[Training] Repeat, Repeat, Repeat...

[Korin]

Time Stamp:
8th of Summer
Early Morning
Location: Sea of Grass

In the shade of a tall, lonely tree, a man sleeps. Wrapped in a ratty cloak he lies with his back against the tree. It might seem odd, for a man to be sleeping in the middle of the Sea of Grass, but for Korin, it was a normal day. The large Kelvic has always disliked cities, so he spends as little time in them as possible. While most of his life was spent living in a house, once free, he quickly grew used to the outdoors, and began to love it. If the night is cold, he enters into his Lion form, but during summer keeping cool is a better option, so the Kelvic normally stays in his human form.

It is still early morning, but the sun has now risen enough to cast light on the Kelvic, awakening him. With a massive yawn, the large man rises and stretches out his body. Raising his arms above his head he grasps his hands, inverts them, and stretches toward the sky, cracking his back and knuckles in the process. He then goes from muscle to muscle, flexing and stretching. This day, the Kelvic has decided to devote to training, so he must be limber. As he finishes his stretches, he begins a light workout. Starting with push ups, the Kelvic enters the standard push up position, and quickly does fifty push ups. Jumping up from their he begins squatting, after fifty he begins the next exercise. The number fifty is no random number, decided on a whim, it was the set number used by his master. When Korin was still being trained, he began every day with this light workout. Often he would do more, but the standard before any class or activity was fifty push ups, squats, sit ups, leg lifts, reverse punches, and front kicks. By the time Korin finishes he has a light sweat going, but is not nearly tired, that was just the pre-exercise.

While Korin was never taught the name of the system, his master was a traditionalist. He only used five forms, but not all five were taught to Korin. Before the death of Korin's owner, the Kelvic's master only taught him the first four forms, saving the last one for when he finally mastered the first four. With the death of Korin's owner his master left since he was no longer being paid to instruct, and so Korin never learned the final form. While the Kelvic's master did not teach him all the forms, he was strict with the forms Korin knew. Many of the scars on Korin's body were because of "errors". As such, Korin quickly learned to do the forms with out mistake. Entering the first form the Kelvic closes his eyes. He stands with his feet touching, his shoulders relaxed, hands closed at his sides. Suddenly he inhales loudly and opens his eyes. His feet part slightly, and his hands raise up quickly, as if he is trying to touch his shoulders with the tops of his hands, as his hands shoot out into a palm strike, he steps foreword with his right foot, putting most weight on his back leg, both feet pointed foreword. He then steps in, putting his feet together again, then spreads them into a wide horse stance, his legs slightly beyond shoulder with apart, his knees bent. His hands touch as they move inward, making a circle like shape before going into a twin choke strike, his hands forming a v on the neck of his imaginary foe. Bringing his feet back together he then steps foreword again, bringing one arm up in a low guard, and the other chambered at his side. He then steps foreword with his back leg, the same leg as the chambered hand as he strikes with the chambered hand. As he strikes the blocking hand enters the chamber position, he then steps and strikes, steps and strikes. After the third strike both arms go into a guard position shoulder with apart, the elbows bent in, the tops of his fists pointing out. He then kicks with his back leg, kicking over his head with a powerful front kick, he then steps into the kick shifting his back leg foreword. He then repeats this twice. After his final kick he steps in, lowering his arms to his sides and opening his hands. Throughout the form his eyes were locked foreword, imagining an invisible enemy, a mental trick his master taught him to increase his focus. He kept all his muscles taught and tense. His strikes and movements were not fast, but they were powerful. This was a form for power, not speed. While the outside form was done properly, it is the internal aspect that makes the form useful. While no obvious mistakes were made, Korin has not yet reached the level where his real inner power is brought out. While the large man is an intimidating sight, when his master showed this form, the sheer power of it awed the Kelvic, something that Korin has not achieved in his own work. He then re enters the ready stance, eyes closed, feet touching, hands closed at his side, and starts the form again. When Korin devotes a day to training he normally picks one form, and trains mostly with that. This day he chose the first form, a form dedicated to increasing the power and strength of the practitioner.

