CHAPTER 70: ENTRANCE INTO THE WILDERNESS AND BLOCKADE OF CONDUITS

The shadows of the ancient forest, stretching beyond the northern flank of Crossgard, were dense, cold, and smelled of damp earth and decaying leaves of age-old oaks. The path they had been walking since dawn had long ceased to resemble any trade route. It was a wild, harsh thicket, where every step required pushing through tangled underbrush, bypassing slippery, moss-covered boulders, and leaping over fallen, massive trunks slowly turning into rot.

Dave walked behind with a relaxed, careless composure. He kept his hands deep in the pockets of his black leather coat, and his high, hard boots struck the forest floor rhythmically and silently. Thanks to the excellent recovery and toughness of his regenerated Vessel, this grueling uphill march made not the slightest impression on him. His breathing was steady, hushed, and his conduits were fully rested and ready for action.

Ahead of him, with a slightly hunched silhouette, walked the old Japanese man. The elder moved with an unnatural, minimalist lightness. His bamboo staff softly tapped against the stones every few heartbeats, and his grey, worn coat barely rustled in the sudden gusts of wind.

After two hours of strenuous climbing through a narrow ravine, the dense tree canopies suddenly gave way, revealing a small valley hidden from the view of the outside world. At its very center, right beside a rushing, roaring ice-cold stream, stood a humble shelter built from thick branches and beast hides. Nearby was a hearth surrounded by river basalts and a large, flat rock plate, polished smooth over millennia.

Dave stopped in the middle of the clearing. Without a single word of complaint or hesitation, he unslung his heavy trapper's bag from his shoulders and tossed it onto the packed earth beside the shelter. On pure logic, the conditions were exactly what was to be expected from an elder who had cast aside the comfortable life in Upper Crossgard. This was a base for grueling katorga, and Dave accepted it in a fraction of a second.

"Stand straight, boy," the elder spoke in a harsh, concise tone, turning toward him.

Dave pulled his hands from his pockets and stood on the flat basalt plate right at the bank of the stream. But before his analytical mind could register any, even the smallest movement in the air, the Sensei appeared right before him. It wasn't spatial magic, it wasn't any instantaneous teleportation—it was pure, physical speed that defied the laws of human perception.

Two rough, steel-hard fingers of the elder struck with inhuman precision directly into Dave's neck, right at the confluence of his main energy channels.

The surge was brief, but staggering. Dave felt as though an icy, leaden wave passed through his spine, spreading across his entire body in a fraction of a second. Reflexively, he attempted to summon the sapphire current in his hands to test his conduits' response.

Nothing. In his energy conduits, there was a deafening, ringing silence. All of his traditional magic and mana conduits were completely cut off, blocked by a thick, unbreakable wall that the elder had erected with a single precise touch. His powerful engine in his chest was still working, but the lines supplying energy to his muscles had been physically disconnected.

Dave narrowed his sapphire eye and instinctively checked his second option. In the back of his mind, he immediately felt that specific, cold pressure. His telekinesis was fully operational, since its source did not lie in conduit magic, but in his brain and inborn talent. In that same millisecond, he could have lifted the elder into the air and slammed him against the basalt wall of the valley. But he had come here to learn, not to look for easy wins.

The Sensei observed him closely, his wise, deep eyes colored like hazy Tiger's Eye gleaming with golden-brown bands in the sunlight. He pulled his old wooden pipe from his mouth, slowly released a cloud of smoke, and said harshly:

"I have just disconnected your power supply, kid. From now on, zero lightning, zero sapphire battering ram, and zero magical armor. From this moment, you have only your physical Vessel, your own bones, and pure willpower at your disposal. Understand?"

"On pure logic, Sensei. That's why I'm here," Dave replied, that specific, abnormal spark of excitement igniting in his gaze.

The elder nodded briefly. Then, with a swift, precise kick, he popped a heavy, gnarled oak staff off the ground near the hearth. The staff flew through the air, and Dave caught it easily in his right hand. It was heavy, unwieldy, and hard. The Master himself pulled his light, flexible bamboo stick from his worn leather belt; compared to Dave's oak staff, it looked like a simple toy.

"Attack me. With full force," the elder commanded, taking a loose, minimalist stance with his bamboo held casually along his thigh.

Dave didn't wait for anything more. Despite his blocked magic, his physical strength and muscle density remained at an inhuman level. He planted his feet firmly on the basalt plate, bent his knees, and charged forward with a sudden, destructive rush. He wound up with the oak staff behind his head, unleashing a massive, vertical overhead strike that would normally have shattered a city guard's steel shield along with his arm. The air around the staff expanded with a hiss from sheer physical power alone.

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The Sensei didn't even flinch a moment before impact. His Tiger's Eye eyes flawlessly registered the slightest twitch in Dave's shoulders, the alignment of his hips, and the distribution of his body weight. In the fraction of a second when the oak staff was about to shatter his skull, the elder infused his bamboo stick with a minimal, precise amount of soul KAI so it wouldn't shatter into splinters upon contact with the boy's inhuman physical strength.

With a minimal, incredibly fluid wrist motion, the Sensei shifted the angle and parried the side of the oak staff. The force of Dave's blow was deflected diagonally downward in a millisecond, completely throwing him off balance. The boy's immense momentum carried him helplessly forward, exposing his entire left flank.

