.]
Alright, got it. It'll be interesting to see what these talents bring me in future.
And then Ren continued to practice the Linking Fist, slowly getting close to that perfect flow of moves he had imagined when he saw Elder Jingjun.