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nWith that in mind, Dante eventually returned to his estate with his entourage. Whether it was officially or even realistically, he had come out today only to shop. This is what it seemed like in the eyes of the Human Council, the various forces on Etonia and all others who were monitoring him.

nDante had no plans to capture any whatever rebel faction. That was an excuse to run over here and justify consuming government resources to both protect his life and catch a breath. His true goal was always far bigger than such smaller things.

nNow came the moment of truth.

nOnce within the estate and back in his bedroom, Dante took in a deep breath and checked his Quantum Markers. When he checked the one that led to his student residence, he hesitated for a second before resolutely activating it.

nHe then disappeared from the room he was in only to appear in another.

nHonestly, Dante expected many things, but he was quite surprised to see that his room was untouched, unbothered, and still the same as he left it. His AI chip quickly connected and regained control over everything smoothly, showing that his student ID was fine.

nIt felt quite anti-climatic to him, but Dante couldn’t help but laugh at himself. He was an undercover agent, a spy, and a usurper, so he was extremely paranoid about the actions his ‘victims’ would take if they suspected him.

nHowever, he was clearly overthinking. They had not a clue of what he was and unless he opened his mouth to blabber, it was unlikely that they would ever know.

nRealizing this, Dante calmed down and plopped on his couch lazily. He checked the school’s timetable and saw that their next visit to the Black Land was two weeks away. This did not surprise him, as one had to remember that the Black Land did not belong to his batch alone.

nStudents in their senior years also had allotted time to use it. The Eternal Academy had a 5-year system, so there were five total grades. Each one had a week to use the Black Land and then it would shift.

nThree weeks ago, Dante’s batch had the right to use it. Two weeks ago was year 2, a week ago was year 3, this week was year 4 and next week would be year 5. After that, it would reset and start with them again.

nSince there was so much, time, Dante decided to continue training in the Training World. Yes, while he absolutely craved the ability to raise his SDI in the Apocalypse World, what he craved even more was skill.

nRaw power vs perfected skill, what would one choose?

nDante chose Perfected Skill due to his own circumstances. It might not be the best choice depending on the argument made, but it was the choice he would take.

nAs for the Apocalypse World, it would be there. Even if his avatar expired after 30 days, he could just descend again as a new body. Even though he would lose his built-up identity and the progress in growing his game-given superpower, that was pretty much it.

nSo he didn’t fret about it and entered the ethereal dojo. The Elder nodded with satisfaction to see Dante return too soon and noticed that the fellow was still maintaining the breathing routine. Dante had kept it up through the whole time he was shopping and even now.

n“Next after Breathing is Posture. The quality of your body’s ability to enter any situation of its choice at the fastest speed is dependent on the posture you adopt. A problematic posture would make it such that no matter how fast your reaction, you would still be flawed in movement.” The Elder explained as he displayed a certain stance to Dante.

n“Mimic this. This is the basic standing pose, how you should be when you’re standing still.” The Elder instructed and Dante followed. He was able to somewhat grasp the posture after a few tries with plenty of corrections from the Elder.

nDante held the posture on command for over 3 hours straight, not allowing himself to move an inch. He finally understood how soldiers felt when they had to stand at attention or at ease for long periods of time. .

nEventually, he was made to stop by the Elder as another pose was shown, this one in a seated position. This one was the basic sitting pose, meant for how one should be seated. According to the Elder, this was one of the two most important postures as people were more vulnerable when seated and slower to react.

nDante practiced this one while seated on the floor for another 3 hours. The killer part was that whether it was the previous pose or this one, he had to maintain his mastered breathing routine. That significantly raised the difficulty only in the early moments of adaptation.

nThe final of the three basic postures was the lying posture. This was the other of the two important poses, which formed a relationship with the sitting posture because people were very vulnerable and had a harder time reacting when caught like this.

nThe Elder displayed the posture and helped Dante enter it so that he could maintain it for 3 hours straight. Once that happened, he was done for the day and could go back to the real world to rest.

nSince he entered with his real body, the aches, and pains from stretching his body in different poses were as real as it could get. Knowing that his muscle fibers were crying out in pain after being torn, he quickly consumed a lot of protein.

nHe then went to lie down and groaned every time he moved too much as his body became sore. He eventually found himself adopting the lying pose he just practiced and was surprised to see that it actually significantly reduced the strain despite also being the cause.

nDante then fell asleep like this and nodded off for about 12 hours. When he woke up, it was the morning of the next day and his body was refreshed completely. He gingerly tested it out and found that there was no pain whatsoever.

nUnlike normal people who could be sore for days on end, with Dante’s current Constitution and Vitality index he could recover from something as serious as severe wounds in hours, much less soreness of muscles.

nDante got up and jumped right back into the training world to continue with today’s practice. When he arrived before the ever-present Elder, he was already subconsciously adopting the standing pose. Seeing that Dante was trying hard to master it, the Elder nodded with slight satisfaction and a pull of his beard.

n“Today, we are going to continue with the next set of postures. This is the Walking Posture, for when you are in slow movement.” The Elder stated as he stood up and walked a few steps around the dojo while displaying a strange posture.

nDante mimicked the posture and began walking around somewhat similarly, but had to be corrected as usual. It was naturally impossible to just see something like this once and instantly mimic it unless he specifically had that kind of talent.

nEventually, he spent another 3 hours trying to get the hang of it. Now that he was in locomotion, of course the difficulty had spiked greatly. He failed many times and had to restart the posture, and it even often messed up his breathing until the Elder gave him a hint.

n“Match your breathing with your movement, and you might find something interesting.” The fellow hinted with a cryptic smile.

nDante did as he was told and was surprised to feel that the two methods seemed to match very well. In fact, saying that they matched was an understatement, it was like they were crafted from the same mold.

nOr better yet, it was like they were two different instruments in the same song. Alone, they had their own tune, but when merged together, one could feel something more from them. There was also the feeling of something missing, like there should be even more tunes added.

nWhatever the case, the effect it had on Dante was exceptional. What he struggled with became easy, because even if he faltered the pose, he only had to bring it back to sync with his breathing and he was back on track.

nUsing one to support the other made things better. After 5 hours of this, the Elder made Dante change to the second posture that was based on motion, which was obviously the running posture.

nWhether it was a slow jog or a full-on sprint, it was necessary for the running posture to be used because it assured that one would be able to halt their movement and react perfectly, as well as remain in motion and react perfectly.

nThis one also matched the breathing routine in its own way, so Dante had no issues spending 5 hours practicing this pose until it became something he could jump into on his own.

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