Martial Arts Worlds-Chapter 359: Confidence, Arrogance, and Smugness
At the dawn of the new day, the alarm clock blared loudly in the silence of the room, jolting Travis awake from his deep sleep.
"…"
With a groan, he reached over to the alarm clock, slamming his hand down on the snooze button to silence the noise, and then dropped down from his bed.
He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and then started doing push-ups to wake himself up fully.
After his body started burning with exhaustion, he jumped back to his feet and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth.
When he was done with brushing his teeth, he took some hair conditioner and ran his fingers through his hair to style it just right.
He looked at himself through the mirror and smiled smugly at his fresh appearance.
"Looking good~"
Travis left the bathroom, put on his tracksuit, and while the rest of the house slept, he left for a morning run.
Running through the cold air of the morning, he felt like the coldness was seeping into his bones, but he pushed through the discomfort.
Leaving the neighborhood, he took a forest path that twisted and turned through the trees until he reached the clearing at the top of the hill.
At the hill, he was easily able to see the monstrous Redwood tree that still took his breath away even though he had seen it thousands of times.
With a few red leaves falling down on him, he used his legs and fists, punching and kicking away all the red leaves.
This was part of his morning routine, as those red leaves often fell at unpredictable angles, so it was some good training for him.
Most people would think that he was busy training for the upcoming ranked match, but they would be very wrong.
This was just something he had done for as long as he could remember, and he had changed nothing in his daily routine to prepare for the match.
It was because he didn't believe that there was any chance that he could lose the match.
Confidence, arrogance, and smugness.
…
Bang… bang…
The back door of the boxing gym swung open, and slammed shut with its broken hinges.
Kiernan walked in, carrying some kind of strange machine, and placed it on the mat, facing the boxing ring that had its ropes removed.
The machine emitted a loud buzzing sound and looked like a futuristic box, but it had a net on top of it with hundreds of tennis balls stuffed inside.
It did have some kind of square-shaped hole at the front, and it was somewhat clear that it would shoot these tennis balls.
"What is that?"
Neal asked while standing at the boxing gym, sweating through his gray t-shirt.
Since they had no time to waste, they also woke up rather early, and while Kiernan left somewhere, Neal warmed up for the training session by practicing his footwork.
'He left somewhere and brought this strange machine with him… I wonder what this is used for.'
Neal thought to himself.
"This is tennis ball machine. It shoots tennis balls, and I 'borrowed' it from the country club."
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Kiernan said with a smile, pressed a button on the machine, and it suddenly shot a tennis ball. It headed straight towards Neal.
In a surprise, Neal jumped out of the way, and the tennis ball narrowly missed him.
"That was quick!"
He cried out.
"It was at the lowest setting. It has ten different levels of speed and power, and that was only the first one."
Kiernan said with a wry look.
"Oh…"
Neal gulped.
"I don't want you to dodge them. I want you to slap the tennis balls away. Like this."
Kiernan showed an early version of his Rendering Edge, where he slapped side to side. It looked weak, but he assured him that with practice, it would become more powerful.
Neal nodded and moved into his Southpaw Stance, but instead of having his hands as fists, he had them open.
"Since the first level is too slow, let's try the second level!"
Kiernan turned the knob on the machine and then pressed the start button.
Swoosh!
A single tennis ball shot out from the machine and flew directly towards Neal's face.
With his right hand, Neal slapped towards the tennis ball, but he only managed to make contact with it with his fingers and managed to deflect it away from his face just in time.
It stung his fingers as it ricocheted off towards the wall.
"Ouch…"
Neal rubbed his fingers.
"Make contact with the balls with your palm, not your fingers. You can accidentally break your fingers if you do that again."
Kiernan said with a frown on his face.
"Alright, I'll try."
Neal nodded and returned back to his stance.
"Third level!"
Kiernan turned the knob and then pressed on the button.
Swoosh!
With extra spin to the ball, it headed with much greater speed than before, but it was still possible to see it flying.
Neal smashed his hand against the ball and ricocheted it away.
"Whew. This isn't too hard!"
Neal said with a smile.
"Hah… those were the easy ones. Should we try the fifth level?"
Kiernan, mischievously, turned the knob two times and then smashed his hand against the button.
Swoosh!
The ball appeared in front of Neal's face before he could even react and smashed into his nose, causing him to stumble backwards in pain.
Drip! Drip! Drip!
Blood dropped down from his nose, and Neal quickly covered it while shaking in pain.
"Ouch! Ouch!"
"This level seems good. If you manage to defend against the ball this fast consistently, then you will be in a good spot."
Kiernan said and crossed his arms with a smile.
"T-that was too fast. A human shouldn't even be capable of punching this fast, so isn't this training useless?"
Neal asked while trying to stop his bleeding.
"Not capable? Hah, shows how little you know about the capabilities of humans. I'll show you what humans are capable of."
Kiernan turned the knob all the way to level ten and walked over to the boxing ring.
