Jeong style huh... That's what the students called it, but the man himself didn't really give it any name. Had had apparently honed that style from his time as a marine and taking knowledge, techniques and principles from other martial arts. It was a style designed for self defense, and its attacks paled in comparison to defesive moves and counter attacks. Actually, most of the attacks were executed as counters, and Master Jeong obviously took a liking to Linnea's own seemingly defensive nature: He could tell during the first battle that she only made her first strike out of a desire to see the style in action, that she would have naturally preferred to defend instead. Even then, he did point out how there are times when the best defense is a good offense, which was his first lesson to the young ranger.

This whole thing with the martial arts had caused Lin to mostly overlook her previous urge to study that little map she scaveneged a few days back in the jungle. She ate a reinforced, yet light breakfast consisting of three apples and a cup of black tea, meant to give her full power without too much time needed digesting. She had a feeling that Master Jeong would be grilling his new student pretty well to assess if she truly had what it takes to join his Dojo. After all, she had soundedly defeated one his strongest students - if not the strongest - despite her comparatively weak body. She actually wondered if they werent' just curious as to how she managed to overpower that girl so easily, almost as if she could see her every move despite never seeing the style before. Regardless, Lin slipped on her black ranger's outfit (to match up with the fellow studens' black Gi), and headed there immediately, at the hour of 9 AM. As she arrived, she found the master and only three other students there:

"Good Morning, Linnea.", greeted Master Jeong with a calm smile, obviously pleased that his new student was an early rise unlike most of the other lazy kids, "This being your first class, I'll be training you personally."

"Good morning master.", greeted Linnea, taking a bow just as she was taught in the last lesson, her eyes showed obvious surprise at Master Jeong's intention to train her personally, indeed she required a crash course in this fighting style and if even the eldest student would be unable to teach her, who else but the creator of the style to do so?

Stroking his beard, he stepped into the Tatami leaving the two other elder students to their own sparring session. Linnea followed suit, putting aside her bow and arrows by the door since she wouldn't exactly be needing it. She tried her best to mimic the master's stance, which she got almost right, but not exactly; not yet anyways:

"Don't look so surprised; you did beat my best student quite easily.", he smiled for the last time in a good long while as Linnea was about to see. His acceptance of Linnea into his dojo had seemingly been one of the gruff old veteran's few moments of happiness. In the end, he was still an old man with a likely soft spot for pretty young girls.

His apparent warmth and friendliness vanished the moment he took his stance however, his gaze growing almost cold and detached. Even during training he had the mindset of a warrior, something he no doubt instilled in his students given how the other girl was eerily similar. Of course, even if one of the other students did rang a gong to signal the start of the match, none of the two warriors moved. Jeong apparently used this to verify the hunch he already had about Linnea but if the girl wanted to learn a mainly defensive style, she'd have to learn to attack so she could watch him defend:

"Even if you're a defensive fighter... Sometimes you have to learn how to attack.", he said, calmly approaching her with his guard raised. He didn't rush in blindly like some of the others, this man was smarter than that. Lin activated her Kenbunshoku, and antecipated him throwing a straight jab after a quick dash.

But she didn't expect what he did next. Though she read his first move in advance and ducked under it, she just wasn't fast enough to avoid his follow up Knee which ruthlessly caught her right in the jaw, nor his following snapping kick to her shin, cleanly sweeping the young girl off her feet...


OOC: Used C-rank Kenbunshoku (Haki Stamina: 30/40)

Master Jeong lifted his kicking foot over Linnea's head, clearly stating how if he were an enemy, he would have killed her already by crushing her skull under his heel. She knew what her mistake was; relying on her Haki against a faster opponent could leave her in a very compromising position, she had been vaguely aware of this before, but not once did she consider it could cost her life like this. More importantly, she was in awe at her master's skills:

"EVEN YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING, ITS USELESS IF YOUR BODY DOESN'T KEEP UP!!", he shouted not unlike how a drill instructor would, scolding his student for still getting hit despite her obvious sight, "THIS IS THE MEANING OF SUPERIOR OFFENSE!"

Clearly being fully defensive and allowing her oppoent much needed freedom to move as he wished was not a good way to go about hand to hand combat, the lesson sunk in, as Master Jeong walked away from Linnea and took his stance back at the Tatami. Blood dripped from her mouth as the sharp pain still coursed through her skull. He didn't knock out any of her teeth for a simple measure of kindness, though she knew very well he could have hurt her a lot more if he wanted. Pain was his preffered teaching method against sloppy students. Linnea stood up:

"I'm sorry, Master..."

"Don't apologize, do better!!", he scolded once more, narrowing his eyes, apologies were meaningless if she just repeated the same mistake. The message was clear, to him, a proper apology would be to simply learn his lesson.

