10 The strict upbringing of Arthur (Part 02)

"Arthur, my son" Luke said "The breathing is one of the main ways that make the body communicate with the environment, or to say it on a better way, for mortal Martial Artist the most important ways to receive or producing energy is from the feeding and breathing.

Usually, normal people use only the lungs, the mouth and the nose to breathe but it is in a way too inefficient. Before I can even think about teach you how to breathe, I need to teach you to control your breath. A normal person can hold their breath by one to two minutes but someone with total control of their body and mind can sustain an apnoea of almost half an hour without moving. For martial artists they can do this time while slowly moving.

Starting from today I will train you for the first step of mine breathing method. The first step is conquer your body. To accomplish it I need that you can hold your breath for a minute in this week and accomplish two minutes at the end of this month. For each second lasts for the objective, you will be lashed once with my cane."

At this way Arthur spent his first hour of the day. He thanked all the gods for this day being his first day because just from his father he was excused to more than sixty lashes. How can't his father remember that he only is five years old? Now he will have his breakfast and go to the military field to train with his mom, at least he could be sure that she still love him and will not punish him that easy.

He finished his breakfast at a quarter past six and got to the training field at six and a half. When he got there, he couldn't see his mother and thought that is a little weird... There is only a bulky and tall man with a huge beard and a firm stare. With his voice, that looked like a growl,

"My name is Captain Richard, I'm the one responsible to train and recruit men for the army and you brat, you are shameless enough to keep me waiting for you for half hour. Great. Or you are our majesty the king or you are troubled boy. I'm certain that your father told you about your punishment if you can't finish your train in time or satisfactory enough. For your 30 minutes you should get more thirty lashes, you got lucky that it is just your first day.

Oh, and don't lose your time looking for your mom, she is the one that ask for mine help to train and help you to become a real man. You're still a stinking brat, that was pampered all the day and smell the milk you drank. This weak body is a shame for you, your training will start easier. At the beginning you will run for twenty kilometres, will swim for three kilometres, lift half of your weight for a minute ten times, jump with tied arms and legs up the hill and do fifty push-ups.

Of course this is for the first week, at the end of this month I want you to run twenty kilometres in at least one and a half hour, that you can swim three kilometres in an hour, lift half of your weight for two minutes ten times..."

If Arthur still had his old memories he will be astonished. Both of his father and this trainer of the army wanted him to keep up with an average athlete of his old world, just in his first month!!! But the ignorance is a bliss, so he trusted in his parents and did what are supposed to do.

As time went by Arthur noticed that he can't finish even half of what he is supposed to do. He noticed an unspoken trap for him, if he got late to do his train he will be punished twice because he will spend less time to accomplish the same objective. He tried to compensate doubling the effort, but after ten minutes he noticed that he is losing his breath and tiring too fast.

After two hours of running, swimming and lifting weights he just passed out. When he woke up, he could feel that all his muscles are aching and warmth at all his body. Opening his eyes he could see his father and mother by his side, like an instinct he knew that he was sleeping for two hours.

"This bath tube is filled with medicinal concoction, it will help you to heal and strength your body. The effects of this medicine will be halved just because you were sleeping inside. The cost of this medicine is expensive, that is the reason for we sent you to do errands. Stand up fast and cloth in to go to work. For half of this year you will work for the Kammar, the merchant, and try to learn and absorb all that he can teach you. When you got home, we will train your Meditation".

…

And by this routine time was passing, day by day, year by year.

After work six months each with the merchant, farmers, waiter, priest, physician, pharmacist, actors, clowns, magician, blacksmith, hunter, librarians and even in a mercenary group as a squire. He did these errands for a six-year strike and with it, he learnt a little about the nuances and the characteristics of each of that mortal function.

How to estimate the value of goods, the monetary exchanges, how to care of plants and animals, to recognize the poisons and concoct a few simple medicine, how to fake, how to lie, how to get what you need… All the mortal knowledge that his father though that are important to him to survive the world.

Now he can hold his breath for twenty minutes while static and for five minute while moving slowly. If there are bikes in this world he could become a new world recordist of Iron Man Triathlon with all of his eleven years old.