Speed Is King

After an action-packed three days that culminated in a Battle-Royale which gave Elliot ridiculously awesome rewards, things finally slowed down a little for him, giving him some much needed down time to consolidate his gains, to stabilize his foundations and to… get scolded by a sword.

“You’re abysmally bad with the sword.” Gilgamar remarked in an uncharacteristically grave sword voice. In human expression, it was equivalent to “WHY ARE YOU SO DAMN FREAKING BAD WITH THE SWORD?? JACKSNOT JIBBERS! JACKSNOT JIBBERS ON A BIG STICK!!”

But of course, Elliot either remained blissfully oblivious to the actual meaning of Gilgamar’s words, or he wisely chose to completely ignore it.

“Aw, come on. I can’t be that bad. How many movements did you say this sword technique had? I’ve already mastered three! I’m pretty good!” Elliot defended himself.

He had been practicing swordplay under Gilgamar’s coaching for the past two days, and had managed to master three full sets of movements! And it was after he spent a considerable amount of time training in the basics of sword play too!

Slash, thrust, parry.

Thrust, slash, parry.

Parry, slash, thrust.

Parry, thrust, slash.

He had repeated them almost a thousand times each before his highly enhanced body finally got the basic movements and transitions down pat.

Elliot felt pretty good about himself, and executing the flowing movements brought a deep sense of fulfillment and sense of power to him.

It was as though he became one with nature’s most destructive force, and was slowly wielding it through his sword and his sword movements. Each swing of the sword seemed to agitate the force a little, and each consecutive swing pulled more and more of that power to him.

He felt like if he could somehow become even just a novice in the sword technique Gilgamar was teaching him, he would wield a power so unimaginably vast that he could take on even the Corrupted Sedgedoom Belcher by himself!

“There are twenty five movements to the first stage.” Gilgamar replied in his monotonous voice.

“See? Three out of twenty five in two days! How can I be “abysmally” bad?” Elliot said indignantly.

“There are four hundred ninety stages.” Gilgamar added.

“Wha… What?! Four hundred ninety stages?? If there are twenty five movements per stage, then there is a total of…”

“The number of movements vary at every stage. There are a total of twenty five thousand movements. The sword technique I am imparting to you is the sword technique which Tyrius had spent his whole life developing and perfecting.” Gilgamar said seriously.

“Awesome.” Elliot breathed out in awe. “What is it called?”

“You’re not yet worthy to know its name. Master it first, and I will tell it to you. For now, call it the Nameless Sword Technique.

It is the only technique which could fully bring out the power hidden within me. If you wish to reach the maximum height of mastery with the sword under my tutelage, this is the only path for you.”

“Twenty five thousand movements.” Elliot muttered contemplatively to himself.

“And you took two days to master three of the simplest movements.” Gilgamar reminded him.

“Two days, yes. But didn’t I take a mere four hours to master the third movement? At this rate of improvement, I think I could probably master the whole stage in another day or two.” Elliot said.

“That’s true. Let us proceed, and put those words to the test.” Gilgamar conceded, but with a trace of mirth in his voice.

“Alright. Let’s proceed, but in an hour. I need to rest and to settle some issues.” Elliot told his sword as he sheathed him into the scabbard that came along with it.

The past two days hadn’t been all sword training for Elliot. He had actually gotten quite a lot of things done.

For starters, he had finally sent all of his Apostles out to found their own clans, with the exception of Rom and Aldera who would be co-founding theirs. But they had all left his side to spread out in all directions.

Frosty had even taken five of the Armored Kaijins away with her, leaving behind only one to stay with Elliot in case he needed the extra power.

At first, everything was rather quiet, with only the occasional XP he received from Wu Kong killing a few beasts here and there, and the attribute points he got when he levelled up.

But after twelve hours, the notifications began to roll in almost nonstop.

Red killed a Bloodied Hunchback Rat.

Frosty killed a Swinging Blackpetal Fungus.

Rom killed a Yellow Striped Mutated Lizard Chief.

So on and so forth. It got so bad that Elliot had to turn off all notifications he got from the Apostles!

“Notify me only when they level up. Dump 50% of all attributes I receive into strength, 25% into reflexes and 25% into intelligence!” Elliot instructed Hawk the AI.

[Acknowledged.]

It was only after he did that, that he gained the peace and quiet he needed to focus on his training.

Elliot was also able to finally get in touch with Jessica, who had successfully completed the first stage of her System Upgrade Mission. Unfortunately, she still had to complete several more stages, and she would not be able to join him in the near future.

Still, hearing her voice and knowing that she was doing very well was good enough for Elliot. That, and also the fact that she was already level one hundred and ten, of course.

Finally, Elliot had decided that he would make the site of the Corrupted Sedgedoom Belcher’s death the site of his main headquarters.

For some reason, a strange type of mushroom kept growing no matter how many times they harvested it. At first, Red refused to leave, and adamantly insisted that he stay to harvest these “extremely rare and precious Blackrot Life Mushrooms.” But after hours of harvesting them nonstop and gathering a huge amount of the mushrooms, and seeing that the mushrooms kept on sprouting without any sign of stopping, even he gave up.

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