"Ouch! Aich! Ouch!"

Jock flinched and cried in pain.

Kiernan was pulling out the needles from his body and placed them back in the wooden box.

After a short while, he pulled out the final needle, placed it inside the wooden box, and then closed it with a click.

"You did well. One hour standing in the Iron Style stance. I hope you learned something valuable from that."

Kiernan said.

"…I think I did, sensei."

Jock stood up, tried to remember the feeling, and then he dropped into the Iron Style stance. It was slightly awkward, but it was close.

"Your feet are too close, and your hands are slightly off-center, but otherwise, pretty decent for now."

Kiernan said with a smile.

"Whew… I will keep learning."

Jock said with a serious look, and then he pushed his right fist against his left open palm, and he bowed respectfully.

"What will we train next?"

"…I want to show you what the Iron Style stance is all about."

Kiernan said and told him to take the stance. Jock took the slightly awkward stance, but it did resemble the stance Kiernan had shown him.

"Iron Style has an offensive and defensive stance. I showed you the defensive stance. It is tailored for defense mostly.

"I myself prefer the defensive stance. It helps me to get into the fight comfortably and get into the rhythm quickly."

Kiernan said.

"What about the offensive stance?"

Jock asked.

He was more interested in the offensive side of things, as he doubted that defending would get him anywhere in the competition.

"Your hips and feet stay the same, but you lift your arms close to your chest. Hands tightly clenched into fists."

Kiernan showed him the stance.

Jock did it, and when he pressed his arms against his chest, he felt strangely powerful, like he could punch a hole into the wall.

"Drop back to the defensive stance. There is something I must show you."

Kiernan told him.

Jock did as he was told and dropped back to the defensive stance. He didn't feel as strong anymore.

He felt vulnerable, which was strange, as the defensive stance should bring him more sense of security and not the other way around.

"In this stance, you can see every move coming at you, and with minimal movement, you can block the attacks.

"Try blocking."

Kiernan said and tossed a weak straight punch. Jock swiped his hand and pushed the fist aside.

It made his heart race. It was the first proper martial arts move that he had done. He did it completely out of instinct.

It was like this stance was guiding him on what to do.

"Keep doing it."

Kiernan said, pushed forward, and kept throwing punches, but since Jock was forced to back off slightly, his stance crumbled apart, and he happened to miss the parries.

The weak punches smacked Jock in the body. They didn't hurt him.

"Oh…"

Jock sounded disappointed.

"What did you do wrong?"

Kiernan asked.

"I don't know how to keep up this stance when I am forced to move. I have to move my feet, so I can't keep the rooted stance. My body is shaking when I am moving, so my hips are also dropping further down, or I straighten my back too much.

"Since I was too busy trying to fix the stance, I couldn't concentrate on your punches, so I missed the parries."

Jock quickly analyzed his mistakes, and the more he talked, the more he understood about what he had to do to improve.

'Jock is a very smart boy. I realized that from the first meeting. He might be a naturally gifted martial artist because of his intelligence.

'I think he will understand his own mistakes faster than anyone else.'

Kiernan thought to himself with a smile.

"I think that is enough for your stance training. I am sure you know what you did wrong, so think about how to fix those mistakes for tomorrow."

Kiernan said.

He was certain that Jock was going to obsess over his mistakes over at home. Maybe he was even going to lose sleep over it.

However, he was certain that he could himself understand what to do, so Kiernan didn't need to waste time in teaching him that.

"Will we learn some techniques now?"

Jock asked excitedly.

Last night, after he returned home from Martial Redemption, he went through all internet archives about Kiernan's fights.

At first hand, he began to appreciate the beauty that was Iron Style, especially the cool-ass techniques that he was performing.

He had completely ignored the stance itself, so it took him by surprise how detailed it was, down to the placement of each finger and the angle of his body.

The techniques were different, however. He already practiced several of them in the warmth of his home and, of course, failed to do any of them.

His favorite techniques were Lightning Rox, Worldlift, Ghost Spring, Iron Smash Storm, Hyperion's Smash, High Human, and Rock n' Roll.

They were the most "showy" skills in his arsenal of techniques. The other, more low-key techniques he couldn't quite understand.

The sight of lightning coming down from the skies, as if it was thrown by an angry thunder god, and Kiernan taking control of the lightning before redirecting it at his opponent.

That was immensely cool and left an everlasting impact on his young mind.

"No, haha. You are not ready."

Kiernan said.

"I do need to learn some martial arts to do well in competition. I don't know anything about it yet."

Jock said.

"You should not hurry. You have much bigger problems. That is your body conditioning, which is in a pretty poor condition."

Kiernan said.

"…Is it?"

Jock asked while awkwardly scratching the back of his head.

He had never excelled in any sports or in physical education over in school, but he never really gave it his all.

He didn't think it was really that bad, but now that he thought about it, he usually ate snacks and just sat on his computer whenever he got home.

It was obvious that there was a lot for him to improve.

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