Learner...

~ Third Person Pov ~

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BOOOOM!!!

"GARGGGHHHH!!!!!" Ayano screamed, coughing up some blood in the process.

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"Sheesh... Yeah kid, I know that one's got to hurt..." Zack said, cracking his knuckles.

Zack had punched him square in the ribs, earning more than a few broken bones from the well placed strike. Rather, multiple well placed strikes.

"Argh...! Couldn't you have gone any easier on me?" Ayano plead, wiping the blood from his lips.

Zack on the other hand, shook his head, "Nope. No can do kiddo. You're learning from seven different people at once, if anything needs to be up to par, it should your overall toughness, and endurance. With focus on the former with me. The good news? Eli told us about your recovery rate, when given adequate rest, so we plan to use that fully... Also, I think it's best we stop for today."

Ayano scoffed, mumbling to himself, bitterly. "Ya' don't say...?" Turning his head towards Eli, who once again, quickly turned away in response.

Ayano looked at his current state... The entirety of his mid section was practically both bruised, and horridly battered. He had been training himself with his new master, Zack for the better part of a few hours now, taking constant hits to his body...

'The old man did tell me that this kind of training wasn't for the faint of heart... He definitely wasn't lying bout that part.' He thought.

He slumped to the floor, tired and exhausted from the so-called training. This alone was far harsher than what he did with Eli, and Eli was brutal.

'Status...'

He decided to take a small peak at his stats, just to see the gains he had gotten, if he had gotten any.

'I made sure that my training mastery was active for this, so it should've helped...' He noted.

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Name: Ayano Keiji

Class: The Little Chosen One

Height: 179 cm | 5'10"

Age: 17

Health: 21000 / 21000 [50000 / 50000]

Energy: 7400 / 7400 [10000 / 10000]

Strength: 524 / 1000

Defense: 536 / 1000

Agility: 525 / 1000

Spirit: 543 / 1000

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'You've got to be kidding me... My defense just practically sky-rocketed... It got an eleven point increase from that beating alone? And my spirit got a massive increase too!?' He thought, genuinely surprised at the amount.

He had expected something, but nothing to this effect...

He looked at his other stats, and his excitement dwindled instantly;

'...It's just a shame that I couldn't increase my speed and strength beyond what it is. Makes sense, since all I did was just get my ass beat up. But... My spirit increasing? Does it have some kind of connection with my overall mental fortitude, or over all mentality...? I just can't see any other way as to why it even budged... 

In fact, spirit's the only stat I've got no real clue about... Being honest with myself... I don't even see what this attribute even does to begin with... But, I'm sure it isn't useless at least; that's one thing this power of mine is..."

However, just as he was about to close out of the interface, he had accidentally glanced further down his skills, seeing all the martial arts he had learned, realizing that, there was a change in their description.

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Martial Arts Learned;

-Judo [Path-To-Pinnacle]

-Brazilian Jiu-jitsu [Mastered]

-Muay-Thai [Mastered]

-Boxing [Path-To-Pinnacle]

-Taekkyeon [Mastered]

-Capoeira [Path-To-Pinnacle]

-Aikido [Mastered]

-Jeet-Kune-Do [Mastered]

-Kung-Fu [Path-To-Pinnacle]

-Taekwondo [Path-To-Pinnacle]

-Ssireum [Mastered]

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All the martial arts he had initially mastered, now changed to something else completely...

'Hah... So that's what they meant by me being on a path... Mastering them all was unbelievable enough for me, but getting this far?' Ayano nearly laughed to himself. 

'Now with me seeing all this; I can see why they saw me as some kind of monster, or super prodigy to begin with...'

Ayano had now realized just how skilled he was at his age, compared to even the likes of them. They told him that mastering so many martials arts was practically unheard of, much less reaching a path with multiple of them as well.

Unconsciously, he smiled to himself...

Feeling glad that he had gotten these people to even train with. They were very aware of his talent and boons, and they had all decided that they would make full use of all of them, just to potentially see how far he could get, and not waste it.

'I guess... Getting my ass handed to me isn't so bad after all... if it's for the right reasons.' He, thought, laughing at himself. 

With that, he finally let himself relax, just to allow his recovery to finally kick in.

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After the 30 minutes were over, he slowly opened back his eyes, now feeling completely refreshed from the beating he took just half an hour earlier. All the bruises that had accumulated, coupled with the dark and purple swellings had disappeared, completely.

Despite being seated on the floor, he swung his arms and legs, and then stretched them; causing some of the stiff bones to pop...

"That feels a heck of a lot better." He said.

He quickly flipped upwards. When he looked at his surroundings, his masters were at the back, talking with themselves again.

'Oh, yeah... Now that I've thought about it. They haven't really gotten around in seeing my ability to recover so quickly, at least, not in real time before."

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Eli spotted him first. "Ah, looks like the prodigal son is awake..." He quickly turned to his peers. "See my friends? The boy's healed up incredibly quickly."

Zack looked at Ayano, seeing this for the first time... 'I knew Eli said the boy always came back to train in top form; But even I found that part hard to believe... Still, seeing it for myself, I can't deny it... Though; Isn't this kind of thing totally cheating?' Zack thought, begrudgingly to himself. 

Most of them had thought that this was interesting, but not completely out of the realm of possibilities.

They had seen healing capabilities before like this after all...

Warren then quickly spoke up; "Well, seeing that you're completely intact well rested... It's best we move on with theory training. For the time being, myself, Jihan and Jay will be training you in that order to learn our fighting techniques."

Ayano nodded, and asked "Alright then, I'm guessing you'll be teaching me, CQC...?" 

Warren nodded, smiling "Yes, but not the normal kind. What I'll be teaching you in particular is a specialized version from the special forces from the military, back from in my younger days, so... Shall we get started?"

He nodded, "Yes."

Warren's smile grew fast, "Good, it's best I start you off with a little bit of a demonstration then..." As soon as that was said, Warren's posture slowly began to coil and tighten up, his arms were slowly raised, crossed in front of him, now barely revealing his face.

His legs were posture differently, his dominant leg faced forward, while his left leg had braced to the back...

"What the...?" Ayano quickly felt the sudden shift in the elder's demeanor.

"So... Do you see it?" Warren asked. Confusing Ayano for a moment, who at the moment, didn't see anything much, but sudden stance change, and a tone shift.

But, after a few seconds, he finally started to understand what the old man was talking about...

'Hahaha...! This sly old coot. I'm well within his range.' Ayano surmised, he could see it, an invisible line that showed where this man's effective area of combat was, being just a few meters away from himself.

And the worst part was, he had no choice in the matter but to see it.

"Yeah... I see it alright." Ayano admitted.

Warren quickly fixed his posture. "That's good, if you can see it within only a few seconds after being shown once, then you are truly a master, so let's get started."

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Ayano was now being tutored by Warren on how to use CQC. within the short 2 hours the both had got, Ayano had shown that he had already gotten a basic understanding of how the moves had worked, which surprised all of them...

"I knew the boy would be an extremely fast learner, but seeing someone improve in real time without the copy ability is kind of terrifying, in and of itself." Eli said.

"That's... True, but I'm glad the boy doesn't have it. Copying bypasses the initial step of understanding a martial art, potentially stunting the user's growth in skill after a certain point, even if it helps at the start. Ayano however, won't have this issue in the future, especially with his kind of talent." Hudson responded.

Eli nodded, observing Ayano keenly. "That's, right I suppose." 

Now that it was over, Jihan stepped up...

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END