Chapter 100 To the extreme
Hard training continued.
Another seven days went by.
Young instructor seemed to set a seven day period as a stage. In the eighth day of the archery training he once again increased Dudian’s indicators. The number of arrows to be shot increased to 1600 while the hits on target had reached 400.
This time he didn’t directly increase it to 500 as if taking into the account the physical limits of Dudian’s body. According to their previous studies and assessments the limit for the hunter’s physique was two thousand arrows. So from their perspective completing 1500 arrows was a very difficult task.
His assessment was derived from a variety of information and seemed very accurate on the surface. But he didn’t know the when he set the task, Dudian had already reached 2080 arrows.
And, this record was immediately broken in the next day, reaching 2112 arrows!
However, after this it seemed that he had hit the physical limit as the quantity wise increase didn’t happen as it was before. His target rate had reached 700 arrows. In other words, he could continue to hit the target for the first seven hundred arrows straight!
This was a good indicator as it meant that he was an entry level archer.
However, it was only just an entry level archery. As shooting is stationary and the target area was larger. If he wanted to accurately hit a target in the head or in the heart in a smaller ranger, the difficulty would arise.
Arrows continuously flew out. Most of the hit the target while three arrows hit the red mark.
Dudian’s actions were stable as the sore tired arms from yesterday and recovered after a night’s rest. His body has been fully adapted to such a high-intensity training.
Other five trainees joined him in the training ground after he had finished shooting two hundred arrows.
Dudian’s rapid progressed has impressed the other five. However, they still thought that the only reason for Dudian’s performance were magic marks. They felt envy and were a bit jealous.
It didn’t take long for the young instructor to join them. He had always been easy-going as he looked at Dudian and chuckled: “Today, its been a month that you have been training here. I believe that your arm has been able to adapt to the training because of the tasks that I have given you for the last month.”
Dudian stopped and looked at him.
“Next, I’m going to teach you bow shooting skills. If you can master them you can be considered truly qualified as an archer!” Young instructors smiled as he picked up a black bow and few arrows from the shelf. He said to Dudian: “Look carefully, this trick is called ‘alignment shooting’”
He finger loosened and string ejected the arrow.
Arrow pierced into the middle of the heart of the target.
Dudian looked back at the young instructor but heard another arrow hitting the target. He was stunned to see the there was another arrow which had pierced the exact same point.
“You did not see.” Young instructors smiled: “The so-called aligned shooting is firing the arrows in rapid bursts without a pause. The difficulty of this trick is to be stable and fast. Both arrows have to maintains the line. It can be lethal as if you meet a monster with strong defense then the first arrow would tear the scale, the second arrow would pierce the flesh and blood while the third arrow will be able to take its life!”
Dudian looked and nodded: “I got it.”
“I’m going to give you half a month to master it.” Young instructor spoke in a cold tone: “If you can’t grasp within the given time-frame then a hellish training is waiting for you!”
Dudian nodded slightly, that he had understood him.
“Remember, the key to this trick is stability. You got to be as stable as you can while putting the arrows! ” Young instructor said again as if to remind him.
Dudian saw in details that the arrows were virtually shadowing each other. Almost the time when the first arrow was shot, instructors hand was already grasping the second!
Dudian also began to practice this method.
However he soon felt the difficulty. First of all, when he wanted to improvise the instructor, he wasn’t able to grap the arrow as fast as he wanted. Occasionally he would catch them but in that case his speed would slow down and won’t be able to ‘burst’ the way instructor showed.
Young instructors saw that Dudian was practicing so he said ‘good practice’ and turned away to leave.
Dudian repeated practice.
Another day passed.
He completely immersed himself in shooting direct arrows instead of practicing the way of ‘aligned shooting.’: “How many arrows were shot today?
“Two thousand five hundred and thirty arrows.” Servant replied.
Dudian was surprised as the number of arrows shot by him three days ago was around two thousand three hundred and fifty arrows. Today, he had reached two thousand and five hundred arrows. However, he seemed to be reaching the physical limits of his body.
“Too much input, but did not feel my body tired at all.” Dudian suddenly saw his fingers had worn blisters and a bit of watery liquid and blood flew out. He wrapped them and went back to the dinner.
the next day.
Dudian as usual came early to continue to exercise aligned shooting.
Dudian had more understanding about the aligned shooting after number of times of exercising.
“Rapid shooting of the arrows… Although the continuous two arrows, and even the three arrows are highly lethal but the shortcomings are obvious. Rapid archery will lead to weaken the strength of each arrow. The real damage caused by the three arrows wouldn’t be fatal. This is not as good and effective as the normal method. Although it was slow in comparison to aligned shooting but arrow’s strength and damage potential was much higher.”
“Moreover, an individuals energy is limited while practicing aligned shooting takes to long and strains on brainpower as there is much concentration to be taken into account. At the end of the day, I would be mentally exhausted.”
He decided to go to the extreme!
He had to achieve the ultimate.
Although aligned shooting looked good, fancy and seemed powerful but Dudian felt that it wasn’t worth wasting energy to study the technique. He must excel at the most destructive way which was the normal method that had higher penetrative power and more vital.
Dudian abandoned the practice of aligned shooting and continued to repeat the previous basic archery.
Moreover, he didn’t blindly purse the amount of shots made but instead focused on how to make each arrow’s destructive power even more.