CHAPTER 124: LEARNING THE DEPTH OF AGILITY

He had captured the essence very well without the need to explain.

That made her feel happy; she felt she had a student worthy of respect.

As for his question...

"Have you seen heavy beings moving at high speed before? Any very large beasts you’ve seen?" she asked.

Elliot nodded after a moment’s thought.

"Yes. I’ve seen them. They probably have a lot of agility to do that."

She smiled.

"Maybe, but it’s not so much about that. It’s about strength. One of the reasons a Swordsman can’t be an assassin is because they have strength + agility in their stat combination. Agility allows him to move very fast, but because he has equal or above strength, it greatly reduces agility."

"Strength reduces movement speed?" Elliot felt confused.

He had always felt it was just the opposite. The strength was exerted to increase speed.

But Anna nodded.

"I know what you’re thinking, and you’re not wrong. But the strength has a peculiarity that it’s passive; hardly anyone notices it when it’s below Hero or Saint Rank, but it’s always there: the strength (force) increases the mass of a living thing."

"Although we live in a magical world, we must not forget the laws of physics. The greater the mass, the greater the resistance to acceleration. And agility, focused on the speed of movement, is just explosive acceleration. That’s why you feel your footsteps getting stronger and stronger."

"Your weight doesn’t increase physically, but magically, and since your strength is well above your agility, you don’t get the balance in this magical explosive acceleration, which causes your mass to reduce your speed."

"Now, the reason you’re better at drastic, powerful movements or light, smooth footwork is precisely because your strength has some ability to increase your speed of movement, but, at the end of the day, it also increases your mass, so there’s a backlash there that just leaves you to either be explosive or move with footwork arts."

Elliot looked surprised.

He didn’t think it would be like this.

Did his body have a mass exponentially greater than his true weight?

That was...

Interesting.

And with strength being what made it possible, could he profit from something like that?

He didn’t know, so he decided to think about it when he was training.

"I understand..." He replied.

"You will be taught about that later, so you will better understand your strength. I will give you only one piece of advice: never believe that civilians are mere mortals. Their research has enlightened the Awakened Ones to understand their strength better." She smiled.

"A great sage once said, ’When I was young, I believed that my best friends growing up would be the Saints and Gods. Now I have grown up and realized my human dependence. My best friend is a man who trembles at my presence, but loves to study."

"In the future, maybe you will also have a civilian best friend who understands you even better than you do."

After telling him those words, she patted and tossed him a tent. "We’ll camp here for this whole week. Go to sleep, you’ll be back in training tomorrow."

He nodded. "Thank you, Miss Anna."

He set up the tent and went to sleep. He seemed to have a lot of things to think about.

-

At dawn, he had to enter the dungeon once again.

That day, he realized that a night’s rest helped him a lot to understand agility better.

Thanks to that, he could move more effectively, but that also caused him to make several mistakes, worse than those of the previous day.

Numerous arrows stuck in his flesh and brought him pain. Somehow, he also gained resistance points that day, though few.

He also realized that the more he understood agility, in the same way that happened with Sense, his understanding of Passive Energy increased, which allowed him to notice different ways of attacking in different situations.

He increased his combat experience, even though he was not attacking.

That day, he brought the head in 3 hours and 15 minutes.

Although he felt heavier than the previous day, he considerably shortened the time.

During the afternoon, he did light training.

Anna wasn’t making him overtrain, because, in her words, that was very detrimental in training focused on one statistic.

Then it was dusk and dawn again.

The third day.

That day...

Anna looked at him in surprise when he returned.

"Three hours exactly. Congratulations." She said, with a calm smile as always.

"Thank you, Miss Anna. I thought it would take me longer today."

"Haha, go to light training. Then get some rest. Tomorrow will be a long day."

Thus, the third day ended.

And the fourth came.

When he returned, looking happy, Anna looked at her watch and nodded.

"2 hours and 40 minutes." She spoke.

