Heading back to his room, Arthur made to lock the door and put the single seat in the way. He didn't want to get interrupted, not if he was going to spend the day practising this new technique. After a moment's hesitation, he also went over to the windows and closed it, pulling the curtains close after shutting the heavy blinds.
In the shadows of the room, he took a seat on the bed, rolling the scroll to read. Soon enough, he was sprawled on his back, holding the scroll above his head as he read, charting the paths of energy he needed to utilize and explanations of aura control and manipulation. Those portions, he found himself understanding and grasping quite quickly.
Within a few hours, he had mastered the first portion of the techniques with only a few moments of backlash as the energy ran through him the wrong way of interacted wrongly. Overall, minimal concerns. Even manipulating his aura was simple enough, what with his own experience with the Yin Aura that helped combine the skills and even upgraded aspects of one another.
No, the real difficulty came in the other side. The utilization of a sixth sense that felt his aura at all times, that then noticed the layer between him and the escaped energy. It was a new area of study, one he had never thrown himself into before and required him to work on utilizing a sense that he had never truly paid attention to.
Much like proprioception or the sense that told you how fast you were moving or if you were up or down or sideways and where you related all across the continuum, such senses were intrinsic to the human experience - and also, so natural that most individuals never trained or noticed them.
Until, of course, your internal ear was knocked askew. Or you kept stumbling into things, banging your toes, wondering what happened - and then realised you were holding yourself a little too tight, or had grown an inch.
Children...
Once Arthur had that thought and ensured he could keep this portion of the technique running, he got up. Without his spear, he couldn't go through spear forms very well, but he had his dagger. Short sword and dagger forms were fewer in number, but he had done so many and worked so hard, he could instead play.
Which was what he did. The kris wasn't a weapon he had naturally trained in, though they'd been exposed to silat for about three months including the accompanying dagger-knife that was part of some training. It had nearly died out, the use of the weapon itself as part of the martial art, what with the advent of competitive sports and the focus on self-defence for the urban environment. Very few individuals kept up with that training or teaching.
And then, the Towers came and suddenly, weapon use had become all the rage. They'd seen a bloom in interest, especially when people realised not only was it highly effective, it was highly effective because it was painfully lethal. It still wasn't as widely practised as some of other martial arts with better PR, but it was no longer on the edge of dying either.
All of which meant that the guest teacher coming in had done so at his Tsifu's request. Three months of intense training in a different, harder style, with interesting rising attacks from the center line, movements that reminded Arthur of a striking snake at times and a very controlled, tight fighting form.
Effective.
Remembering all that, trying to recall the motions and how they worked, he ran through the forms with his kris. A lot of it had to be adapted of course, the scramble for survival in a battle between monsters and Climbers ensuring that cute little forms were discarded for what was effective.
Yet, going back to the basics was important. Teaching himself to keep his elbow in, to twist and push at the right time, turn the shoulders or rotate the hips correctly to generate that extra ounce of power. All necessary, to keep his form and style efficient. Microseconds of improvement would one day become all the difference, especially if he kept climbing.
In addition, most of all, it was fun.
Children learnt by play. Adults could learn by play, humanity in general were conditioned to do so, but repetition and hard work were just as important. This, this was all three. Movement for fun and profit. Tight focus on the extension, on the feeling of his body and muscles and the air and the world outside of direct contact with his body.
Not just hearing, not just sight or smell or even taste, but the chi that suffused the darkened room. The way it throbbed with each moment, as he moved, as his aura pulsed. So many points of failure, but most of all...
Most of all, he needed to feel it. To actually grasp and flex this sense and muscle that he had never even known was there. Shifting movements in this dark room were part of that, a way to force air flow and himself to extend and alter the environment. Small changes, as he struck or tossed his pillow or clothing about, letting it fall as he stabbed at them with the sheathed weapon, feel the clothing shift, turn, the outlines of it around his body.
Hours of repetition, over and over and over again until he got tired and thirsty.
Then, downstairs, to acquire a jug of watered down juice and a meal, all the while keeping his focus inward and tightly drawn in. The world throbbing, shifting, harder now in the daylight. The shadow realm gone, the bonus faded - in all but the closest spots. The shadows under the tables, the chairs, in the movement of those around.
Outside, next, rather than his room. Returning to his forms, but with a greater challenge as the day ground on and on. He could keep moving, keep training because of his healing, of the Tower infusing his body; and in this state of half-meditation and half-play, he could do it for hours.
And he did.
Past dinner, offering bare words to Dovgrey. The pair eating in silence, focused on a future and a world outside of each other's perception. The turtle-creature musing on the enchantments, Arthur sensing the world around and attempting to understand what he felt, what sensation he could grasp.
It kept coming in fits and starts, at first in the initial few hours a ghost sensation, one that he almost believed was not real. So fragile, he imagined it up half the time he was sure. Later on, more consistently, more surely, as he grasped what this strange non-muscle of movement was really like.
It wasn't seeing, which was so instinctive for so many others. Not constant, like touch or taste, but background because you felt it all the time. Closer, perhaps right now, to hearing or smell - noticeable because of the variation in background. A sharp smell, a loud noise, that was the movement and objects within his senses.
Except that variation was between lighter and darker locations, where shadows pooled and darkness lay. Almost like he could feel light itself, even as it came falling down through the atmosphere to him. As it was shed by swinging lanterns or glittered off the edges of shiny metal or reflected off lighter clothing. Except, those shafts of light, that brilliance was the opposite of sight for him.
It was the darkness, the shadows - found at the base of feet, beneath tables, in the shifting movement of clothing.
He flushed, red, when he realised that. How he could feel his own shadows, in his own clothing - and the creatures beside him. Not that he had any physical desire, but the shape of bodies, the outline between shadow and solid space... It made a mind race, and offered too much information.
No one - no human - needed to know how well packed a turtle Tinker was.