Chapter 462: Technique’s Expressions?
Using the gymnastic skills she had gained from training under Marionette, Lillian flipped and landed on her feet before dusting herself off.
Looking down at her wooden sword, she noticed a slight "chip" in its dull edge. Widening her eyes for a moment, she looked back at the Captain.
After the entire training of endurance, the Captain placed her into a spar against him immediately—intending to drill the techniques into her bones.
Dashing back in, Lillian reeled her arm back and swung in a wide arc, trying to mimic the way the Captain did, but unfortunately fell short.
CLACK.
The Captain blocked her swing and looked down at her with an amused grin, "Not enough mana, matey, and not enough SWING!"
With a kick to her chest, the Captain dashed forward with a follow-up attack and dealt another Tidebreaker Slash towards her sword, once again causing an illusory wave to crash into her.
As the Captain went on to show more and more of his techniques, everyone who was sitting on the side watched the spar with keen interest to learn.
Given their physical abilities, besides probably Jon, they weren’t capable of being taught directly through sparing—unlike Lillian, whose body was far more endurant than theirs.
They watched the spectacle unfold while occasionally shooting glances to the side, warily eyeing a certain human-sized Wendigo, which they had come to know was now their ally.
Lillian had already forgiven him for his transgression and introduced him to everyone. But, of course, something as simple as introducing a new ally wasn’t the reason he was present.
Instead, she wanted to see if the Wendigo was capable of learning the Captain’s technique as well, since he, too, uses weapons.
And with its [Generational Accumulation] ability, which had the [Weapon Mastery] ability attached to it, Lillian hoped he would be able to learn and even teach her when the Captain can’t.
CLACK.
Blocking a failed attempt of his technique, the Captain immediately stepped to the side, suddenly vanishing from Lillian’s view.
"[3rd Technique of the Deep Sea Hunter: Riptide Reversal]!"
The Captain appeared in Lillian’s blind spot before slashing upwards, causing the girl to react quickly to the side of the swing.
Spinning around and blocking the swing, Lillian stepped back, intending to distance the two of them, but found that it was a mistake.
Drawing back his arm, the Captain entered into a stabbing stance.
"[2nd Technique of the Deep Sea Hunter: Harpoon Thrust]!"
As an illusory harpoon manifested itself as a shell around the wooden sword, the Captain lunged forward with immense speed—stabbing towards Lillian, who widened her eyes.
Swip!
Immediately stepping out of the way and narrowly dodging the harpoon, which shot past her and grazed her cheek, Lillian spun around.
With another attempt to imitate the Captain’s 1st technique, she yelled out with a wide swing:
"[1st Technique of the Deep Sea Hunter: Tidebreaker Slash]!"
As though awoken by the roaring of the technique’s name, her wide swing became swifter and possibly even stronger as it slammed into the Captain’s wooden sword, who was already prepared to defend against her attack.
CLACK!
"Hmm..."
The Captain measured the force behind Lillian’s swing while gently stroking his hook through his beard before nodding slightly with a shrug.
If one were to ignore that there was no illusory wave...
"Meh, better than last time."
With a flick of his wrist, he swung his sword and disarmed Lillian, who was immediately shocked—she swore her grip was secure!
Then, with a spin, the Captain slammed his peg leg into Lillian’s side and caused her to fly back towards the group, who instantly scrambled to their feet to get out of the way.
Thud...
Watching as Lillian landed harshly on the ground, the Captain caught the airborne wooden sword with his hook before cackling.
Lillian let out a groan as she rubbed her lower back with a wince.
’I definitely need some more improvements...’
By now, the Captain had already revealed all three of his techniques besides the 4th and 5th.
The Captain continued to laugh before looking down at Lillian.
"Crewmate, how much do yar know about the Expression of techniques?"
Lillian rubbed the back of her head, looking through her memories on the topic about them.
"A bit... It’s just when you become so intuned with the fighting style to the point where mana resonates with it to a deeper level and begins to express it visually."
"Correct!"
Seeing that she was right, Lillian nodded and then turned to the Wendigo with a tilt of her head.
The Jungle Lord had a hand wrapped under his chin, as though he was in deep thought and reflection.
He then noticed Lillian’s gaze and nodded at her before getting up and walking towards the bearded man.
While this was happening, everyone returned to their spot on the ground. They looked towards Lillian and asked if she was fine, to which she responded with a nod before focusing on the Jungle Lord.
The Wendigo, who was around Lillian’s height currently, noticed the gap in height between them and slowly grew to close that difference—a display of its prideful nature.
It then grabbed the wooden sword out of the Captain’s hand and began to swing it around, familiarising itself with the wooden weapon before entering into a familiar stance.
Watching as the Wendigo took a stance similar to his, the Captain, who was previously confused, now realised what Lillian was up to. He smirked and entered into the same stance as well.
Then, after a taunting gesture from the Captain, the Wendigo charged forward with blurring speed and swung the wooden sword in a large arc.
It was the Tidebreaker Slash, he was going to mimic the Captain’s 1st technique!
CLACK.
The Captain defended against the attack and pushed against the Wendigo, who immediately dashed back before reattempting the technique again.
CLACK.
Once.
CLACK.
Twice.
CLACK.
And even the third time.
The Captain watched as the Wendigo tried to repeatedly copy his technique and smirked, finding the monster’s efforts amusing and even inspiring.
He watched as the Jungle Lord entered into the same stance before pouncing towards him.
As he was about to defend, he momentarily paused as his eyes widened slightly—he watched as something began to manifest around the Wendigo...
It was an illusory wave!
The Jungle Lord had managed to manifest
Seeing this, his eyes bulged, almost popping out of his eye sockets in shock!
Breaking out of his stupor, the Captain charged forward. He raised his sword and swung it in a wide arc, causing a large illusory wave to form.
"[Tidebreaker Slash]!"
CLACK!
Their clash rang out loudly, louder than the ones made between him and Lillian.
The winds from their clash caused the leaves of the tree to rustle and to shake as the mana expelled from the two caused winds to appear.
While the size of the Jungle Lord’s illusory wave was much smaller compared to the Captain’s, it was still a wave, nonetheless!
Lillian watched as the two disengaged from their clash before entering into a high-speed spar.
Although she managed to follow their movements, she couldn’t help but still be in awe...
In awe of the Jungle Lord’s abilities.
He had managed to learn the Captain’s first technique to the point that he had managed to manifest the technique’s Expression in a couple of moves!
’It’s... It’s a genius!’