CHAPTER 85 Precision of the Night, Rigor of the Day

A deep, freezing night hung low over the devastated valley of Yomi, and the thick, impenetrable darkness crawled lazily between the cracked, basalt walls. The air carried the scent of dampness, crushed stone, forest resin, and the stinging smoke from the smoldering campfire. Dave was not asleep. He sat barefoot on the edge of the cracked basalt arena plate, holding a clay cup of a bitter, scalding herbal infusion in his hands. Every deeper breath brought a physical pain—his chest was densely covered in dark bruises from the blows of the bamboo staff, and on his left shoulder was a fresh, jagged cut from a sharp stone shard.

His energy conduits, however, were completely calm. Although the sapphire splotches in his chest purred quietly, regenerating the damaged tissues and closing his wounds, the boy did not allow the energy to leak mindlessly or manifest outwardly in the slightest. His entire KAI remained tightly pressed within his soul, suppressed to an absolute minimum. Dave was learning the strict discipline of conservation, and the night was the only time his body could find a cold, analytical distance from the daily katorga.

On his blood-streaked, dry lips, however, a brazen chill slowly bloomed.

Before him, spread directly on the cold, rough stone, lay old, half-burned parchment scrolls. Sensei had tossed them to him the previous evening with a mocking grin, claiming that without them, the kid would break his fingers on the first armored opponent he met, and his strikes would resemble a butcher flailing at a market. The scrolls contained extremely detailed, hand-drawn anatomical sketches. They depicted the circulatory systems, nerve plexuses, and vital points of humans, elves, dwarves, and various species of wilderness beasts inhabiting the wild reaches of Crossgard.

Dave did not look for magic in these drawings. For him, this was not a mystical manual of esoteric techniques or an esoteric tome full of spiritual wisdom. He treated these scrolls like a clean, engineering schematic of a complex biological machine. Holding a sharpened piece of charcoal in his fingers, the boy leaned over the basalt plate and, with millimeter precision, traced the nerve connections onto the smooth, dark stone surface. He analyzed the muscular and skeletal structure with cold detachment, comparing it to the principles of mechanics he remembered from Earth.

The body is simply a complex structure, Dave thought, slowly sipping his scalding infusion and looking at the sketched brachial plexus. It has its splotches, its physical levers, and above all, its vulnerable joints. If I strike the cervical plexus with the right vector, mass, and speed, I will cut off the oxygen supply to the brain in a fraction of a second. No shouting. Zero unnecessary bloodshed. Pure resource and time optimization.

His gaze slid over the sketch of an elven shoulder. He focused particularly on the brachial plexus—a dense, complex nerve node hidden just beneath the collarbone that controlled the entire motor function of the limb. Introducing a minimal, condensed impulse of physical force there triggered immediate motor paralysis of the entire arm. Dave smiled slightly under his breath. Memorizing these complex patterns directly required grueling, memorization work, but the boy felt a predatory satisfaction. When he returned to Crossgard, he did not intend to run through the streets hurling sapphire lightning at every ruffian, making a racket across half the district and drawing the attention of the city guard and hostile guilds. The "Quick" style—a clinical, quiet, and invisible to onlookers Inertia Lock—was to become his most powerful weapon in the urban jungle.

A few hours later, as the freezing, damp dawn began to slowly disperse the thick darkness of the night, a thick, impenetrable fog rose over the forest valley. Moisture settled on the tree trunks, making everything around seem slippery, treacherous, and cold.

Dave stood on the top of one of the dozen high, basalt pillars that he had erected deep in the forest months ago. The pillars had different heights—some reached three meters, others barely protruded above the dense, damp ferns. Their tops were small, round, and covered with a layer of treacherous, slippery dew. The distances between them forced an inhuman precision of movement; one false step, a minor slip of balance, and the boy would tumble onto the sharp, basalt edges accumulated at the base of the pillars.

Dave's eyes were tightly covered with a black, leather blindfold that completely cut him off from the external world. His energy splotches were empty, quiet, and freezing. The boy applied the strict "White Room" protocol—complete suppression and relaxation of his energy conduits. Without the sapphire current to correct his errors in flight, Dave had to rely solely on the pure physics of his body and his newly born sense, which was slowly replacing his eyes.

He activated Yomi I.

This was not the full, three-dimensional scanner of the environment he used previously to map the cave to avoid falling boulders. Yomi I was something much more raw, deeper. It was primal, animal observation—reading the opponent's intent, air vibrations, and the tension of the atmosphere. Dave stood barefoot on one leg, balancing on the slippery, cold stone, his senses extending across the entire clearing. He can hear the heavy, steady breathing of Sensei standing on the ground dozen meters away. He can hear the single dew drops falling from the fern leaves and the gentle rustle of the wind in the treetops.

