”Are you sure you have intuition? Their attacks are particularly unpleasant. While it is easy to evade them because of their straightforward attacks. Failing to evade them will cause organ hemorrhage. I noticed that you have high vitality, so you will heal faster. But it is better to avoid the pain entirely. We can always move to less difficult things.”
SQUARESKULL wanted to cover his base. It is true that he suggested the test, and it is true that someone at the vitality core stage should not be considering intuition. Intuition is something that mana entities labor to acquire. So it is true that he has digressed from the normal teaching plan. But let it not be said that he didn’t warn Soverick about the dangers of failure.
Brittle rams are mostly harmless herbivores. They can be swatted away or easily evaded if you can see them and know that they are coming. If not, their horns do pretty nasty damage to internal organs. He wants to remove any responsibility from the consequences that will occur if Soverick fails.
Soverick answered impatiently, “Can we start this already? I said I have intuition.”
He has had the sense of intuition for quite a while now. It was how he knew that he was being watched at the beginning of the forest choke point. It was how he could anticipate the attacks of the titan frogs, they were just too fast by the time he sensed them. It was how he knew that something bad would happen if he allowed the sky rats to crash to the ground. It was how he was able to escape the sea monsters during the eye of the sea challenge without seeing them. It was how he could anticipate the attacks of the hydra heads.
“Alright then. You may begin.”
SQUARESKULL snapped his fingers and Soverick felt his senses become inundated with silence. His sense of touch and taste were still present. But his divine sense only reported statics and his eyes saw only darkness. He could break the force acting on him with some exertion but there was no use doing that for a simple test.
Even with his major senses deprived he could sense that he is currently being observed by 11 pairs of eyes. 10 pairs from the brittle rams and one from SQUARESKULL. A brittle ram began to trot towards him. It was not running towards him for pleasantries because it placed its horns forward for their impending meeting. Soverick didn’t know that but he sensed an attack coming for him and so he waited. The sensation of impending danger continued to increase but he waited and only dodged at the last moment. His feet pivoted and he raised his spear. He didn’t plan to just dodge the attack, he also brought down his heavy spear for a smashing attack.
The heavy spear landed on the back of the brittle ram and broke its spine. The beast shattered and disappeared into motes of light. He didn’t see it but he could tell that he had one less observer. They didn’t give him time to relax before their next attack. Two more rams were coming for him.
Their hooves struck the ground as they began to pick up speed. He used the momentum of his smash to swing the spear in a wide horizontal arc. The arc happened to be in the path of the incoming rams and the spear knocked them away before they also disappeared. The spear was so heavy that a good hit with it deals a lot of damage to the fragile constructs.
Three more rams began their charge towards him. Their direction was such that he wouldn’t be able to swing his spear to get them all. He also wouldn’t be able to use his finer spear skills to fight them because he only knows their relative direction but he doesn’t have the necessary judge of distance and depth to make precise strikes.
He moved to face one of the Rams while he ignored the other two. Then he dashed forward and brought down the spear for a smash in the direction of the ram. His dash moved him out of the way of the other two rams who collided because of his absence. They had been planning to pin him in but he could sense both direction and distance of threats with his intuition. He resolved the three attacks like that.
He noticed that while he was fighting, more brittle rams were replacing the ones he had eliminated. There are still 10 brittle rams surrounding him but only four are attacking him now. Their placement is such that he won’t be able to make them collide. They attacked him in two pairs from directions that were at right angles to the other pair. One pair from his front and the other from his right.
He smirked and ran forward to meet a pair, creating some distance between him and the other pair. He executed the horizontal sweep attack on the pair he ran to. He smashed them with his spear then he turned towards the other pair. He used the short time before they got into his attack range to prepare for another smash. He plans to sweep them away just like he did for the first spear but then they separated. One of them even lowered its speed so that the other will reach him first. He will be caught off guard if he makes that wide horizontal attack again.
“Not making this easy are you?” He thought to himself as soon as he noticed a difference in the rising intensity of the threats.
He moved before they could create enough distance between them. He jumped towards them and swung his spear through their position. There weren’t too far apart so the spear struck the two of them across their sides with the blade of the spear. It tore a huge chunk out of their virtual structures and destroyed them.
He landed with his spear ready and prepared for any more attacks. The number of brittle rams increased again as their number was topped up. He half suspected that all ten of them will attack him at the same time. Their increased number will push him to the current limit of his spear mastery but he was confident in handling all of them. He just had to remain calm, evade when needed and retaliate when opportuned. Then his senses returned abruptly and the brittle rams disappeared.
SQUARESKULL was clapping. “Well done. You went above and beyond my expectations.”
Soverick’s face remained impassive. He adjusted himself and walked towards his clapping teacher.
SQUARESKULL nodded. “I am impressed. I was sure you would show off or at least swell due to my compliments but you seem unfazed. That face of yours remains frozen. In fact, the only time I have ever seen you change expression is when you are training or in battle. You hardly talk either. Why is that?”
Soverick answered. “Someone said that I have a cute face but I ruin it whenever I open my mouth.”
SQUARESKULL laughed before coughing to try and cover it up. “That must be tough for you. I bet it’s a family member that said that.”
“Yes, my stupid father.”
Ghoto had said that to him when he was fidgeting about the arrival of his father, Tandrak. He had told Soverick that to keep him quiet.
“I see. He is probably right.”
Soverick shrugged but kept quiet, he was unwilling to engage in this conversation any longer. SQUARESKULL got the hint and chose to move on.
He began the evaluation of Soverick’s performance.
“You were supposed to evade the rams but you actively attacked them. I am sure you possess intuition and your performance indicates that it is at a high level. What did you notice about the numbers of brittle rams?”
Soverick answered immediately. “You showed me 11 beasts but that number became 10 when I lost my senses. I was attacked by a brittle ram, then two, three, and then four. I eliminated all of them but their numbers were replenished and kept constant at 10. That’s all.”
SQUARESKULL clapped. “You are right. I wanted to test your range of detection and if you could determine all the enemies. Now I’m sure, so we can start the next step and I have something special planned for you.”
Soverick turned his wandering eyes back on his teacher. SQUARESKULL was pleased that he got his attention.
“Since you have the intuition instinct mastered, what you will do next is master its accompanying technique. But, I am going to tweak it a lot to cater to your special needs. I hope you’re up for it. Follow me.”
The training regimen for spear mastery consisted of fusing Instincts and techniques together in perfect harmony. With Intuition mastered,, it was time to learn the complementary technique. Hopefully Soverick will be able to fuse them together or SQUARESKULL will be in big trouble.