Thursday 22 December 2016

Chapter 28 - Mastering the Martial Arts

The next morning, Carolyn led Cyrus to the library. As a new student with no contribution points, he was only allowed on the ground floor.

The Martial Realm Academy was famous in the continent for having the most complete library and teachers of every common style of martial arts on the continent.

They had a well designed syllabus for all the common styles, and were able to produce high quality graduates of each style due to their systematic style of teaching.

Of course, they didn't include the secret styles of the many sects and groups. However, that was not to say that the Martial Realm Academy had no secrets of their own.


"Here's where you select a system in each category. Are you sure you want to learn this? Your abilities I saw were beyond this already" she asked as she led him to the ground floor where the techniques on offer were free to everyone.


Carolyn was correct. All of these basic knowledge was useless to him.

What was the use of attack martial arts if he had all his runes on his body, Dani his shadow and Ivy the monstrous vines in his body or Athena's lightning.

What was the use of defense martial arts if his body was the combined indestructibility of Miranda, Kitsune and Tia

The same goes for movement martial arts or weapon martial arts.


Cyrus nodded and picked up a book. Carolyn nodded and left him alone as she picked up another book to read while waiting.

Cyrus activated the rune on his forehead. Instantly, he started absorbing all the knowledge from the library. Even the knowledge in the upstairs rooms and secret knowledge from the secret rooms were being absorbed.

"What a well rounded library. The reputation of the Martial Realm Academy Library is not exaggerated. In fact, it is probably underestimated in my opinion" mused Cyrus as he absorbed all the secrets in the upper rooms and secret rooms of the library.  

Seconds later, a powerful presence permeated the whole library. A level 2 elder rushed towards the upper rooms, sensing that they had been breached.

He headed all over, chasing shadows as all the defenses of all the higher floors and secret rooms were triggered as well. There were powerful arrays all around the library. Cyrus' runic ability went through them like nothing.

Although he didn't disturb the arrays, the inscriptions that detect that the books are being read went off like alarms to the elder who looked bewildered, not knowing what to do.

He quickly quarantined all the students in the upper floors, disregarding Carolyn and Cyrus, who were in the free section in the ground floor.

Cyrus of course, knew what was going on. But he didn't bother and within 5 minutes, he had absorbed all the knowledge in the library.

By then, several other elders had appeared to investigate, interrogating everyone in the other floors.

Cyrus by now had left with Carolyn who after only 5 minutes assumed that Cyrus was not interested in whatever low level skills he read on the ground floor.

"Don't worry Doom. Once you accumulate points in tests and missions, you can access more skills in the upper floors. Thats where the better skills are located" she said, trying to console Cyrus.

"No, I thought the books in the ground floor were a good foundation" he answered

"You do? What.. what did you learn? You were only there for a few minutes" she asked

"Oh, I learned alot!" he said as he suddenly demonstrated the martial arts of the book he took up to read, the "Dragon Fist". He didn't want to show other skills that he absorbed, since that would raise too many questions.

Carolyn gasped in shock. Dragon Fist was one of the basic 5 attacking martial arts and was very popular among cultivators in this region. It came with a complementing cultivation technique, Dragon Breath.as well as a defense martial art, Dragon' s Skin. One can also train in the Azure Dragon's movement style.

Some practitioners master all 4 mentioned martial arts and together the style was called the Way of the Dragon.

Although this style was popular, it was popular because it did not require any special attributes to learn it. Furthermore, one can progress to a reasonably high level in this style without any attributes.

Generally, those that reach past becoming a level 3 warrior in this style is considered a Dragon Warrior. There has been around 17 Dragon Warriors in history.

Carolyn herself trained in the Dragon Fist style initially, but upon reaching past level 3 in the mortal realm, she switched to learning the wind sword style of weapons martial art. 

However, even though Carolyn know and had trained in this form in her earlier years, she had never seen anyone perform this form so perfectly, as if every movement was already mastered by Cyrus, and he has been practicing this movement kata for decades until he doesn't even have to think.

By the end of his quick demonstration, not only Carolyn, but the other cultivators nearby were all similarly enchanted.They had never seen the style practiced so perfectly and beautifully.

The elder that was searching the library was so happen searching outside when he witnessed Cyrus' demonstration.

"D..d..Dragon Warrior?" he mumbled watching Cyrus perform the form to perfection. 

As an elder in the Martial Realm Academy, he has seen many many geniuses pass by these library halls. However, this was the first time he had seen the most basic of Dragon Fist forms performed to such perfection, he wondered if the instructors here could perform it as well as Cyrus did.

As Carolyn led Cyrus to the next class, they found that the rest of their Wolfpack were surrounded by two other groups.

"Whats going on here?" asked Carolyn. She recognized them as the Lion's Den Squad and the Condor Squad, both squads ranked between 10 to 15, above the Wolfpack.

The other two groups laughed and what appeared to be their leader stepped forwards.

"I heard you have a new recruit and already he is the best fighter in the squad. Your squad is pathetic, no wonder a newcomer can immediately become the leader" the large man said.

He was 6 foot 4 inches tall and had a muscular body. He was called Barbarus, a vicious level 8 fire barbarian of the Lion's Den Squad.

It was clear the rest of the Wolfpack were intimidated by him, even Ajax looked cowed. 

"No, Carolyn is still our leader"  said Cyrus as he stepped forwards.

"Oh, a level 7... what are you?" Barbarus asked, seeing Cyrus' level and body type. Cyrus looked too scrawny to be a tough physical fighter. Maybe he was a fancy prancing fencer, thought Barbarus.

"Me? I'm a mage. But I'm learning martial arts here" Cyrus smiled.

"A mage learning martial arts?" Barbarus looked at him and started laughing out loud.

"Is it funny? If you want, I can demonstrate my moves to you in the Arena of Death" Cyrus offered.

The Arena of Death is just an exaggerated name. Although sometimes fights did end up in deaths, the Arena was used for challenges between students who grudges against each other, and also on official battles between groups and individuals for school ranking.

The Arena of Death also happened to be right next to the library where they were, in the center of the Academy. 

"Sure. I'll play with you" Barbarus answered as he leaped up onto the nearby stage of the Arena.

"What are you doing? Barbarus is a top 50 student in this school!" Carolyn asked Cyrus in fear

"Don't worry. You have seen how I fight" Cyrus smiled at her.

She nodded her head, but before she could say anything, Cyrus jumped and landed on the stage.

"Haha, show me what you've learned" laughed Barbarus as he took out his war hammer

Cyrus entered into the Dragon Fist first stance

"What an idiot. Using Dragon Fist? Thats for children isn't it?" thought Barbarus. "Well its his bad luck for being an idiot" thought Barbarus as he charged with his huge warhammer.

Carolyn and many of the girls in Wolfsquad shut their eyes, fully expecting Cyrus to be badly hurt and battered.

As Barbarus charged, Cyrus stood still. But as the hammer came down on him, he moved imperceptibly and the warhammer looked like it passed through his body like a ghost.

Cyrus did indeed disappear.

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