Morning Sparring (Part 2)

The beach was much quieter at two thirty in the afternoon than it had been in the morning. The angle of the sun had shifted from directly overhead toward the west, casting clear, shadowed outlines from the footprints left behind earlier. Krillin was already standing at the edge of the surf, bare-chested and wearing only dark shorts. A thin rope was tied around his ankle, its end dangling in the water and swaying gently with the current. His skin had been tanned an even deep brown, the color of someone exposed to sea winds and sunlight for a long time.

When Lin Chen reached the shore, he took off his martial arts uniform top and draped it over a short post on the beach, then stepped barefoot into the seawater. The water was colder than he had expected, as though a deep-sea current had brought up the chill. A coolness washed over his ankles and calves as they submerged, making every fine hair on his skin stand up. He rolled his shoulders and waited in ankle-deep water.

"Today's target is that black reef." Krillin raised a hand and pointed toward a dark rise far out at sea. The part above the water stood about as high as a person, its surface covered in dark algae. "It's around eight hundred meters one way. Swim over, touch the surface of the reef, then swim back."

After saying that, he turned and walked into the sea. He stopped once the water reached his waist, leaned forward, parted the surface with his arms, and swam toward the distance. His movements were remarkably effortless. Each stroke caused his body to turn slightly at the surface, and the angle of his strokes worked smoothly with his breathing rhythm. Lin Chen waited a few seconds until Krillin had pulled about ten meters ahead, then entered the water himself and began swimming when it reached his waist.

The seawater was even colder than he had imagined. When he first began stroking, the muscles in his arms tightened in the cold water, and his breathing rhythm was thrown off once. He adjusted the frequency of his breaths, only recovering his rhythm after his body adapted to the temperature. By the time he had swum about a hundred meters, Krillin was already roughly thirty meters ahead, moving at a steady pace. He was not fast, but his endurance was strong, as if he would never tire.

Lin Chen kept swimming. Seawater flowed past his chin and ears with every stroke, carrying a faint resistance. He could feel his shoulders and arms heating up as he swam—the warmth spread evenly between his shoulder joints and upper-arm muscles. It was similar to when he carried rocks, but it spread more evenly in the water, like warm water seeping through his skin along the surface of his body.

[Ding! Picked up Swimming Skill Fragment ×1. Current Swimming Skill Proficiency: 1%.]

He felt the efficiency of his strokes improve slightly. The change was small, but it was real. Krillin continued to maintain a steady speed ahead, while the distance between them slowly narrowed. It was as though Lin Chen's speed had increased a little after swimming for some distance, allowing him to close the gap slightly while maintaining his rhythm.

About halfway there, Lin Chen felt the direction of the current change. The ripples on the surface no longer moved uniformly in one direction. Instead, they surged from below and to the side, pushing him away from the reef. He adjusted his course and increased the force of his right-side strokes to offset the push. The current persisted for the next several dozen meters, but its direction remained steady. After passing through that stretch, he felt it gradually weaken, and his course returned to normal.

The black reef drew closer. The portion above the water looked larger than it had from afar, its surface covered in dark green algae and clinging sea life. Krillin had already arrived. He braced one hand against the side of the reef and pointed toward Lin Chen with the other, signaling for him to keep swimming forward.

Lin Chen swam to the edge of the reef and reached out to touch its surface. It felt rough and icy, with tiny shellfish clinging to it. Its edges were sharp, leaving a pale mark on his finger when he brushed against it, though the skin had not broken. He glanced at the mark, drew his finger back into the water, then turned and began swimming back.

The current on the return trip differed from the one on the way out, as though the tide was turning. He adjusted the angle of his strokes to adapt to the new current, making slight adjustments to his posture as well to keep his torso as close to horizontal as possible. Krillin was about twenty meters ahead of him and slightly to the left, apparently adjusting his direction according to the current as well.

As he neared the shore, he felt the water beneath his feet becoming shallower, and his feet touched the sandy seabed. He stood up, and seawater slid from his shoulders to his waist. Droplets ran down his skin and glinted briefly in the sunlight. When he walked back onto the shore, Krillin was already standing on the beach, bending down to wring the water from the hem of his shorts.

"For your first time swimming this route, you took a little less time than expected," Krillin said, straightening up. "Your judgment of the current's direction was basically accurate too. But when you passed through the middle stretch, you made two slight adjustments to your breathing rhythm, which affected the stability of your propulsion. If you can maintain steady breathing intervals while passing through the current, it won't carry you off course."

Standing beside him, Lin Chen wrung out his own shorts. "Next time, I'll try keeping my breathing rate fixed through the current."

Krillin nodded. "Tomorrow morning, add the swimming rhythm to your running training too. After swimming, go move rocks. No rest in between." He said no more and turned toward Kame House. As he passed Lin Chen, he added, "Training plans are usually continuous. Rest after you finish." After a few steps, his voice faded beneath the sea breeze and crashing waves, as though it had been scattered by the wind.

Lin Chen remained where he was and raised his palm to inspect it. The pale mark from the reef had already completely vanished, leaving only an extremely faint line on his skin that was nearly invisible beneath the sunlight. He bent down, picked up his martial arts uniform top from the sand, draped it over his shoulder, and headed toward Kame House along the route Krillin had taken. On the way back, the sea breeze had weakened somewhat. Sunlight dried the last wet marks on the beach, and the color of the wet sand faded from deep brown back to pale yellow as the outlines along its edges gradually blurred.

Far out at sea, the black reef appeared and disappeared among the waves like a floating boundary marker.