28 Bulls on parade

Harrison went back to the shack and looked at the weapons. He took a one-handed sword that he was most familiar with and went back outside. Looking at the well flattened arena he walked inside through the opening in the fence and tried to familiarize himself with the weight of it.

As he was doing so he heard footsteps approaching him. He turned his head and saw Rogun walking towards the arena. He ignored him and made the standard movements described in the book he had in his inventory.

Rogun stopped at the fence and didn't say a thing in the next ten minutes.

Harrison ignored him and pretended he didn't exist being stubborn.

'If you won't acknowledge I exist neither will I.' He thought to himself as his movements became more fluid.

'These are not movements of a 12-year-old kid. The technique is for beginners but even then the time it takes to reach such fluidity between moves can only be found in people who had swordsmanship classes since they were toddlers. This guy must be up to something with Sheina.' Rogun thought as he observed Harrison.

"Give me your sphere of translation." Rogun finally spoke with irritation saying he would be rather anywhere else but here.

Harrison took the second sphere and handed it to him.

"How long have you been practicing the way of the sword and who is your teacher?" Rogun asked with authority.

"Four days. And I don't have a teacher. I learned it from a book." Harrison replied truthfully.

"Do you think I am a moron? You! Took! Four days! To get such fluidity between movements?" Rogun yelled.

"Yes. Is there a problem?" Harrison asked.

"You!" Rogun got a hold of himself only because he was speaking to someone who saved Sheina's life and was Shalmoon's guest.

"Where do you have that book you learned from?" Rogun asked him to try to expose the lie.

"It's in my room. Shall I go get it?" Harrison looked at him with an annoyed expression.

"Yes. Go get it." Rogun was annoyed by the kid's arrogance also.

Harrison went to his room and got the book out of his inventory and came back to the backyard while Rogun was inspecting the training swords in the shack.

As he walked back he showed the book in Rogun's hands before walking into the arena again.

"You! I swear I will spank you silly if you don't show me some respect." Rogun said.

Harrison looked him dead in the eyes and replied while gritting his teeth, "Respect is something you earn. It is not something that is given freely."

"Well said." Rogun said before in a flash he had Harrison over his knee and spanked him hard ten times on the behind.

"Do you respect me yet kid?" He yelled as he finished.

Harrison feeling embarrassed got even angrier.

"Go *uck a gorilla you silver monkey."

"Do you respect me yet kid?" Rogun yelled as he finished another round of ten.

In the meantime virtual messages of masochist skill leveling up and energy consumption were flying at Harrison's face.

'You better kill me now because if I survive this I will pay it back for sure.' Harrison almost yelled this before he changed his mind fearing Rogun would actually do it.

"You look like a gray monkey and stink like one. So you must be one." Harrison yelled instead.

"In all my years. Never." Rogun yelled before another twenty smacks followed.

"Do you respect me yet. Do ya?" He yelled before throwing Harrison on the ground just as Sheina ran to them.

"What are you two doing?" She yelled gasping for air.

Rogun looked at her and replied, "The kid needed to learn how to respect his elders!"

"And you need to learn how to respect other people's guests. I am sure he didn't deserve to be punished and embarrassed like this. Why was he disrespectful? You were antagonizing him from the moment you met him. I am not the same girl I was when my mother was abducted. I saw the way you looked at him like a lamb waiting for slaughter the moment we walked into the dining room. You were disrespectful to him and myself considering your judgment is way above mine. Trying to protect me from the world when you are almost never here. I was going to let it go because I respect you for what you did for my parents and not mention it. But now you do this? You were asked if you can teach him to use weapons and not to beat him into submission."

Sheina went on a tirade as Harrison got up from the ground and dusted himself off. Rogun tried to intervene with some, "But… But…, but he never stood a chance. He was like a giant bear being scolded by a schoolgirl. Harrison was smirking at him as he dejectedly stood there.

As Sheina noticed him smirking, she changed her attention to him.

"And YOU. I explained who Rogun is and what he means to my father. Even if he has a bad temper and is a little crass, sometimes he would have never raised a hand on you as our guest if you had not provoked him. Maybe my father left you with an idea that it is all right to provoke a bear. Even then you could respect him as an elder."

