The Villain's Sword Is Sharp

Isaac put those thoughts to the back of his mind and focused more on his surroundings. Thankfully he wasn't ambushed on his way home and he got back safely.

The next day, Isaac didn't wake up too early. His will was still exhausted so sleep was essential.

When he did wake up, he got ready quickly and went straight to the training grounds. Including today, he had 6 days to wholeheartedly train with his Snowshoe Anima and he was determined to achieve his goal in that time: learn to move in every direction with satisfactory control over his speed.

In the morning, Isaac continued the same practice as yesterday; moving forwards, backwards and sideways. These the easiest but most important movements to learn, so he spent extra time making sure they were perfect.

Just after midday, Isaac left the training ground to go and eat lunch. Then he returned in the afternoon to work on his diagonal movement. This was harder since Isaac had to put his weight on just a corner of his foot. It made it difficult for Isaac to keep his balance while moving, but balance and agility were 2 of Isaac's strengths. He stumbled and faultered a few times, but he soon got the hang of it. By the end of the day, Isaac could move somewhat smoothly in 8 directions.

The next day, Isaac was at the training grounds even earlier. He spent 20 minutes training what he learnt yesterday, then he decided to practice something new.

He tried moving in random directions. At first, it was very difficult and Isaac fell over a couple of times. After many more attempts, he started to adapt to using all the different parts of his foot. After several hours of practice, Isaac could move slowly in most directions, but he would occasionally stumble.

Practicing took up a decent amount of Qi, and Isaac had nearly run out on several occasions. Just now, it had fallen to 7% once again.

Usually Isaac would practice with a wooden sword while he waited for his Qi to recover, but now he decided it was time for lunch. He went home, ate, then came right back.

He spent the rest of the day continuing to practice. With each stumble or mistake, he learnt which parts of his technique to correct. With each hour of work, he moved with more fluidity. With each new improvement, his capabilities grew.

Eventually, Isaac had to head home. He was reluctant to leave since the feeling of constant improvement was quite addictive, but he knew he could come back tomorrow.

And indeed, he did come back the next day. It wasn't snowing today, but yesterday's snow would take a long time to melt so the ground was still covered in snow.

Just like before, Isaac activated the Snowshoe Anima and snow covered his boots. Then he picked a random direction and angled his feet towards it. The snow carried him in that direction at a jog-like pace, then Isaac pressed his feet flat to the ground again and he stopped.

Next, Isaac picked a different direction and tried moving that way. He continued to train by moving in random directions for the rest of that day. By the day's end, he felt much more comfortable using the Snowshoe Anima and was feeling satisfied with his progress as he headed home.

When he got home, he saw a large amount of damage had been done to his front door and one of his windows. It seemed that somebody had tried to break in, but the window and door survived the attempt – the boards and fastener Isaac used to seal his door obviously worked. To be honest, Isaac wouldn't care even if the thief succeeded. His house had nothing valuable in it and it was already a mess.

Isaac ignored the attempted robbery as if it never happened and unlocked the window he always used as an entrance. Then he stepped through it into his house and went to make dinner. He ate, then went to bed.

*************************

Isaac woke up bright and early the next day. His exhausted will was completely recovered and he didn't feel the mental fatigue he'd been experiencing the last few days. With that load lifted off of his mind, he headed to the training grounds early in the morning.

For the last 3 days he'd practiced standing in a stationary position, then using the Snowshoe Anima to move, then stopping again. Now he felt comfortable doing that, so it was time to try something different.

Isaac decided to attempt changing direction. He started moving one way, then he adjusted the positioning of his feet and tried going in the opposite direction. He fell over immediately. It was already difficult to balance while moving, so balancing while changing directions was even harder.

When Isaac changed directions, he had to shift his body weight very quickly and very precisely while standing on only a small part of his foot. It was very tricky to do this whilst also experiencing a sharp switch in directions which destabilised his balance.

Therefore, Isaac's first set of attempts all resulted in him falling. But every time he fell, he picked himself up, brushed the snow off of himself, and tried again.

Eventually, with a lot of persistence and effort, Isaac managed to change directions without falling over. Things became much easier after succeeding once. He simply tried to replicate what he did before and soon he succeeded again.

Isaac kept going. Despite continuing to fall a lot, he grew better and better at changing directions. By lunchtime, his success rate was still low but at least he could do it sometimes.

Of course Isaac wasn't satisfied with this result. He rushed home to eat lunch and came back to the training ground as soon as possible. Then he got back to working on his direction changes.

He did that for the rest of the day, then he went back home to sleep. The next day, he returned to the training grounds and continued working on changing directions.

Isaac spent the whole day practicing changing directions. Then he came back the next day and did the same thing.

After 3 days of working on direction changes, Isaac could do a 90 degree turn without losing his balance. In fact, he wouldn't fall over even if he did a sudden 180; he would only stumble a little.

Isaac had easily surpassed what he'd expected to achieve over this 6 day training period. When he went back home, he even treated himself to some bear meat since he was so satisfied with his progress.

Unfortunately, Isaac couldn't continue to practice with the Snowshoe Anima. Today was the last day Sanna's group would be helping him, so tomorrow he had to collect the intel they'd gathered and then go to find some team members.

He polished off the last of his delicious meal, then went to sleep.

When he woke up, he went straight to Sanna's house. He could see light coming from under her door, so he knew she was still in. He knocked hard, and she opened the door quickly as if she had been expecting him,

"Come in. I've got the final report prepared and you can ask me about any details you're not sure of."

"I don't think that'll be necessary. If you can provide me the report, I'll leave and we'll never see each other again."

Internally, Sanna gave a huge sigh of relief. Dealing with Isaac was both tiresome and scary. She had to be extremely careful to be polite but not servile, and it was exhausting to constantly keep her behaviour in line. Especially since she hated Isaac so much.

Inviting him inside was just a polite formality, and she never expected him to accept anyway. She gladly retrieved a notebook and handed it to Isaac, then watched gleefully as he left.

Isaac took the notebook back to his house. It was the same notebook Sanna had given him previously, except for some new information written in the back. There were 16 new pages of writing: 2 pages for each of Isaac's 4 main choices, then a page each for the other 8 backups.

It didn't take Isaac long to skim read through all the information, and he was rather dissatisfied with Sanna's information-gathering ability.

Most of the important information was there, but many helpful details were missing. For example, they'd investigated all the rumours about Hayden Stromberg, but they hadn't found where he lived or whether he was already in a group.

This meant Isaac had enough information to pick which teammates he wanted, but he might struggle to find them. Oh well. That was a problem he could solve later.

For now, he read the report again. However, he spent more time on each page and took time to think about how suitable each candidate was. He didn't just care about how strong each person was. He also needed his teammates to have compatible personalities and complimentary skillsets which covered for each other's weaknesses.

Isaac carefully considered how each person would fit with him and Johan when he read through the notebook. After nearly an hour of contemplation, he came to a decision.