I hate the wooden dummy. It's too big, too heavy, doesn't change in any way, and can't move on its own. No matter how you slash at it, it never hits back. As a training prop, it's stupidly ineffective, and doesn't fit most training purposes. They should throw anything with that little practical value straight in a trash bin. Stop laughing. Believe me, inefficiency sickens me more than anyone else sitting here. Yes, I train on a wooden dummy every day, but I've had enough of even seeing it. On the day I first wielded a katana, my first training target was half of a gigantic wooden dummy, taller than I was, so wide I couldn't pick it up. The grounds were covered in snow. They put the dummy dead center, in conditions where your only option for keeping your body temperature up was to brandish your katana as fiercely as you could. The order they gave me was that I wasn't allowed back inside to warm up by the heater until I cut it in half. That day, I shattered six katanas, and cut through eight dummies. Since then, practically every day, I've faced off with my katana against dummy after dummy, throwing in the next once I've cut the last one to pieces. I still have the habit today. You're sharp. Yes, it was 'practically' every day, and that's because I did stop once. Not long after I joined Rhodes Island, after participating in my first field mission. Just like you, I was hungry for victory on my first mission, but during it we hit an enormous snag. We were facing off against a highly experienced Caster. He was small, and with others covering for him, he was casting Arts like a ghost. We could barely put up a fight against it, and my katana couldn't threaten him in the slightest. It was a painful defeat we swallowed. I was bitter about it as I came back, blaming my blade's helplessness for our loss. So I abandoned my routine, and spent the whole night reviewing recordings and deriving strategies to deal with the Caster's every move. Once I thought I was ready, I stowed away my katana, and took along a huge collection of new weapons to confront the Caster alone. But in the end, I was defeated. It wasn't because my strategies were flawed, or because those new weapons were ineffective on him. It was because I hadn't spent nearly enough time training those strategies or using those weapons. All I did was assume it'd work, watch the recordings a few times, and head off for battle. Reality proved that hopelessly inefficient, and with a large chance of failure. After I came back, I restored the wooden dummy and began my routine again. It was just a plain dummy, and though I was sick of it, it was able to support me as I drilled my fundamentals and trained newly imagined moves, and that was enough. Everyone sitting here is an excellent operator about to take part in their first field mission. As Op Team A4 Captain, I, Yato, warn you all: never stop polishing your skills. That's the one and only path to high efficiency. Acting on assumptions is undesirable. Anything can happen on a fluke, but luck won't always have your back. A wooden dummy, a target, a mannequin, anything... smash it to pieces, and never stop. That's what you should be doing. Alright, I'm done... anything else? Oh? You looked up the mission log? That's right, I did take out that Caster in the end. I said I failed—I did fail, with those new weapons. In the end, my final plan to settle things was to pull out my katana again, and with the most fleeting of chances, I slashed like I was slashing a dummy. And I cut that Caster down. End of story.