Martial battles

Alyssia returned to the ship after completing her many tasks and then headed towards her room to digest the newly obtained knowledge from her surroundings.

Every country was unique in its own way within One Piece so there was always going to be fun new things to explore.

The Minks had their long history and special abilities, the previous island was a volatile place to live on and difficult to remain in without being plotted against and this new place had its own beautiful architecture and culture that had been added to various ways of life ranging from martial arts, food and to medicine.

Several days passed by just like that as the crew kept their presence as small as possible and did not make any big moves during their stay.

After acquiring new and more detailed martial arts knowledge from every Martial Hall, Alyssia set herself a new training plan which was ever harsher on her body but this time she prepared a strict diet for herself so that she could improve at a much faster speed under the intense training.

Thanks to her visits to the more famous chefs in the country, she had managed to gain a lot of new and helpful knowledge of various herbs that would be suitable to be added to various types of food but also help to boost their nutritional value.

This allowed her to spend her time absorbing the new knowledge while cooking her and the others meals but also gaining an extra boost to her training.

Whether it was practicing the various martial arts styles of the country and then removing some parts that were unneeded by her, she was slowly refining her own stances, movement and jumping techniques but also her attack and defence to be able to better counter the various styles with the help of the system as it organised them all neatly.

Her main focus at this time was making sure that a lot of her kicking techniques were suited towards the unique martial arts of the Chinjao family whether it was the use of her knee or heel that was used against her opponent.

Her stats had already surpassed the level of a lot of super humans within CP9 who had undergone harsh training to master their special techniques but her overall battle style was still not perfected to their level so even with her strength and speed advantages, she was not sure if she could defeat one of the stronger opponents who had the combination of the six styles, a high doriki value but also a devil fruit without the use of her Electro.

After a long time of training, she decided to put forward her plans as she left the ship to attend another martial halls afternoon lesson.

Within the training hall many were following the teacher and following his instructions in sync with each other while some of the more experienced people were either doing some heavy lifting, punching and kicking some sandbags or hitting a wooden dummy.

Alyssia was among the beginners and was practicing along with them but then she suddenly stopped and stepped forward and bowed respectfully. "Alyssia Lucine challenges each of your martial halls students and masters to a fair one and one duel. Please accept."

The master seemed used to these kind of events and smoked on his pipe at the back. "So be it. Will you be using our style or your own? Kicks? Punches? Grappling?Weapons?"

She looked at him and smiled. "I specialise in kicks but I would like everyone to fight freely so they do not have to hold back on their skills. Forgive me if I may seem rude or arrogant but I have more strength than the average person so there is no need for others to hold back against me even if I am a girl."

The master nodded. "Good. I like your confidence! Start from the students who have been with us for the longest then you can challenge our prized students but if you can still beat them then you can work up to fighting one of the more skilled instructors and then myself. Do not disappoint me."

Alyssia smiled as she said. "Of course."

What he did not know was that she needed to gain more combat experience against many new opponents with different styles and put her new knowledge to use.

Through much trial and error her fighting style will become part of her own beast instinct which naturally allows her to make the right judgements without much of a delay so once she has gained some familiarity after fighting some of the weaker opponents she will have already integrated that experience with her body before moving onto the more experienced fighters.

Very quickly she got used to her opponents movements after matching their strength and speed until she found an opening and landed a kick to the opponents stomach knocking them to the ground.

After a little time had passed, several of the prized students were defeated and then she moved onto the older members or the instructors within the martial hall.

Meanwhile the master observed her movements throughout the fights and noticed her fast improvements and thought. 'It's either instinct for battle or a very high talent for martial arts but this person has improved a lot since the beginning and they have not even shown off their true strength yet.. I am afraid that we may lose this time. Even my own son has lost to her. Sigh.. I wonder where this type of race has come from to be able to fight so well?'

He could not hold back his curiosity towards the challenger but he knew that the navy leader of the country had once lived as a pirate and had met many types of unique species and even confronted them so this may be one of the rumoured animal people tribes or a devil fruit used.

He held himself back from asking since everyone had their own story and not everything could be told to a stranger.

Instead he watched as Alyssia had moved and how she had refined the use of her martial arts moves to make her able to break through her opponents defences more easily, find ways to block, dodge or parry an attack but also create more distance between herself and her opponents when she was too close to use her long legs to their greatest advantage and hit from a certain distance away from the opponents reach.

Then followed the defeat of several instructors and finally the master who willingly admitted his defeat after a long spar.

After the fight ended he looked at Alyssia and stated. "You we're holding back most of the fight and just letting it continue weren't you?"

He had met many opponents who would have many chances to win a fight but did not take the opportunity to end it to satisfy their enjoyment for battle or to spare their opponents feeling so he figured that it was a bit of both in her case.

Alyssia sighed and said. "I did not want to finish too early because I wanted to see if you had anything extra but it seems that you readily gave up. Do you want to try again? Perhaps you can try to push past the barrier that is holding you back? Forfeiting wasn't the best option to achieve your goal."

The master thought for a moment and then agreed. "Fine. Let's keep going then."

This time he was more aggressive with his movements rather than casually using his techniques and retreating, each time he moved forward he would keep closing the distance between them and put more pressure on her but she quickly adapted in the end and as he got close her knee went upward and hit his chin knocking him out.

As she left she said. "Good fight! Now off to the next challenge!"

As she challenged him and after reading her information on him, she knew about some of the flaws in his technique and what was holding his martial arts from reaching its ultimate form was not his strength or his technique but instead was his mentality.

The moment he admitted his defeat he gave up his chance to improve but also showed what he lacked in his own way of fighting was that he thought too much and often defended or retreated when encountering a difficult opponent that was stronger than him but his martial arts were most suited towards aggressive attacks with no retreating.

Perhaps something happened in his past like a traumatic defeat that led him to pick up the habit of being more cautious and careful and took him down the incorrect path.

Now that he had fought Alyssia and received her advice, he had provided her with a more difficult fight but also had the opportunity to surpass his current limitations that had bound him for so long.

After he woke up he felt a little ashamed over his loss but was a little happy about the advice that had given him the chance to improve.

Meanwhile Alyssia was walking towards her next destination while thinking. 'This place is like heaven for me! Such rich and diverse martial arts styles but also many masters with high skill. Even if they are weak there is a lot to learn from them.'

The human race who start off weak from birth but through training and experience are able to become strong enough to gain control of this world would never be so simple and their techniques shouldn't be looked down upon just because they do not have a strong enough character like a martial arts champion within this generation to show off their skills to their fullest potential.

If they had someone who had enough potential then maybe they would be able to show off their martial arts style and make their martial arts hall famous as it may have been in the past.

However now, many different styles may have long been abandoned or forgotten with time due to various difficulties that lead to them not being passed down to the next generation.

As a member of the Mink race who grew up with a superior body and abilities compared to humans, she felt that the Mink's training had many faults and could not bring out the maximum potential of their already strong bodies.