Chapter 81: You are gifted when it comes to body arts… technique

Kazui aimed a right palm strike at Rolo’s face.

Rolo recovered his stance immediately and dodged the right palm strike, but that was within Kazui’s expectations.

Right after throwing the right palm strike, Kazui immediately aimed a right low kick at Rolo’s feet.

Aiming at the face with the right palm strike had been Kazui’s feint.

Rolo hopped lightly and avoided the low kick, so Kazui immediately kicked off the concrete-covered floor.

Spinning his body to the right, he extended his right leg and tried to kick Rolo away with a whirlwind kick.

But Rolo calmly parried Kazui’s whirlwind kick with only his right hand.

Without breaking his stance, he landed with ease and then launched several kicks too fast for the eye to follow at Kazui, who was trying to land after the whirlwind kick.

Still descending while spinning, Kazui could not make a proper evasive movement and took every kick.

Unable even to break his fall, he was slammed onto the hard floor and let out a pained groan.

"That’s enough! We’ll rest a little!"

Saying that to Kazui lying on the floor, Rolo started walking toward the nearby wall.

Simple chairs were lined up in front of the wall for people taking breaks.

On the left arm of Rolo as he sat was a black armband marked with the crests of Aquila and unarmed combat.

It was the black armband showing he was Aquila Guild staff, and because he was in charge of unarmed combat, that crest was on it as well.

Kazui also got up while enduring the pain and walked toward the chairs in front of the wall.

Then he sat down on Rolo’s right.

"I’ll praise you for immediately putting what I taught you into practice. Narrowing the field of vision with a palm strike is a good feint."

What Rolo meant by "what I taught you" was using the fact that after a feint, aiming at the feet made the opponent tend to jump and escape, and turning that into an attack.

Kazui had done exactly that right away.

"But a whirlwind kick leaves too big an opening. Even if you can’t finish them, you shouldn’t use it so easily in a situation where you aren’t confident you can break their stance."

"Because you’ll get your own opening exploited instead, like just now?"

Rolo nodded at Kazui’s question.

"Well, overall it wasn’t bad. There are hardly any people who improve this much in half a year."

Rolo wiped the sweat from his face with a hand towel he took from his pocket.

"You are gifted when it comes to body arts... technique."

In a regrettable tone, he added,

"You just weren’t gifted with skills."

"Well... that’s true."

Until now Kazui had struggled with Replication, which was treated as a dud skill.

On the Replication side, there were signs the problem might be solved.

Far from just being solved, according to Lumia, Replication might even turn into a cheat-class skill.

But Kazui had newly taken on another problematic dud skill called Leonization.

While Leonization was unused, it had the drawback of making it hard to obtain skills through training or items, and also making it hard to raise levels.

In Kazui’s case, since he could use Replication, the drawback of skill acquisition becoming difficult was not a problem.

But the drawback of levels becoming hard to raise was a considerable problem.

There were skills with level restrictions that could not be used below a certain level, and many skills that were useless unless Aura power became strong enough.

The strength of Aura and mana was effectively linked to level, and it was rare for Aura or mana alone to rise when the level did not.

When the level rose, both Aura and mana grew stronger, but martial-class adventurers tended to mainly strengthen Aura, while magic-class adventurers tended to mainly strengthen mana.

But while Leonization was unused, levels were hard to raise, so Aura and mana were also hard to strengthen.

Kazui understood that well because he knew Yuri, whose level had been hard to raise and whose mana had been hard to strengthen.

Kazui could ignore level and obtain skills with Replication.

Ordinarily an obtained skill could be used, but in Kazui’s case the situation was different.

Even if he obtained the skill itself, there were cases where he could not use it, for reasons such as not having enough Aura strength to use the skill.

Like Assault Mirage, which he had copied from Lumia.

The more powerful a skill was, the more it tended to require strong Aura or mana.

In other words, if Kazui’s level stayed low, even if he increased his skills with Replication he would not be able to use them properly.

So even now that the problem with Replication had been dealt with, Kazui could still be said to be unlucky with skills.

(If I used Leonization even once, I might become gifted... but I don’t want to use it...)

Feeling drained, Kazui sighed.

"In your case, right now... the top priority should be obtaining Aura Speeder."

Rolo explained the reason to Kazui.

"If you can’t at least use something like Aura Speeder, you won’t be able to contend with mid-sized or larger monsters. It’s hard to attack their vital points, so the most you can do is hurt their feet."

With mid-sized or larger monsters, the parts that could be called vital points were usually at heights an ordinary human could not reach.

Without a skill that strengthened jumping power like Aura Speeder, it was hard for a martial artist who did not use weapons to attack those vital points.