Part one:
After Mio and Wabler secured Zafer from Skank, he could breathe again.
However, the adrenaline still rushed through his body, making him tremble slightly.
It felt so good.
At this point, Wiza also appeared.
In the end, their mission was successful, and they could now sell Tori’s sword for a good amount of money.
Zafer decided to split the cash 50-50 with Wiza. It would strengthen the friendship between the two of them and therefore maybe with a whole Temper.
He also wanted Wiza to be the one to sell the axe.
Zafer didn’t know yet to whom he could sell it for the best price, so he let Wiza do that,
As a symbol of gratitude, Wiza let Zafer keep the Mending iron sword.
It only had two anomalies but was certainly better than having no weapon at all.
As they separated, Zafer rushed to catch up to Mio.
According to Laura, Mio lived in the city of Koth and always trained in the Arena.
Zafer could not remember ever seeing him in the past, but since Mio was dressed so humbly he might have overlooked him.
“Hey! Wait”, Zafer called him over.
Mio turned around.
“You are Mio, right? Laura told me about you!”
“Really?”, he was sincerely curious, “What did she say?”.
Zafer stopped before him, “she said that you should be the one to train me”.
Mio frowned, “what are you to her?”
“Nothing. I just met her recently”.
Mio shrugged his shoulders, “well you are not the first one to ask me that. Many got surprised by my performance and wanted me to mentor them”.
Zafer frowned. He could not lose this chance.
Even if Mio thinks Zafer is too weak to personally train him, Zafer could still extract as many useful tips from him by asking specific questions.
“How did you punch him so hard?”.
He was referring to Skank.
“It’s just my anomaly. Iron Fist”.
Zafer was shocked, “That can’t be! I also have the same anomaly and my punches aren’t as nearly as strong even when I drink a purple potion”.
“That’s because you are weak”, Mio answered.
That was obvious.
“But how can a stronger grip make me punch harder?”
“It won’t. You see…”, this topic was starting to get Mio engaged, “the Iron fist anomaly isn’t only about a strong grip. It’s a mutation of muscles that are located in the forearm, fingers, shoulder, and chest, which is most in charge of punching”.
“But I never felt the strength in there!”, he argued.
“That’s because you never trained them. Society made you believe that the grip is the only thing that you should focus on, making you neglect the other parts of your body”.
“But look at me”, Zafer took off his shirt, “I am muscular from all the fighting and labor! Shouldn’t I have hit those muscles as well, even by a pure chance?”
Zafer’s body was indeed muscular and lean, but still nowhere near the level of the Priest.
“You probably did, and it perhaps made your chest and shoulders stronger than that of an average male by a little, but do you think that you noticed it? Maybe you just accepted that as the way you always were. For example, have you ever noticed that not everyone else are tall, but that you are just short?”, he didn’t give the best example.
Zafer restrained from commenting, “so… how do I train the punch”.
Forearms were usually trained by crushing stones or even iron and Miyalin if one could find them. The most difficult part of the A-6 was that training and improving the anomaly got intensely harder as one got stronger.
Other muscle groups of the anomaly were also difficult to train past a certain point, but Zafer was a long way until then.
Mio then showed him a couple of exercises that Zafer could do with his own bodyweight, but what concerned him more was Zafer’s speed and technique.
Those two were the primary keys to becoming a skilled warrior, and anomalous strength and stamina would come along that same path by themselves.
Hence, in order to get stronger, Zafer was given a task to complete.
These types of quests were given by Mio to anyone who asked him for mentorship because he had no desire or time to practice actively with each one of them.
The tasks were difficult, but not impossible, and the time one needed to complete them was highly dependent on their skill and past experience.
After all, it wasn’t like Zafer was doing it for Mio, but for himself, and a direct guideline was everything he needed for the beginning.
“What do you know about the blue potion?”, Mio asked him.
“It makes you faster and your reflexes sharper”.
Mio crossed his arms, “well that’s not the entire truth”.
“What blue potion does is that it increases a human limit for how fast we can process information from the environment. But you are far from even reaching the normal human bottleneck, so there is no reason for you to worry about that”.
Zafer frowned, “but I still get faster when I drink a potion. Especially the 15% one”.
“Running faster doesn’t have anything to do with sharper reflexes. Although both 10% and 15% solution blue potions slightly push both limiters back and they make you generally faster, that doesn’t mean that you will be on the same speed as someone else”, Mio continued.
“The speed of your reflexes when you drink a 15% solution potion might be on the same pair as someone’s who did not drink one. Take strength for example. Think of someone who is unbelievably strong naturally”.
Zafer thought of the Priest. It was the biggest man he had ever seen after all.
“If you both drank a purple potion, it would make both of you stronger, but do you think you two will be on the same pair? It’s the same with speed”.
Zafer argued, “but there is no such man who can be stronger than me without drinking the purple potion if I do”.
Mio nodded, “yes, you are right. Those who drink a purple potion will always be stronger than those who don’t, no matter the size of their muscles, but the blue potion is slightly different. The boost in speed that you get from drinking it is not proportional to that of a purple one”.
“If you drank a blue potion right now, I am sure that my reflexes would still be much faster. That is because my speed and reflexes are limited by my human body, hence I need to drink a blue potion to go beyond that. However, yours is not. You are far from that bottleneck.”.
“If you hit your human limiter without potions, then upon drinking one, you would truly go beyond what was previously considered humanly impossible”.
Zafer understood what Mio was trying to say, but that was all theoretical.
