Chapter 84 The Birth of the “Quick” Style

The freezing, foaming water roared directly beneath his bare foot, carrying the scent of damp stone, river sediment, and ancient moss. Dave stood on one leg on a narrow, wet basalt pillar that jutted straight out of the rushing, treacherous current of the mountain stream. A wide, black blindfold made of thick, rough leather completely cut off his physical sight, plunging him into absolute darkness. The cold air bit his bare chest, and a fine water mist from the waves breaking against the rocks settled on his skin.

Whoosh.

The air shifted violently to his left. Dave felt a minimal change in pressure and the temperature of the momentum before his mind could even register the sound. Instead of a panicked, violent jump, he tried to react with a simple deflection of his torso. He shifted his center of gravity to the edge of his bare foot, pulling his right shoulder back by mere centimeters and letting the rush of air brush his skin.

THUD!

Sensei's hard, heavy bamboo staff struck him straight in the ribs with the force of a battering ram. Dave lost the rest of his balance and, with a loud splash, tumbled straight into the freezing, roaring torrent of the stream. The current immediately swept his limp body away, slamming him against the smooth, hard stones at the bottom of the river. The freezing water paralyzed his breathing, and his sapphire splotches remained dead, blocked by a single, precise touch of the old man before the training began. Without magic, without teleportation, and without his Lynx Footwork, he was now just an ordinary mortal, fighting the power of the river for every breath of oxygen.

He spat out the river foam, grabbed a slippery boulder with his hands, and with great effort hauled himself back onto the basalt plate of the arena. A brazen chill immediately returned to his lips despite his whole body shivering with cold. He slide the wet blindfold down to his neck, pushing his wet hair back from his forehead, and looked at the old man, who stood on the bank with his bamboo staff resting carelessly against his thigh.

"Too slow, kid," the old man spat ostentatiously onto the stones. "You're trying to predict the movement with your intellect. You only react when the staff cuts the air and you hear its whistle. That way, you'll always be a millisecond behind my strike. Your body must feel my intent before my hand even moves on the hilt of the staff."

"On pure logic, Sensei, it's easy to talk when you're standing on dry, stable land," Dave replied, his voice, though slightly raspy, radiating absolute, self-confident brazen chill. "My splotches are cold, and without sapphire energy, moving on this slippery, wet pole is pure, physical torture."

"And that's exactly the point," the old man cut in briefly, pointing the end of his staff at the basalt pillar jutting out of the river. "When your conduits are full of sapphire magic, you mask your technical errors with brutal acceleration. You think you're fast because the sapphire current carries you through the battlefield and allows for teleportation. But without energy, you're as defenseless as a child. You must master Yomi I. You must read the vibrations of my breath, the tension of my tendons, and the very momentum of my will. Get back on the pillar."

Dave adjusted the leather blindfold over his eyes, cutting himself off from the world again and plunging into darkness. With one fluid motion, he hopped back onto the wet basalt pillar, balancing on one leg. The water roared in his ears, but the boy quieted all that chaotic noise, trying to merge with the rhythm of the river.

He activated Yomi I.

This was not the full, three-dimensional scan of the environment he used previously to map the cave. Yomi I was a return to the purest instinct of a predator. Dave stopped analyzing the shape of the rocks or the falling drops of water. He focused all his attention on a single, dense point on the river bank—on the old man.

In his perception, the world became quiet. He could hear the steady beat of his own heartbeat, but more important was the minimal, quiet breathing of Sensei. Dave began to register how the old man shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He could feel the tension in the old blacksmith's shoulders spike a fraction of a second before a strike was unleashed, betraying the direction and force of the blow.

Whoosh.

Dave sensed it. Before the bamboo staff could get close to his temple, the boy arched his back, letting the smooth wood brush his hair. The staff slid over his face in empty space without touching his skin. Dave maintained his perfect position on one leg, a predatory smile blooming on his lips. This was a clean, minimalist dodge based solely on reading the enemy's intent, without using a single drop of magic.

A brief pause by the smoldering campfire brought temporary relief. Dave sat on a dry log, holding a clay cup of hot infusion in his hands. Every rib and shoulder ached with a dull, pulsing pain after dozens of falls into the freezing torrent of the river. Yet the boy ignored the physical suffering, closing his eyes and analyzing the anatomy of the opponent with the precision of an engineer from Earth.

