Goblin bowed to Lucian and ran off to join the rest in the kitchen to help as well.
The routine at the harbor had been set, the ship's maintenance was done.
Now, Lucian could start training his body while they prepared their minds to offer their blessings to him.
He lit up the cannon fuse. The cannonball followed the imaginary trajectory he conjured in his mind, striking the rock on the shore. A part of it blew off and a part of it cracked from the impact.
He looked again through his binoculars at the damaged rock, 'A diamond knight would need five of those to his face to receive some damage...'
Lucian was still far away from becoming a 12lb (11kg) shooting cannon ball that could shatter cliffs with a single blow.
He didn't need to reach that far either since there wasn't a single diamond knight in the whole world and he hoped it would stay that way.
From legends and old books, the diamond knight's punches were a hundred and thirty times more powerful than an iron knight's punch, enough to destroy a defence wall built out of stones with their bare fists. Or so the stories went.
If one were to appear in this era, the power balance would shift overnight.
Lucian just wanted to feel like one for inspiration, shooting the cannonballs was the closest one could get to experiencing the sensation of a diamond knight's punch.
Sighing, Lucian turned around.
There was a wooden dummy with a target painted on the deck, representing a human torso. Made out of the most dense wood, reinforced with metal plates and secured to the heavy planks of the ship.
It was designed to be an immovable object and withstand the force of a charging boar, which equaled the silver knight's punching power.
Without giving himself time to hesitate, Lucian threw a punch at the dummy with his left hand. He didn't hold back, using his full strength.
"Ugh..." he groaned, shaking his fingers.
The dummy didn't even shake. Lucian's fist was the one that took the beating instead, not the other way around.
Attempting the impossible and making it happen. It was the first step to becoming a ranked knight.
Humans couldn't create matter from nothing (no convenient magic and no elemental magic either). They couldn't control anything outside of themselves. The only thing they could influence was the weapon that they practiced with as a part of their body's extension.
Lucian took a stance again and closed his eyes, breathing in and out, imagining his fist as a cannonball as stupid as it sounded.
'It's not my hand, but a cannonball, not my fist, but a cannonball, not my hand, but a cannonball...'
The weight of the cannonball, its speed, its destructive power, all that became his left hand. He could imagine it flying through the air, striking the dummy, breaking its wood and turning it into splinters. He could see it clearly. He believed in it.
He opened his eyes and threw a punch, but the dummy continued to mock his efforts, as if saying: Imagination is not reality, and your reality is that you are a weak, puny, mortal, incapable of destroying me.
'Stupid block of wood.' Lucian hit it again and again.
He was using less and less force each time. Having his fist damaged equaled failure, but so did not breaking through the wood. He had to find the sweet spot.
'Break, break, break, BREAK, BREAK, BREAK!' he chanted louder and louder as if it could cover the lack of power behind his strikes.
He lost count of how many punches he had thrown at it. The dummy was still standing, and the more he punched it, the more it seemed to be in a better shape than Lucian was.
His knuckles were starting to tear and blood was beginning to show, but he didn't stop despite already failing (failing to prevent his fists from getting damaged).
He started to think he would have better luck by using his forehead instead, and was considering it.
'If my fist cannot be a cannon ball, why not my whole head be one? It's probably the size of a cannon ball after all...'
His stomach growled. Or maybe it was his brain telling him that hunger was clouding his judgment, and that he should go and eat something before he really ended up breaking his skull on the dummy.
"Haah..." Lucian took a step back, looking at his bleeding knuckles, 'I will let you go this time. Next time I won't be so forgiving.'
He already gave the dummy a personality and a name: Blocky. He hated Blocky. That stupid Blocky who didn't want to be broken. Blocky didn't like Lucian either. He could feel it.
'What are you? A child?' Voice asked him, 'Stop blaming a piece of wood for your failure. It's pathetic.'
'It's not my fault that Blocky doesn't want to die,' Lucian muttered even more childishly.
'The whole purpose of training is to break your limitations and go beyond them. It's you, who doesn't want to go past your limits, not the wood.'
Lucian raised his bloodied knuckles to show the world how hard he was working on breaking his limitations, and failing.
He had already numbed the pain. He was good at that. The pain wasn't real, just a sensation in his mind. It was the first step to mastering the art of pain resistance.
'You have a strong mind, but a weak body,' Voice pointed out, finally sounding like a teacher it was supposed to be, 'Most people have it the other way around. By the time they reach your stage mentally, their bodies would have already adapted and grown stronger as well. But yours didn't. Why do you think that is?'
'Because I'm a hay head?' Lucian asked. That was his excuse for everything.
'You think hay heads have a harder time growing stronger?'
'Don't they?'
╔═══ Author's note ════╗
Sorry for the slow updates, I was frustrated by the lame ass power system I came up with and was reluctant to post new chapters, but oh well, gotta power through that too lol.✌️
Any tips on how to improve it would be greatly appreciated, otherwise, the current one is here to stay.
I don't usually think too hard about plot, honestly, just wanna write character doing things and interacting. Plot just kinda happens, and I go with the flow.😅
Leave some power stones or gifts as a tip if you want to motivate me to keep going. Or a comment. Either works. 🫡
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