Chapter 22 – Good news

The sun had yet to rise over the city of Two Fang.

In a room of a picturesque little lodge in the city, a young girl woke up in a daze.

In a white silken short robe, she sat up in her bed.

Rubbing her eyes softly in the dark room.

The skin of her arms and feet that was showing up to her thighs was unblemished and fair. Very unusually beautiful for a girl of her age.

Her eyes lazily opened on her lightly freckled face. It only further accented her youthfulness.

Those light blue eyes slowly began to clear as they accustomed themselves to the dark.

Pushing herself up with her dainty little hands. She got up from her bed and went towards the washroom in her room.

In a few moments, she stepped back out with steam following her.

Freshened up, she was now dressed in a light green cheongsam. Her light brown almost hazel hair was still slightly wet.

Rubbing her hair with a towel she made her way to a drawer on the other side of the room.

Picking up a small handheld mirror she checked her appearance. Rubbing her thin nose ridge she traced it down till it reached her cute pudgy nostrils.

She then picked up a small round container from the drawer. Opening it up she rubbed a finger in the hard wax like ointment in it and then closed it. She put her finger on her full and light pink lips. Lightly rubbing it on, she spread it evenly over her lips, giving it a glossy sheen.

Cleaning her hands with the wet towel from earlier, she patted her smooth and fair cheeks, then walked out of the room ready for the day.

This girl was Fen.

Making her way to the dining room she had breakfast with the other girls of the lodge then went to wake up Adam. The sun just barely beginning to rise on the horizon.

This was Fen's daily morning routine.

....

After completing her daily task of waking up and dressing the heavy sleeper of a young master. She was now sitting alongside Adam in the dining hall.

Yuki was currently lecturing Adam on various topics.

'Mistress is so caring toward the young master but now she is so stern. Mistress is so admirable.' She knew how much her mistress loved her young master. Even so, to protect him she was willing to be stern when she needed to be. Fen was truly in admiration at this mother's capability of being flexible with her character just for her son.

While Fen was admiring Yuki, Adam was sitting and eating his food while listening to his mother.

Yuki started by recounting his eventful fight at the dungeon. Adam would occasionally chime in, filling in any details she missed.

When she was done she started pointing out flaws from start to finish. Adam was left flabbergasted. She pointed out things as small as the puddles in the room and gave three different ways of utilizing them in the fight.

"Putting all that aside I want you to start learning from each of your fights. I will not always be there to point out things for you while you fight. You need to be able to do this for yourself so you can improvise even as you fight."

"If there is no room for leeway in your tactics you are bound to fail. Think three steps ahead, four steps, five steps…..a hundred steps ahead if you have to." She said in a lecturing tone.

'Mother is right… Thinking back, my moves were all linear and crude recreations of what I saw in the painting. If my opponent was anyone other than the goblins with a bit more intelligence, they would have switched up their strategies continuously and broken my flow. They could've exhausted me easily.' He began to recount the events from his perspective. Even if the goblins had just retreated when he went in for his all-out attack's he would have most probably lost.

His moves were slow, crude, unintelligent and plain. The only times he slightly improved was when he improvised to kill the three goblins.

If his body wasn't capable of enduring that over an hour long pummeling he would have most definitely perished.

He thought back to how his energy was so boundless when he fought. It was most definitely the durability brought about by the magicules and his dual class body.

'I can't rely on durability always. What if my next opponent has an actual weapon. Will I just stand there taking their hits? Won't I just be a fish on the chopping block?'

"Mother what should I do to improve myself?" He asked humbly. He had her to advise him so he would most definitely not be reserved.

Yuki was satisfied by his straightforwardness.

"Good. You should be able to do things yourself but it is also good to ask when you don't know. They do say that having an elder in the house is an invaluable asset. Hahaha!" She sounded like a proper wizened old man at this moment.

He couldn't help but lightly facepalm himself at his mother's eccentric behaviour.

After a few more jokes and puns she got serious and started explaining things to Adam.

To sum it up… she pointed out the major flaws from his recent fight and ways to overcome them.

The first thing she told him to get were steel toe boots. In his first set of blocks against the goblins, he had managed to get a kick in. Kicks were a basic part of the monks attacking moveset. If his boots were not ordinary he might have been able to severely damage or even injure the biggest goblin and gained an advantage for the rest of the fight.