As the sun slowly rises, Korin trains. He does the form again and again. At first he keeps track, five, ten, twenty times, but eventually loses himself in the form. By midday he is ready to pass out from exhaustion. He lumbers over to his tree, and drops to the ground, breathing heavily. His body is covered in sweat, and just lifting his arms seems hard. He reaches over to his backpack he left lying against the tree and pulls out his water skin and drinks deeply. Fortunately he refilled it the day before, but he still drains a quarter of the water. He then pulls some dried meat out of his bag for a quick lunch. Slowly eating, he leans against the tree, resting and recovering. After an hours rest, he gets back up for there are still two parts to today's training he had planned. The daily toughening of the skin, and flux practice.

Rubbing his hand on the tree, Korin decides to begin with the toughening of the skin and bones. Most days Korin spends at least ten minutes on some light work, striking some hard object with various parts of his body, injuring himself slightly, but strengthening himself in the long run. Over the years of training, he no longer does to much damage to himself, but today he plains to bleed. Placing his closed fist against the tree, the Kelvic enters into horse stance, and begins striking the tree. As each blow lands, Korin slowly increases the force. He does this for five minutes without counting the strikes. While this might seem like a small amount of time, the strikes were rapid, and punching any solid object for that long hurts, to say the least. When he finishes with his strikes he feels sharp stinging in his knuckles. Looking down he can see the callouses in some areas have been cut into, and he is bleeding slightly. Shaking out his hands, he begins to strike the tree with his palms, repeating the five minute process. When he is finished, his palms are sore, but due to the thick callouses covering them, are mostly unharmed. He then does the same with his elbows, bridge of his hand, and the blade of his hand. When he is finished their is some light scrapes on his elbows, but nothing bad. He then moves to his lower body. First he front kicks the tree, striking with the ball of his foot. After about five minutes he shifts into turning kicks, striking with the top of his foot. He then shifts into back kicks, with the heel of his foot, then finishing with side kicks, with the bridge of his foot. All the striking points will be sore for a day or two, but this training allows him to hit objects harder and lowers his risk of breaking bones, so he loyally does the training every day.

After Korin finishes he takes another short break, drinking more water. The work is tiring, but once the Kelvic makes up his mind he does not back down. After all, he only has one more part of his training he had planed for that day, magic practice. Korin always hates using magic unless he has to, but he needs to, to get better.

Before starting, the Kelvic sits cross legged, and relaxes his mind and body. As he begins to relax he stands up, for he is still an amateur with the Flux, and needs a special gesture to begin using it. He enters a deep stance, one hand, the palm out raised in front of his head, the other, in chamber at his side. Both knees are bent, his left foreword, and his right back, and the foot pointing to the right. As he enters this stance, he lets the Djed flow. Slowly he moves the energy through his body. Focusing it first in one area then another. He focuses on moving it slowly, though he can only concentrate a little energy in relatively broad parts of his body. First he focuses his energy in his right leg, then slowly shifts it to the left. He then moves it up his body, into his stomach and chest, then from one arm to the other. He does this for a while, not keeping track of time, only focuses on the Djed, and its flow. While the risks of Flux are great, the Kelvic trains slowly and carefully. His skill isn't even high enough to focus dangerous amounts of power, but he still is careful to make sure he does not overload any part of his body for to long. After a while he begins to move, jumping and striking at the air, shifting from stance to stance with the Djed flowing through his body. As he trains, Korin remembers when he first learned how to use Flux. His master, who taught him how to fight, was not the one that taught him how to use the Flux, that was the one who owned him. His owner was a wizard, a paranoid, wizard, who was having Korin trained to be a bodyguard. While Korin's martial training began when he was still young, he was not taught how to use Flux magic until he was an adult. He was told of the dangers, and was taught the basics on starting it. Since then he has trained, not frequently, as he does not want to use the power much, but regularly enough to maintain the flow, and even become more proficient in its use.

After working up another sweat, Korin releases the Flux, and lies down in the shade of the tree, exhausted, but happy. There is nothing better then a good workout, at least that is true for the Kelvic. It is now late afternoon, and Korin has finished off the last of his water. To tired to move, he passes out against the tree, hungry, but not as hungry as he is tired. As he falls asleep one final thought drifts across his mind...

I need to go Hunting, I'll do it tomorrow...

[Korin]

As night deepens, the exhausted Kelvic sleeps soundly. The sound of the grasses blowing in the wind, the call of the occasional bird, and the melodious sounds of crickets and other insects is like a lullaby to warrior. They accompanied him to dreams of wandering through the plains. He dreams a dream, not of people, but of lions. Wandering across the plain, hunting when hungry, sleeping when tired. It is the life Korin loves, and hates at the same time. His nature divides him, one side calls for the wild, hunting and living as an animal, but the other side calls for a companion. His desire to find a master, and a purpose makes it so he can never truly enjoy the life of an animal. Even so, he enjoys this dream, of nature and the wild.

