Chapter 56: Walking the Road to Mastery

A steel palm smashed Jack into a wall. He landed with his bare feet against it and shot off again, turning to the right to avoid the robot’s charge. It chased him, relentless, smashing hard into the walls and floor wherever he stopped even momentarily.

The training room’s door was ajar, and Brock peeked from the opening. His eyes flashed as he scanned the battle, observing how they moved.

Jack landed and turned on the spot. A fist sailed over his head, barely missing him as he planted one of his own in the robot’s chest. It did nothing. He jumped, kicked against a nearby wall, and spun to reposition himself. A palm met his side, but he was defending, and the strike sent him flying but left him unharmed.

The robot was after him again. It unleashed a barrage of attacks, forcing Jack to stay in place and dodge frantically. A punch clipped his shoulder. A kick found his knee, making him stagger. He leaned into the momentum to dodge the next attack, but he suddenly found himself airborne.

A hand grabbed his head and smashed him face-first into the floor. Even on the soft material, it hurt like hell.

The robot jumped back, giving Jack some space. “Much better than before, Master,” it quipped in joy. “Next time, you might even be able to attack me!”

“Yeah, fuck you too.”

Jack sat up, holding his broken nose.

“Would you like med—”

“For the last time, no, I don’t need medical assistance. It will heal.”

“But it might soil your clothes, Master.”

Jack looked down and grumbled. “It’s fine. I have more.”

Brock fell on him right then, observing him tenderly for a moment before flexing his muscles. He pointed at Jack, then the robot, then pretended to have a broom and wipe the floor.

Jack laughed. Brock was still struggling with metaphors. “I will, bro, I will. Just give me a few days.”

Brock pointed at the base of his tail as if asking, “Should I poop him, big bro?” but Jack only shook his head.

It was already the twentieth time he lost today. He’d refused to lower the difficulty, demanding to face the training robot’s fifth level over and over. His greatest concession was asking it not to hit him too hard, as it might have affected his performance in the tournament.

At first, he was losing horribly. The robot moved at incredible speed, an entire league above the black wolf, and Jack’s eyes struggled just to keep up. He could barely dodge one attack if he was fully focused, let alone two.

However, as time went by, he slowly adapted. The robot’s bodily gifts were fearsome, but they were all it had. Jack was smarter, more experienced, more skilled, and had his Dao to help him. Plus, he had some Skills sweating to keep him afloat.

Name: Jack Rust

Species: Human, Earth-387

Faction: Bare Fist Brotherhood

Grade: F

Class: Pugilist (Elite)

Level: 35

Strength: 99

Dexterity: 99

Constitution: 99

Mental: 9

Will: 7

Skills: Fistfighting (III), Drill (II), Pugilist Body (II), Parkour (II)

Dao Skills: Meteor Punch (I)

Titles: Planetary Frontrunner (10)

His stats hadn’t moved in a long time. On the surface, even his skills had stayed stagnant. However, that was far from the truth.

Like Dao cultivation, combat training was also a cycling between two phases: expansion and stabilization.

Jack’s life-and-death battles in the dungeon had let him gain insights and progress his skills at tremendous rates. He’d already reached levels that most humans couldn’t even dream about—according to the advanced information package, skills had five tiers, but even reaching the third was exceedingly rare. For Fistfighting, he’d achieved it within a week.

That was the expansion part.

However, after progressing, downtime was necessary. Simply fighting like mad would yield limited benefits. It was necessary to take your time, work with your skills, experiment, and discover their limits. After defeating Henry White and Gan Salin, Jack had taken the time to train seriously, unearthing more and more potential out of his skills.

That was the stabilization part.

It was odd, in a way. He originally thought skills were tools he could use to better control his weapons—his stats—but as it turned out, skills, too, were weapons, and the tools to using them properly were understanding and conscious effort. The only exception was his Dao Skill, but Jack felt that it would increase in line with his Dao, not any sort of training.

For everything else, he had to take his time and work hard.

The road to mastery had no shortcuts. It was long and difficult. But when he made it to the end, it would the best feeling in the world.

After his week-long training before the tournament, Jack had already improved his usage of his skills and stats significantly. He had dug out the potential of each skill, making himself stronger in ways that the System didn’t quantify.

If he fought the previous Jack, he would win eight times out of ten. He was nearing the point of complete stabilization, where he would have fine control over his powers and could progress again. But he’d still lacked something. There were bottlenecks to cross, little improvements he simply couldn’t achieve.

Until he met the training robot.

What he lacked was strong opponents; opponents that could push him to his limits constantly and consistently—not breaking them, but helping him reach the highest power he could as his current self. Only when he truly did reach those limits, when he could no longer progress by himself, would he be ready to advance through the System again.

This last part wasn’t detailed in the information package. It was just something he felt deep inside himself, something that felt tedious, unpleasant, and deeply necessary. He was certain that was the way.

