novelraw Chapter 98: Without Your Beast Totem, Who Are You?
Chapter 98: Without Your Beast Totem, Who Are You?
The triggered fire alarm system quickly drew the butler's attention.
After confirming that there was no real emergency, he finally let out a long sigh of relief.
Muse had Fly retract his Beast Totem, leaving the absolute disaster zone of a basement for the butler to handle. Subsequently, he led Fly back to the third-floor study.
"Fly, have you ever thought about what Martial Arts truly means?"
"Martial Arts?" Fly hadn't expected Muse to ask such a question. His intuition told him that the answer wasn't as simple as it seemed. Thus, he lowered his head and pondered for a moment.
"Obtaining Beast Totem Cards, acquiring new Skills, cultivating, battling, accumulating experience, and constantly becoming stronger?" Fly answered.
Aside from these, no matter how hard he thought, he couldn't come up with any deeper meaning.
"Yes, and no," Muse shook his head with a smile. "Have you ever looked into the martial artists from a hundred years ago?"
"A hundred years ago?" Fly was momentarily taken aback, but he still nodded.
Fly had actually looked this up online before.
Today was an era where the entire world revered martial arts. Almost everyone took pride in obtaining a Beast Totem Card and becoming a Beast Warrior. But Fly knew that the history of Beast Warriors only spanned a short century. What exactly were Martial Arts like a hundred years ago? Was the status of a martial artist as exalted then as it is now?
The search results were exactly as Fly had expected.
Martial artists did indeed exist a century ago, but they were vastly different from the Beast Warriors of today. In the era before the subterranean world suddenly appeared and Beast Totem Cards were popularized, martial artists purely trained their physical bodies.
At that time, different martial artists all over the world practiced various combat techniques. For instance, Kung Fu in the East, Sumo and Aikido in The Yamato Archipelago, Boxing in The United Federation, and Jiu-jitsu in The Amazonian Republic, among others.
While they didn't possess the apocalyptic, world-destroying power of modern Beast Warriors, these practices could still strengthen the body and temper the mind.
The Combat Arts of that era were just like the ones from Fly's previous life. Speaking of familiar things after such a long time, a sense of warmth and nostalgia gradually swelled within Fly's heart.
Muse had originally thought Fly would be completely clueless about the state of martial artists from a century ago. He hadn't expected the boy to answer so fluently.
What a good kid who loves to learn.
"Then do you think that, with the advent of Beast Totems, those Combat Arts from the past are still useful?"
Fly shook his head. "I don't know. Beast Totems have indeed brought a qualitative breakthrough to martial artists. It's something no Combat Arts from the past could ever compare to. As long as Beast Warriors fuse as one with their Beast Totems, they can steadily grow stronger and conquer any obstacle, so..."
Suddenly, as if a thought had just struck him, Fly furrowed his brows before his expression gave way to a look of sudden realization.
"So, what you're saying is... even though Beast Warriors can unleash immense power by relying on their Beast Totems and Skills, they can't depend on them entirely. They must also train their own bodies in combat techniques?"
Hearing Fly's deduction, Muse nodded in satisfaction. "Exactly."
"You told me before that when you faced The Scroll of Martial Heart-Tempering, you saw your Beast Totem origin trying to kill you."
"And it was you who, at the critical moment, erupted with formidable power and defeated it using a self-created ultimate move, right?"
"That was merely a hallucination of your subconscious. The real key that allowed you to break free from the illusion was your heart." As he spoke, Muse gently tapped his own chest. "Within the illusions of the subconscious, a person possesses limitless potential. It all comes down to whether you have enough self-confidence to ignite that potential."
"And where does self-confidence come from?" Muse paused for a moment before continuing. "It comes from the relentless effort you've put in over the years. It comes from overcoming one hardship after another in your past."
"When a person relies on their own hard work to solve problem after problem and weather storm after storm, they naturally develop a 'winner's mindset.' They cultivate an unbreakable composure. And when they face similar difficulties again, they can truly say from the bottom of their heart: 'I can do this.'"
"This exact mentality is what we call self-confidence."
"For a martial artist, the best way to temper this mentality is through the grueling physical conditioning of their own body."
"Of course, when facing external enemies, a martial artist can rely on the power of their Beast Totem to solve the problem. But what about when they have to face their own Beast Totem origin? At that moment, does the martial artist have enough unwavering faith to believe that they can suppress the origin's violent rebellion?"
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Muse controlled his electric wheelchair, rolling a bit closer to Fly. He pointed a finger squarely at Fly's chest and asked softly, "Without your Beast Totem... who are you?"
These words sent a surge of emotion coursing through Fly's veins. He was instantly reminded of a scene from The Avengers in his previous life, where Captain America challenged Tony Stark: Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?
In an instant, countless answers flooded Fly's mind. However, after deliberating for merely a second, Fly looked up at Muse, his gaze burning bright as he declared, "I am Fly. A Worrior. A man who constantly challenges himself and pushes forward to become stronger."
"Yes. Very good," Muse replied, a similarly fervent light swirling in his own eyes. Fly's answer reaffirmed his belief that, this time, he had absolutely picked the right person.
Smoothing out his emotions, Muse posed another question, "Fly, do you know the origins of Skills?"
Fly thought for a moment and shook his head, but still voiced his hypothesis. "Most Skills come from Skill Cards. I'd venture a guess that it has something to do with those enigmatic Cardcrafters."
