Eric grunted as he felt his feet muscles burning. The slow walk forward and back was killing him.
'Fucking codger, where in the hell did he say he learned this technique from.' Having moved in with Rudolph and Magdy for the time being, Eric took it upon himself to ask for guidance regarding training.
A true Keeper's knowledge and understanding was priceless, yet Eric couldn't help but feel as though the old man was screwing him over.
In the training room section of the home behind the store, Eri was on a tight rope, trying to balance with cups and plates on his shoulders, head, and weights on his ankles. His feet muscles felt strained and his breathing labored.
Sitting down in a chair reading the Dragon Fish Daily, Rudolph let out a giggle every once in awhile, finding the comedy section quite entertaining.
'Better balance he says, better focus he says, not enough coordination in the muscles he says.' Eric held out as long as he could before he slipped and fell. Crashing to the floor with a bunch of porcelain.
"Urgh, what the heck? What is this even teaching?" Rudolph sipped his tea leisurely, while Eric burned with anger, seeing the smirk on the old man's face.
'He's very much enjoying this.'
"Well, for starters it would be a good idea to get that temper of your under control. The army isn't a place for the weak, you'd at best be cannon fodder. No, I want you strong and alive so I can benefit off of you for as long as I can."
Grabbing a broom and dust pan, Eric asked while sweeping, "What's next?"
"Hoho, someone's eager. Next we work on your strength." With a wave of his hand, the sand filled bags on his legs were unfastened but in replace of them were metal weights which Eric couldn't quite identify.
However, his expression changed once he found weights on his neck, wrists, and ankles. With a snap of his finger, Magdy brought Eric to a passage that they descended to.
Deep underground, Eric found a complete training ground, "Whoa old man, you must be rich to afford all of this."
Magdy chuckled, "You haven't seen true luxury kid. The dwarves from Dunfixal have entire palaces inlaid with the finest metal, jade, and wood you've ever seen. Their training facilities look like small cities. This is by far the worst facility I've ever had in comparison to my old ones."
Going to a slope, Magdy directed Eric to stand against the boulder. Putting two hands on the boulder, Magdy pulled a lever.
Eric felt the ball spin, friction burning his hands as the ball tried to roll down the slope.
With the goal in mind to prevent the ball from reaching the bottom, Eric pushed and pushed against it. Over time the speed increasing until it soon bulldozed him completely.
"Ahhahhahhahaha, what a pussy. You call that trying?" Pissed Eric got up with a bit of a bloody nose he put his hands against the next boulder.
"The difficulty will increase the more you fail." Pulling the lever, Eric couldn't help but grumble.
"Isn't it supposed to be the opposite?" Hearing his comment, the dwarf grinned fiendishly.
"Life won't give you more chances because you're weak, you adapt or die." Pulling the lever, Eric pushed against another boulder and found the speed to have almost doubled.
Trying to shift into his Mountain Cloud Warrior bloodline, his weights glowed.
'Wait, he won't let me use my transformations? Why can't I use them?' Seeing Eric's predicament, the elder rather seriously reprimanded him.
"Don't get so caught up in bloodlines that you forget that you have a role to play. You must dig out power yourself and use that as a basis to strengthen and harness your bloodline. As it stands you're just a reckless boy with no strength of his own without working home."
For the next hour, all Eric did was push himself against boulders, then do rock-climbing, then horse stance, then hand stands, rope pulling, then weight lifting, then.....
The exercises went on and on and on. Magdy never let him take off the weights. Eric was in agony up until dinner time. The old man made a hearty soup, salad, and a few dozen pies.
The three ate voraciously with Eric feeling his stomach expanding like a balloon, the dwarf's ingredients were anything but simple. A burn rang through his body as he felt the fatigue being ground away, muscle tears growing back stronger.
Done for the day he walked around the complex. However, his thoughts wandered to the last piece of advice, Rudolph had given him at dinner.
"Be careful integrating bloodlines kid. Having too many is dangerous, or even having a few powerful ones can be dangerous. Bloodlines are alive kid, they have stories, history, a past. You should learn to lean more into your focus on your humanity."
'Fuck this is rough. Hopefully, I'll be strong enough to survive and stand out in the military. Service is a minimum of 5 years. Man that'll be a long time.' Thinking on a myriad of things as he walked, the sky eventually turned dark.
Heading into his room, Eric mediated. Wanting to meditate on his bloodlines, he stopped and tried to focus on himself.
'What do we humans have?' Nothing came to mind until he thought about Fight, Flight, and Freeze. Jumping up laughed wildly.
"Ohoho, yeah!!! I forgot, dad said that technique is one of the many primal techniques created by humanity. It's apart of the primordial human arts. What if I focused on that to help bring me closer to my roots?'
Decision set, Eric thought about Fight, Flight, and Freeze. Each one a lesson as well as technique.
'Fighting. It's the focus on aggression and confrontation, it puts all strength and being into that moment.'
Not quite knowing what he was doing, he entered Fight. His adrenaline spiked, strength coursed through his body, and lingering pain in his body was suppressed.
Feeling that strength and trying to understand what it truly was and where it came from felt like a tedious process. However, Eric could feel the heat in his body.
