Han Yimu was a deep loss for words.
Precisely three booklets flew towards him, but his confusion didn't last long as reading through them once made it quite clear they were supposed to be used in tandem. He did ask for a movement art, but this was... not what he was expecting, to say the least.
For most martial artist, letting go of their weapon in any capacity during a fight was akin to committing a grave sin, the ultimate shame. And yet, this set of arts required him to let loose his weapon. Admittedly, if he fully mastered it, he'd always be able to retrieve it no matter what, but how many years would that take?
"Master, can we land so we can test these out?!!"
"Yes, please Master! Just for a little while!"
"Yes, yes..."
Though he said nothing, Han Yimu was just as excited as Dai Xiu and Xing Feng to see how this would work. Even if he was slowly picking up on the nature of spearmanship--especially with the odd Long Tao's occasional guidance--it was extremely difficult to break the old habits he'd picked up over the years and years that he had been swinging the sword.
For starters, he still wasn't quite comfortable with the spear's reach, often going in closer than he should; it was also quite more cumbersome to wield recklessly, so any wasted movement was doubly punished.
And now, he would also have to learn how to throw it--though the art itself was relatively simple and he'd be able to execute it immediately, the true difficulty lay in the throw and timing. How precisely would he toss the spear, and when would he 'blink' to it?
The chariot slowly descended and everybody rushed out, including him. They'd landed on open grasslands in the middle of a day, making for the perfect place to test it all.
Han Yimu walked to the side for a bit and took out the spear, marking it per the art's instruction, heaving it on top of his shoulder, and throwing it forward. He frowned immediately, as the spear's arc was too flat and the speed was a bit too wild. Taking a deep breath, he activated the movement about sixty yards into the spear's flight.
The world around him bent and shifted and twisted in such a violent way that it left him breathless; he landed on the flying weapon but immediately lost his balance, crashing both it and himself, rolling for twenty yards further.
"Ugh," he grumbled, standing up and hoping nobody had seen it. If they had, at least they were keeping it to himself.
Though he predicted it would not be pretty, that was quite some ways worse than he expected. Everything about it was wrong, from the throw to the landing. And this was him simply practicing it without pressure. In an actual fight, he wasn't even sure the art was useable--not anytime soon, anyway.
"Are you alright, Yimu?" a gentle voice called out to him as he quickly straightened up.
"Y-yes, Master! Forgive me for showing you something so shameful," he bowed just as quickly.
"... there was this one time when my dad bought me a bic--I mean, a horse. I'd never ridden one before, but because most other children my age were riding one, I wanted it, too. So, one summer, my father bought it for me. Ah, how excited I was. Couldn't sleep the night before. I promised him I'd wait for him to come back home so he could teach me how to ride it properly. But... well, I was nine. Impatient to the moon. I snuck out and tried riding it myself. How do you suppose that went?"
"Uh..." Han Yimu wasn't quite certain what to say. He'd never actually ridden a horse himself--by the time there was any need for him to travel, he could just do it quicker than most of the breeds.
"Horrible!" Master exclaimed, his expression comically exaggerated. "I could barely go four yards before falling over and scraping every inch of myself! Father was mad. But more than that, I was... ashamed. All my friends were doing it, and doing it without seemingly any issues, but I couldn't."
"You mastered it eventually."
"Hardly," Master shrugged. "I mean, I learned how to ride it, but I was utterly convinced I was not made for horseback riding from what happened that day. The point of that embarrassing story from your Master's dark past is that we all fumble. You've completely changed everything about yourself practically overnight; even that thing over there that I call my Eldest Disciple wouldn't do much better if he had to abandon sword and learned how to fight with, I don't know, a shovel."
Han Yimu caught from the corner of his eye that 'Eldest Disciple' stumble and nearly fall, eyebrows twitching like two worms wiggling. Truly, only Master would dare talk about him that way.
"So, let's take it slow," Master said, extending his hand. "Give me the spear for a moment."
"A-ah, yes!" Han Yimu said, handing it over. Master tossed it up from the palm a few times, seemingly playing with it.
"First, you have to learn the proper throw," he said. "How you'd do it if you had all the time in the world. While applying an arch to the spear's flight is fine and will increase the maximum distance you can throw it massively, leave that for latter; those circumstances will make it twice as difficult to actually land properly. Keep on with what you tried--throw the spear flatly, but add rotation to it. See my grip?" Han Yimu leaned in and saw how Master twisted the fingers around the spear, a bit south from the center. "Hold it like this and, at the point of a throw, violently twist your wrist in the opposite direction." Master pulled the spear to his side and crouched slightly as he threw his arm forward, twisting the wrist in the process.
The spear shot forward twice as quickly as Han Yimu's, without wobbling at all. Just as Han Yimu was about to say something, he saw Master appear about a hundred yards from him--catching the spear in his hand, doing the exact same maneuver, and throwing it back toward Han Yimu. The latter felt the tip of the spear encroaching upon his throat, fear gripping him, but before the weapon reached, Master appeared right there yet again, grabbing it just ten or so inches from his face.
"You don't have to blink on the spear," he said, smiling faintly. "Think of the weapon merely as the point delivery. There are no restrictions to how many times you can do it in a row; the brilliance of the art is that it can help you cover an entire battlefield, and make you a nightmare that others will wake up screaming from even in death. Come on, now. You try it. Remember: twist it to add that extra speed to the initial velocity, and keep the angle flat and low. You can also twist your forearm bones clockwise to give the spear a slight upward tilt..."
Master kept on talking, and Han Yimu kept on listening. But one question rang inside his mind before all else: What the hell is velocity?