As Cologne had instructed him, he continued training in the Chestnut Fist, increasing the fires little by little throughout the day. By a process of trial and error, he was able to build the fire just large enough, just hot enough, to tax his ability every time. This had the added benefit of increasing his ability greatly.
Once he had figured out the exact manner and way of channeling chi for the increased speed of the Amaguriken, it was only a manner of days before he was able to adapt the technique for his legs as well. This made it so that he could not only kick with the deadly speed and accuracy of the technique, but also made it so that he could greatly increase his mobility for short bursts.
That would be a very useful ace to have up his sleeve in any fight.
Ranma smirked as he looked down at his left foot, which was raised up off the ground so he could watch the burns from the fire slowly fade out of existence. Moments later, his feet were smooth and unblemished again, ready to go back into the flames to retrieve the chestnuts therein.
“Well, this is a pleasant, if unexpected surprise,” came the wizened voice of Cologne from atop the nearby roof. “You’ve already mastered the technique to the point where you can snatch roasting chestnuts out of the fire using your toes?”
Ranma turned around, dropping his foot to the ground.
“Once I learned the how of it, it was just a matter of adapting the technique,” he explained. “I’ve also managed to make a hotter fire than before, which had helped advance the training even more.”
“Impressive,” Cologne nodded. “I guess that you’re ready for your next training, then.”
Ranma grinned.
“Come along,” she told him, hopping off the roof and leading the way into the forest.
The trek was slow and steady, Cologne seeming to take the time to truly enjoy the beauty of the wilderness surrounding her on all sides. Occasionally they would stop to look for several minutes at one thing or another, Cologne taking in every detail she could even as Ranma wondered what she was doing.
Eventually their path ended in a small clearing surrounding a large tree. At first there did not seem to be anything important about the tree in question, other than it’s girth, until a faint humming sound was heard in the background.
And there, attached to the underside of one of the lower branches, was a large hornet’s nest. Buzzing around the nest itself were three or four hornets, seeming to stand guard against any intruders.
“Guess what your next exercise will be?” Cologne asked sarcastically.
“To not get stung?” Ranma replied in kind.
“Close,” she nodded. “You are to knock the bees out, but not harm them. I daresay that this nest will come to dislike you on general principal over the next few days, but such is the price for mastery.”
And with that, she threw a small pebble at the hornet’s nest, and hopped a safe distance away. Ranma only had time to sigh deeply before they were upon him, then his attention was much to divided for such things.
Cologne chuckled from the nearby trees as the boy fended off the hornets, getting stung no few times in the process. The training would do much to increase his awareness, while at the same time increasing his speed and agility. By the end of this exercise, he should be able to block a great many attacks with little or no thought.
But now the question was, what to torture the boy with next?
* * *
The predicted three days passed.
Finally Ranma stood in the small clearing, all the hornets knocked out with carefully calculated strength, lying on the forest floor around him. Not a single mark marred his skin from their stingers, a sign that he had finally passed that particular test.
But he knew very well that this was just the first of many trials he would undergo in the guise of ‘training’. Though effective, the methods sometimes left much to be wanting for, such as the increased endurance training that he had started to undergo in the evenings after this practice.
He had apparently graduated from the ‘single boulder’ status to the ‘three small boulders’ status. This meant that he was once again strung up in the harness, but this time there were three boulders tied up, spaced evenly around him. A system of ropes and pulleys made it so that Cologne could bring the boulders back a ways, then release them again to strike all sides of his body simultaneously.
This training had been complimented by what cologne liked to dub the ‘iron club’ training. This consisted of her and Dowel taking a pair of small iron clubs and beating him in different places on his body while he was forced to stand there and take the punishment.
Where this aided was in telling his Chi that attacks do not just come at one force, from one direction, but can strike anywhere, at any strength. This was further reinforced by the fact that they had him wear a blindfold, and stuff a ball of wax in each ear, to keep him from expecting where the next blow would land.
And, as with it’s durability training complimenting that of the boulders, this complimented the increased special awareness that the ‘Hornet Fist’ (as he liked to call it) instilled upon him.
To top it all off, starting that very next day, Cologne was also increasing the number of hornet nests included in the Hornet Fist training. Once he had finished the training with that number, she would then increase the nests by one.
Once he beat that, she would increase it again.
By her logic, he was done with this training when she added two nests in the same day, and he still did not get stung once. Harsh criteria, to be sure, but the results were irrefutable.
He only shuddered to think of what his next training would be like.
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(Posted Sat, 20 Nov 2004 08:00)
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