Speed Stat Training (Solo)

Bar looked over the available missions, considering his options. Bar was getting tired of cleaning up crap, but the combat missions were currently outside of his capabilities. The half-and-half missions as well; It would do very little good to find someone, whether a thief, raccoon, or some Missing-Nin, and then get his ass kicked for the trouble. He was rapidly approaching the limit of what he could do without having to resort to using the Gentle Fist. As it stood, "Palm Bottom" would only get him so far. That's when a badly-translated crappy action movie gave him the inspiration he needed. So what if it was about an idiot of a swordsman doing Snake-Style Kungfu training to improve his sword thrusts, this "Count de Monte Cristo" at least had the right idea. (Alright, enough fluff, the action starts now. Beginning word count.)

And so Bar stood in front of a small waterfall stream in one of the rooms at the Training Tower, the flow turned low so all he had to deal with was a rather slow drip. This station was intended to help with people working on their Nature Manipulation, but he'll turn it back up later. A small chakra-sensitive target was behind the water. Hitting the target wasn't the point, it was just something for Bar to focus on. Timing was also key, both when he chose to strike, and improving his reaction time. Bar realized early on that the traditional fingers-up-palm-strike and similar strikes were simply impossible to accomplish, as the very size of his hand meant that he'd hit a few drops of water even as he struck. Bar seriously considered trimming that strike out of his repertoire. In a fight where the difference between life and death was the width of a razor's edge, the extra several inches he'd gain by striking exclusively with the tips of his fingers was an advantage he could not ignore. Settling himself into the Gentle Fist stance, Bar formed his hands into Snake-Style Vs instead, and attempted to strike the target with the tips of his fingers, AND BACK, without getting his hands wet. Oops, too slow. Sour about that. Bar didn't get angry, as anger tends to tighten the muscles, slow them down. Calm and analytical, like his hero Neji. Bar didn't even bother drying his hands, as THAT would be a dumb habit to get into, and tried again. And again. For hours, Bar essentially got his hands wet. His focus was improving, though. Bar could swear that the drops were starting to go all slow-motion, allowing him to pick his time to strike. His hands were still too slow on the back-draw, though.

A bit of energy drink, a bit of arm-massaging, and it was back to work. On one attempt, Bar thought he had finally got it, and dried off his sopping hands. Bar struck, pulled back, and looked. Hey-hey, he did it! His hand was dry! Bar varied up the angles and types of the strikes he might be expected to do, and worked on each of those until his hand was dry each time. Stage 1, complete!

Alas, this only meant that things were about to get harder. Bar loosened the knob a bit, and the water dripped faster. Bar began again. Each time he succeeded in beating the drip, he increased the speed. And he did this thing again and again, until the thickness of his hand began to hit two drops of water no matter how fast he struck. Stage 2, complete.

Bar switched strategies. Whereas before he was trying to avoid the drops of water, now he was aiming at them, trying to prevent any of them from striking the ground. This third stage was inspired by the legendary Naruto Uzumaki's Wind Nature training. Bar increased the speed of the now steadily-flowing water until he might as well been cupping his hands under the water and flinging them over his shoulders, so quickly and steadily he was striking, but only up to a few seconds, which was about the time that it took to complete the Eight Trigrams: One-Hundred Twenty-Eight Palms anyways.

The final stage was here. Bar set up two targets behind two streams of water, and practiced hitting these targets without letting any drops escape. After that, three. Then four. Eventually, he had set up 361 targets behind several streams, symbolizing the 361 tenketsu in the human body, and practiced striking those.

(Assuming you wanna end the word count now, that'll put the above at 602.)

Probably a week had passed, barely unnoticed, as Bar worked on defeating this opponent. By the end, Bar definitely felt faster. Not bad for a half-baked idea! Bar wondered what kind of training well-off people had access to, instead of resorting to cheap alternatives done at the training tower. Once Bar had a bunch of money, Bar resolved to get the Hyuuga Battle Clothing, probably used, and find someone who would teach him the Sixty-Four Palms. None of the books at the public library would reveal such clan secrets, and he was REALLY reluctant to return to the Hyuuga compound, lest someone recognize him and the past haunt him again...

my count is 800 bro

take your 4 stat points

Approved

#modwhocaresforothersandwantstohelpthem