Chapter 530: Grappling
Sylas released his grip on General Ji's neck, standing with a heaving breath.
Grappling was dangerous.
If not for the sake of his Comprehension, he wasn't sure if he would do this. Plus, there was an obvious problem to it all... The fact that with how large beasts got sometimes, what good was a leg lock if his legs couldn't wrap around them at all?
It seemed silly to work on a skill that wouldn't be useful against such a large segment of his opponents. But he felt that if he couldn't use weapons like most people could, then he should have every method of protecting himself possible within reason.
Grappling was something most people didn't understand and could be great when he was facing off against an opponent he couldn't easily defeat through normal means.
'Keep going.'
Sylas practically ran the poor General Ji into the ground. The General lost count of the number of times he passed out.
He thought that he would get a reprieve when he could finally start using his full Strength, but the ending was the same. When he thought that using his weapon would be his saving grace, he ended up almost taking his own head off several times. When Sylas finally allowed him to use Skills, he might as well have not had the opportunity to use them at all.
He found the skills getting constantly canceled, and even when he managed to complete his Aether circulation, Sylas was restricting his movements in a way that he would have to kamikaze them both to get any sort of damage in.
The more Sylas fought, the more he felt that grappling was practically a poetic sort of experience.
He could feel his opponents breathing, movement, even panic in a way so intimate that nothing could compare. The kind of control it gave him over someone's life was intoxicating in its own way, and he seemed to completely forget the hatred he had for the movement.
It only took him three quick spars with General Ji to master <Interlocking Chains>. When it hit Legendary Mastery, he could feel its limits intimately, so he moved onto <Serpent's Embrace>, not bothering to try to improve it to Progenitor Mastery.
Progenitor Mastery required not just understanding, but improvement on a technique. Sylas didn't have the time to invest in it, and it was just an F- Skill Set regardless, so it wasn't worth it even if he did have the time.
Although he had given himself a month, he took every day like it was his very last.
<Serpent's Embrace> improved the rigid movements of <Interlocking Chains> a great deal. Compared to <Interlocking Chains>'s eight transitions, <Serpent's Embrace> had only four, but they were all streamlined and focused on flexibility in a way that made them applicable to a vast array of situations, far more than <Interlocking Chains>'s eight transitions could compare to.
Sometimes Sylas even moved as though he didn't have any bones at all, and he learned how to use the muscles of his torso to move around his opponent's body with more fluidity. That process of movement allowed the pressure on his arms and legs to lessen so they could focus on latching onto vital points and squeezing down. Even when General Ji thought that he had control over Sylas' limbs, a light twist and shift could find him spinning through the air again.
<Harmonizing Lock> and <Unity Hold> were extremely similar in their actions. They focused on using the opponent's methods against them, almost like constrictors; the more General Ji struggled, the more it seemed like he was suffocating.
The difference, though, was that <Unity Hold>, the first FF-Skill Set of the bunch, was where the suffocation tactics truly became shocking.
<Unity Hold> transitions and death holds blurred into one another. The transitions became part of the suffocating process, focusing on applying pressure onto an opponent's chest, constricting their ability to breathe easily, and timing transitions with their breaths to force asphyxiation.
By the time Sylas was mastering <Unity Hold>, General Ji was practically crying real tears. It was like no matter how hard he tried to breathe, he would get a face full of humid air and carbon dioxide.
By the time Sylas got to Legendary Mastery, a half day later, General Ji passed out before Sylas even got a hold on his neck. He struggled to the point of turning blue in the face, and his heart almost burst out of his chest.
At that point, Sylas was forced to give General Ji a break.
He stood slowly, his breathing heavy and his body drenched in sweat.
He left the region, took a shower, ate a mountain of beasts the System City army caught for him, and then went to bed.
In this month, he wouldn't just take his training seriously, but his recovery as well. When he woke up, he sent a signal for a new General to make their way to his training ground in a few hours. But first, he planned on spending some time on his Rune Mastery.
As pleasurable as grappling was, he couldn't lose himself in it indefinitely. If there was going to be anything that could fix the main weaknesses of grappling, it was going to be Runes.
Plus...
[>Mixed Martial Arts (FFF+)]
He had only mastered up to <Unity Hold>, and only had a rudimentary Fragmented Mastery of <Twistling Lotus>, the FF Grade Skill. But that seemed enough for his Mixed Martial Arts Comprehension to reach this level.
This made Sylas realize that he truly wasn't satisfied with these Comprehensions.
He had managed to raise his Boxing Comprehension to FFF+ just by remembering television he had watched, and now it only took mastering an FF- Skill Set to Legendary to gain an FFF + Mixed Martial Arts Comprehension.
It just felt... hollow.
Compared to the mystery and intrigue surrounding his Madness Comprehension, even though it was "only" FFF, these Comprehensions seemed a far cry from that.
He wasn't really sure how to proceed, and the Madness Key wasn't helpful with such broad questions, so he chose to shift gears for now.
[World of Runes (Secrets)]