"Spot on," a smile returned to Muse's face. "For a Skill to be learned effectively and for its true power to be unleashed, it often needs to highly match the Beast Totem possessed by the martial artist. But have you ever noticed? When a martial artist executes a Skill, they don't actually need to physically mimic their Totem Beast... In other words, when a martial artist unleashes a related Skill, they still do so using a human stance and posture."
"Which means... whoever creates the Skills doesn't just factor in the behavioral traits of the Totem Beast; they also have to tailor it to fit the biomechanics of the human body!" Fly eagerly interjected.
"Exactly," Muse nodded repeatedly. "They must consider both the correlation with the Totem Beast and human kinesiology. To put it simply, every person who creates a Skill is intimately versed in Traditional Combat Arts. They are all grandmasters of Traditional Combat Arts!"
Muse's conclusion left Fly in a state of profound shock.
According to this logic, an ordinary martial artist who had mastered Traditional Combat Arts would be far more capable of unleashing a Skill's true power than an average Beast Warrior.
Just thinking about all those world-renowned Combat Arts: Muay Thai, Jeet Kune Do, Tai Chi, Boxing, Jiu-jitsu, Karate...
"By studying these Combat Arts, a martial artist can maximize the innate potential of the human body."
"Simultaneously, the Skills they use will complement this foundation, becoming exponentially more powerful."
At this very moment, the image of 'Emperor' Valerius fighting in the arena during the Freshman Invitational flashed through Fly's mind.
Although Valerius was ultimately defeated by Gareth's schemes due to his own underestimation of his opponent, his performance in the arena had been truly peerless.
He hadn't even used a single Skill; purely relying on ordinary Combat Arts, he had forced Gareth into a desperate retreat.
Hungry Tiger Pounce.
Rising Dragon Coil.
None of these were Skills; they were Combat Arts! If Fly wasn't mistaken, this was the legendary "Kung Fu" from the East!
"I understand now, Master!" It wasn't until this very moment that Fly addressed Muse as 'Master' for the first time.
Muse's speech truly made him feel as if the clouds had parted to reveal the clear blue sky. The lingering doubts that had been buried in his heart for so long were gradually melting away.
Fly continued, "The modern Martial Arts cultivated using Beast Totems are, in essence, an extension of Traditional Martial Arts. The Skills we use today are simply new, tremendously powerful abilities created by fusing traditional Combat Arts techniques with the Beast Totem power absorbed by the warrior."
"At its core, Traditional Combat Arts are the foundation. They are the soil and nutrients that nurture the towering tree of Beast Warrior Martial Arts."
"Of course, Beast Warriors who aren't versed in Traditional Combat Arts can still cultivate and become incredibly strong. But compared to those who possess the foundational nourishment of Combat Arts, they have to exert far more effort to achieve the same results."
But, all of this was merely theoretical.
Even though he had gained some enlightenment, Fly faintly felt that what Muse wanted him to realize went far beyond just this.
At the very least, what he had grasped so far was far from enough.
Then what am I missing?
What am I missing?
...
Fly fell into deep thought.
Muse sat quietly in his wheelchair, watching the pondering Fly with a gentle smile on his face.
Just... what on earth am I missing?
Suddenly, Fly's face lit up with an expression akin to Archimedes shouting 'Eureka!', and he cried out in shock, "I get it! You're saying that all Skills originate from two key aspects: the affinity of the Beast Totem, and Traditional Combat Arts. Which means, once I master Traditional Combat Arts, I can use the affinity of my own Beast Totem to create brand-new Skills that belong exclusively to me!"
Fly's heart jolted; even he was astonished by his own radical idea.
Hearing Fly's revelation, a joyous, hearty smile broke across Muse's face, and his hands involuntarily clapped in gentle applause. "Fly, you truly are the most talented child I have ever seen."
At this moment, an image couldn't help but surface in Fly's mind...
He pictured himself standing in the arena, a Staff in his left hand and a scythe in his right, roaring out all the classic martial arts moves from the Wuxia novels of his past life as he slaughtered his way from one side of the ring to the other, all without batting an eye.
Hiss...
Why am I having such an edgy, chuunibyou fantasy?
Just then, as if suddenly remembering something, Fly asked Muse, "Master, but my Roach Matriarch took the Wizard evolutionary path. Does traditional magic actually exist in this world?"
Muse was taken aback for a second before chuckling. "How do you know it doesn't? Like I said, this world is vast. Everything that Beast Warriors have mastered today possesses a foundation in the reality of the past."
"Have you ever read about those Wizards and witches in storybooks? How can you be so sure that they were merely the products of an author's imagination?"
"A world of Witchcraft actually exists?!" Fly was stunned once again. He had only asked offhandedly, never expecting an answer like this. Instantly, images of Harry Potter flooded his mind—a miraculous, hidden world of Witchcraft entirely unknown to outsiders.
"I never said that," Muse shook his head with another smile. "I only said that this world is vast. So vast that it exceeds our wildest imaginations."
A myriad of emotions and reflections swirled within Fly's heart.
Sometimes, things were just like that. If no one pointed it out to you, you could ponder it for three days and three nights without ever reaching a conclusion. But the moment someone mentioned it, even with just a slight nudge, it could blow the doors wide open to a brand-new world.
It was just like solving a complex math problem.
This was the feeling of a true, mind-clearing epiphany.
It went to show just how crucial it was to have an experienced, worldly teacher.
But, upon realizing this point, someone else's face popped into Fly's mind.