Only a week remained until the celebration, and the palace already had a tense atmosphere. In public, Primus and Haver pretended they had forgotten all grievances and peacefully ruled the country, but in reality... everyone felt that not just a black cat had run between the brothers, but an entire panther.
But Khaal was worried about something else entirely. And not even about the fact that they would again present his wife to him. Yes, perhaps she would grow up to be a beauty. Probably her family had a lot of money (and not just one pile), but the prince still felt like a breeding dog. As if his own father was pushing a female at him for mating.
Yes, a seven-year-old boy shouldn't have such thoughts, but before this life, Khaal had lived another one. And the neural network he inherited from that life was now showing strange behavior.
[Reconfiguring interface. Upgrading to new version. Current version - 0.18.1!]
Khaal didn't understand why it was reconfiguring or where the update was coming from. In Lidus, they didn't even have proper toilets, let alone patches for neural networks. And yet the network was somehow updating. Perhaps it was related to the fact that it shouldn't have existed in the first place.
The prince had been reborn - with a new body, a new nervous system. The old body remained in another world, and that's where the neural network should have stayed. So, considering that the locals not only believed in the existence of the soul but proved it in practice, then... Most likely, the neural network had attached itself to his soul - the energy component.
And since Khaal was developing, having reached the sixth stage of bodily nodes by age seven (which was an impressive achievement by the kingdom's standards), the network could also develop. Absorb energy, as locals said, "of heaven and earth."
[Reconfiguration complete. Ability to process new analytical information. In what form should the new information be displayed?]
Khaal thought for a moment, then came to the simplest conclusion.
"Tabular form," he said, deciding to stick with the format that the neural network had initially displayed.
At that very second, a... table appeared before his eyes.
Name: Khaal
Development level: Bodily nodes. Sixth stage
Strength: 0.4
Agility: 0.7
Constitution: 0.2
Energy points: 0.5
"Holy..." the prince exclaimed.
The new function of the neural network more than made up for all its shortcomings.
According to the Master's stories, someone else's development level was one of the most serious secrets. No one would simply reveal it. After all, in battle, knowing in advance what your opponent might be capable of gives you an incredible advantage. That's why, rumor had it, there were special techniques for identifying an enemy's strength.
Khaal could not only discover someone else's strength but also see it in digital form and in great detail.
This new discovery required urgent verification!
That's why the prince ran out into the corridor and rushed to the parade ground. Warriors were already working there, and the Master was walking around with dignity. It was him that Khaal "scanned."
Name: Master
Development level: ?????????
Strength: ?????????
Agility: ?????????
Constitution: ?????????
Energy points: ?????????
The prince slapped his palm to his face and spent another hour experimentally determining that the neural network's maximum capabilities weren't so outstanding. It could only assess those who did not exceed his own development. That is, equals and those below.
"Well, okay," sighed the prince, sitting on the steps. "At least I can monitor my own progress. And identify those who are stronger in advance."
Despite these "clever" words, inside there was hope that with further development, the neural network would be able to track stronger people as well. On the other hand, he still didn't fully understand what "energy points" meant. Could the software have calculated an adept's power?
Considering that during the demonstration of the scorched falcon technique, a message about "two units" had popped up, it was most likely the case. This means that just one strike from the Master was four times stronger than Khaal's current level.
At the same time, one couldn't say the old man couldn't repeat the strike again. At that moment, he didn't look tired at all.
"Well..." Khaal shook his head.
His mentors were right - he hadn't even seen the world of martial arts yet. The fact that he could do twenty push-ups with forty kilograms at the age of seven meant nothing. He was no stronger than an ant.
A long and difficult path lay ahead of him, but that didn't mean Khaal had given up.
No, the excitement in him only...
"Your Highness?"
The prince was pulled from his thoughts by the very same Master. Noticing his student, he stepped away from the warriors and approached Khaal.
"I thought you wouldn't miss training because of the holiday."
The prince blinked several times and mentally scolded himself. He had indeed planned to skip... But now such thoughts were gone. And not because of the teacher's words, but due to the realization of his own weakness.
"Change and get to the field," the old man hurried him.
The prince followed the instruction, and a couple of minutes later, he was selflessly practicing the basic sword technique. Moving from one stance to another, he fought with shadows, dodging thrusts and strikes, delivering his own.
They rarely put him in sparring with anyone. None of the warriors could match not only Khaal's talent but also his persistent work.
The Master said it was a rare phenomenon for anyone to consider that a seven-year-old child could begin to master a mortal sword technique. Most were only able to grasp the basics of basic skills by sixteen.
After all, if many of these warriors were placed before a dummy and given a sword, despite all their strength, they wouldn't always hit the intended target. Besides their body, they had to control the sword.
Strike, cutting blow, lunge, upward strike, downward strike, evasion, parry, unsheathing the sword, and putting it back in the scabbard - all these were woven and intertwined into a single web. And if it took some people years to master all these basics of handling the "king of weapons" - the sword, then Khaal... He initially knew how to do all this thanks to instincts.
But years had passed.
Five years, to be exact.
And if someone made a hundred strikes, Khaal performed a thousand.
If someone made a thousand lunges, Khaal did ten thousand.
If someone unsheathed a sword five hundred times, Khaal did it five thousand times.
He trained ten times more diligently than ordinary people. Because he knew that only in this way could one achieve their goal in this world. Work hard. And while other children his age were forced to train, he rushed to the parade ground himself. This made his father proud and his mother's gaze worried.
"Your Highness," the Master called.
The prince stopped practicing and turned around.
The old man was carrying a wooden dummy to the parade ground, one he had never brought out before. The height of an adult, it had nine red circles shining on it, indicating the most important targets for a sword.
