Luo Ya hurried back with the manual to the room King Brunen had prepared for him in the palace, eagerly flipping through it.
The insights and ideas he gained from studying the Great Swordsman's cultivation notes were one thing; the move Infernal Fire Prison left Luo Ya utterly amazed.
To train this move, one had to be at least a third-stage swordsman just to get started. Its core principle was to solidify one's sword intent, then disperse it.
This formed countless flaming swords, which burst out from all over the body before returning to circle around the user.
It was just like Ten Thousand Swords Return to Origin from the TV shows Luo Ya had watched in his previous life: the swords could circle around him to shield his body, or gather into a forty-meter greatsword and slash!
It was both flashy and practical.
One of the move's challenges was that it required an unusually large amount of sword intent, which suited Luo Ya perfectly. Since setting out on his path, no matter how freely he had expended his sword intent, he had never run out. Even after a two-day, two-night battle with Kuma, he had only just about reached his limit.
The second challenge was controlling his sword intent as effortlessly as his own limbs, making it move at will. Whether splitting it into several flaming swords or gathering it into a greatsword, everything depended on how well he could control his sword intent.
This was where Luo Ya struggled. After all, his own approach was to solve problems with overwhelming force. He wasn't completely clueless when it came to such fine control, but he would need to put in some serious practice.
And so, after getting the manual, Luo Ya holed up in his room every day, honing his sword intent and shaping it into flaming swords. To his surprise, it consumed a tremendous amount of sword intent. Often, before he could even finish forming a single sword he was satisfied with, his reserves would run dry, leaving him dizzy and exhausted. The main reason was his lack of precision: a large amount of sword intent was wasted during the process.
Yet repeatedly exhausting his sword intent and meditating to restore it actually caused the two Great Grade Swords in his Soul Space to dissolve much faster, and his sword intent grew along with them.
When he was too tired to keep practicing, he read the swordsmanship notes. He even ate in his room. For a while, his swordsmanship improved by leaps and bounds.
At last, after seven or eight days of this routine, King Brunen sent a maid to tell him to go to the palace training grounds early the next morning.
Early the next morning, Luo Ya arrived at the training grounds and saw Madalina already doing physical exercises, with Annajia supervising nearby.
After just seven or eight days of training, Madalina had visibly slimmed down. At least she was no longer shaped like a uniform cylinder.
Annajia looked at Luo Ya, who had arrived late, with a thoroughly displeased expression. "You want to learn Hasshoken? Then let's hear you call me teacher!"
"Heh, Teacher Annajia." Luo Ya cupped his fists, unconcerned. He had always believed that those with greater skill deserved to be called teachers, so the title came naturally to him.
As far as Luo Ya was concerned, there was nothing embarrassing about calling someone who had beaten him senseless with her bare hands his master.
Annajia raised an eyebrow, somewhat surprised. She hadn't expected a swordsman as notorious as Luo Ya to be so easygoing. While Madalina continued her physical exercises nearby, Annajia began explaining the essence of Hasshoken to him.
It turned out that Hasshoken relied on a unique method of exerting force to generate a spreading shock wave with each strike.
By combining this shock wave with Haki, it could both deliver penetrating force capable of striking through a wall and greatly increase one's defense.
After all, ordinary people couldn't defend against blades and bullets without covering themselves in Armament Haki.
Even Whitebeard had been run through the chest by a single sword thrust, and even Garp had been left bleeding from the head after being struck by the Axe King.
What people remembered most about Big Mom, besides her monstrous strength, was her Iron Balloon talent: blades and bullets couldn't pierce her defenses.
Hasshoken, however, used its shock waves to grant its practitioners the ability to defend against blades even before they had mastered Armament Haki.
Flower Country had made a name for itself across the seas through its attacks, which could pierce shields, and its defenses, which kept blades from ever reaching its people.
With his physical conditioning already up to par, Luo Ya quickly grasped the basics of Hasshoken.
His reason for learning Hasshoken was simple: to upgrade his usual gut kick. After all, it was unrealistic to expect every enemy he met to be unable to withstand a single strike from Ryujin Jakka.
As for an ordinary straight kick, it was already proving woefully inadequate. When he fought Kuma, several kicks had done nothing but leave a few footprints.
Annajia's specialty was kicking techniques, so the sound of muffled thuds soon joined Madalina's otherwise unremarkable laps around the training ground, serving as their background music.
After getting kicked all morning, Luo Ya was seething. He planned to give his "student" a proper lesson that afternoon.
Madalina was already afraid of Luo Ya. Seeing the footprints all over his body and his bloodshot eyes, she was even more frightened and hid behind Annajia.
"Phew. Put this on." Luo Ya let out a long breath, quelling the urge to draw his sword. He tossed Madalina a helmet with eyeholes and breathing holes, along with a wooden sword.
Madalina glanced at Annajia, then put on the helmet and picked up the wooden sword.
"When ordinary people face an attack, their instinct is to close their eyes in fear. You're even worse. A cowardly, timid person can't keep hold of a fist, much less a sword."
"The most basic combat training is to teach you not to close your eyes in fear when an attack comes."
With that, Luo Ya drew a wooden sword and swung it straight down at Madalina's head.
Thwack! Faced with the incoming wooden sword, Madalina instinctively squeezed her eyes shut. She was knocked to the ground, and the wooden sword fell from her hand.
"Get up!" Luo Ya shouted at Madalina, who lay on the ground in tears.
Frightened, she hurriedly grabbed the wooden sword and scrambled to her feet.
After an entire afternoon of training, Madalina had not only failed to overcome her instinct to close her eyes, she had also been beaten until she sat on the ground and burst into tears.
No matter how much Luo Ya shouted, she refused to get up again.
Annajia, standing nearby with her arms folded, could only shake her head helplessly. With a personality like that, Madalina really wasn't suited to training.
Of course, she didn't criticize Luo Ya for being too strict. She had gone through the same thing when she first trained in boxing. It was an unavoidable part of becoming strong.
"Heh, how interesting. Madalina, if all you want is to exercise and slim down, just go tell Brunen. I can't be bothered with the trouble.
"But you'd better still give me what you promised."
Luo Ya laughed in exasperation, turned, and kicked the wall behind him with all his strength. His right foot, wreathed in Hasshoken's shock waves and covered in Armament Haki, shattered the entire section of wall.
Luo Ya strolled away with his hands in his pockets, disappearing into a cloud of dust.
Annajia, who was comforting Madalina nearby, watched Luo Ya's departing figure and murmured,
"Did he really master the essence of Hasshoken's Drill Dragon Nail in just one morning?"
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