Whoosh.

The air at his left temple violently shifted. Dave did not need sight to know what was coming. Sensei had hurled a heavy, hard basalt pinecone with inhuman force. The boy did not panic. Instead of making a sudden, uncontrolled jump that would instantly throw him off the pillar, he minimally deflected his head to the side. The stone projectile flew millimeters from his ear, clipping a few strands of his black hair and ricocheting with a dull thud off the neighboring pillar.

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.

Three more stone shards flew simultaneously from different angles. Dave instantly mapped their vectors through Yomi I. He sensed the direction of the throw, the mass, and the speed of each one a fraction of a second before the attack itself. His body moved in a jagged, asymmetrical rhythm. He took a short, precise step back, landing his foot on another, lower pillar whose position he had memorized with millimeter precision during his nightly analysis. Then he lowered his stance, letting two boulders pass just over his back, and boundlessly hopped onto the adjacent pillar, maintaining a perfect, unshakeable balance.

"You're tensing your hips too much, kid!" the old man's raspy, mocking voice barked from below. "Because of that, your Yomi is catching an unnecessary delay. Relax your lower body to the limit. You must flow between these pillars like fog, effortlessly!"

Dave did not reply. On his face, despite the streaks of sweat mixing with the freezing dew and dust, a brazen chill still shone. He adjusted his hip position, letting his center of gravity settle much lower, directly over his feet. He became lighter, more flexible, and his movements lost any mechanical stiffness.

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"No more throwing pebbles," Sensei spoke suddenly, and in his voice, Dave sensed a predatory, dangerous satisfaction. "Time for a real test with a moving, aggressive target."

From the dense bushes on the edge of the clearing came a sudden, violent rustle of wet leaves. From the cages released by the old man slid four gray musteles. They were extremely agile, predatory wilderness beasts, with long, flexible bodies covered in thick, gray fur, under which lay bundles of strong muscle. Their paws were equipped with curved, razor-sharp claws that allowed them to easily scale the vertical, basalt pillars. Their predatory, musky scent immediately hit Dave's nostrils, and quiet, guttural growls echoed through the misty valley, chilling the blood.

To the musteles, Dave, standing motionless with his eyes blindfolded and conduits cold, was the perfect, defenseless prey. The beasts charged simultaneously, scaling the basalt pillars with inhuman speed.

Dave froze. His splotches remained quiet—the "White Room" protocol did not allow even a single spark of mana. He had to avoid claws and fangs on the slippery stone, relying solely on the rigor of his physical body and Yomi I.

He heard the rapid scratching of claws scraping the basalt mere meter below his feet. The first mustele leaped from the dense fog, aiming its fangs directly at his throat.

Dave sensed the tension in its muscles a fraction of a second before the jump. He took a minimal, lateral dodge on the edge of the pillar, letting the beast fly past. As the predator passed him in the air, Dave delivered a short, surgical strike. His right hand, formed into a narrow, hard wedge, struck silently and with millimeter precision directly into the beast's brachial plexus.

The impulse of pure, physical force hit the target perfectly. The mustele's left paw instantly lost all tension and fell limply like a dead cord. With a hollow whimper, the beast crashed down, hitting the basalt base and losing all will to fight.

In the same fraction of a second, two more musteles attacked from behind. Their long, flexible bodies slid over the stone with terrifying speed, and Dave could hear their rapid, shallow breathing.

Dave tried to make a quick turn on the slippery edge, but the dew on the basalt did its work. His left foot minimally slid on the wet stone. He lost a fraction of a second reclaiming his balance.

Slash!

The razor-sharp fangs of the third mustele sank deep into his left calf. Dave felt the beast's teeth tear his skin and grind deep into the muscle. Warm, thick blood instantly splattered onto the freezing, gray basalt. Pain exploded in his leg, tearing through his nervous system with terrifying force. The impact of the hit pushed him sideways, throwing him off the narrow pillar.

Dave tumbled down.

Any other seeker would have panicked, but Dave was no ordinary man. Under the rule of controlled masochism, the boy completely cut off the emotional layer of suffering. He did not hiss, cry out, or lose his cold composure. The pain in his calf was solely a dry diagnostic readout—a hard piece of error data that his Battle IQ analyzed in a millisecond.

"Zasraniec mnie nieźle użarł..."—flashed through his mind with a brazen, predatory chill as gravity pulled him down. "But his mistake, I'll reset his stupid head in a moment. My hip was off by three centimeters to the left and my Yomi caught a lag. Alright, watch this, you bastard."

