Path of Absolute Transcendence

Chapter 13: 13. Perception

"Kai, you can't learn any footwork techniques because you haven't cultivated yet. But I am going to teach you the basics of footwork, which can be used alongside your sword techniques. You can also use them to avoid any unnecessary movement that you may do during battle."

After that, Alex showed him the basics of footwork, and Kai memorized the techniques with a glance. The movements Alex showed him are very basic movements, but they can improve his sword moves as he can avoid unnecessary movements or openings during attacks.

Then Alex designed another training regimen for Kai.

"Kai, for this training session, you need to dodge the arrows I throw at you, and you need to dodge them using proper footwork. In case you get hit by them, the arrows won't do any damage other than causing pain."

"Okay, dad, but I need some time to familiarize myself with the techniques. After that, we can do this training." Kai said to Alex, as he didn't want to get beaten for nothing.

Following that, Kai started doing the footwork training. It was very hard for him to do it because the extra weight on his ankles affected his movements. It took him a week to perfectly master the basic technique, allowing him to control his body movements very accurately.

"Kai, now that you finished your training, let's start our session." Alex said and started forming arrows out of water. Since he is a god-king-level cultivator now, it is very easy for him to conjure a water arrow.

The arrow started moving towards Kai at a moderate speed. Kai easily dodged the arrow, and it wasn't hard. He could do it all day, but then Alex suddenly started throwing two arrows at him.

Kai had a hard time dodging the two arrows because the speed and location of the arrow vary every time. He had to calculate the timing of these arrows so he wouldn't get hit by the next pair of arrows.

After he adapted to the speed of the arrows, Alex threw three at him, and because of this sudden increase, Kai got hit and fell down.

"Kai, you can't expect the enemy to wait for you to adapt. You will always need to be prepared for any unexpected events. So now get up; let's start this again." Alex advised in a calm voice.

Then Kai restarted this dodging training with his father, and he was able to completely dodge up to three arrows after training for a month.

It took him a month to reach this far because he didn't skip his sword and willpower training. Due to the high amount of continuous training, Kai had to rest a lot, so that he wouldn't leave any hidden danger in his body.

To simultaneously dodge four arrows is a bit hard for Kai, and he is still training for it now. "Kai, I'm going to throw the arrows at you now. Get ready." Alex said and started throwing the arrows at him.

Kai carefully dodged the arrows at a narrow distance and didn't make any unnecessary movements. He felt the changes in the air and dodged them.

This is the lesson he learned during this training. He can easily feel the changes in his surroundings and can use that to his advantage to dodge the arrows more successfully.

Kai was capable of finishing the four-arrow training two weeks ago, but he didn't do that and started to sense the arrows only by using his surroundings instead of his eyes.

The reason he can feel the changes in his surroundings is because of his strong soul. Kai continued to dodge the arrows until he heard his father's voice.

"Kai, now that you can easily dodge four arrows simultaneously, it's time to make things harder."

After Alex said that, the speed of the arrows increased, and that is not the only thing that changed; the number of arrows also increased to six.

Alex directly skipped five arrows because he knew that Kai could easily dodge them using a combination of his perception and his eyes, so he increased the difficulty to a very high level.

Kai continued to dodge the arrows for some time, but he got hit by more arrows than he was dodging. He can clearly feel the location of the arrow, but he can't dodge them in time due to his slow reflexes.

'It seems my reaction speed is very slow.' lamented Kai.

Kai's slow reaction time was caused by the extended amount of time he needed to process the information. So before he could dodge the arrow, it would hit him, and the pain also made him slow down a bit.

"Kai, it seems six arrows are still hard for you. How about I lower the number of arrows?." Alex asked as he saw Kai struggling to dodge the arrows.

"No, dad, I don't want to decrease the difficulty." Kai didn't agree because he feels that this level will help him very much, and he also had pride, so he definitely wouldn't give up just because of some difficulties.

If he just backs down from this small challenge, how can he face those peak geniuses in the battle of destiny?