Whoosh!

The elder's thin bamboo stick cut through the air with a loud, sharp whistle and struck Dave with inhuman precision directly in his exposed left ribs.

The blow was so fast and hard that Dave felt as though a red-hot steel rod had slammed into his side. The force was so concentrated that it nearly knocked the breath from his lungs, and a thick, bloody welt immediately bloomed across his skin.

Dave stumbled sideways, taking two heavy steps across the stones and struggling to maintain his footing. Massaging his left flank, he froze for a moment, his breathing spiking rapidly.

This was incredible. He wanted to feel this pain again. He wanted to collect more blows, if only to break this technique down into its raw components in his mind and find the perfect, logical counter.

"Again," Dave muttered with a quiet, predatory chuckle, tightening his grip on the oak staff and immediately returning to a combat stance.

The Sensei watched him for a moment with a raised eyebrow. This psychopathic, almost masochistic joy from pain and katorga aroused a slight, instinctive unease in the old master—he had seen many warriors in his life, but this boy was, in many ways, simply mentally abnormal. However, the elder quickly regained his rough composure, raised the bamboo, and signaled with a light gesture.

"Move," the Master commanded briefly.

Dave launched into the attack with even greater ferocity. He tried fast feints, side slashes, sudden direction changes, and physically flawless strikes. But the result was the same every time. No matter how fast and hard he struck, the elder's bamboo stick—guided by an inhuman feel for biomechanics and balance—effortlessly slipped past his blows by millimeters, while the elder himself punctuated the boy's exposed body with ruthless precision.

Whoosh, crack!

Another bamboo strike landed on Dave's right shoulder. Moments later, another sliced the skin on his back, leaving bloody tracks beneath his torn shirt. With each painful blow, Dave laughed wider and wider, choking on that wild, predatory excitement. His analytical mind coldly recorded every angle of the elder's feet, his weight distribution, and the exact millisecond precision with which KAI reinforced the bamboo upon contact.

When the sun began to slowly sink behind the black basalt walls of the valley, Dave stood in the middle of the clearing, breathing heavily. His entire body—shoulders, back, ribs, and thighs—was covered in a dense network of purple bruises and bloody welts. His shirt lay torn on the stones, and sweat mixed with thin streams of blood flowing down his hard muscles. Yet, in his sapphire eye, that same predatory, immensely satisfied fire smoldered.

The Sensei lowered his bamboo stick, tucked it behind his belt, and walked toward the stone hearth. He pulled out a tinderbox and skillfully lit a fire beneath the gathered kindling. Red flames quickly began to lick the river basalts, casting long, dancing shadows against the wall of the shelter.

Dave walked slowly to the stream. He plunged his hands into the ice-cold water and washed his face, feeling the pleasant, sharp contraction of muscles from the cold. He touched a finger to the fresh, swollen bruise on his ribs, and that insolent smile crept back onto his lips. This was katorga in its purest form. Exactly what he needed.

He sat on a hard stone by the fire, opposite the elder. The Sensei puffed slowly on his pipe, the red glow of the flames illuminating his deeply scarred face.

"You have great potential in you, kid," the elder spoke in a rough, quiet tone, his Tiger's Eye eyes carefully measuring Dave's battered silhouette. "Like everyone from your side who lands in this world. But you move like a wagon loaded with coal. Every blow of yours wastes a mountain of energy through poor points of support, unnecessary muscle tension, and overly wide swings. Your stance before a strike screams to the enemy from afar: 'I'm going to hit!' To someone who can read body movement, you're like an open, primitive book."

Dave listened with full attention. His high Battle IQ easily dismantled the elder's words into logical first principles. He agreed in his mind—the elder was completely right. Until now, in combat, he had relied entirely on strength, momentum, and telekinetic reinforcement. With all of that stripped away, his movements proved stiff, suboptimal, and extremely inefficient.

"Your physical momentum is your greatest enemy," the Sensei continued, releasing a cloud of aromatic smoke. "If you don't learn to flow with the opponent's force and control your own body's balance, the first decent technician with a fast blade will sink steel into your throat before you can even think about that telekinesis of yours. Do you want to keep swinging blindly, hoping the enemy will simply crack from sheer mass?"

Dave smiled quietly, that destructive, dormant tension flaring in his sapphire eye that, a year from now, would demolish the order here.

"On pure logic, Sensei," Dave said, adjusting the collar of his coat resting on his bag. "That's why I'm here, so you can break me of it."

The elder looked at him for a moment longer in silence, then a light, rough smile of acceptance crept onto his lips.

"Tomorrow at dawn, we start with standing on stones in the current of the stream," the elder muttered, closing his eyes and resting his head against the wall of the shelter. "Go to sleep, kid. Because tomorrow, that stream will squeeze the last drop out of you."

Dave lay down on the hard earth inside the shelter, placing his leather coat beneath his head. Through the gaps in the branches, he looked up at the blue stars twinkling in Crossgard's night sky, listening to the roar of the icy stream. His entire body throbbed with sharp, clean pain, and he fell asleep with a deep, predatory sense of satisfaction. The katorga had officially begun, and he had no intention of resting until he forged himself into a monster.