As dawn approaches he slowly awakens. Stretching sore muscles, he laboriously arises from his slumber. Walking away from his tree, he relieve himself, and after he is finished, he slowly takes of what little clothes he wears, folding them, then placing the cloak and pants in his bag. After he has finished he stretches one more time before shifting. In a swirl of golden light, were once stood a man, stands a massive lion. In his lion form Korin goes from a man weighing 220 pounds, standing 6' 3" to a lion 8' 1" long and weighing over 580 pounds.

Looking around, Korin's senses have changed. In the form of a man, his eye sight, hearing, and smell are average, but once he is a lion, his senses become incredibly sharper. He plans to hunt today, and if everything is successful, will continue yesterdays training. First though, he needs water. With the sun still just barely visible, Korin begins a gentle trot to the nearby river, as he runs, he keeps his senses tuned, trying to pick up signs of prey. As he reaches the river he begins to slow down, smelling the air he gets a familiar scent, horses. Horses normally mans humans, but people have a distinct smell, and the Kelvic turned lion could not detect any traces of people on the air. My lucky day, a wild herd of horses at the river, I may be able to get one.

Slowly, Korin creeps through the grass, the color of his coat blending him in. Downwind of the horses they should not be able to smell him, or so he thought. As he crawled closer he did his best to remain silent. It is not in the nature of a male lion to hunt, but Korin has taught himself how. Unfortunately, as far as lions go, he is not the best hunter. He knows what he has to do. Get as close as possible, then in a massive leap, take down a small one before they can run away. In terms of pure speed, Korin is the faster, but he can only maintain that rate for a small distance, so if he fails initially, there is no way he can keep up with a horse. As he creeps closer, he gets close to a horse, a medium sized one, he get up behind it, and it looks like today will be successful. Tensing his muscles he prepares to spring. If everything goes right, he will hamstring the horse, making it unable to run away, then killing it swiftly by biting out its throat.

Korin leaps. There is an explosion of motion. Dust kicks up in the air, and vision is obscured. When the dust settles, Korin is lying dazed on the ground, and the horses are no where to be seen. As he leaped, he forgot to make sure he cleared the grass silently, and the noise he made alerted the horses to his presence. The medium size horse he was attempting to catch, packed more then a medium sized kick when he bucked kicking Korin in the chest. Korin lays still, recovering his breath, as all the air was knocked out of him. As Korin gets back up, he shifts into human form, and examines his chest. Its bruised, but nothing seems broken. If he took that kick in his human form, he probably would of died, but thanks to the thick muscle of a male lion, he suffered only a bad bruise.

While his chest hurt, the Kelvic has received worse in his life, and he just ignores the pain as he takes a deep drink from the river. Wiping his mouth dry, he once again resumes the form of a lion. Smelling the air he searches for pray, hopefully more docile then the horses. While the wilderness is dangerous, Korin has managed to stay alive by his animal nature, more at home in the wild then in civilization. Relying on his instincts, he wanders slowly through the grass, trying to find a proper meal. He can sense no other predators like himself in the area, he tries to avoid those areas. Korin has taken a liking to this region because of that. Even though game is relatively scarce, there is little competition or bigger animals trying to kill him.

Time passes as he wanders through the grass, and it is about midday when he catches a sent. He recognizes it, though he does not know the name of the animal, it is a small four legged deer like creature, that makes a perfect meal. He slowly approaches were the sent is coming from, and suddenly it comes into view. There is a small herd of them, grazing in the grass. One large one was wandered slightly away from the herd, and Korin quickly attempted to take advantage of that opportunity. He approaches slowly, first about fifty yards away, then forty, then thirty, the small mammal staying ignorant of his impending death. As Korin reaches ten yards away the creature begins to tense, but its too late to turn back. Korin creeps foreword slowly, and he reaches five yards, then in an explosion of muscle and power, the massive lion leaps foreword, landing on the startles animal. It tries to buck and kick, but quickly Korin's powerful jaws close on is head crushing it and quickly ending its life. The remaining animals scatter, but it does not matter, the hunt was successful, the hungry Kelvic got his meal.