Kai continued to get hit by the arrows, but in the process, he managed to figure out the trick to completely dodge the arrows.

The plan was to dodge the arrows with almost no movement, or at most a very minimal movement from the body. To do that, Kai needs to completely master his perception ability and increase his speed of thought processing.

Kai was able to use his perception about 5 meters around him, but he couldn't get all the information around him because of the overwhelming amount of information in the surrounding five meters, and the sudden increase in input of information made his head ache a lot.

So, he always used his perception sparsely.

But now he had to control his perception fully to only get information about moving objects. Kai also needs to increase his reaction speed, but increasing his reaction speed is easy as it only requires hard work.

It took Kai around a month to increase his reaction speed, and he also fully mastered his perception ability within five meters of him. He improved his reflexes during this month by training with Riya. She would throw balls made out of illusions at a very high speed.

And Kai had to move away from them by instinct, increasing his reflexes by doing this since he had no time to think.

'Now I am going to finish this hellish training.' thought Kai eagerly.

"Dad, you can start now." Kai said it in a confident tone.

After hearing his voice, Alex started throwing the water arrows at him. Kai calmly watched as the arrow started nearing him at a very fast pace.

Kai easily dodged the first three arrows, as he didn't make any unnecessary movements and kept dodging calmly, passing the arrows at a hair's length. Keeping his body very close to the arrow as he continued to dodge.

Doing it this way had a very high chance of getting hit, but he had confidence in himself, and this is the only way that he can totally minimize any unnecessary movement.

'Even though it is risky, I can still dodge them whenever it is necessary,' thought Kai.

This style of dodging can also be applied to fighting; if Kai was near the enemy, he could easily counterattack the enemy after dodging the attack. Although dodging this way was very dangerous because he would take the full brunt of an attack he couldn't dodge.

But a successful dodge would allow him to counter-kill the enemy due to their close proximity and his speed. Kai also liked this type of thrilling battle, as it makes his blood boil just thinking about it.

Then the number of arrows reached six, so Kai emptied his mind to avoid any distractions and started focusing only on the arrows. With the help of his soul perception, he didn't even get hit by a single arrow. But Alex suddenly increased the speed of the arrows.

This sudden increase caught Kai off guard and disturbed his rhythm. So he closed his eyes and only used his soul perception to dodge the arrows, because they were hardly visible to his eyes anymore.

Using his eyes was unnecessary when he could clearly feel the movements of the arrows with the help of his perception.

With this method, Kai continued to dodge the arrows, and when he was about to reach the limit, Alex stopped throwing arrows at him.

"Kai, you really did a very good job during this training, and I am very impressed by your improvement in just a month." Alex praised with a smile on his face.

"Don't praise me; what I did was just the basics." Kai replied humbly, even though he was smiling proudly because of Alex's praise.

"Okay, but don't let this small achievement get on your head. I know you have a very proud personality, and it is a good thing, but sometimes it can backfire on you." Alex advised because arrogance caused countless geniuses to fall.

"Okay, dad, I will always remember your words." Kai said it in a serious tone. He already knows the consequences of being arrogant without sufficient strength to back it up.

"Kai, now I only have two things left to teach you, and they will be very helpful to you during your journey to become stronger." "What are they, dad?" "Real battle and mindset. These are the two things that I am going to teach you from now on."

"Dad, I can understand the real battle. But what do you mean by mindset?" Kai asked because he understood that the real battle would be a valuable experience for him but was confused about the mindset part.

"Kai, you need to change your mindset if you ever want to reach the top. I watched you from your birth till now; you always had a soft character, and you need to change that to become stronger." Alex said in a serious tone.

"Okay dad."

What Alex said was correct, but he did not know that Kai's soft character was only for his parents. He would never care about anything other than his family; he would do anything to achieve his goal.

"My dream is to reach the zenith of cultivation, and I will do anything to reach it. I already have enough of being suppressed. All people are nothing but tools to me, and I would use them as I please to achieve my dream.

This is my real personality, and I will do anything to win at the end." Kai muttered silently.