"Finally, some real moves," Ghost said in excitement.
"Watch carefully," said Lucius, moving a few steps back to create some space. He got into a neutral stance, standing still for a moment as if waiting for something, before moving forward with terrific swiftness.
It all happened in one fluid movement, a high head quick followed by a spinning back kick. The ferocity from it alone was enough to send Ghost to the floor.
For a moment she couldn't process what had just happened and stared blankly at Lucius, whose leg was still outstretched on the back kick.
[+4 Agility.]
"Do you think you can do it?" he asked, putting his foot down gently before carrying on with his work.
"I-I think so yeah," she stuttered, before getting to her feet.
"Great, you can start immediately since you have nothing else to do," Lucius responded as he weaved a few lines of rope out of grass.
"So how was it again? This leg?" Ghost whispered to herself, trying to imitate the high head kick.
"Start with the other one. Your right leg is better at balancing than your left," Lucius commented as he bound the remaining pieces of twig to the ladder.
As expected, Ghost couldn't even lift her leg up high enough without falling over. Much less throw it out into an effective kick.
~ At least flexibility doesn't seem to be an issue faced by leafings,~ he thought to himself, noticing that her leg movements weren't restricted. Her lack of balance seemed to be the only thing hindering her right now.
"Okay, all done," he whispered, staring at his makeshift ladder. And makeshift it was indeed. The sides of the ladder moved around, making it unstable, and since the twigs weren't of equal size it had an overall skew appearance.
"At least it's sturdy," he commented, testing whether it could hold his weight. The individual twigs moved around a bit to account for the added weight, but after the initial movement, it stood relatively still.
"Yeah, I just have to be careful," he decided, carefully stepping off it before carrying it toward the droopy branch. After making sure its legs were properly planted into the ground, he began his ascent.
He took each step slowly, making sure to give the ladder some time to adjust to his weight before moving up. Unfortunately, even as careful as he was, the ladder begin to wobble, and it only seemed to get worse with every step he took.
On the final three steps, he quickened his pace, jumping off the ladder onto the branch right before it fell to the ground.
"Getting down will probably hurt," he sighed to himself as he clung onto the branch. Luckily the branch seemed to have dried out due to its severed connection with the main tree, so its bark was rough and had many cracks that he could use as platforms to climb on.
[+8 Strength.]
[+2 Stamina.]
[+3 Agility.]
~Yeah, thought so. This feels like rock climbing,~ he thought to himself as he struggled to climb to the top.
After a few minutes, he finally reached the other end of the branch. Though his arms felt like they would fall off at any moment.
"Maybe I should do more bodyweight exercises," he whispered in between labored breaths as he got a look at the surrounding area.
He was currently standing on top of a large branch, perhaps one of the largest in fact. It extended all the way towards a nearby tree, mingling with other branches. He estimated that it was at least 60 centimeters in diameter, which to him was quite massive.
"It's quite flat," he commented, as he walked along it.
"But I'll probably need to remove the bark and sand out the bottom to make it flat enough to use as a base for construction," he realized, walking further up the branch.
From here he could see Alpha standing guard a few meters away from camp. He could also Hannibal sitting by himself a few meters off in the opposite direction, and Ghost who was still falling over trying to master the move he had taught her.
"Though I wonder if I can remove this bark," he wondered, trying to rip off a piece of it, but failing to do so.
"Nope, I'll need some sort of tool," he realized, after trying a few more times.
"I'll also need a tool to cut up a few larger pieces of twig. I can't use them as they are now. They're a little too.." he whispered looking down at his disfigured ladder.
"But what would work as a cutting tool at this size? What's accessible to me?" he pondered, using the moonlight to look around the forest floor.
"Stones?" he wondered, his eyes landing upon a cluster of pebbles a few meters off.
"I could grind them against each other to shape them, but that'll probably take a while. I'm in for a long day's work tomorrow," he said reluctantly.
~Atleast I'm bound to increase my strength points,~ he thought to himself, looking on the bright side.
After slowly descending to the tip of the branch and falling down the rest of the way, Lucius decided to head back to the tent.
"You should come in as well, Ghost. You can continue training tomorrow," he called out before going in. However, she seemed adamant about continuing so he left her to it and took a quick nap.
*
The next morning started like the ones before. A few exercises, a bit of stretching, and then a martial arts session. The only difference was that this time, Ghost was right next to him attempting the move he had taught her last night.
Though if he had to be honest, she seemed to be getting worse. Now she couldn't even stand one leg for more than three seconds without tumbling over, and overall her movements seemed to be more sluggish.
"Go take a rest, you'll get nothing done this way," he ordered, picking her up and carrying her to the tent despite her protests.
