Auntie toasts the VRMMORPG

25. Martial Arts Mannequin-Routines

Back in the virtual world, Flora repaired her melted boots and handed in the daily-quest. She got for the first time an A rating!

Still, she couldn't quite believe that she managed to complete the XP-grind and doubted that she could repeat the performance short-term.

Next, Flora ported to the Seven Masters Dojo and attended her lessons. Her increased stats drew attention. Tempering and physical defense caused her to take less damage and strength to hit harder than the other level 1 pupils. The coaches paired her with now with level 10 participants.

But her technique was still not up to par. She needed longer than the young people to implement the instructions of the trainers. Furthermore, she didn't want to hurt her training partners and pulled her punches.

It wasn't a conscious decision, just habit. When she saw a smiling face, she used to smile back and not to hit it right in the middle.

"Punch me, like I popped the cherry of your fifteen-year-old granddaughter!" Her partner, Ghoris Jalati, a brown-haired Georgian male, demanded grinning.

Flora estimated that he was easily in his thirties, which added a decent oompf to her punch.

"Ow! Woman! That's how you do it!" He mumbled with a dislocated jaw. Then he grabbed his chin and put it back in place. Flora's stomach turned just from hearing the noise. 'What a brute!'

But his tactic was successful. It proved to Flora that he could take everything that she was able to dish out. Therefore she felt free to loosen up.

Question time reserved the last five minutes of each lesson. You could skip it and run to your next course, which Flora had done in the past. But today she had nothing planned for the evening and decided to stay.

First, the teacher reminded everyone that there was only one lesson left until the course examination.

Flora had no confidence at all. Although she knew that her attitude was the main problem, she had issues with adjusting it.

'Maybe I feel too safe?'

Germany was a secure country, and Flora experienced no physical violence after elementary school.

"Get some fighting experience, folks! Sign up for Ring-Time."

Fortunately, she wasn't the only newbie, and someone asked about it.

"That's the PvP feature of the Seven Masters Dojo. Go to the Ring room, adjust your settings for Wing Tsun or MMA fights, and sign up. You will get paired with someone of a similar 7MD course level and fight. Best 2 of 3 wins."

"If you have issues with the forms, visit the Wing Chun temple. You can find Mannequin-Routines there. Unfortunately, the temple has only Ma-Routes for the IP Man Wing Chun lineage. Wing Tsun is part of that lineage. Therefore the first two forms are identical." One of the coaches, an athletic brown-haired woman, added.

The forms consisted of Thai Chi like movements and were the equivalent to a kata in karate.

Flora to Aidan: "Great! The Ring-Thing and the Mannequin-Thing have the potential to solve both of my problems! Let's try them out. I hope you caught the correct appellation, dear."

First, she navigated with Aidan's help to the Wing Chun temple in the northern part of the compound.

The temple was part of a whole village consisting of red houses with curved roofs and courtyards.

The first room reminded Flora of a museum. Black and white photographs hang on the walls, and objects in display cabinets stood on podia. The smell of wood from the creaking floor permeated the air.