23 Chapter 23- Shadow fighting

Dubs awoke in the early morning and forced himself out of bed. After a quick shower, he got ready and headed out to the training grounds.

Technically speaking, as of right now it was not required for him to get up so early to train, but Dubs was intent on becoming as strong as possible as soon as he could, so he got up early to train all day long.

Entering the training grounds, Dubs realized that this morning he was the first person to arrive.

"Haha. I get lectured and punished for arriving a few minutes early yesterday, and today not a single person has arrived before me. Peter certainly isn't what I would call a consistent teacher." Dubs retorted.

"No matter. I need only to focus on myself. Lets get started."

Dubs walked through the dark gymnasium,illuminated by lanterns along the walls. Coming to the end of it, past the dummies, there were a series of training rooms specifically meant for one to test their own power.

The rooms were made of the sturdiest metal that the resistance had access to, and protected also by magical barriers. The metal itself had many resistive properties, however it was extremely heavy and thus could only be used as armor by the strongest of warriors.

Dubs entered the safe-like room and shut the large metal door, closing the hatch. Inside, it looked like a room from straight out of a mental asylum, the walls and flooring covered with a mattress like material- obviously one that was also resistant to magic and protected by barriers.

Dubs had a slight amount of trouble walking at first on the fluffy material, and wobbled into the center of the room. Regaining his balance, he found a foothold and managed to walk properly.

Dubs unsheathed his dagger, and held it awkwardly in both hands. Any warrior would be disgusted by how unnaturally he was posing with the dagger, and how inefficient the following moves would be.

Dubs began to thrust forward with the dagger, but he lost his footing and tripped.

"AHAHA What a klutz!", Dubs other self mocked.

Dubs got up slowly and his face became annoyed.

"As if you could do any better!", Dubs shouted.

The voice snickered and began to boast.

"Oh? Well why don't we find out then?"

Dubs, confused, muttered "Huh? You don't even have a body! Don't even consider taking over mine. Whatever you're planning, if you take over my body and do all the work for me then I won't become any stronger myself."

"Then let me show you something interesting. Ever since we've been able to communicate like this, our synchronization has slowly increased little by little. Just last night we reached the 2% threshold. Now take a look at this..." The voice ominously stated.

Dubs felt a tingle in his head, and it began moving downwards in his body to his feet. His shadow then began to squirm as it became a 3 dimensional blob, which then formed into the shape of himself.

The shadow figure stretched his arms and began looking around.

"Ahhhhh!!!! It feels so good to be outside again!" The shadow figure exclaimed.

"....". Dubs stared at the figure confused. "Eh? EHH!?"

The shadow figure grinned. "As our specialization is dark magic, I can now control the shape and figure of your shadow. However, this is no more than a projection- you could even think of it as a hallucination. I have merely transmitted my consciousness inside your shadow, and because I am one with you, you are aware of my existence here. Anyone else would not be able to see me."

Dubs slowly nodded in disbelief, however soon came over it. "I've seen a lot weirder things than this over the past few days. I'm sure I will continue to see even stranger things.", he thought.

The figure also had the same clothes as Dubs, and the figure took out the dagger on his side. Holding it firmly in his right hand, placing his left in a fist near his chest, he positioned himself.

"This is how you hold a dagger. One handed, ready for quick thrusts or slices. When you attack an enemy, your best advantage will be stealth and speed. If you can attack someone from behind quickly, your dagger and be in and out of their neck before they even know you existed." Dubs other self explained.

Dubs positioned his dagger and his left hand similar to the way his other self had taught him. His other self turned around, showing Dubs his back, and pointed to his own neck.

"This form is nothing but a hologram, so you wont be able to physically harm me, however I can solidify the shadow material so that you can gain experience as if slashing a real person. For now, try to slit my throat.", Dubs other self beckoned.

Dubs was reluctant at first, but re-positioned himself and began to run towards his other self. Taking the dagger and thrusting it from the side above the shoulder of his other self, he went in for a slash to the neck.

Dubs hand was caught by the hand of his other self. "Pathetic. I could hear you running at me from a mile away. Do you expect to catch anyone off guard with that? Try again."

Dubs stepped back and began to lightly tread on the fluffy material, making as little noise as possible. His other self had closed his eyes and even began to whistle loudly, as if to say "I don't even need to be on my guard to know where you are."

Going for a different approach, this time Dubs decided to go for a stab to the back. If his other self believed the attack would come to the neck, perhaps he could land an attack this way.

Dubs planted his foot quietly and began a thrusting motion. Using his entire body to propel himself forward, he aimed for the lower back of the shadow figure.

A second before the dagger hit, a hand appeared in front of it. The dagger hit the hand of his other self with a "Clang!" and Dubs felt vibrations throughout his body. With the impact Dubs let go of the dagger, causing it to fly to the side.

Dubs other self began to burst out in laughter again. "AHAHA! Duuubs! I like how you tried to attack me in a deceitful way, truly that was wonderful. Bravo! However, there are a number of flaws in your plan."

"The first flaw is that I could feel your emotions and your intent raging from yourself. I didn't even need to see or hear you to know where you were and how you were attacking.", his other self explained.

"The second thing is that when you improve your magical skills, you should try to learn a sound masking technique so that the entirety of sound produced by you is eliminated."

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"Third, is that in order to increase the power of attacks you must learn how to channel magical energy within your weapon. You could also enchant it, but that will be much more difficult in the long run, as that requires enough skill to permanently infuse energy into an object. "

"The final thing is that you have to increase your physical statistics. If you had been faster and had more physical power, perhaps you would have been able to reach my back before I had blocked. Also, if you had a better balance perhaps you would have been able to hold onto the dagger despite the shock you experienced.", Dubs other self critiqued.

Dubs was a bit overwhelmed by all the mistakes he made and the areas he needed to improve in. How long would he have to train for to increase all these abilities to such an extent?

"Even so, your movements and form are not bad. For now, pick one of the 4 areas to train in. I would suggest the physical training first, as that one can be accomplished through sheer perseverance." Dubs other self advised.

Agreeing, Dubs gathered his dagger and left the room. Upon exiting, he came face to face with Peter.

Peter stared him down. Dubs saw the other four squadmates, spread throughout the gym all training individually.

"What exactly was going on in there? Why could I sense so much evil intent coming from that room?" Peter asked.

Dubs put his hand behind his head and began to speak. "Yes, Lieutenant Peter. I was doing some training to test my physical abilities. If you sensed any evil intent, it must have been my raging emotions from the intense training."

Peter stared at Dubs, suspicious, but let him off the hook.

"He must have sensed my presence since I was no longer masked by your body when I existed within your shadow. I'll be more careful from now on, but it shouldn't be a problem. After all, our specialization is within stealth magic."

Dubs made an awkward face. "Are you telling me that you just told me to conceal my emotions when you weren't even concealing your own?"

"What? I was testing you to see if you could sense it. That's another thing you should work on improving." His other self replied.

Dubs rolled his eyes and began to run around the track, switching off between jogging and sprinting. He spent the rest of the day improving both his running speed and his stamina, and by the end of the day he was exhausted and drenched in sweat.

Limping his way to the dining hall for dinner, Dubs other self laughed again. "Looks like you forgot to eat breakfast again today Dubs. Better eat up now while you can."

Dubs laughed as well.

"It seems like I did."