Leo
Leo watched Jacobs carefully, observing him for any weaknesses to exploit. The man was standing with one arm tucked behind his back as if giving him a handicap and that pissed him off. He dashed towards him with 50% of his brain power focused on the battle and the rest being diverted to other things as a handicap of his own. He leaped up and twisted into a kick downwards which was swiftly dodged with little distance between his foot and Jacobs's head.
Leo then began a barrage of wing Chün punches aimed at his chest area and they were easily blocked using one hand and nicely placed dodges as well as weight shifts. Jacobs was a grandmaster martial artist it seemed. Leo became alarmed and diverted more of his processing power in order to try and observe his habits and weaknesses. This is when he truly became terrified. He saw nothing that gave him an opportunity to manipulate.
Jacobs did not adopt any defensive stances and stood in a relaxed manner with one arm in front of him as if holding a sword. To Leo's eyes however the man was in the most fluid stance to allow defending lower, middle and upper body attacks. There was nothing he could take advantage of. He then rushed him once again and tried to force him to lose his cool. He began to attack swiftly in ways that might confuse a normal man with quick jabs and kicks timed to throw a person's concentration. What pissed him off was that his opponent was unfazed and defending and avoided his attacks with an at ease smile on his face.
After about thirty minutes of this cat and mouse game, Leo finally got exhausted and made a mistake by over extending when he attempted to attack and he got dodged and tripped in almost the same way he had done to the two soldiers the previous day. He kissed the dirt and lay there confused how it was possible when his reaction and battle planning were faster.
Jacobs came over gave him a hand up and they went to sit by the shade to rest up. Jacobs barely looked ruffled and seemed in as good condition as he was before the training began, so it was mostly for Leo's benefit. Leo tried to analyse what had happened and come up with counter measures against it. He came up short and drew the conclusion that quite possibly he had been the victim of Jacobs's skills. It was a logical explanation because skills might affect his hyper cognition and intuition.
"okay so can you tell me how you did that or are you going to leave me in suspense?" leo asked carefully gauging Jacobs's reaction. Jacobs simply smiled while staring at the sky. He then looked at Leo and let out a sigh. "your problem little brother is that you are overthinking everything. Thinking and tactics are an important part of fighting however they are diagrammatically opposed to something of extreme importance. Instinct."
Leo considered his words and tried to see the heart of what he was saying. He tended to react after considering the best course of action when fighting. Then he would use his extremely fast processing to draw up the best attack method to suit each situation and that style of battle worked wonders for him because he possessed hyper cognition. It was the reason he had so easily exploited the weaknesses of two expert fighters at the same time. However now he was being told that this method was working against him because it was killing battle instinct in him.
"what do you mean by instinct? Are you saying I should fight without thinking? How is that good advice. Isn't that going to lead to rash fighting which makes me susceptible to counters and exploitation?" He did not understand how it was good idea not to consider his attacks and reactions before doing them. Also, he was not like other men, he could think at a speed 1000 times faster than even the best fighter thus he would be able to think and react in almost instantaneous speed. How was he wrong?
"you misunderstand me, I am not saying thinking and reacting in battle is not the right way. No, I am saying that it is not the only way and over reliance on such a style of fighting will limit you and how much better your martial arts become in the long run. You see critical thinking should go hand in hand with instinct. That is why police detectives would prioritise analysis of evidence as well as the gut feeling or hunches in their field of work. You need to strike a balance to ensure to become a greater fighter. Instinct will allow you to even counter attack that your brain has not taken notice of in some instances."
Jacobs stood up and started stretching halfway through his lecture. He began loosening up his body and warming up which further drove the fact that he had not been fighting at 100% and still easily handled Leo. "you have to allow your body to start moving on its own my boy. Then and only then would you open the gateway to master fighters. Do you know dragon ball?"
Leo was thrown by the sudden question and answered dubiously that he knew it. "well, there is a technique that makes my point for me from that show called ultra-instinct," Jacobs said sheepishly seemingly aware of how ridiculous his example sounded. Ultra-instinct was a technique that allowed the user to completely return to a primal state where he or she fights from instincts and made them almost impossible to punch as they dodging and defensive abilities became almost godlike
That was the kind of fighting style Jacobs wanted to adopt and initially Leo found his claims to be crazy until a lightbulb lit up in his head. He remembered how impregnable Jacobs's defences had been during their spar and realised that his words were not entirely unreasonable. He grew excited and asked rapidly, "how do I train to achieve this technique?"
Jacobs gave him the same eerie smile he had given him before their sparing began. It was quite evil looking and some part of Leo warned him that things were about to become stressful for him. Jacobs walked back to where they had fought, and said," turn off your analysing and tactics and just immerse yourself in the fighting techniques you know and let's go for round two. If you start thinking too much I will know and you will not like the result."
"it's now my turn to try and put you down and I hope you try your best to survive…. I mean stay on your legs. Let's begin," Jacobs said flexing his muscles. Once Leo was in position and had assumed a defensive stance, he rushed at him and threw a punch. Leo saw it tried to dodge but the moment he tried to dodge he felt a leg sweep his feet and he barely managed to summersault and land some distance away only to find Jacobs already in front of him and it was too late for him to dodge and so he got a very powerful punch to the gut.
He fell to his knees and gasped due to the pain and emptied out his stomach soon after. He began heaving as he tried to regain control. However, before he even knew it, Jacobs grabbed his head and kneed him in his face and then he saw black as he lost consciousness.
he woke up when he got splashed with water from a bucket by Jacobs who had a stone face and had no compassion nor apology at all in his expression.
"get up and rest up for 15 minutes and come on the sparring field, it will be your turn to try and take me down and I will still use one arm so that you can try to return the favour. The day is wasting and I will not take any whining, I went easy on you or else I would have broken a few bones."
Leo was terrified and realised that once again he had gotten more than he bargained for. He then remembered how he had looked at him funnily when he was excited to be trained. His words had been that people called him 'the demon' and he realised how accurate that name was. He was still sore from the punch he had gotten and he now had a great fear of Jacobs and what he was capable off.
He also nursed a grudge and was already thinking about how good it would feel to knock some of the guy's teeth out during round three since he would be handicapped once again. He went over to the shade and meditated to calm his mind and eliminate excess thought. He began meditating on his techniques and looked for ways to make them smoother as well as easier and faster to perform through simulations in his head. Unknowingly his hyper cognition hit 0.75
His training was just beginning and he hoped he would survive to see the end of the day.