For the full 30 seconds, Lucian just lay collapsed on the ground, lying still while slowing his heart rate. After 30 seconds he rolled back and began stretching his legs straight out to restore blood flow and stop the cramping.
"Next," he said, then sat up slowly, drank 2 gulps of lukewarm water, and massaged his thighs and calves with his palms.
The second training pillar was called the Compression Step. Based on the original novel Lucian had read, Arthur designed this pillar to launch one's body forward without rising out of stance.
"So basically it's kind of like a blink step?" Patting his clothes, Lucian took a deep breath. Once again he returned to the position of the first pillar, the Grounded Center. Feet shoulder-width apart and then some. He began slowly moving forward, rear foot down and pushing forward, compressing his front knee down into the floor.
Once he compressed and the front foot made contact, he immediately coiled his hips and drove the ball of his back foot into the mud, projecting himself forward in a straight line.
While doing this he never forgot to watch his shadow. The candlelight mimicked his posture, and once it was done, there was silence.
Lucian stopped. All of the tension was gone, and he let out a slow breath. "So it needs a continuation movement?" One eyebrow rose in confusion.
After all, the novel only went so far as text, and as best as he could remember, picturing how the movement actually looked was quite hard. He had only binged it, reading by skimming.
But regardless, working from assumption, the posture could be summed up as creating enough momentum to move from a dead stance, essentially making the first pillar move, while carrying the same grounded force behind it.
Lucian frowned as he recalled the last pillar. The Impact Alignment.
It was described as the method for connecting a physical strike.
So once again, Lucian started with the first pillar, the Grounded Center stance, then moved into the second pillar, the Compression Step, until his whole body looked like it was coiled and ready to release.
With the last pillar in mind, he imagined his weapon was the heel of his palm, fingers curled up, not a slap but a palm strike. He fired his muscles, pushing leg drive up through his hips, rotating his shoulder forward, and extending his arm straight out like a piston.
BANG!
An air shockwave blasted out as Lucian braced his entire rear leg in a chain. "Huff." His eyes narrowed, chest rising and falling, the worn thin white cotton undershirt wrinkled and soaked from sweat and the blast of the shockwave.
Once all three pillars were done, Lucian stood still. "Isn't this more like an attack technique?" But just as he said it, he could feel the changes. Not instant, but real. His joints, his balance, every part of his body was screaming, screaming with something like joy, as if it had finally been used the way it was meant to.
He rested, then went through the repetitions again from the first pillar, where he spotted flaws in his posture through his shadow, all the way to the last pillar, where he noticed he drifted slightly to the side and wobbled just a little, until a full two hours had passed.
Lucian's skin was flushed pink-red from head to toe, especially across his chest, shoulders, and face, with a sheen of sweat coating every inch of exposed skin. His passive skill made him look almost glossy.
His hair, dark charcoal strands, clung flat against his forehead and temples. He lay on the bed breathing in heavy, deep gasps, staring at the ceiling.
It hurt like hell. His lips twitched and pressed together, the corners of his eyes creasing, every muscle across his body twitching. He couldn't think about anything besides recovering.
…
Little did Lucian know, from his window, or rather from beyond the scenery outside his window, in the tree line bordering the West Annex, a faint glint of moonlight caught the face of a brass optical scope.
A pair of eyes, pale sapphire blue almost like ice-white, watched his every movement through the window. How he struck, how he sweated, and how he lay on the bed.
"Oh? You've started moving differently, my dear." Pale rose lips curled into a smile. "Three days ago, you were barely strong enough to hold a teacup. Now you're striking a post like a man who has rested for a month."
She lowered the brass scope, letting it dangle from her gloved fingers. Her long pale silver-gold hair fell like silk, and a soft, sweet hum escaped her lips.
"How could a sickly fiancé recover so quickly... unless the sickness was never real to begin with? Hehe."
...
Time passed quietly, and by now it was midnight in the Backwoods. The air was still under a clouded night sky, and mist clung to the pine trunks. Visibility was mostly darkness.
Patches of moonlight filtered through the gaps in the canopy, casting isolated silver pools on the ground. Fireflies drifted near the ground, faint and cool blue.
Standing right where one of those pools fell was Lucian, wearing a plain dark gray woolen pullover and sweatpants, a dark woolen cap pulled over his ears.
"Brought the salt, Croft!" Opposite him stood the familiar untamed wolf-gray hair, tied back in a low ponytail.
Karin Blake. She was grinning, a loose, easy grin, her amber-gold eyes fixed on Lucian with full expectation. "Don't get too excited! It's just the cheap stuff from the dorm pantry. Now let's see if your cooking is actually as good as last time!"
But Lucian, hearing her, ignored the look on her face and instead checked her over from top to bottom. She was wearing a faded dark green canvas tunic, lean frame and nothing else. No bag, nothing to carry.
"The meat?" Lucian frowned, looking at what she pointed toward. A distant view, or rather what looked like a shallow depression about 60 meters away, where the forest floor sloped down toward the old academy boundary wall.
"Right there, see the dip? There's an old drain under the tunnel wall. I checked it this afternoon, and there were Needlerat tracks all over the place, fresh ones!"
She said it excitedly, glancing back at him, amber eyes gleaming under the moonlight, and flashed a crooked, eager grin. "That's the dinner, Croft! You help me catch all of them and I'll let you cook them. Come on!"
This...
Looking at how excited she was, how she had casually pointed in that direction and had not actually "brought the meat" at all but was suggesting they hunt together, made Lucian's lips twitch.
What could you hope for from a muscle head? Sigh...