Fell Pluck rarely got to choose his own path, he in fact never had the choice to choose between two things. Anzar"s question put him in a weird state of mind, his feelings were conflicted as he was experiencing his first internal struggle.Lost in thoughts, an intense frown appearing on his face. His face clearly showing the internal struggle he was living, both paths looking grand in his eye.
Anzar was patiently looking at this strange scene, he was honestly interested in Fell"s answer and decided not to give him any advice. In the end, it was Fell"s first choice is his path as a cultivator and his answer will define the direction of his future progress.
Fell kept weighing the pros and cons of both paths, losing himself in an ocean of thoughts. His doubt continued for some time until he started shaking, the furrow in his eyebrow finally disappearing.
Finally, he looked directly at Anzar"s eye; His eye shining and focused.
"I choose both!" said Fell with an unparalleled momentum, "It"s either I take the path of the strongest and live through it or I die while trying to accomplish it."
The blue haired men started trembling, a smile defined on his face.
"That"s my brother" proudly a.s.sessed Anzar, "But get ready to pa.s.s through fire and water, training in both Hardness and Softness is the elite way, don"t forget that you missed the optimal training period of your life"
"Prepare yourself, starting today you will be living in h.e.l.l"
"I WAS BORN IN h.e.l.l" screamed Fell on top of his lung.
He was ready, ready to change his life and finally become the master of his destiny.
"As I said before, the first step is to focus on your body, starting today you will start a h.e.l.lish physical training" a.s.sured Anzar with a confident look on his face, "give me one week and your body will reach its peak athletic form!".
And that"s how Fell Pluck"s training began, his mornings started with a set of foundational breathing technique. Finally learning how difficult it was to coordinate both breathing and motion, his first session leaving him with a bitter taste.
His first training session made him sigh, finally knowing that he wasn"t a genius from those fantasy web novels that the citizens outside the slum read.
Although Fell was discouraged, he knew that he couldn"t afford to focus on this defeat. Following his failure, he immediately started focusing on his breathing all the time.
This didn"t go unnoticed by the experienced Anzar, "This guy really caught it quickly, he understood the main difficulty of the foundational moves and already started preparing for success" he tough with a small smirk on his face.
Following the Foundational set of moves, Anzar made Fell go through a variety of set of exercise that made him feel like his muscles were gonna break.
Hopefully every time Fell was on the brink of collapse, Anzar would come and start slapping several parts of Fell"s body. This weird act would make Fell feel like his friend was molding and stretching his body as if it was Nuwa creating the first human with mud.
This unusual sensation wasn"t particularly loved by Fell who kept screaming on top of his lung, his pain was clearly expressed on his innocent face.
But his scream soon came to a stop when Fell noticed that the more Anzar used this technique, the more he was feeling like his body was supposed to exist in that state.
His body was clearly becoming more and more attuned to nature, all those small impurities his genes developed were slowly cleaned away by Anzar"s hand.
Coming to this conclusion, Fell couldn"t let his brother"s effort go to waste. He started gritting his teeth and bearing the pain, his pride couldn"t let him lose himself to pain.
Anzar"s act of slapping Fell had two purposes, to prevent Fell"s body from breaking and to clean all the impurity found in it.
The young earthling didn"t know that if he tried following this training program without Anzar"s help, his body wouldn"t have handled the huge amount of stress generated by it.
Following the strength training, Anzar made Fell run. And by running, he meant running to the brink of collapse, making Fell run till his throat and lungs felt on fire.
Fell always thought he was a good runner, be it endurance or sprint. Growing up in a dangerous environment running was the weapon of choice of the powerless, making him cherish this particular skill that saved his life countless time.
But Anzar"s training regime made him doubt his skills, he was asked to run 1 kilometer while sprinting at his maximum followed by 30 seconds of a set of breathing exercise.
Anzar told him to repeat it again and again and again.
He kept running and running, whenever he fell on the ground his cloth sticking to his frail body, his breathing as hazardous as it could be.
Anzar would come and strangely apply pressure on Fell"s diaphragm.
This act would make Fell recover his breath much faster, strangely after the strength training, he didn"t feel any pain from running that much. It was only his lungs and diaphragm that weren"t used to such high intensity work, needing much more time to recover than his muscles.
After strength and endurance training, Fell finally learned what was the worst, Anzar made Fell go through a series of stretches.
This series of stretches, unlike the ones that every sportsman do was made of a variety of moves that made Fell feel like his tendons and muscles were tearing apart.
After the morning routine, Fell would just stay on the ground focused on catching his breath while Anzar would go out to look for food. The Young Lord from the Ma.s.sin was really doing his best in a.s.sisting his friend, he who always had someone to attend for his needs was going as far as to go get for his tired Brother.
Fell was particularly happy about this aspect of training, he ate a variety of food so diverse that everytime he grabbed his old cutlery; It was an exciting and fresh experience for his taste bud"s
"Look at you again, wolfing down on food like it"s the last meal of your life," noticed Anzar while eating unhurriedly.
"I"me nemer eaten sometinm so goodm" responded Fell while grabbing the last piece of a tender chicken breast.
"You really are quite the savage" frowned Anzar.
And it"s in this weird mix of brotherhood and master-disciple relationship that the week went on, everyday Fell would focus on his breathing and follow every single task his brother gave him.
He was feeling himself progress in a way much faster than he thought, this caused him to give his all during every single breath of the day.
He was fighting, fighting himself, fighting the world, fighting destiny.
In the blink of an eye, the week went on.
In that seemingly ordinary courtyard, two young men were facing each other.
One of them with a head full of blue hair, a physique full of powerful and stripped muscles. He had what they called in the military, the leopard physique.
He wasn"t bulky but his small frame was showing that he was capable of exerting his full strength in a single moment of explosiveness, his eyes full of pride were looking at the result in front of him.
The other was a black-haired young man, even if not as physically imposing as his counterpart. He had a healthy tone on his skin and his muscle showed that he was an athletic young man.
The black-haired man clenched his fist, looked at the sky and unleashed the biggest howl he could manage. A shockwave of excitement spread through the usually dead Baby Cemetery, making everyone who heard it wonder what that lucky b.a.s.t.a.r.d won.
The black-haired man was Fell.
Like Anzar promised, he made Fell go through a complete metamorphose in a week.