Chapter 86 Strength Or Skill? (1/2)

I tried to manipulate the puppet and I noticed it was more difficult, the additional weight on my arms as well as my back, prevent me from controlling the puppet very smoothly. Although Shelly couldn't see that and trained as usual, I had some problems in order to maintain the training. 'Who would have guessed that adding just this much weight onto my arms would create such effect? Well there is this heavy bag on my back as well so it probably plays a huge role too' I thought.

I wasn't thinking of taking off the bag or the weights and simply tried to adjust to the weight to continue on with the training. After an hour or so I was getting tired. The weight played its part, although it might seemed that the weight was nothing in the beginning but continuous training proved otherwise. I stopped the training soon after and said to Shelly ”It is enough for today. You are doing improvements although I had a hard time controlling the puppet. We will try to increase the number of puppets to two tomorrow and see how it goes”. Shelly nodded and was quite pleased with itself.

'I myself wonder how my control will look like when I try two puppets at once' I thought to myself. I let Shelly go to the shelter and rest while I focused on the 2nd diagram from the Strength Manual. I didn't modify it for long as I felt tired from all the weight carrying and went to bed soon after.

I still had to face the dream of mine and try to find some meaning in the words spoken by the dark figure. I fell asleep and woke up in front of the dark figure again, who started talking as usual. The dream went as usual and this time I wasn't able to figure out any new meaning either. When I woke up, I ate some breakfast and went outside to train the 1st modified diagram.

I didn't even last 15 minutes this time. It was all due to the weight that I was carrying. The time I could stay in that pose was a bit less than 10 minutes. The weight alone took away 5 minutes of the time I was able to practice this pose for. 'I wonder what type of effect would it have when I reach 15 minutes with the weight on' I thought.

I was adding stones to my bag as the food was disappearing, it was in order to maintain roughly the same weight. If I were to rely on food only to fill in my bag, it would not be a proper training. Every time I took away some food, I would place about an equal amount of stones inside. it might seem stupid to carry around stones but hell it was my training and I didn't care about the method but the effects it would bring.

Shelly came out of our shelter a while later and I gave it breakfast. I then decided to train with Shelly first and do my own training later. I took out two puppets from my bag and asked Shelly ”Ready?” to which Shelly nodded and we begun our training after I placed the mask on it.

Shelly was able to cope with two puppets but that was mainly due to the weight I was carrying. It didn't mean it would be able to if I dropped all of that weight. Nevertheless, we continued on like this till afternoon.

After the dinner we went out to hunt as usual. The hunt this time was not very thrilling but still possessed some difficulties for me and especially my accuracy. Due to the weight, I missed quite often and this resulted in more dagger throwing. This was not progress but backstepping, yet I wasn't disappointed. 'If I manage to pull through all of this, the fruits of my training will be much greater' I thought.

We returned from the hunt and went to do our own separate training. Shelly was becoming more crafty and experienced when fighting against larger groups of animals. This was a good sign and proved that Shelly was learning something new everyday.

I on the other hand started my Stringed Hidden Weapons training but was soon left helpless. Due to the weight, it was now even harder to train in that skill. I wondered what possible things I could do in order to adjust faster to that weight. Improving my skills was quite troublesome with it and I wouldn't progress much, especially when I adapt to the weight and all proportions would change.