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Of Arms and Arcane: Chapter 31
🕑 Added 2023-12-02 16:22:23 +0000 UTCThe next day after breakfast, Dad said “Luke, in an hour, meet me at the training ground with your training sword and wear something comfortable.”
“Ok Dad.” I replied excitedly to Dad who had a small smile on his face, but for some reason, Mum did not seem all that happy and looked at me with slight worry.
Is it because I may hurt myself with aura again? I tried to reassure Mum that I would be fine “It’s fine Mum, Dad is here in case anything goes wrong, I may not have turned on my aura since that day, but I am pretty confident I will be able to control it.”
Mum just nods while giving me a forced smile and says “I know dear, I will be watching.”
***
An hour later, I met Dad at the training ground, and sitting on the bench in the shade were Mum, my sister Charlotte, and my childhood friend Emma who insisted on training to be a maid while taking care of me after my run-in with the assassins and she was looking super cute in a traditional maid dress.
While Mum was sitting there looking worried, Charlotte and Emma were sitting beside her swinging their legs and sipping juice.
When I turned to Dad, I asked, “So what are we going to do first? Do I turn on my aura now?”
Dad just shook his head, “No, we will not be doing that today, the first thing we are going to do is find out your body’s condition. Today, you will exercise until exhaustion to see your limits, only then will I determine if it is safe to activate your aura or not.”
Ohhh shit… I can remember when I started doing "to point of exhaustion" exercise routine when my old co-workers introduced me to their gym and invited me to join him in doing reps, I foolishly obliged them because I did not want to come off as antisocial. After I was done with the gym session that day, my everything ached and the morning after was worse.
This was the same guy who introduced me to Historical Medieval Battles, so in the end, I followed his insane routine and got used to it. But now, I was going to start again in a new and much younger, this is going to suck big time.
Dad continued, “While we are training, I am not your father, I will be tough on you, and you will not like it. While we are training, your only response will be ‘Yes or No Instructor’, do I make myself clear!”
The change in atmosphere and intent coming from my Dad makes my ass pucker and my body straighten up, “Yes Instructor!” I replied to my dad promptly, I knew where this was going, he being an army man usually has a low tolerance for lip or mouthing off. The other reason I snapped to attention promptly is because I want to make my dad proud.
“Good, First, you are going to do some running.” Dad took out an hourglass and “We will start off with a 10 minute run around the training ground, start off slow, GO!”
I took off at a slow jog and Dad turned his hourglass. After what felt like a minute, Dad called for me to sprint at full speed, and a minute after that it was back to jogging. By the third set, I was utterly winded and barely trudging along, my jog became the speed of a fast walk, and my sprinting was just barely faster than my jogging.
My lungs were burning and my legs were aching as Dad shouted me onward. Every now and then Dad slipped into drill sergeant mode and vulgarities almost spilled out of his mouth, the only thing that made him catch those words was the killing intent flaring out from Mum who was watching like a hawk.
When the cardio torture ended, I was about to collapse on the ground but Dad stopped me and told me to walk around while breathing deeply.
When Dad saw that my breath was almost back to normal, he announced my next exercise, “Your next exercise is sword strikes, you remember what I taught you about the basic sword forms right?” too tired to sound off, I nodded in the affirmative.
How could I forget these “Basic Sword Forms”, they were so basic a child could follow… ok maybe not, I have an unfair advantage.
Dad brought me in front of a solid steel cross the size of a man that was covered in burlap and stuffed with straw, “You will strike this dummy until I say stop, begin!”
I got into a proper stance and started slashing at the training dummy with ease, after a few strikes, Dad stopped me and came over with a practice sword, “That wooden sword I gave you as a present may be your size but it was made to be played with, after seeing your strikes, I know you can handle a real practice sword.”
Dad compared the length of my current wooden sword with the real practice sword in his hand, then Dad’s aura flared, and used a knife hand to chop the real practice sword down to a more appropriate length for me, “Use this and continue.”
I hefted the sword and felt its weight, this was some heavy and dense wood, I continued striking the dummy. For the first minute, things felt fine, but after that, the added weight started exhausting my arms.
While doing my strikes, Dad would tell me to switch between slashing and thrusting.
As I slowed down, Dad would shout at me to strike harder and faster whenever he saw me slow down. Eventually, I could not raise my sword. That was when he only gave me a minute break before sending me on a running interval training again.
After 2 more sets of running intervals and sword strikes, I was dead on my feet, and from the increased killing intent blasting out from Mum towards dad made sure he stopped. I swear, the look on Mum’s face looked like she was about to stomp over and ring Dad’s neck.
Mum asked Charlotte and Emma to help me back into the house and get me something to drink while she stayed behind to have a word with Dad.
I would pray for your safety, Dad, but I am too damm tired. The moment the door closed behind me while Emma was supporting me, I could hear the muffled shouting of my irate mother.
After chugging a couple of glasses of water, taking a bath, and a short lay down, the call for lunch was sounded and I came down to the dining table with Mum in a huffy mood refusing to look at Dad, and Dad looking dejected while picking at his food.
Looks like Dad is going to be in the dog house for a while.