The body is simply a machine, Dave thought, slowly turning the cup in his hands and listening to the crackling of the burning wood. It has its cables, its fuses, and its mechanical levers. To permanently disable someone, there is no need to crush thick bones, tear muscles, or waste energy on heavy Gōtai armoring. One simply needs to strike precisely where the nervous system is most exposed and susceptible to pressure.

In his head, free from earthly limitations, the outline of a new, murderously effective style began to form, which he provisionally named the Inertia Lock.

This will be the Quick style. Three points of geometric pressure that will demolish the enemy's entire motor control without bloodshed, without effort, and without unnecessary noise.

The first point was the brachial plexus. Dave visualized a deep, anatomical hollow just beneath the enemy's collarbone, where the main bundle of nerves controlling the limb runs. A precise, hard strike with his fingers to this spot instantly cut off the motor signals sent from the brain directly to the hand. The weapon would simply slip from the enemy's limp grasp, rendering them defenseless in a fraction of a second.

The second point was the popliteal tendon. Dave thought about the physics of the human step and biomechanical levers. A short, targeted pressure right behind the knee, combined with a minimal use of the opponent's momentum, had to trigger an unconditional defensive reflex of the organism. The enemy would lose their support point and immediately collapse to their knees, losing all momentum of their attack and landing face-first in the mud.

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The third, ultimate point was the base of the neck. A strike to the dense nerve node just above the spine shut down consciousness instantly, before the brain could even register the pain signal. A clean, clinical reset of the entire system.

"Zero bloodshed, zero waste of energy. Pure pragmatism," Dave smiled slightly under his breath, finishing his hot infusion. "When I return to the city, I can't fire sapphire lightning at every ruffian and make a racket across half the district. That brings down the city guard, hostile guilds, and unnecessary trouble. The Inertia Lock will allow me to step into the middle of a crowd, disable a target with one invisible touch, and walk away before anyone even notices that anything happened."

"Stop idling, kid," the old man's raspy voice broke his thoughts. "Theorizing by the fire won't win the fight for you. Time for a test on a living organism."

Sensei walked to one of the heavy, wooden cages set on the edge of the forest clearing. He opened the creaking, steel bolt and kicked the oak door, which swung open with a crash.

From the dark interior, with a quiet, predatory hiss, slid the long, agile silhouette of a forest lizard. The beast had skin covered in hard, scaly plates of a rotten green color, and its unnaturally long legs ended in sharp claws designed for tearing meat. The creature greedily drew in the air with its bifurcated tongue, and its vertical pupils instantly locked onto Dave standing in the middle of the clearing.

"Your splotches remain blocked," the old man reminded him, withdrawing to a safe distance and leaning against a thick oak trunk. "You are to disable this beast using your Inertia Lock. If I feel even a single spark of sapphire mana in your conduits, you're going back to the basalt pillar until nightfall."

Dave stood up slowly from the wooden bench, tossing his coat aside. He remained in his trousers alone. His splotches were cold, silent, and completely dark. This was the key element of the White Room style—the complete relaxation of his energy conduits. When the conduits did not pulse with magic, predators sensing energy treated him as an ordinary, harmless obstacle of the terrain. Dave became completely dead to their mystical senses, devoid of any signature.

The lizard hissed furiously, bounced off the damp moss, and charged with inhuman agility, aiming its claws directly at the boy's chest.

Dave did not flinch. He activated Yomi I. He sensed the sudden tension in the beast's hind legs a fraction of a second before the jump. He took a minimal, lateral dodge, letting the flying beast pass centimeters from his shoulder.

As the lizard passed him in the air, Dave delivered a strike. His right hand, formed into a narrow, hard wedge, struck silently and with surgical precision directly into the anatomical hollow beneath the monster's left shoulder.

The effect was immediate.

The invisible lock worked flawlessly. The lizard's left front leg instantly lost all muscle tension and fell limply like a dead piece of meat. With a hollow groan, the creature hit the ground, losing its balance and plowing its snout into the damp moss. Dave slid past it with a brazen chill, without making a single unnecessary movement.

Yet the beast was not about to give up. Enraged by the sudden paralysis of its limb, it swung its heavy torso violently, trying to lash Dave with its long, spiked tail.

The boy tried to repeat the maneuver. He performed a short dodge and struck with his left hand, aiming at the popliteal tendon of the monster's hind leg. However, the lizard jiggled to the side at the very last fraction of a second.