Throat, heart, joints, abdomen, center of mass, and forehead. Most sword strikes were meant to be directed at these points.
"I haven't missed for a year now," Khaal objected, outraged that they had brought him such a "childish" toy.
The prince ignored several envious glances.
"Against a stationary opponent, my prince," the Master smiled slightly bloodthirstily.
He set the dummy in the sand, then placed wooden swords in its hands and laid his palm on its "back." A moment later, Khaal watched with an open mouth as, without any mechanisms, the dummy began to spin.
"Please, Your Highness."
Khaal approached the dummy, first with caution, then more confidently. In his hands, he held his wooden sword, weighted for training. Assessing the rotation speed of the dummy and the maximum distance of its possible strike, he lunged forward.
Moving so that his chest almost touched the sand, he delivered a lightning-fast strike, cutting the dummy from bottom to top. Such mastery and speed caused surprised sighs from the audience. No one could believe that a seven-year-old boy was capable of such.
And then came another exhale and a burst of laughter.
The prince looked in surprise at the fact that the paint on the targets remained untouched. His strike had hit the flat of the dummy's sword. It had not only blocked him but parried, and then the prince received a painful poke in the chest.
Falling to the sand, he, growling like a small wolf, jumped to his feet and rushed to attack.
Pulling the sword forward, Khaal tilted his wrist to the side, sending the blade on a winding flight. This time, he easily bypassed the block set by the dummy and almost reached its throat when the dummy rotated. It slightly lowered its sword, changing the trajectory of Khaal's sword, and with its free "hand" undercut his legs, once again sending the prince to the sand.
The prince got up again and again rushed to attack. Each time, he came up with new ways. He ducked under strikes, but was pushed in the chest.
He bypassed blocks, but was knocked off his feet.
Enraged, he even used "one with the sword" and reached the opponent from a distance of three steps, but only left a small scratch on the guard of the wooden blade.
The warriors, tired of watching his fruitless attempts, returned to sparring, but Khaal continued to throw himself at the dummy.
Another hundred times, another two hundred times. He didn't care about bruises and scratches; he wasn't going to go to the feast until the dummy was defeated.
And once again, when he was thrown to the ground, he suddenly noticed one small detail.
The dummy wasn't moving.
No, it was waving its long wooden arms, delivering quite painful blows, but... it wasn't moving. It stood planted in the sand. While Khaal jumped around it like a little goat, it didn't move. He was like a stream trying to break through the thickness of mountain rock.
But would a stream do that? Would it try for billions of years to break through a mountain? Or would it go around it and continue its movement?
The wind blew.
Khaal hadn't heard it for a long time, but now it seemed to him that he could distinguish a little more in the "words" of his old friend than before.
Once again, as five years ago, he stood on the sand and listened to the surrounding world, while looking inside himself. What did he see there that brought him the new inspiration he had been waiting for, persistently training every day?
The warriors stopped again, feeling that something strange was happening.
The Master slightly opened his eyes. He hadn't even hoped that Khaal would be able to overcome the dummy.
The prince, shocking those present, put his sword in the cloth "scabbard." And just like that, unarmed, the seven-year-old boy went towards the dummy. It swung its sword, aiming at the unprotected forehead, but couldn't even touch the black hair.
Khaal made a barely perceptible movement with his feet, shifted his center of gravity, and avoided the strike. Smoothly, calmly, like a leaf on a spring breeze, he dodged the blow.
The dummy made its next thrust towards the stomach, but again pierced only air. Khaal turned on his heels, letting the blade pass within a millimeter behind his back. Then he slid forward and found himself right up against the opponent's torso.
The sword flashed, and a moment later, the dummy froze - the enemy blade, having slithered like a snake over the wood, had collected paint from all nine points.
"Congratulations, Your Highness," the Master applauded. "Now you can truly consider yourself one with the sword."
The prince was breathing heavily but was satisfied. Now he understood what was missing from his sword mastery - mastery of his own body.
Where he previously made a dozen unnecessary movements, now he understood - one was enough. Where he made five different lunges, now he could simply smoothly bypass and make one.
"Truly?" asked Khaal, putting the sword in its scabbard.
"I told you, my prince," the world of martial arts is deeper than boundless space. And if you line up a thousand swordsmen, all one with the sword, you won't find two with the same level of mastery."
The prince nodded, understanding what he was being told. There will always be a mountain higher than the one you've climbed. There will always be an expert who proves stronger than you. All these stages and steps gave only approximate outlines, while strength depended only on the person himself.
"And yet I'm surprised that you could grasp the basic technique of steps so quickly. Considering that I didn't even teach it to you." Here the Master became a bit sad and looked around his domain - the sandy parade ground. "Sometimes I pity you, my prince."
Khaal raised his right eyebrow in surprise.
"If you had been born at least on the outskirts of the empire, or in some powerful clan, then in a hundred or two hundred years, your name would resound throughout the valley. I have lived a long life and will soon depart into eternity, but never before have I seen such a talented swordsman as you. But here, in this backwater..." The Master shook his head. "Apparently, the ancients were right: luck is also a power. And despite the fact that I had the opportunity to teach a genius, I will never see how he blossoms and wins glory."
The prince was about to object that he still had a chance to get into the Black Gates sect when Elizabeth appeared on the stairs.
"Khaal, the feast is soon, and you're still not dressed!" called the queen, and turned to the noble children. "And you don't delay either."
"Yes, Queen!" chorused the warriors who had bent their knees.
Khaal looked at the Master, who was taking the dummy back to the "warehouse." For some reason, he had a strange feeling that he was seeing the old man for the last time in his life.