When Lucas stepped onto the mat, he found himself facing a dojo member he had not seen before.
And his session was going to be nothing like the others.
For everyone else, the hands-on portion amounted to hitting focus mitts, working the heavy bag, and basic evasion drills.
They were a room full of beginners, after all.
Who would throw them straight into sparring and risk an injury?
But Lucas was different.
After Tatsuki came by the day before and explained the situation, the dojo staff had grown very curious.
The master himself was watching from the back, flanked by several of the dojo’s core members.
Tatsuki had sworn up and down about how impressive the man was, and Tatsuki was a prodigy with exceptional talent, someone the dojo valued highly.
If she held a person in that kind of regard, that person’s strength was beyond question.
Which was why the master had sent out his top disciple for this.
The man’s attainment in martial arts had already surpassed his teacher’s, and he was currently the dojo’s true ace.
“Nice to meet you. My name is Fukuda Takeoki, and I’ll be your opponent.”
Fukuda studied the figure in front of him with open curiosity.
This was the one Tatsuki called a monster, and he wanted to know just how strong the man really was.
“My name is Sado Yasutora.”
Lucas introduced himself, then settled into a stance.
The exact stance of the Ryugo Style.
The whole dojo went still for a beat.
Then everyone recovered.
It was only a stance.
He had probably picked it up while watching earlier.
Fukuda was taken aback for a moment before settling into the same stance himself.
He wanted to see what this man was made of.
He opened with a probing attack.
The next second, Lucas shifted into a defensive posture and blocked the roundhouse cleanly.
Fukuda knew that posture.
He had not put his full strength behind the strike, but he had not expected the man to execute that defense so precisely, or to stop him at all.
Still, the surprise lasted only a split second.
After that he began raising his output, from the fifty percent he had started with to seventy, then eighty, until he was attacking at full force.
And it was only at full force that he finally understood why Tatsuki called this man a monster.
Lucas was controlling his own strength, so his attacks carried little power.
But his defense could not be dialed down the same way.
In the manga, his body had withstood an I-beam falling from several stories up before he ever awakened his Fullbring, and he walked away with minor injuries.
Now, after the awakening and with his limiter removed, his physical conditioning was terrifying.
Never mind an I-beam.
Ordinary firearms would not break his defense.
Every single one of Fukuda’s attacks was answered perfectly.
And the recoil, the sharp pain radiating up his leg, made him feel like he was kicking a steel plate.
He knew exactly how much power he was putting out.
Even if the man used Ryugo Style defenses, there should have been some reaction.
He kicked with everything he had, and Lucas did not shift an inch.
His arm did not even shake.
Which meant that even setting technique aside entirely, this man’s raw strength was many times his own.
“No wonder you speak of him that way. Set aside the physical strength. His ability to absorb technique is what’s frightening.”
“When he first used the Ryugo Style, you could still see a trace of unfamiliarity in it. Now that’s gone completely.”
“In this short a spar with Takeoki, he’s applying the style proficiently, and he keeps adjusting certain movements. There are already hints of him going past the style itself.”
The master did not know how else to describe it.
He had come in expecting a prodigy.
He had not expected something on this scale.
Judging by the performance, the man had learned the Ryugo Style from that sparring match alone, could already use it proficiently, and had started improving on it.
“Is he… is he really that amazing?”
Tatsuki was dumbfounded too.
Now it turned out how fast he picked things up was just as outrageous.
While they were talking, the match below was already ending.
Not because Lucas had beaten Fukuda, but because Fukuda decided to stop.
There was nothing else for it.
He could no longer block the man’s attacks.
The power behind them was not great, but the techniques kept shifting and adjusting in ways he could not answer.
And there was the other thing.
No matter how he attacked, he could not move the man at all.
The feeling was exactly like an adult playing around with a kindergartner, and he was the kindergartner.
So Fukuda recognized what he was dealing with and conceded outright.
“I concede. Tatsuki was right, you really are a monster. Sorry, I didn’t mean that as an insult, it’s just that your strength…”
He regretted the word the moment it left his mouth and apologized at once.
But he genuinely could not find another one that fit, so he trailed off.
“No need to apologize. I know what you mean.”
Lucas did not take it as an insult at all.
In Fukuda’s position, running into a freak like this, he would have complained too.
“Tatsuki, go invite your classmate over. There’s something I’d like to discuss with him.”
Seeing the sparring end, the master sent her to bring Lucas to his office.
Soon, led by Tatsuki and Fukuda, he arrived.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Sado Yasutora. I am the master of the Tatsuoka Dojo, Murayama Ken.”
“Hello, Master Murayama. I’m Sado Yasutora. May I ask why you wanted to see me?”
The man already knew his name, but Lucas introduced himself again out of politeness.
He also felt a little guilty.
He had, after all, quietly learned the moves of this man’s school.
By the letter of it he had done nothing wrong.
The dojo was only responsible for demonstrating, and picking it up that fast was down to how quickly he absorbed things.
But it was still their property.
If they really wanted to make an issue of it, things could get troublesome.