"I am disappointed in the both of you." She yelled at them before she left.

By now both of them were looking down at their feet like two schoolboys being caught by their teacher doing something wrong.

Rogun sighed and sat down on the ground. Harrison did the same, but he soon jumped up as his buttocks felt like they had nails in them.

He glared at Rogun after that but stayed his tongue. Turning his back towards Rogun he leaned on the fence and sighed. Checking his skills he saw that Masochist reached level 6 and his energy was at 3 units.

'Damn it. I am sure this episode will cost me energy when I cross over. The amount of not enough energy I got will probably push me above level 10 in Masochist.'

As he was thinking that Rogun came from behind and showed a book in front of him.

"If you can learn this in four days you will earn respect and my trust and I will apologize to you in front of Shalmoon and Sheina. If not, don't bother looking for me."

He left after saying that.

Harrison checked out the book and it was a book about a spear technique. He left soon after that back to his room where he read the book.

He considered reading it without the help of the system, but he decided not to. Right now he had the right tool to not worry about energy expenditure too much while he was somewhere safe.

He started meditating which left him with a bit of a dilemma. The first time he meditated was sitting in a Buddhist pose. Right now his butt cheeks were red as a cooked crab, and he could not sit on them even on the soft bed. He tried meditating while standing up and after a while he succeeded.

+1 Energy

+1 Energy

+1 Energy

After a couple of hours he managed to regain four energy. He didn't want more or the masochism skill would gobble it up. He analyzed the book and learned it.

Spearmanship skill unlocked.

Spearmanship skill LVL. 1 acquired.

Bonus Strength +1

Bonus Dexterity +1 (not applied since over 10)

Spearmanship skill LVL. 2 acquired.

Englin came by his room after that and invited him for lunch, but he politely declined his invitation saying he was not feeling well. In all honesty Harrison just didn't want to stand by the table and eat since he was still unable to sit without wincing.

He took out the roasted ferun and nibbled on it.

"I bet my food is better than theirs." Harrison consoled himself as he satiated his hunger.

As he put away the ferun back into the inventory he was left with 0 energy units. He started meditating by standing. He was bored so then he started meditating while walking. The energy was starting to rise when he got the hang of it. Once he reached 3 units the spearmanship automatically leveled up. After a while it once again leveled up at 4. The day passed by Harrison walking in his room or standing while meditating and learning spearmanship all the way to level 6.

The images of the spear movements were floating in front of his eyes as he closed them. The feeling he had to practice with a real spear was growing in him with every passing minute.

After a while he could no longer hold it in, and he went out from his room and down the stairway into the backyard to get a spear.

As he got into the arena he started adjusting to the weight of the spear. He tried twirling it, swinging it and did all possible movements with it. His main idea was to get familiar with it.

Suddenly he executed the movements from the book slowly. As he made the first whole set of movements he did it again. They were still slow but faster than before and lacked cohesiveness.

Next round was even faster as he accelerated with every move.

'I am missing something since some moves I can't connect fluently. I come to a stop once I get there instead of being able to continue with the next move… I better meditate some more and finish this book.' Harrison felt dejected.

Harrison didn't notice someone was watching him from the time he came to the backyard.

Rogun saw him rushing out of the house as he came back to the mansion for dinner and followed him hiding himself in between some green bushes like a giant gray moth.

First he was laughing on the inside at Harrison's attempts to wield the spear but when Harrison started doing movements from the book his laughter stopped. Only he knew this spear technique was a special one he got from a friend who died in the fortress and was the last of his lineage. It was a part of that friend's family heirloom technique. Albeit the lowest level part for beginners but it was still specific enough he could recognize his friends movements in it.

As Harrison left Rongun also quickly left for dinner and wanted to apologize there to him.

As he got there he only found Sheina and Shalmoon sitting by the table waiting for him.

"Where is Roberts?" Rogun asked with agitation in his voice.

"He excused himself. He said he is not feeling well. What's the matter?" Inquired Shalmoon who felt flustered by his teacher's agitation.

"I think I made a big mistake." Replied Rogun shaking his head.