Now, after facing the robot for over an hour, he was exhausted but triumphant. He hadn’t beaten it, but he’d gotten much better than before. His reflexes were sharpened and his reactions streamlined. His thoughts were accelerated. Where at first he couldn’t even stand two blows from the robot, he could now fight it for a short time.

He could finally understand why Karvahul had said that the resources offered to the participants were very precious. Such a perfect sparring partner, who was always available and could control his strength perfectly, was rare indeed, and extremely helpful.

He shuddered to think how strong Rufus Emberheart, who’d had access to such resources since childhood, would be.

“Again,” he said, standing up and dusting himself off.

“As you command, Master.” The robot adopted a stance. Brock widened his eyes and bolted off towards the door. “Here I come!”

The robot became a flash of steel. It crossed the distance in an instant, but Jack was ready to meet it. He dodged a fist by a hair’s breadth. He sidestepped into a feint, then jumped on the wall and used parkour to rotate vertically. The robot didn’t expect that. Its kick nailed into the wall.

Jack punched out. He had no thoughts because they’d only slow him down. He reacted on instinct and ingrained patterns. He flowed around the robot’s hands before he could see them, jumped over its legs, then ducked under them. The robot flowed from one movement to the next, but though it was fast, Jack could read its tells.

It strained his perception and reaction to their very limits. It forced him to move in ways he hadn’t considered before and keep developing his repertoire because the robot was intelligent too.

His skills bled into each other.

Parkour and fistfighting worked together. He jumped on walls while simultaneously twisting his body. He unleashed fearsome punches from mid-air and at any angle. He dodged by the narrowest margins during complicated maneuvers.

Jack fell into the flow state. The world slowed down. The robot was manageable.

He ducked and dodged. He ran, turned, and punched. His legs were wings; his arms, hammers.

He was close to something, he could feel it, but not quite there yet.

Jack went on the offensive. As he fell from a wall, he landed and pivoted, letting a fist sail over his head as he threw one himself. It met the robot’s chest with a dull thud, doing little damage. A kick came at him, but he’d already jumped, aligning himself with the robot’s head.

“Meteor Punch!” he shouted. The world turned monochrome. For the first time, the robot had to dodge, barely tilting to the side. Jack’s fist came from above and exploded into its shoulder like a purple meteor, denting the metal and making it stumble.

At the same time, his knuckles cracked, and he had to suppress a groan.

However, even his strongest strike wasn’t enough to take down the robot. A slap met his head, catapulting him into a wall hard enough to bounce away.

The robot regained its footing. Jack was up a beat later. His knuckles hurt like hell, and he had a splitting headache, but he was victorious. He’d done it.

“How’s this for touching, you tin can?” he taunted with a smile.

“It was good, Master.” For the first time, the robot looked at him with something resembling emotion: it was surprise. “You are improving quickly.”

“Of course.” Jack grinned. “You just stay here and wait. By the time the tournament is over, even your seventh level will surrender to me.”

“I look forward to that, Master. You should chase your dreams, even if they’re impossible.”

“Your mother is impossible.”

“I came out of—”

“An oven, I know.” He cracked a grin. “Has anyone ever beaten you?”

“I have been to thousands of tournaments, Master. One person could fight against my seventh level briefly, but nobody could beat me.”

“I’m glad. Remember my name, robot; I’m Jack Rust, and I will be the one to make you kneel.”

“As in, a marriage proposal? That is also impossible.”

“Your mo—”

“She’s impossible, I know. Too bad my mother is an oven.”

Jack threw a surprised glance. He couldn’t hold back a chuckle. “We should find you a name at some point. See you later, robot.”

“See you, Master.”

Still smiling, Jack turned and left the room. Brock had stopped watching at some point and was back to lifting the dumbbell—the same one he always failed at. However, like Jack, he refused to go lower.

Now, for the first time, the dumbbell moved. With a shout, Brock lifted it a foot off the ground, then let it drop with a heavy thud. He turned to Jack; and though he was sweating, tired, and probably in pain, he gave a manly thumbs-up.

Jack returned it.

“The world is not ready for us, bro,” he said.

Brock laughed.

***

Come dawn of the next day, Jack and Brock found themselves in the arena again. Edgar was there, as was Karvahul. However, the audience was significantly sparser than the previous day, giving them room to stretch.

Which made it even more surprising when a tall, slim, dark-skinned woman walked towards them and sat right next to Jack. Her hair was dark and long, while she donned a fiery red dress. She held no weapon.

Human (Earth-387), Level 41

Faction: Flame River

Title: Planetary Frontrunner (10)

“Hello,” she said in a friendly voice. “My name is Vivi Eragorn, and I’m the leader of Flame River. You must be John Brown, right? Would you like to watch the fights together?”