Elliot looked happy. ’Finally...’ His face beamed a smile, but suddenly...

BAM*

A dry stick was slammed against his back without him noticing.

Anna was no longer in front of him; she was now behind him.

Turning around, he looked at her reproachfully.

"What..."

"It’s been four days, Elliot. Why did you fail so stupidly? I wouldn’t tell you anything if you were a few minutes late. But what’s this stupidity coming early?"

He looked at her, confused.

"Is it wrong? I did it faster..."

BAM*

Once again, another dry stick snapped in his back.

"The faster you do it, the more useless your training is. Haven’t you figured it out by now? Where did all the understanding you’ve gained about agility go these days?"

Elliot looked confused. He really couldn’t understand where the mistake was.

That made Anna want to snap another stick in his back again, but she restrained herself and sat back down.

She took four bites of an apple and ate five grapes before speaking.

"I told you before. The key to agility is patience. I don’t care if you can do it in less time. I don’t care if you can break your records. It’s not about speed, as counterproductive as that sounds. It’s about patience."

"Do it in the time allotted, and you can figure it all out." She stared at him.

"This type of training usually takes three months per statistic. Unfortunately, we don’t have that much time, and I’m not that patient. That’s why I have to teach you in a week. And the best I can do in this case is to leave you with the most foundation for when you have to train harder."

"So, if you don’t complete it in exactly 3 hours tomorrow, the punishment will be severe. Go back to sleep."

She also went into her own tent, letting Elliot process all the information she had given him.

-

Dawn came quickly, and this time Elliot looked more determined.

He entered the dungeon once again. He was quick but patient as he had to move to other areas because the boss was getting farther and farther away.

He couldn’t last more than 3 hours, he couldn’t last less either.

That day lasted exactly 3 hours.

And the sixth day also.

The seventh day... was exactly the same as the previous ones.

His agility had increased.

Not only in a numerical sense, for he had gained 20 agility points in this week, but also because he could now move with greater agility, at least 10 times more agile than before.

He felt that, if he were to fight right now against those he had fought in the Tournament, none of them would be able to land a blow on him.

Anna smiled to see him return at precisely the right time and stood up.

"This kind of training is usually not easy for anyone. So I must commend you for completing it without complaint or grumbling." She patted him on the shoulder.

Elliot smiled. "Thank you, Miss Anna." He replied, but suddenly...

BAM*

He received a heavy blow with a wooden sword reinforced with magic on his back.

He could feel it coming, but didn’t have time to react to such speed.

He looked at Anna quizzically, and she smiled.

"But." She looked at him seriously and pulled out a whip and more things to hit. "You have made mistakes. And from mistakes you will learn, but it won’t be the easy way." Her sinister, sly, good-girl smile was a strange contrast that alarmed Elliot, but he had no time to think.

Soon, he was back for a second blow.

And then a third.

His body writhed on the ground in pain, but this pain had only just begun.

"For every minute you went over the 3 hours, it will be 2 strokes. For every minute you were short of completing the 3 hours, it will be 3. Don’t break."

Despite saying that, she seemed to enjoy it as she gave him another blow.

And so began a night’s torture.

At a certain point, Elliot couldn’t hold back his screams. It was too painful; moreover, this woman was hitting him with an absurd force that left the sword marked on his back, legs, front torso...

A good while later, it was finally over.

Elliot was lying on the ground, writhing in pain, when Anna crouched down in front of him, smiling kindly.

"How are you feeling?"

Elliot didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

That woman had practically beaten him to a pulp in a moment. Did she expect to get an answer?

She seemed to smile even wider at the sight.

"Then I will welcome you to Resistance week. I hope... you’ll be strong."

From the corner of his eye, Elliot saw her picking up one of those whips she’d pulled out and felt his body shiver.

He turned sharply, "You...AGHHHHHHH!" Although he tried to scream to claim him, the pain he felt prevented him from doing so.

And his scream this time became more evident on this night...

When torture began.