Railgun Online Book 4: Alicization Beginning

Thevos The Taker

Since Thevos bears a rather unique fondness of the Zant Armor set, and because the theme is rather suitable, Zant's theme shall also be Thevos's theme.

Mikoto spent most of the next day doing as Ashley instructed, which basically consisted of her gathering things for their basic survival as Ashley spent time meditating.

"Sometimes.. you can feel the System moving around you if you sit still enough." Ashley commented. "But in order to feel the system, you have to first understand the system and how it works.. and surviving it in it's most basic state is how."

Mikoto didn't understand how this worked at first. But after swimming in the river long enough, to catch the fish.. she began to see a pattern of the fish's respawn rates, and the odds of a larger fish appearing and smaller fish..

Everything was a System.. it was math.. the basics of the Underworld. Like any other Virtual World, the system calculated and created a unique system to how things would be drawn out.

If one waited for precisely 3 seconds after catching a Flash Screw Trout, there was a 77 percent chance an already spawned Golden Fish would come to eat in the now unprotected Flash Screw Trout's territory.. and if it didn't there was a 22 percent chance of an instant respawn of the trout and a 1 percent chance of a Legendary Giant Toad appearing, and that's when you needed to have your sword ready.

All these menial tasks of gathering wood, food, maintaining shelter.. it all had one purpose.. teaching that the best Sacred Sword Arts were created by those who  were capable of understanding how an opponent's system worked.

"Every Sword Master has a System." said Ashley one day when she was sitting at the foot of the waterfall by the massive lake as Mikoto caught fish.. "However, if one does the right calculations.. each and every Sword Master has one common denominator that can allow one to predict every sword master's move.. that's how Ocean Storm works.. it's an Eight Hit combo that first works by countering the most common and guaranteed moves a swordsman is going to make.. guaranteeing to take them off guard before striking.."

"It sounds a bit like you're incorporating Chaos Theory into swordsmanship." said Mikoto as she threw her makeshift net of scavenged materials into the water.

"Hmm? What is that?"

"Chaos Theory is the study of nonlinear dynamics." said Mikoto. "In other words.. it's a theory that seemingly random events can actually be predicted using simple deterministic equations.. random things are actually predictable through math."

"Well well.." said Ashley, laughing with delight. "That is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. Even those who have improvised their sword style right in the midst of battle can be predicted through simple calculations. It's one of the reasons why somebody can't just pick up a sword and defeat a sword master without practice. The experienced sword master would be able to skillfully predict and counter the moves even if they are 'random' 'rash' and 'improvised.' We're all calculating and predicting every single day on every single thing we do, even without knowing it."

"So are you saying that every swordsman has a one simple thing in their styles that ties them all together?" said Mikoto.

"Yep.. it could be that they all tend to thrust their swords out in a stabbing motion 93 percent of the time, or it could even be something as small as a blade twitching to the left 30 percent of the time when a person finishes a 4 hit combo. The point is.. if you learn to calculate it.. you can take advantage of it to become untouchable in battle.. and that is the basis for Ocean Storm..

Ashley held up two fingers. "Ocean Storm has two stages.. the first stage, is Parry and Block.. you see, usually when you initiate a Sacred Sword Art, you do so by initiating a stance.. and then your body and blade perform the movements for you... "