Skill Mastery

In truth, the only way Adam could dodge the attacks was purely through his battle instinct and reflex which was already a cut above normal. Neither Hana nor Irshad was even able to see the or notice the incomming attack. If not for Adams timely assistance earlier, surely Hana's head would already be rolling on the floor in front of them.

If that was the case for skilled ish adventurers like them, what chance would an amnesiac person have againts those attacks especially when caught off guard? He might have shouted out a command to dodge but he knew that it was already too late for to do anything.

SWISH!

the crisp sound of a dagger slashing horizontally in the air could be heard.

"What!" both Angulimala and Adam said at the same time as Jeremy's body blured into the shadow while the dagger slashed through thin air.

...

All along his trail towards the battle between the unknown dagger wielding bandit and Adam, Adam has been thinking deeply about the 'skills' he learned.

What does that even mean?

Could he truly have been pulled into one of those isekai worlds like he often read such as Overlord or Library of Heavens Path?

Being an avid reader of novels, fan of anime, as well as a hard-core gamer on his free time, Jeremy was not alien to these terms and its implications. But usually in those scenarios, the person who gets inducted often have a special ability...

Wait a minute...

Was his ability perhaps to learn skills at a single glance?

As soon as he though about that, he lifted his head to stare at the body of the bandit blurring into darkness and striking Hana moments later.

"Shadow Step skill mastered, Critical Slash mastered." a voice said in his head.

"So I was right..." Jeremy said the realization struck him.

Immediate after that, he could hear Adam taunting the fleeting shadow, "Your strikes are becoming predictable!" following which a shadow which was fleeting around the party of four darted towards his direction.

When it comes to skills, a person can have different levels of mastery for a skill ranging from beginner, adept, intermediate, advance, and lastly master. The mastery of the skill refers to the person's understanding and execution of said skill similar to how a professor and a freshman can both have the same knowledge of a mathematical formula but the professors understanding of it and its utilisation will far surpass what the freshman can.

Because of this however, most people do not learn till the level of mastery for a single skill. There is thousands and thousands of skills to learn and that is not including those of specific occupations and magic yet. A person's life span is limited and thus to spend all his energy on just mastering one skill isn't particularly a smart thing to do. Thus, even though these two skills in tandem were the trump card of Angulimala, his mastery over it has only reached the level of advance.

Due to this however, Jeremy looking at Angulimala executing the Shadow Step skill was as if your professor looking at you blundering your way to solve a simple programming challenge. You might be able to solve it, but your solution will lack the elegance and optimization. At the same time, even if you think you have done a good job to solve the question, your professor would have seen at least a hundred different ways you could have solve the question better.

Similarly, every movement, step and execution Angulimala did for the technique was seen through by Jeremy to the point that he couldn't help but tsk his tongue at the amateurish way the skill was being used.

The skill, Shadow Step, was a movement skill which shifted one's existence into the void, erasing one from the world it self. The void is just another realm which mirrors the world their in but whose time moves ten times slower than ours. Because of this, by going into the void and walking towards your opponent in 20 minutes and then reappearing once again after that to attack, it would seem like you have just fade into the darkness and 2 minutes later appear behind your opponent for an attack.

The version Angulimala was using was sorely lacking. He couldn't maintain his existence in the void realm for long and hence why his shadow could be seen fleeting in and out of existence, betraying his intent.

"I might as well try it out..." seeing that the attacker was lunging towards him, Jeremy decided to try using the very skill that he was critiqueing to prove his hypothesis.

Darkness.

As soon as the skill was activated, his body traverse into a realm of darkness whose scenery mirrors what he saw previously, just that the sky was dark and everything felt a little more sinister.

"Familar..." Jeremy though as he felt the tinge of deja vu coarsing though his body.

"Have I been here before..." Jeremy tried to think of what happened before he reached this new word but to no avail. All he remember was walking home from University after work and...

"Arghhhhh..."

His body shivered, his head ache and cold sweat start to trickle down his neck as dark flashes of unknown entered his mind. He could briefly feel the sensation of his head being twist apart from his neck as he tried to remember.

Jeremy breathed heavily as he tried to calm himself down. "We can think of this later..." he though as he regained his bearing and readies himself to pass back into reality.

He was inside the void for 5 minutes before he came back into existence. To everyone else however, he poof into a speck of dust and appeared a few steps a few steps behind 5 seconds later.

"What!" Angulimala and Adam said simultaneously as their eyes almost pop out of its socket.

`I though you just got here and don't know what was going on and where you were!?`

`how is it that you can now use whatever fancy techniques our enemy is using?! '

'What's more, you seem to be even more adept at is than he is?! '

Adam's mind raced as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing.

Angulimala on the other hand was shocked to the point of petrification. As a person who has went through great length to learn and master the Shadow Step skill, seeing it being executed by a random stranger at a much higher mastery than his own caught him off guard.

'How on earth...' Angulimala thought.

It was only through sheer coincidence and luck that he stumbled upon the scroll teaching this lost technique when his teacher, Astapila, The Great Scholar, brought him along in an expedition here, the Ruins of Dagith. Over there, he lucked his way into finding the scroll containing the skill. Curiosity got the better off him and once he opined the scroll, all information regarding ti imprinted itself in him and subsequently after that, the scroll vanish from existence. His teacher, thinking that Angulimala was trying to covet treasures that they were both seeking for, cursed him to with bloodlust until he could collect a hundred fingers as payment for his thievery. This is thus why, he has been skulking around the ruins and killing caravans in order to lift the curse of bloodlust.

And yet, the very skill that has cursed him into this existence many many years ago, is now wielded by another with a higher mastery than him? What in the world was going on...