As Master Arka left, I recalled a conversation with my parents from when I was three —the day my official knight training began. I believe their decision to start so early was based on my choice to reveal a portion of my high intelligence and high progression in development of my body; I had realized that acting like a typical toddler had become a burden to my progress. Neither of them seemed surprised . It appeared that my "partially activated" Power of Spirit, seen during my one-year birthday ceremony, had been the reason.
They explained that when I was a year old, I had briefly awakened my Spirit. My mother, possessing a special perception ability she had developed since childhood, sensed it and acted instantly to hide my presence with her own power. She sealed it, but because I offered zero resistance, the Power of Spirit became dormant once more. It was a mercy; had she not acted, I might have been seized as a "special asset" or a research specimen for the Crown. My heart skipped a beat. My debt to my mother grew significantly in that moment; she had used her power without a thought for her own safety.
I wasn't the first in known history to achieve such a feat—the Kingdom's founder had reportedly activated both Spirit and Mana at just eight months old—but such miracles usually belonged to Great Bloodlines, not ours. The perks of being an Iron Grunt's Witness, I thought. I knew of these Bloodlines from Master Arka's lectures, but even he didn't know the forgotten history I had uncovered. While official stories claimed the founder awakened his mana at five and Spirit at ten, the truth was far more dangerous. The most terrifying news was the biological cost: in recorded history, those whose Spirit became fully active before age five never fathered children. Luckily, I had dodged a bullet.
I left the study and walked to the hall, where my mother had already prepared my gear. Her face was a mask of anxiety and fear. "Don't worry, Zae," she whispered. "Keep your mind at ease and focused. Remember your training. This is necessary; the requirements for activating the Power of Spirit have become much harder now that it has become dormant again." She left quickly after, clearly needing to compose herself.
I donned my leather armour, boots, and a metal helmet with internal padding.
For weapons, I selected a round shield and a spear suited to my build; I was approximately thirty percent larger than a normal child of my age, a fact I had confirmed while snooping with my sonar. I headed to the training field, having already decided to test my progress without using any active abilities. Only the firewall remained engaged, as it was autonomous and beyond my manual control.
As I walked, I visualized the hybrid style I had developed: the pantra footwork of Gatka from my previous world merged with my father's "boar" style. I had spent countless nights using overclock and consuming thousands of calories to "debug" and adjust the movements. Neither of my instructors believed a seven-year-old could create his own style, and though it still had flaws, I knew the physics were sound. Futher improvements could wait for the future.
Pantra (figure-eight footwork) is the fundamental foundation of Gatka, a Sikh martial art. I learned it for a video on my channel in a "previous life." It is the rooted base that allows a fighter to use weapons like a spear and shield with both stability and flow. This rhythmic, four-step pattern forms a "square" or an "X" on the ground, designed to keep the fighter in constant motion while maintaining a low center of gravity.
This continuous movement ensures I never become a static target, while the balance of the pattern allows for seamless transitions between defensive shield-work and offensive spear thrusts without losing structural integrity. Most importantly, weight is held primarily on the balls of the feet, allowing for explosive lunges or quick, evasive pivots. By combining this figure-eight footwork with a spinning weapon, I create a defensive barrier of kinetic energy that deflects attacks rather than simply blocking them.
In brutal contrast, my father's Boar Style is a linear, uncompromising system. It is forged for the hunter who must stare down a charging beast and break it through sheer structural dominance. This is a 'hard' style built for the violence of head-on confrontation. It demands absolute rooting—slamming one's weight into the earth so firmly that a beast's momentum is shattered against a LeadWedge. In this style, there is no wasted movement; when a strike is unleashed, it drives forward in a straight line with bone-crushing force. It is the ultimate expression of power against power.
By combining father style which is about dominating a single point and gatka which is about controlling the entire space. I had created the "Shifting Wedge": the stability to survive a hit, but the fluidity to never be where the impact landed.
I reached the training centre. My father gave me a sharp nod from the sidelines, where veterans stood ready to intervene. The crowd of spectators was larger than usual; everyone had gathered to see the "Star Lord" face two boars who are close to reach adolescent stage.
The beasts had been slightly injured to reduce their lethality, as this standard exercise intended to condition a trainee's brain to function under stress and to plan future training based on the results. For an adult mind, the stress was not a challenge; the real challenge lay in the execution. I started breathing to calm my mind as I firmly decided to not use any of my active ability.
The heavy iron gates groaned open, and soon to reach adolescent two boars, blood flowing from the injuries—lean, corded with muscle, and weighing nearly sixty kilograms each—launched into the arena. I stood in the center, my frame casting a shadow that remained unnervingly still. As the spectators cheered, my firewall instantly engaged, filtering the roar of the crowd into a distant, muffled hum. My mind became a cold, analytical void, detached from the frantic thumping of my seven-year-old heart.
I centered myself, dropping into a low, wide-based stance and grinding my boots into the hard earth to establish an immovable root. As the first beast launched its head-on charge. I initiated the pantra footwork, stepping my lead foot into a sharp diagonal. I didn't meet the force directly; instead, I angled my shield into a sharp leadwedge, creating a ramp that forced the animal's massive skull and tusks to deflect harmlessly past my flank.
At the moment of engagement, I "set" the spear, locking my rear arm and bracing the butt-end against the ground. My rigid bone alignment ensured that the boar's momentum was transferred directly into the earth, pinning the beast upon my spearhead while I remained a stable, unmoving pillar.
Suddenly, the second boar lunged from my periphery, aiming for my exposed side. Without losing my balance, I transitioned my spear into a circularparry, whipping the shaft in a tight arc that caught the beast's snout and flung its head outward. The animal stumbled but managed to scramble inside my "dead zone," inches from my legs. I immediately performed a Short-Wedge transition, sliding the spear shaft back through my lead hand to bring the heavy butt-spike forward. I pivoted my entire frame like a swinging gate, catching the boar's shoulder on the rim of my shield and using its own charging speed to guide it past my belly.
With the second boar overextended and off-balance, I drove the butt-spike downward toward its neck. The beast was fast; the spike missed the spine by a fraction of an inch, grazing hide instead of bone. I didn't panic. I used the shield to "shelf" the beast, pinning its head and trapping its tusks against the dirt. This stability allowed me a micro-second to reset my grip and slide the spear back to its full length.
With one final, deliberate thrust, I drove the spearhead through the vitals of the primary attacker. But the wood reached its limit. As the boar's weight buckled against my frame, a sickening crack echoed through the courtyard. My spear snapped.
My mind went blank for a heartbeat as the shaft splintered in my hands, but the firewall held. It intervened before the sensation could turn into panic and forced my focus back to the present, and re-stabilized my thoughts in a heartbeat. I didn't yield. I simply redirected the remaining force through my skeletal alignment and into the ground.
Silence fell over the men. I stood alone in the settling dust, clutching a broken piece of wood, my breathing steady and my eyes cold. One boar lay twitching; the second—the one I had pinned—scrambled away the moment I released the pressure, It limped toward the gate with its tail tucked in primal terror, leaving a trail of blood in the dirt.
Dad stepped forward, his heavy boots crunching on the gravel. "The second one lived because you let it, Zaemon," my father said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "In the Forest of Sanni, the creature that lives today is the one that kills you tomorrow. Why did you spare the strike?"
*-*-*-*-*