Ch 81. Training

Bael's not his real name? An alias possibly? I couldn't understand the reason why he would do that. He knew about my relation with Tammy, I was bound to find out about it eventually... which is exactly what happened anyways. 

Apparently when she had known the guild master he went by 'Renout', a fairly unremarkable man by her account. A useless man who had gotten his job purely based on his lineage, being a distant line from the royal family. Not influential or talented enough to earn a name for himself, but his family having enough sway to find him some easy job like a guild master position in a remote frontier town. A job which he promptly abandoned. 

That was the profile of someone who was an envoy of the church? It sounded ridiculous but that was the situation. Having a hard time matching up the irresponsible and inept sounding 'Renout', with the intensely unsettling 'Bael' that I had met earlier. Bael didn't seem incompetent in the slightest, rather he was such a smooth talker that it seemed he could get his way with anything. 

Pondering just what it was about him that bothered me so much while I trained skills, practicing my movement abilities to gain more familiarity. Finally settling on confronting him about his fake name tomorrow when I found the time. That particular subject seemed harmless enough, and with how little I knew about these people every bit of information mattered.

With my mind resolved, I sped around the outside of the house with bursts of [quick steps], no longer bothering with subtlety now that my system was already known to pretty much everyone that was a potential enemy at this point. It wasn't that I was thinking of telling Belle and Tammy everything, that'd only make them bigger targets in the future, but showing off like this in front of them was not a problem in my eyes. 

Magic made for a convenient excuse after all. 

Running around the house while the two girls watched, occasionally bursting forth with a brief unnatural speed many times that of a human. Belle's eyes lighting up as she abandoned the laundry in favor of chasing after me, the bell on her collar ringing like crazy while she chased me around like it was a game of tag. With how monstrous my constitution had become, I could probably run like this for an entire day without rest, practically at a dead sprint. I could go faster, but I was having a hard time balancing when I added quick steps on top of that top speed. The sudden acceleration difficult to deal with when I was already straining. 

As far as the other 'movement' ability, [soft steps]. I had thought it was useless at first but the more I got used to it, the more I realized the kind of utility it could have. It didn't just make my footsteps quieter, it made them 'softer'. My weight and any other force was actually neutralized against surfaces on the ground. 

The way I found out was really once by coincidence, walking around with Tammy and Belle after a morning's rain, happening through a patch of mud where both of their footprints came through while mine barely left any mark at all in the soil, despite our differences in weight. With some focused testing I found that the force I could exert through my feet was greatly reduced, while simultaneously the force exerted from the ground or other surface onto my foot was less. If my constitution was lower, I probably would have noticed it earlier, but walking normally exerted so little effort that it was basically just like breathing, and a rank 1 reduction was only a small fraction of that. 

Maxing out the skill as soon as I picked up on the practical applications of such an ability. Feeling much lighter than before as I stood still, but the sensation of walking now unfamiliar and surprisingly challenging, the feedback of feeling the ground underneath me with my feet was apparently more important than I initially thought.

With slight modifications, I ended up with something that felt more like I was falling through the air instead of walking on properly solid ground. Putting most of my weight on my back leg, which gave me a sickening feeling in my gut like I was falling weightlessly, not feeling the proper feedback of standing on ground that I was used to. Turning off the passive for a second to regain my balance. 

The two girls watching my abnormal and awkward movements with amusement while they finished up the laundry.  

I was initially planning to use the skill for falling or climbing, but even with walking it seems like there were some useful applications. Starting to get the feeling down now, precariously moving each foot forward at an incline. Leaning far more than gravity would normally allow, but still able to support myself as normal. So long as my foot was touching the ground, it practically neutralized all of my force, feeling nearly weightless and able to support myself with just a slight push from my toes. It could barely be described as 'walking' at this point. I was basically just falling forward and letting the skill on my feet catch me, noticing that I could walk faster by leaning forward at an increased angle, feeling almost like I was being held up by cables. 

Naturally accelerating as I leaned forward even more, taking bigger and quicker steps as I flew through the field effortlessly, feeling the wind rush through my hair. I at such an incline at this point though, that the only way to keep balanced was to keep running forward, otherwise I would fall. My face getting closer and closer to the ground before I finally lost my balance, tripping up from the unnatural and unbalanced movements. Skidding through the loose dirt with my face. 

Recovering as I spit out clumps from my mouth, grinning from ear to ear like a kid. This was a funner skill than I imagined. 

Belle jumping on my back as she finally caught up to me, Tammy running over shortly after. Concerned about my fall, not to mention how my movements just now had scared her. 'Magic' was something completely strange to her. Not wanting to cause her any more worries for one day, I threw in the towel early. 

Giving up skill training so that the three of us could continue in bed. Satisfying the two into a deep sleep, while I needed even less sleep now that I had five more points in constitution. Barely sleeping an hour before I was wide awake again, almost feeling like I had slept ten hours and couldn't physically sleep another wink.

Itching to get out of bed, I slipped outside. Taking a breath of the Spring air, feeling like it was going to rain again tonight.  Fishing out some low quality crystalized mana cores from my inventory, taking one in each hand, before I began cultivating on them. The warm energy offsetting any discomfort from the night's cold air. Closing my eyes before going into a meditative state. 

Kaguro