Chapter 214: Motionless
Chapter 214: Motionless
With his consciousness traversing from world to world, Adam found himself back at his room, the broken window fixed and the bed neatly made as if someone had been here.
He flicked open his timepiece, then snapped it shut and pocketed it before heading out of his
room.
As he walked down the stairs, he stopped by the railing and looked down to the first floor, where some guild members talked with the receptionist, and then left in a hurry.
'I wonder what's going on.' he thought to himself and then went straight to the first floor. When he was about to step out of the door, someone called out to him.
"Adam."
Adam turned around and saw Digby standing by the second floor, leaning against the sturdy railing.
"Can I talk to you for a minute?"
"Sure." Adam walked up the stairs to the second floor and entered his office with him, the door closing behind them.
However, it didn't really sound like the door even closed, and as Adam turned around, he saw that it hadn't.
"The door's little broken." Digby said and sat down on his seat. "This place sometimes feels like it is falling apart. Some doors don't work, the windows randomly shatter, and the floor creaks, as if this place is haunted."
"That doesn't sound normal." Adam said and sat on the chair across from Digby. "What did you want to talk about?"
"Curious." Digby intertwined his fingers. "I am your master, after all, and I am curious about your progress."
"Like I said, I am level two in all of the Three Powers." Adam said.
"I know, but when it comes to the Three Powers, there's more to it than just increasing the level."
Digby said, and then opened a drawer-there were small iron needles inside-and grabbed a handful of them.
"While you can sense the aura of the people, what about the aura of the lifeless?"
With a swing of his arm, he sent the needles flying at Adam from a point blank range.
Adam snatched the iron needles out of the air-when on his hand, the iron needles started to turn black as if they were suddenly painted over in a dark shadow.
"Throw them." Digby said, the corner of his lips curving up.
With a swing of the arm, the black-colored needles flew like dark darts towards Digby. They were clad in Adam's Black Kraft-the color of his Kraft changed when he leveled it up.
Digby, without moving an inch, just sat still while the black needles flew past him and embedded on the wall behind him. It didn't look like he moved his head or did anything special, but they still missed!
"..." Adam stayed quiet.
This was something even he didn't know anything about.
While Kiryoku was amazing to anticipate any and all attacks, it shouldn't be able to do whatever Digby just did.
It even looked like some needles just phased right through him, and since they were clad in Black Kraft, if hit, they would hurt!
"Motionless," Digby said. "When you use Kiryoku, your weakness is the reaction speed." Adam raised an eyebrow.
"When I threw the needles, you needed a fraction of a second to react, and you managed to catch them from the air. However, if I had thrown them faster-faster than your reaction speed-then those needles would have hit you.
"Motionless a technique created by the Kiryoku Masters-it looked like I wasn't moving, but I was; however, it was only minor movements.
"I shifted my center of gravity so little that it looked like I didn't move, but just enough to dodge all those needles.
"I also only used the same level of Kiryoku as you have in your possession."
"How?" Adam asked with a frown.
"Simple, I reacted before you." Digby said. "I started shifting my gravity, and I used Kiryoku to tell how your hand would move so I was able to accurately tell where those needles wouldn/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
fly.
"Since I reacted before you, I was able to dodge over half of the needles without even using Kiryoku on those objects. The rest of them almost grazed me, and they came so close that it might've looked like they went straight through me."
Digby touched his cheek and chuckled. "Motionless is a risky technique."
"Motionless..." Adam stood up, dragged the chair away from him, and then took a spot by the
door.
"Throw the needles again."
"Huh?" Digby frowned, pulled open his drawer, and said. "Motionless is not something you can learn in a day or two."
"Please, master."
Digby looked deeply at him, then sighed and grabbed a handful of the needles.
"Very well then..."
'I don't know why, but I have a feeling like I know exactly what to do.' Adam closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and then opened his navy-blue eyes once again.
Without another word spoken, Digby's throwing arm moved, launching the needles in his general direction.
Without a single fear on his face, Adam took a step forward and walked straight at the needles. It looked like he was about to become a porcupine.
However, when the needles touched his clothes, they went straight through and stabbed into
the door behind them.
Small, minuscule holes appeared in the fabric of his shirt where the needles had punctured through, but not a single one touched his flesh.
With small steps, Adam walked through all the needles unscathed.
After not sensing any more needles, he turned around to look at the needles stuck on the door;
some had dropped on the floor, and not a single one touched him.
"Hmm." Adam smiled and turned to his master. "I think I understood the Motionless."
The last needle that Digby was holding dropped on the ground.
He looked taken aback, unfitting of his master status, but he couldn't help it as this was just
ridiculous.
Motionless, the highest level of technique that only a few masters had ever achieved, was learned in mere seconds by Adam.
'One would say that this was expected from S-ranker, but no, this is ridiculous and
impossible!'
"How?" Digby stood up and looked at his pupil in disbelief.
"It's the knee, is it not?" Adam looked down at his knee and rubbed his hand across it. "By
moving your knee, you can change the center of gravity and shift your weight, which makes it look like you aren't moving, but in reality you are."
"No..." Digby shook his head. "That ain't right. I was sitting, so I couldn't have used my knee to shift my gravity, and instead I used my upper body."
"Oh, so I was wrong?" Adam scratched the back of his head. "I guess learning Motionless is more tough than I expected."
"No, what you did was definitely Motionless." Digby said and then uttered unbelievable words. "However, what you did was even higher leveled than Motionless."
"Higher level?" Adam raised an eyebrow. "No one's been using the knee technique to shift
the center of gravity?"
"Knee technique?" Digby shook his head. "No."
'Knee technique was taught in the future that allows shifting the center of gravity.' Adam thought. 'It seems like it can be used alongside Motionless.'
Knee technique was crucial for Tanks, and he'd been using it subconsciously in this life as well. It allowed to redirect, avoid, and absorb incoming attacks.
While it was a pretty common technique for Adam, in the eyes of Digby, he looked like an unfathomable monster.
Because he was now the first person to use knee technique in this timeline.