Dave's fingers, instead of the soft hollow beneath the joint, struck with full force directly into the hard, horny plate of armor on the beast's hip.

CRACK.

A sharp, dry pain exploded in the boy's hand. Two joints in his fingers cracked under the impact of the hard collision with the rocky scale, and his fingers bent at an unnatural angle. Yet Dave did not pull his hand back in panic. He did not emit a single sound. In accordance with the iron rule of controlled masochism, the boy instantly cast the suffering aside, treating the cracked bone as a clean, dry diagnostic readout from the damaged limb.

Positioning error, he analyzed in a millisecond, withdrawing half a step before the snapping jaws of the lizard. The tension in my wrist was too high. I tried to strike with muscle force, which ruined the structure of the blow against a hard obstacle. I must relax my conduits even more. Dose the energy only a fraction of a second before the physical contact, isolating the conduction.

The lizard jumped again, snapping its teeth just before his face.

Dave used Yomi I to perfectly sense the moment of attack. He dodged his head by centimeters, letting the beast's teeth snap in empty space. At the same moment, his damaged hand—completely relaxed, empty, and cold—shot forward.

Dave pumped a microscopic, precise pulse of KAI directly into the popliteal tendon of the lizard's hind leg exactly in the millisecond of physical contact between his skin and the beast's body.

The biomechanics worked instantly.

The lizard's hind limb bent unnaturally under the influence of an unconditional spasm, and the monster's large, heavy body crashed onto its belly directly into the mud with a hollow thud. Before the creature could raise its head, Dave took a quick step behind its back and struck with the edge of his hand exactly at the base of the neck, just above the spine.

A clinical reset occurred.

The lizard instantly went limp, its eyes glazing over. The beast slumped onto the moss, completely unconscious but fully alive.

Dave stepped back, slowly straightening his posture. A brazen chill returned to his lips. He looked at his damaged fingers, then with one strong jerk, snapped the cracked joints back into place. A quiet crunch of bone echoed through the clearing, but the boy's face remained a cold monolith.

The sparring ended. On the damp moss lay three forest lizards. All were completely paralyzed, unconscious, but their bodies remained intact. They had not lost a single drop of blood, and their valuable, hard armor and essence cores were of perfect quality, free from any damage sustained in combat.

Sensei walked slowly to the prone creatures. He bent down, examined the lizards' nerve nodes with his rough hand, and then straightened up slowly. For the first time in many months, a rare, incredibly valuable gesture appeared on his stern, wrinkled face—a minimal nod of deep, craftsman's approval.

"Empty conduits, cold engine, and surgical precision," the old man spoke quietly, leaning on his bamboo staff. "You've made a clean craft out of this, kid. Your Inertia Lock works flawlessly on soft, biological targets."

Dave adjusted the collar of his black coat, which he had just thrown over his shoulders. The brazen chill on his face shone in the light of the setting sun.

"On pure logic, Sensei, this style will disable anyone in a fraction of a second," Dave muttered, glancing at his regenerated fingers. "No noise and no wasting of splotches."

The old man smiled preyingly, a murderous, dangerous flame igniting in his misty eyes.

"It works flawlessly on lizards and unarmed men, kid," the old man took a step forward, his voice becoming low and heavy. "But what will you do when a monster clad in full steel plate stands before you? Or a giant with skin so thick and hard that your precise fingers will simply break at the first strike? What will you do with your Quick style then? How do you intend to break through a solid wall of iron without using brutal force?"

Dave froze, the brazen chill on his face stiffening minimally. The old man's words instantly struck his engineering sense of optimization. He understood the challenge. The Quick style was perfect for quiet pacification, but in a clash with a hard, armored monolith, he needed something entirely different.

He needed a raw, uncompromising młócka. A style that would physically smash any barrier and crush the enemy's armor to pieces.

Dave clenched his hand into a powerful fist. The air around his fingers trembled violently, and a dry leaf lying on the ground cracked in half on the fluffy moss from the sudden, kinetic pressure.

"Time to learn how to break solid basalt," he murmured quietly under his breath.

Time to learn raw, uncompromising and brutal violence, where the only things that matter are pure, destructive momentum and the hard clash of bone against steel. “Beat-’em-up”—a style designed to shatter the thickest armor and topple titans—was just taking shape in his mind.