Linnea took her stance again, wiping the blood off her lips and nodding in agreement. She approached the master just as he'd done before, and the two strafed around for a few seconds before Linnea seemingly learned her lesson and made her first move, a straight kick aimed at the master's gut. He telegraphed her move, sidestepping and attempting to strike her single grounded shin. Reading it with her Haki, her leg was suddenly coated with a black charcoal coating, and her master noticed this, his eyes widening for the breifest moment. He likely hurt himself by kicking her hardened leg, but Linnea wasn't done yet: She snapped her raised leg against her master's grounded Shin, literally taking two seconds to learn her lesson...


OOC: C-rank Kenbunshoku active; used D-rank Buso (Haki Stamina: 25/40)

But it wouldn't be so easy. The lean archer gritted her teeth as if her kicking leg had just struck rock. Unlike her master and a trained martial artist like Linnea, her body wasn't as hardened and honed and though Master Jeong mostly shrugged off the damage from hitting her Haki imbued leg; the archer was not only surprised by watching him do the exact same move and managing to hurt her more, but also displaying the same Haki she had shown! Who was this man? She had defenitely been right in wishing to learn from him:

"What's wrong?! Is that all you can do with that Haki?!", he shouted as if to wake her from her daze, doing so by finally grounding his raised leg and unleashing a straight punch to Lin's gut that left her gasping for air and laying on her hands and knees for a few moments, "Attacking blindly... Defending and doing nothing. You should try to learn from me, but just copying won't get you anywhere."

Just like that he had revealed how she had managed to beat his student, as well as corrected the most glaring mistakes in her fighting style. Linnea was defenitely bad at attacking, that much was obvious to anyone who bothered to look. She could mostly get by thanks to her haki, but a strong opponent would exploit this. And if she got pressured into attacking, she just openened her guard. Granted, Lin was a skilled and trained martial artist by average person standards. She had know how and live battle experience, more than any of his other students and complimented this with her use of Haki. But her body had been trained for stealth and archery. While this did give her an advantage in being able to take out her foes from afar, she was outside her comfort zone in unarmed combat.

The girl took her guard again... She needed to find her own niche, adopting the Jeong Style techniques that allowed her to fill the gaps in her fighting style. Lin was a sharp girl after all, she didn't require being beaten up too much to figure out what Master Jeong wanted her to learn. But putting theory into practice was a lot harder. With this in mind, she dashed forward: She unleashed a straight, non telegraphed punch which the master naturally parried, followed by a snapping round kick to his chest, which he also parried... But that second kick turned out to be a feint without much power put into it, so that second parry didn't do much, allowing her to ground that leg and kick with the other, finally managing to land a hit on master jeong's shin. This time he didn't use Haki, but she didn't manage to knock him down either... She was making progress...

This was a strenuous training day... As the hours passed, he gave her little opportunities to rest, confident this young woman would benefit more from being pushed to her limit. He occasionally gave her openings in their battle, in a clear attempt to teach Linnea to exploit them, not unlike how she did with her arrows. She couldn't exploit openings in her enemy's guard by being completely defensive, she required the mindset to attack to catch these whenever they appeared... And the only way to do that was obvious: By attacking. Ultimately this also allowed her to defend better as her keen eyes saw her master's defensive techniques up close and personal...

She came to a point where she could even refrain from activating her Kenbunshoku haki, and she thoroughly stopped using her Busoshoku, knowing that her master would punish her for it. She didn't come her to train Haki, and even relying on Kenbunshoku would close the gap between his speed and her own. The only time her master allowed her first break was more than three hours after their long sparring commenced, to eat lunch. Though the old man barely broke a sweat at that point, Linnea was positively soaked to the point the other hormone fueled teenage boys had a hard time focusing on their own training by oggling their new fellow student's bouncy goodness.

But she could care less... Hell, it felt like Master Jeong would punish her for trying. Throughout this day she had learned to apply some of the Jeong style's signature leg sweeping attacks, the same she'd had fallen victim to time and time again. She eventually learned to avoid exposing herself to them, or simply intercept the attack with a rising knee. Thus, the sun was already setting and most of the students had already left by the time the master put an end to the gruelling training. Even he was sweating now, and Linnea had created a slight pool of swear under her feet and all over the tatami. She had bruieses and bleeding cuts all over her body and she could hardly feel her legs... But she hadn't had a sparring fight this thrilling ever:

"Stop! That's enough for today.", said the master, finally smiling and relaxing his stance. Linnea was breathing heavily, and anybody could see she was standing mostly thanks to willpower than actual endurance. But she would come out of this stronger, "You learn quickly, young Linnea... I can't wait to see how much more you'll grow in the days to come."

"T-Thank you master...", she struggled to catch her breath long enough to speak, saluting Master Jeong - which he returned - before grabbing her bow and leaving. Every muscle in her body felt sore, and she still couldn't feel her legs, which was probably for the best given the punishment Master gave them...

Hell, crowds of spectators outside the dojo had come and gone throughout the day, but at this point not many were still watching... It didn't matter: All she could see at the moment was the warm bath she'd be taking once she arrived back to the inn.

-exit-