Vague and totally nonhelpful answer aside, there was one other thing to take into ount besides feints and misdirections and it was speed.


    Don''t quote me on this but as speed trumped everything else in the martial world, people who were not as fast as their opponents had to resort to some tricks to justnd a simple hit—and it could be the first actions mentioned above or something along the lines of entrapment, entanglement, and maybe even debilitations through means of poisons or toxins of varying effects.


    But before we could go into this deep rabbit hole, the action I did first was more of a misdirectionpared to a feint because I made na look at my right hand and focus on it before sneaking in my left hand to p her right cheek.


    I thoroughly exined the mechanics from what happened in that few seconds and let''s just say that she asked to see it a few more times—and also—get hit for real in the process.


    "Again!"


    "You sure—"


    "Yes!"


    "Your face—"


    "It''s part of it! Again!"


    And as we skipped over a few scenes to get to the next demonstration that would focus more on feints, I was once again standing in front of her and had just raised my right hand, motioning for another p:


    "You know what''sing, right?"


    "Yes—"


    At that point, na waspletely looking at my whole body instead of what I wanted her to look at—which was a form of misdirection—but as soon as my right hand twitched and her body motioned to block her left cheek, I easily tapped her left cheek with my right palm.


    "Gotcha, again."


    "Wait—"


    I chuckled, "Why I didn''t use my left hand?"


    "Well— Yeah!"


    "It''s starting to get really hard to exin because it has differentyers to it, but the moment you know it''sing for your right cheek, the trick was already overused. So~ I just made use of that knowledge to aim for something you wouldn''t be guarding against. Remember, the goal of using feints and misdirection was to score a hit, not deal the most damaging attack possible."


    "It really isplex—"


    "Yep. Because yeah, just looking at your framepared to mine, I could easily break through your defenses with a solid punch—even without a bit of wind-up—though I could easily block it if it came from you. That''s why you''d have to resort to such tricks—as do I if I''m faced with a tougher opponent."


    "You saying I''m weak?"


    I rolled my eyes, "You want the honest truth, or are you too dumb to figure out simple biology? You pretty much know the answer to that, right? I mean, if you justpare yourself to me… you''d need more than ten of you, no offense…"


    She then broke the small facade, "Pfft— I''m just trying to get a rise out of you by doing some woke bullshittery. But yeah, what should I work on first?"


    "If we''re talking about in the general sense, an overall improvement on your body either by cardiovascr endurance or straight-up strength would do you wonders but in regards to our current subject, one of the reasons I easily saw through your first attempt—tond a hit on me—was that you show too much."


    "What do you mean?"


    "We''re back to talking, huh?"


    "Just tell me the reason, I ate more ps tonight than I expected…"


    "Alright, alright… Again, it involves a lot of factors but you really gotta pay attention to what your opponent can see AND cannot see as well as what you''re showing him AND what you aren''t showing him."


    "Aren''t those the same things?"


    "Kind of, but it really isplicated."n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om


    "We have time, you can talk my ear off all you want—"


    "There''s also a thing that''s called Analysis Paralysis. It means that if we go too much into detail about one exchange—it could be good on a review, but it''s very time-consuming because again, there are a lot of different exchanges happening in a one-minute match, we can''t just go into detail about every little—"


    "I do understand that but—what else are we supposed to do now?"


    "I mean… Sure, remember when I discussed something about overloading an opponent?"


    "You mean the thing with their brains when you perform too many feints?"


    "Not too many, just a lot of it. It''s kind of the same but not at all if you think about it."


    "Okay, okay, go on…"


    "Adding that otheryer on top of all the things we had already discussed is that there are a ton of different ways to do such things and the take all should be is that you gotta keep it fresh.


    If we wanna sound vulgar about it your patterns should just be this unraveble ball of pubes that doesn''t only contain feints and some other type of tricks but actual strong, fast, orpact attacks as well. However… we should also have a handful of attacks that could end the fight as fast as possible and we should also have a workaround tond that particr blow when it counts."


    "You mean a finisher?"


    "Something like that. If you really~ think about it the best way to go is to really end the fight before it happens, or if it was currently ongoing, finish it as fast as it could—but if it was still dragging on, that''s where you might think of doing tricks like feints and whatnot or some other moves to tire them out or render them incapable of fighting back.


    I''m telling you, this shit is a fucking rabbit hole and we need more time to discuss each and every way we could get in someone''s head and in their actual defenses and weak areas."


    "Hmm…"


    "Or if you get too tired of thinking of this shit, just use a fucking gun because that''s just the equalizer. Unless we evolve to the point we could take gunshots as if they were mosquito bites, firearms are just the way to go if you want to end things on a snap of a finger."


    "Eh~ I think we got too broad when you start talking about guns."


    "Heh. I mean— you can be the master of five fucking disciplines but against a barrel of a loaded gun, it''d be really~ hard—fuck it, close to impossible toe out on top. The way we''re talking right now is really to have a gun and win but if not, we pull out anything we have on our person before resorting to hand-to-handbat."


    In any case, we spent a good hour or so just talking about the basic stuff, and we obviously hadn''t even touched upon killing intent. The term could be interpreted in any number of ways but in regards to our current subject, it was the culmination of one''s extreme desire to end someone''s life where something intangible could be felt by more than just the five senses.


    The majority of the poption could only do it subconsciously—but if put into a high-stress situation or something simr, one might learn to manifest or control it in a way that could make or break the individual.


    "Ah, fuck— You have that thing you do, right?!"


    "This thing—"


    "Okay! Stop! Stop! I can only take so much!" then na looked at everyone else, "Can''t you guys feel it?!"


    I waved her off, "I learned how to direct it to a single person or a smaller area pretty recently."


    "Jesus… So, how do I do that?"


    "I''d want to say you''d wish you wouldn''t have easy ess to this but it helped me a lot of times so I couldn''t reallyin… But yeah, there''s a small chance to be able to do this if you''ve undergone Hell Week or have something really traumatic or near-death happen to ya.


    At least that''s how I got mine but it''s not always a 100% drop—in addition, there''s also dealing with it on a regr basis like managing your triggers and anger levels."


    "Haah~ That''s too much… And how does that help exactly? I need specifics."


    "If I were to put it into simpler terms, it''s something you feel."


    Find more to read at empire


    "Something I feel?"


    "Yes. It''s the prickling of the hairs on the back of your neck, the sudden drop in temperature, your knees shaking and buckling, or the most obvious one, the straight-up mind-numbing feeling of death staring you right in the eyes rendering you immobile—or just the feeling of time crawling to a staggering halt."


    "I… I haven''t felt that when you did it to me."


    "It''s because I can regte it, remember? Kaley had grown some tolerance to it with our private sessions but it still hits her like a sack of bricks when I just let it all out."


    "You can train it while having sex?"


    I chortled, "No, silly. I meant ''private'' sessions when we train one-on-one— though we DID use it a few times while having sex."


    Kaley chuckled, "We did do that, really, 10/10 but you gotta put a towel down because it IS still damn scary…"


    I turned to Kaley with a knowing smile, "But scary-good, right?"


    "Doofus… Of course, it was. Chloe and Cynthia definitely liked it."


    Then I turned back to na, "See?"


    na just looked at me in disbelief, "I swear half the shit you''re saying sounds like science fiction or one of those wuxia novels but yeah… feeling it— experiencing it firsthand makes a whole lot of difference so I just try to understand it word by word."