"Everyone, this is my nephew, Kyle Vermont. Starting today, he will be training with us all. I want you all to treat him like a brother. But regardless of his status, he will not be receiving any form of special treatment. And since he was late on his first day, he will need to be punished—10 laps around the training ground," Alaric said with a huge smile on his face.
Kyle had a defeated look on his face. He had no choice anymore. He began running laps around the training grounds. It wasn't even up to 10 minutes when Kyle collapsed on the floor, his breathing rough and heavy. That was how weak he was. He gritted his teeth. He had to get stronger—and if this was the only way, he would make sure he at least saw it out until the end. He stood up once again and continued running.
Alaric, who had been watching him from a distance, looked at him and smiled. "I guess he's not that bad after all."
Kyle had been jogging for around ten more minutes. His legs were extremely tired, but he kept moving. Then he heard a loud notification sound in his head:
Ding
[Daily Quest: 10/10 Km covered]
He collapsed to the ground with a smile on his face. He had completed the first of the daily quests. But that was just the beginning—he still had four more tasks in order to complete the daily quest. He was way too tired. He never expected this to be easy, but this was way too hard.
It took Kyle around ten minutes to regain some of his energy, and almost immediately, he started doing push-ups. He would always stop halfway, but eventually he would get back up. He knew that he needed to push himself in order to grow stronger.
He continued—"ninety-five, ninety... six, ninety... seven... ahhhhhh, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred... ahhhh."
Ding
[Daily Quest]
[100/100 push-ups completed]
"Finally, I can breathe a little. I need to keep going, but I'm so tired."
He laid on the floor for a few minutes and continued. He went in almost the same sequence—from doing sit-ups to squats—until finally he got a notification from the system:
DING
DAILY QUESTStatus: Completed
100/10 km Run
100/100 Sit-ups
100/100 Push-ups
100/100 Squats
[You have received (3) stat points.]
[Available points to distribute: 13]
He laid on the floor of the training ground, completely drenched in sweat. But was it worth it?
YES. Absolutely.
He looked at the notification from the system. "Ohh, that's right—I already had ten points to distribute. In addition to the three I just received, that makes it 13... huh. What do I invest them into?"
While he was contemplating what to invest his stats into, a shadow hovered over him. He looked up to see Alaric looking down on him with a smile on his face. He handed him some water.
"Here."
"Thanks," Kyle said, sitting up to drink it.
Alaric sat down beside him, while Kyle downed the water like he hadn't had a single drop in days.
"Honestly, I'm impressed. I had planned to let you train your body and build up some muscle before I taught you any martial arts—so good exercise is key. That's why when I saw you suddenly start doing push-ups—although it seemed like you were gonna die from those laps around the grounds—I was really surprised. And yet you persevered till the end.
"I couldn't help but wonder what was going through your mind at that point," he said to Kyle with a smile on his face.
"What was going through my mind? I just thought about the fact that I couldn't possibly give up after only just starting. I'm doing this for myself. And if I want to get strong enough to achieve my plans, I need to at least go through this much."
Alaric thought to himself, I guess he needs to at least have that mentality.
"Anyway, good job. Rest for a while and come meet me in my personal training ground to continue your training."
"What? I thought I was done for the day!"
"Ha! Look at this brat. You're only just getting started. This will be your routine from today until I tell you you're ready."
"Ready for what?"
"Ready to learn martial arts."
Kyle laid on the floor for about thirty minutes and decided to go see Alaric, but before he left, he looked at the system interface again.
"I think I'll evenly distribute the points to the physical attributes for now."
He put four points into strength, four into agility, and five into stamina. He closed the system interface and walked out of the general training ground into a smaller building that Alaric had directed him to. It was really close to the training grounds. While getting there, he remembered seeing a building like this yesterday.
He opened the door and walked into the building to find Alaric sitting in a cross-legged position. The air around him felt a little different.
Alaric opened his eyes and looked at Kyle.
"Oh, you're finally here."
Kyle took his time to observe the structure in front of him. There were various weapons on the wall ranging from swords to spears, shields, gauntlets, and sabers. Next to them were some pieces of armor. Kyle recognized one of them—it was the armor Alaric had been putting on when he came to pick him up from his aunt Elina. He suddenly thought about her. He wondered how she was doing. He knew she would be alright, though. Now he just had to get strong enough, both for himself and for her.
He noticed a set of black armor beside the one he had worn the other day. It had strange patterns and scales on it. He wondered what beast it came from, since armors and weapons were made from the skin and bones of various beasts.
Alaric walked towards the weapons on the wall and picked up a wooden sword, then threw it towards Kyle, who struggled to catch it—not just because he was absent-minded, but because it was much heavier than it looked.
Kyle picked up the sword and turned to face Alaric, who was also holding a wooden sword, with a confused look on his face.
Alaric smiled and said, "I'm going to gauge your level."
Kyle smiled awkwardly. He now understood what Charlotte meant when she said he scared her. How could such a friendly smile make his heart tremble in fear?