Dave's engineering mind worked at the highest gears. In mid-air, just before colliding with the sharp rocks below, the boy shot his right hand upward. His fingers clamped onto the edge of a neighboring, lower pillar. The boy's shoulders tensed to their absolute limit, absorbing the powerful jerk that would have torn the shoulder joint of an ordinary human. Hanging by one hand over the hard valley floor, Dave wasted no time self-pitying. Using the momentum of his fall and core strength, he pulled his entire body up with one powerful contraction of his core muscles, landing back on top of the pillar with absolute, mocking ease.

The mustele that had bitten him leaped again, enraged by the scent of fresh blood. Its jaws, lined with bared fangs, were mere centimeters from his face.

Dave stood firm, his empty conduits remaining freezing cold. He did not use a single drop of mana. He raised his right hand, forming his fingers into a tight wedge. The movement was short, silent, and devoid of any wind-up—pure, condensed economy of motion that eliminated unnecessary air resistance.

Thud.

He struck precisely at the pressure point just behind the predator's ear. It was a textbook Clinical Reset.

The effect was immediate and absolute. The mustele's sight instantly went dark, its body lost all tension, and, wiotczejąc in mid-air, fell limply to the valley floor like a heavy, leather sack. The beast was fully alive, but its nervous system was completely, clinically disabled with one precise touch.

Dave immediately shifted his weight to his healthy leg, sensing the movement of the last predator through Yomi I. The mustele tried to flee, sensing the boy's predatory dominance. Dave took one quick, asymmetrical step, caught it on the adjacent pillar, and with a strike to the popliteal tendon forced it to collapse instantly, then with a pressure to the neck sent it into a deep, silent sleep.

The tremors in the clearing faded. The dense fog began to slowly thin under the first rays of the morning sun, revealing the rugged beauty of the deep wilderness.

On the damp moss beneath the basalt pillars lay four gray musteles. All were fully alive, their chests rising in steady, calm breaths, but their bodies remained completely paralyzed. There was not a single wound on their skin, no blood spilled—their valuable, gray fur and armored scales were in perfect, undamaged condition. For traders in Crossgard, such a catch was worth a small fortune, as the raw materials were completely free from combat damage, which significantly increased their crafting value for armorers or tailors working for guilds.

Dave slowly removed the leather blindfold from his eyes, squinting against the sharp morning light. On his blood-streaked calf were deep tooth marks, from which a trickle of blood still seeped. The boy ignored it, however, squatting at the edge of the pillar and looking at his hands with a brazen chill.

His regeneration—driven by the quiet sapphire flow in his splotches—was already beginning to close the edges of the wound.

Sensei walked slowly toward the prone predators. He bent down, examined their nerve nodes with his rough, scarred hand, and then straightened up slowly, leaning on his bamboo staff. On his stern, wrinkled face appeared a rare, incredibly valuable gesture of approval—a minimal nod of deep, craftsman's approval.

"You paralyzed them, kid. The Inertia Lock worked," the old man spoke, his raspy voice cutting the silence of the morning. "But your touch is still too heavy. You left minimal bruises on their skin under the fur."

Dave raised an eyebrow, not losing his brazen chill.

"On pure logic, Sensei, the beasts are lying there asleep, and the loot is intact. To me, that's pure optimization," Dave replied, shrugging his shoulders.

"Nonsense," the old man tapped the end of his staff hard against the basalt stone, making the air tremble. "If a knight in heavy steel plate or a beast with skin as hard as solid granite stood before you, your fingers would break from the sheer friction of such a long contact. You struck precisely, but too slowly. The contact lasted an entire millisecond too long."

The old man stepped closer, his misty eyes of a tiger's eye color flashing with a cold, professional gleam.

"Your strike in the Quick style must be like a bolt of lightning. You must touch the vital point, discharge a minimal impulse of energy, and withdraw your hand in a fraction of a millisecond. You must extinguish the fuse in the enemy's body and vanish before their nervous system even registers that they were touched. If you do not shorten the contact time to the absolute minimum, on the deeper floors of the dungeons you will be just a dead amateur with broken fingers."

Dave closed his sapphire eye, and a new tactical calculation immediately began to take shape in his mind. The old man's words perfectly struck his engineering sense of optimization. He understood. The Quick style could not rely on pressure force—it had to rely on the speed of the impulse discharge.

He needed a method that would shorten the physical contact time to the absolute, inhuman minimum. He had to learn to strike phase-by-phase, releasing energy exactly at the point of contact and not a microsecond longer.

Dave stood up slowly, brushing the basalt dust from his trousers. He looked at his blood-streaked fingers, and a predatory, self-confident smile bloomed on his lips.

"The rigor of the millisecond," he murmured quietly under his breath, feeling the sapphire flow in his chest violently accelerate.

The work on the Quick style was just entering its most ruthless, surgical phase.