“So, how do I get closer to the human limit?”
Mio explained, “regular sprinting and running for the speed. As for the reflexes, there isn’t any better way than to fight while being under the effect of a blue potion. You will also improve your reflexes if you fight without the blue potion, but that will take a while”.
In the past, Zafer didn’t have enough money to buy enough blue potions to constantly be under its effect, but even if he did, there was another problem
Although the potions had a pleasant smell, they all tasted completely disgusting and dull. Even a drop on the tongue would make someone not try it ever again.
This type of training was also a challenge for mental strength.
The only people who could theoretically constantly live under the effect of a blue potion were those who possessed the Anomaly 7, Repeater.
It was a special mutation of blood, that enhanced one’s reflexes and muscles on will, hence making them naturally as strong or as fast as someone who drank a potion.
This was the most common anomaly among paladins and freelancers since its most basic techniques like regeneration, strength, and speed were unbelievably easy to unlock and control while being very useful.
The effect amplifier was of course highly dependent on one’s anomalous strength, but due to the nature of the anomaly, unlike Iron Fist, it was maybe one of the easiest anomalies to train and develop.
Nevertheless, the real challenge was to increase anomalous stamina. That was the intensity and time one could use their anomaly for before starting to overheat.
But even then, some people could go even days with their Repeater activated, and not overheat, which was absurd.
Zafer’s single Almighty Eye activation would drain his whole anomalous stamina supply, while some Repeater users could go days without even deactivating their anomaly.
One such capable person was Hydra, an adult member of the Nubis province who was also very active in the Arena of the Koth city.
He was also known as the fastest man alive.
The assignment Mio gave Zafer was simple. He should give his best to train and spar with Hydra until he manages to land a single fair and direct punch on him.
Only then will Zafer know that his reflexes and speed have improved.
The Simple Physiology of Anomalies: Table of contents:
…А-6, Iron Fist
…A-7, Repeater
…А-8, Adjustment
…А-9, The Force
…А-11, Almighty Eye
It was 2 days after Zafer talked to Mio.
He was again walking on the stony cliff in between the ruined buildings.
One of those buildings was a small lighthouse.
Now, a lighthouse might not seem weird on a cliff behind the sea, but what lay beneath was only a lake, and even though it was large, there was definitely no need for a lighthouse.
On top of that, its structure and materials out of which it was built were different than that of the other buildings.
To a spontaneous observer, it would seem as if someone extracted a lighthouse from the sea, hundreds of kilometers away, and placed it here, where it didn’t belong.
An interesting thing about the Arena was that these types of anomalies were all around the place.
Starting with numerous diverse biomes and ecosystems within such a small area.
Surrounding the rocky cliff was an oak forest, but once someone exited the woods, they would see a totally different type of tree that was scattered all around the rocky plane.
Its trunk was very thick and twisted, but the most bizarre thing about the tree was its white leaves and vines that were densely intricated into a huge messy canopy.
A young boy flew past Zafer, rolling on the ground until hitting one of such trees.
He was thrown by the very one person Zafer came here for. Hydra.
The Nubis savage was frequently visiting these peaceful parts of the Arena, looking for weak freelancers to bully.
He was currently fighting two more teens at the same time, but they stood no chance.
Hydra was too skilled.
Zafer observed the battle trying to figure out the techniques from Hydra, but the latter wasn’t doing anything complicated.
His speed was enough to get rid of those weak freelancers.
The main point of this quest was for Zafer to improve his speed, and landing a punch on Hydra was only the indicator that he succeeded and made progress.
He took out a vial filled with the blue liquid and started drinking it with a frowny facial expression.
That was the blue potion.
Zafer didn’t even take the last sip before he noticed his field of view slightly expanding, as if he was on drugs.
His mind got clearer and he started perceiving the world as if everything around him was moving just a little bit slower than it actually was.
This was due to the number of information and detail his brain could now process at the same time.
It was like switching from a 30 to 144 FPS screen.
However just as he finished drinking, a dark figure appeared beside him.
It was Hydra, and although his armor was made out of Miyalin, he, as well as some other members of the Nubis province, colored it in black with a special type of paint.
He kicked Zafer and it felt as if he got hit by a truck.
Hydra’s Repeater anomaly as well as the Miyalin leggings made the impact much stronger than it would have been, making Zafer fly away straight into a nearby wall of a ruined building.
One could say that Hydra was currently on a rampage, smashing every young freelancer he saw just to entertain himself.
However, Hydra knew that Zafer wasn’t a part of these freelancer’s group.
“You again?”, he said to him, “are you targeting me or something?”
Zafer slowly stood up.
He didn’t need to drink a red potion yet since he broke no bones.
What Hydra said was true. Zafer did attack him the previous day, but it ended almost instantly, just like it would have ended now if Hydra didn’t hold back.
“I am just training”, Zafer drew his sword out.
It was the one Wiza gave him. The one with a Mending rune.
“Oh yeah? So, you are going straight for the boss fight? You think you can improve by attacking the strongest one there is?”, Hydra approached him.
Zafer frowned nervously, “I am not fighting the strongest”.
Hydra burst into laughter.
“And who would that be, who is so stronger than I am?”
The first person that came to Zafer’s mind was Wabler, but since Hydra was an experienced Nubis paladin it would hurt him more if Zafer mentioned someone from Temper.
“Simra, the Priest…”
Hydra was still smiling, “Really? And how would you know that? Why don’t you ask them what happened the last time we met?”
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