Chapter 3: Exercise

Outside the house under the jade sky a green haired man demonstrated to a small child with a darker shade of hair how to do efficient warm ups consisting in active stretching and light exercise. Showing his son how to properly do sit ups, push ups and squats, Alastor didn't expect his son to be able to do the push ups at his age of 30 month old but nevertheless he demonstrated the progressively more difficult muscle building exercises going from simple handstands to one handed push ups to the gruelling one finger push ups in the handstand position.

Seeing his father exercise, Vahn knew his body couldn't do most of them. After completing his training regiment, Alastor turned to his son and stared at his emotionless face

"Did you think it would be easy to become strong, son? These exercises are just the basics necessary to build a strong and healthy body upon which your close quarter combat abilities will be based. When your body is strong enough I will teach you how to fight properly. "

"I was just puzzled as to why you showed me the more complex exercise as I have no means of executing them with my current body. " replied Vahn with a deadpanned face.

"It was only to show you the depth of the training so that you don't grow complacent after achieving something as simple as a push up. Now it's your turn to do the exercises, I will only help you to get the proper posture as for wether you actually accomplish or fail in doing them is up to you. "

"Fine, father. " Vahn agreed nonplussed.

Vahn started to mimic the stretching his father showed earlier. Beginning with his wrists and ankles then his knees and elbows finishing with his hips, shoulders and neck, warming up his entire body. Alastor stayed silent impressed by his son memorisation ability as Vahn reproduced his prior actions. When it came to the exercise Vahn mostly adopted the right position only being corrected by his father on the most complex one where he couldn't even reproduce a single complete move either supported by his father while doing a handstand or entirely supported during a single handed push up.

An entire hour passed Vahn was mostly unsuccessful in completing any exercise his father had presented him only managing some squats, sit ups and half push ups. After some refreshments the father and son duo lightly jogged around the house for half an hour with Alastor giving his son advices to pace himself and to correct his running stance.

Alastor carried his exhausted son inside his small single floor house, preparing dinner. Both of them got into the shower while the roast was cooking in the oven. Vahn was refreshed but his muscles were sore and his body was in pain. Eating dinner with his father was calm as usual after it Vahn got to his room and sat on his bed before closing his eyes and entering a meditative state.

During his meditation he mostly interacted with his chakra feeling the pathways it used to flow in his body and tried with a small success to slow its speed feeling lethargic in the process but was unable to accelerate it over his natural speed flow. As for his other attempts they all resulted in failure neither his holy power nor demonic energy responded and his possible Sacred Gear didn't even react at his tentative of connection.

The next morning it was the start of Vahn's new routine for the forseeable future, after breakfast he meditated and after lunch under his father supervision he started his exercises. Before dinner his father demonstrated the uses of weights and other bodybuilding training equipments but insisted that he shouldn't use them for the time being. His nightly meditation didn't bore any results except familiarizing Vahn to his chakra.

The rest of the week passed in similar fashion Vahn receiving some advice from his father after his afternoon practice and, gradually adapting to his physical training, he gave himself some goals to reach like a certain number of half push ups, squats and sit ups or how many laps to do around the house while running.

Sunday night Alastor after dinner came to Vahn's room before looking at him and contemplating how much he changed after his accident. Before it happened Vahn was a typical 2 year old barely able to speak complete sentences without mistakes and who began to run unsteadily leading to his injury. Now however he was more mature he didn't complain nor cried a single time even though he was undergoing a tedious and painful training.

"Son, tomorrow I will be going back to work but I will come back at noon to bring you lunch. I will try to have someone watch over you in the afternoon." receiving a nod from Vahn as an answer, Alastor left the room in silence.

Vahn felt that his father was keeping his distance emotionally from him despite of his apparent support, a form of detachment due to his probable change in attitude since the accident.

Monday came and in the morning just after breakfast Alastor bade Vahn goodbye before teleporting to his day job as an instructor of the city guards of the Gremory territory.