6 Training

In a dense forest on a mountainside, a shadow could be seen leaping from tree to tree but strangely, there was almost no noise.

Sss.. Sss.. Sss..

Only the faint sound of wind could be heard as this shadow made its way towards a village before finally revealing itself in the front yard of the house at the tallest point of the village, almost crashing into the ground.

Boom!

"Barely half a day, not bad." Luca walked out from one of the rooms with a smile on his face.

"Haa...Haaa... N..Nice...Haa..." Gasping for breath, Jin was sprawled upon the floor. He was slowly taking off the strange 'weighted bands' that were on his wrists and ankles.

It had been 3 years since he had first started to train in the body. He had easily reached the small success in blood as it was the part he had been practicing the most.

Jin had started to practice his blood by just recklessly experimenting with various aerobic exercises before settling on round trips to mountain peaks and back home. It had first started with the mountain they were residing on and then the mountains closer by until he had reached small success in the blood.

Though the upgrade into small success did not feel too exaggerated, he had felt the difference when he ran again on the next day. It was like he had escaped from the fume-filled cities into a vast forest full of rich oxygen. And thanks to this, he had been able to shift up the gears of his training and added certain limits to his training.

The first rule he had set for himself at this point was that: He could not touch the ground if possible.

This made it much harder as he had to actually jump between trees and rocks and control his oxygen level at a much finer detail in order to not mess up his rhythm. Controlling the breathing rhythm of jogging was rather simple but when one was constantly jumping in different directions, it was hard to accurately judge when the best timing for taking a breath in and releasing it out was.

The second rule was that he would add weights to various parts of his body in order to strain his body, mostly his muscles, further. These were the bands he had been wearing on his wrist and ankles.

These had caused him quite a lot of trouble and caused various small injuries in the beginning. He had realized that his leg muscles needed more 'explosive' strength as well as just pure endurance at this point in order to jump the distance between the objects and had adjusted his muscle training as well.

He didn't know a lot about human biology and how much of it transferred onto this world with the whole 'qi' stuff but he did know that there were different types of muscles responsible for explosive strength versus endurance. He vaguely remembered them as red and white muscles.

Different parts of the body would require different amounts of each muscle but at this moment, he was just adjusting what he could to accommodate his training.

Once he reached small success in muscles, he would be able to learn how to wield a weapon. This was one of the driving forces behind Jin's every-day training.

"Have you rested enough?" Luca asked, noticing that Jin's breathing had calmed down to a certain extent.

"Yeap! I'm ready." Jin stood up and took off a belt that was also weighted and walked up to a small boulder.

He then grabbed it by the two 'handles' Luca had carved out for him on the sides and exerted his strength.

"Haaa!" Jin shouted out as he lifted the boulder up and maintained it in the air.

"Good, it seems your muscles have developed to the point where you can stabilize your weight." Luca exclaimed out loud, impressed about his son's progress. "Almost at small succession."

"I...I can go on!" Jin shouted as he then lifted the boulder above his shoulders and then high above his head. "Haaa!" He then chucked the boulder as far as he could.

Boom!

It was only a few meters but this was a noticeable improvement to the last exam two weeks ago when he could barely hold onto it.

"Hmm...I guess this could count as half a step into small succession..." Luca contemplated.

Jin walked into the shade beside Luca and sat down as he spoke. "Father, I wish to learn a weapon."

"Hmm? A weapon? Did you already have one in mind?" Luca asked as he gazed towards the settling dust around the boulder.

"No... But preferably something light...". Jin replied.

"Hmm..." Luca fell into thought. "I didn't know you would reach this step so fast. Give me a week and I'll get some weapons prepared so you can test them out. I guess you can take a break for a week if you wish to."

"Understood." Jin quickly responded as he walked toward to take a bath, he was sticky from all the sweat after all.

-----

"Ahhh...." Jin sighed out in pleasure as he lowered himself into a hot tub of water. He was almost 9 and a half now but due to the 'special blood' in his body alongside the qi rich environment this world was, he resembled more of a teenage boy.

'I should be able to start practicing the bones as well soon but... I guess it'll be a year or two more at least.'

Three years of daily training.

It was rigorous at first but after a while he had gotten into the habit of it.

He would wake up every day and train with various weights ranging from a tenth of his body weight to half of his body weight. He would then stretch in order to maintain a flexible body and then initiate his blood training which most of the time took most of the day.

And he didn't take breaks for most days.

'A week of break... Maybe I'll go visit the beach...' Jin quickly fell into light sleep from the exhaustion of the day as he laid in the wooden tub, still steaming with warm water.