Not bothering to clean or prepare the meat, Korin eats like the animal he is. He quickly tears open the stomach, and eats to best part, the organs. After he finishes the organs, he goes on to the flesh of the animal. He quickly consumes his full, knowing that the smell of the carcass will bring in scavengers, and Korin has no desire to fight the wild animals and monsters of the Sea of Grass. Once he is finished eating, he quickly returns to his tree to check his possessions, seeing nothing amiss he grabs his bag in his mouth and returns to the river. There he shifts back into his human form and fills up his water skin, and puts his clothes back on. Returning to the tree, the Kelvic looks up to the sky, and sees the sun is still barely past the mid point.

I still have most of the day to train. Though I think I will find a safer place to rest this evening, i don't want to stay in the same area for to long.

[Korin]

Something a little lighter today, will be nice, I can not exhaust my body to much... I know, the third form. First though, toughening.

Placing his fist against the worn tree, Korin strikes. He winces as pain shoots up his hand, it is still sore from the previous days work. He continues any way. Today's blows are fewer though, and within about two minutes he switches to another strike. Following his traditional routine he shifts through his various striking points. The blade of his hand, the bridge of his hand, his palms, and his elbows before moving on to the feet. Then he strikes with the various parts of his foot, the heel, the ball, the side, until he has finished with each area he does not pause in his strikes. Once finished he shakes out his hands and feet, and begins to stretch.

Slowly spreading his legs, he goes lower and lower, until he is in a near split. The Kelvic then lowers his head to the right knee and holds it for thirty seconds, before switching to the left knee and repeating. There is slight pain in his thighs, but he grits his teeth and bares it. He then stands and begins stretching his back, slowly lowering backwards, until his hands reach the ground. He then forms a bridge with his body, pushing his back into the air. After holding the bridge for around thirty seconds he lowers himself to the ground. After reaching the ground the large Kelvic springs back up and begins stretching out his arms. When he is finished he takes a few deep breaths. His stomach expanding and contracting in an exaggerated manner. He closes his eyes, places his hands closed at his sides, and his feet touch.

His eyes open, and he begins to flow into the third form. His left foot slides foreword, as his right foot slides back. Korin's left hand floats up in front of him, his palm out hand open. His right hand rests relaxed on his side, elbow bent and palm up. In the first form his body shook with tension, but now all his muscles are relaxed, his shoulders are doped. He moves with a slow, nonchalant manner, as he moves foreword with a circle step, his hands shift position. His right hand is where his left was, and his left is now were his right was. As he is doing these movements, his breathing is slow and deep. His feet move back together, then go wide into a horse stance, as he brings his hands touching in front of him. As his horse stance reaches its maximum, his hands spin in a relaxed, but fast circle in front of him. One hand reaches up and the other down. He then presses his hands forward, one toward the head of his imaginary foe, the other towards the groin. As the extend fully, he circle steps back, and moves his hands into the same position and repeats the movement. He does this one more time, after his next move back his hands this time go toward his mouth, as if bringing water for him to drink, and then turn over, pouring out the imaginary water as they extend down and in front of him. He repeats this three times. Then shifts his weight to his right leg, and goes up on one foot. His right arm blocks down, and his left arm blocks up. He then shifts his weight again, going to his left foot now, his left arm blocking upwards, his right blocking down. He then returns to the starting stance, his hands closed at his sides. He then repeats the form, and like the previous day, loses himself in the form.

The third form, is greatly different from the first form. The first form is a form of slow power and tension, but the third form is a form of flowing softness. While in the first form the goal is an expression of power, the third form should be an expression of control and deliberate softness. The Kelvic always had the most trouble with the third form. He was never relaxed enough, always to tense. The third form caused him more pain then anything else. Yet he still practices it, and he has improved over the years, as he has calmed down since he started. Now his form looks more like the flowing water it is meant to resemble, but it is still nothing compared to how his master performed the form. Done well, there is no pause, but no haste, the muscle and movements seem to ooze steadily foreword, with no seeming effort. Korin still has to make his arms and legs move, and as he was told, he will master the form when his arms and legs move without him even realizing or feeling them do so.

As the sun begins to climb higher, he stops, and drinks heavily from his water skin. He sits down, and rests for a little, before rising, and gathering his gear.
I think I will go see what Griffith is doing, he normally gives me a safe place to spend the night when I ask for it.

As he says that, he heads off, walking slowly towards his friends residence.