The second thing that Yuki wanted him to improve was his ability to wield his weapons. To do that he would first have to be able to wield them effortlessly. Right now his first hurdle to that was the weight of the weapons themselves.

To overcome this she suggested he get training weights for his wrists, ankles and waist. He needed to train his limbs and his core to handle the weight. This was fine and sounded logical but what shocked him was the weight that Yuki had asked him to start off with.

He was to get 5 kilograms on each weight. That was a total of 25 kilograms with 5 weights.

"Don't underestimate the blessing the skill gives your body. You also have two so even I cannot estimate what your limits are. Push yourself to the limit's and find out for yourself. That is the only way." This was all she said on the matter and Adam could not refute.

The last thing she had done was set up a training schedule for him. It stretched from the time he woke up till the time he slept. The only breaks were three short 15-minute ones for his three meals.

The training he would undergo ranged from walking to crunches.

All the various basic strength training were concentrated together with jog's, running and other movement-related exercises mixed in.

The real challenge that he would face was doing all of these with the weights attached to him. Just thinking about doing sit-ups or squats with those weights attached to him, gave him cold sweat.

Not allowing for any wastage of time, Yuki sent Adam and Fen to purchase the necessary items.

At the armoury shop, Adam requested steel to boots be made to his size then bought his compressed iron training weights. They were like prisoner shackles that went around his limbs and waist. Luckily they were compressed so they weren't too bulky.

As per Yuki's request, he was to wear his weights at all times. His weapons were also to be carried on him at all times but they could be taken off while he slept.

It should be made known that his weapons themselves weighed around 1.5 kilograms each That was a total of 9 kilograms for the 6 of them. With his light armour and holster belts, it would come up to 10 kg's in total. Adding up the 25 kilograms from the training weights. He had a whopping 35 kilograms on him.

He himself was only around 17 kilograms.

Walking back from the armoury store they did not have any luggage as everything else they purchased like dumbells and the like would be delivered to the lodge by the store.

Adam was still slouched and felt like he was carrying a mountain as he walked back. Every step was filled with strain. His footprints left on the loose soil grounds had become deep. The city had begun using pebbles and rubble to fill in the major roads but for now, most of the city had flattened soil as roads.

...

2 Days later.

Adam lay sprawled out in the backyard.

Breathing heavy breathes. sweat glistened on his thin upper body.

He was shirtless at the moment with the belts for his weapon holsters tied straight to his arms. While his waist holster had been lowered and placed over his waist weight belt that ran through the hoops of his pants.

Exhausted he was trying to catch his breath after a run around the lodge. This was how most of his training had gone for the past two days.

This was the first official training his body had undergone. His stamina was severely lacking, to say the least. He would end up on the floor after every exercise.

The only redeeming point was his tenacity. Every time that he fell down exhausted he wouldn't let out a word of complaint but within minutes he would get back up and continue with his next training.

This had repeated itself over and over for the past two days. The time he took in between training was gradually decreasing.

...

10 days had passed since then and Adam was once again sprawled on the dew filled grass of his backyard. The stars were shining in the dark violet night sky.

Rays of moonlight lit the surroundings with a hazy white light.

One thing Adam had noticed about this world was that the moon ran on different cycles. It had been a full moon for the past month till today. Its cycles were very slow.

Staring at the white orb in the sky he was having these thoughts.

Yuki's voice echoed through the empty backyard and pulled him back from his thoughts.

"Adam! Come in its almost time for dinner. I also have good news." Yuki was a frequent visitor to his training sessions. Sometimes when she was free, hours would go by with her just sitting on the side watching his progress.

"Coming!" He got up then started wiping himself off with a towel that Fen brought to him.

His skinny body was now starting to show signs of muscle development. Though it wasn't much the outlines of his muscles had started to become defined.

In the past 10 days, the rate of improvement of his stamina was what was most astonishing. Today the only time Adam had fallen over from exhaustion was right now when he finished his workout for the day.

Putting on a light grey robe, that was made from cotton like material, to cover his upper body. He stepped up onto the porch and entered the lodge.

Following Yuki toward the dining room with Fen right on his tail.