"I may not know what this is completely, but I know this is my power. It's my rage, confidence, it's my sense of advancement." A red hue swirled around Eric.
His aggression and strength increasing while he closed his eyes. He focused on that one thing, fighting. Nothing else was in the world.
His mind sharpened as he thought only to fight, to advance, to struggle. The red hue around him grew, his mind replaying past fights. Eric's breathing increased rapidly, his blood pumping as he felt himself touch a threshold. A juggernaut of a figure emerged in his mind, filled with crimson light, the figure roared, fighting against the world itself.
It fought to advance, to gain, to conquer. Eric felt in tune with a part of himself he'd never known existed. A sense of adventure in him.
"FIGHT!" With a mighty roar, Eric unleashed a barrage of punches, his every movement was to destroy and conquer.
Shadow boxing, to kicks, to grappling, Eric went over every move he could with a burning heat across his body. His eyes glowing until he finally finished. All of the red aura around him condensing as it was sucked into his body.
A crisp crack as he felt something in him growing, advancing. Eric looked at his hands, for the first time, the young man felt older, as though he had refined himself.
'Mother used to say that knowledge and wisdom grow your soul, I think this is what she was talking of.'
Feeling confident, Eric focused on Flight.
'Unlike Fight, Flight is the opposite. The focus is fear, survival, cunning. I'm meant to escape with everything I have in me and preserve myself. My feet must carry me away from danger.'
Sinking into Flight, Eric let his fears twist like a whirlwhind. Grunting, he could feel the strain of not just trying to activate flight but reach a deeper state while harnessing the necessary emotions.
'Fear of loss, of pain, of failure. Losing people, losing Sil. Not having the strength to move, to move.' Eric felt stuck on movement. 'Which way do I advance, no pivot, what is it I'm running away from and how do I make sure I'm not lost.
Sitting and drinking tea, Rudolph watched Eric through a mirror. "The primordial human's arts. Hmphf, your parents were something to teach you those, they're coveted even in the other races. You did well understanding Fight, but Flight isn't as straightforward. Don't get lost kid."
Inside Eric's mind, he felt himself tossed amongst the wind, his feet moving but the direction was aimless, a feeling of being tethered always lingering, no matter where he moved.
"I need to move but where to. I flee but are my steps freeing me or enslaving me to more fear. Father said that retreat was tactical, but is it cowardly, what about the times I can't retreat, what about moving backwards seems....good."
A struggle emerged inside, the concept of fleeing coming against a sense of pride, accomplishment, and even hope.
'Why does retreat feel like giving up, like I've allowed something to conquer me?' The whirlwind became a mixture of cyan and black. The whirlwind grew, absorbing the confliction and chaos in his heart.
Eric sweat like mad, two very distinct memories plagued him. His running from the demon squad and his father's words one day while training.
Gritting his teeth he focused on his father's words first, trying to find some meaning in them.
******************************************************************************************************
Atop their beautiful mountain a younger Eric lied on the floor exhausted. His father sipping on his gourd watching his son, not a single inch of smile on his face.
Eric panted like mad, "I don't understand pa, what is this for? All I feel is fear, I-I'm just scared." The young boy burst into tears, the practice of Flight was something not just physical but mental in nature.
Onyx rose a brow, 'Flight is the second of the most difficult to get started in and to progress. It's call to understand fear and desperation is immense, more so than Fight. I cannot afford to spare him, we just don't have the time.'
Closing his eyes for a moment and hardening them, he gave a quick glance to their home, knowing his wife was watching. Acting as though he were to give his boy a hug, he slammed a hand to the floor creating a barrier.
Onyx could see his wife's flaming figure emerge. 'I won't have much time.'
Shaking his son violently, Eric's tears stopped as he looked at his father in shock. His father had spanked him but never shaken him in such a manner.
Onyx's face became the very image of malice, his eyes becoming a cold abyss as a bit of ice spread to the surroundings. Flaming bangs could be felt on the barrier but he paid it no mind.
"Listen here boy. No one will coddle you. You retreat because your weak, your retreat because your pathetic, you retreat because you will meet those who eclipse you exponentially. Humanity rose through the dirt like worms." His words becoming darker, raising his son close to eye level, the childish boy pissed himself as a fear like none other grew. Onyx's words became a whisper.
"Do you feel it son? That thing beating in your chest, that let's warm blood flow? Imagine if I tore it to shreds. Do you think because I'm your father that I shouldn't, tell me, what stops me from doing so? These silly little concepts of right and wrong?"
There was no longer any light inside the barrier. Onyx's visage was closer to that of a wraith or a lich by this point, the barrier started to form cracks. Young Eric watched in horror while an older Eric watched in a similar state of fear.
'Father was horrifying when he wanted to be, that must've been the only time he showed me such darkness.'
Young Eric shivered, his father smiling a smile worse than death, his loving eyes were estranged.
"Do you think the world is a warm cuddly place for the weak? No, you fool, humanity scrapped our status from the throngs of pain and aguish, piece by piece!! Your fear will never leave you, conquer one and another one comes. Rational, irrational, what the hell does it matter when you cannot raise your head. What will you do with your fears son?"
Young Eric couldn't handle the pressure and passed out, the memory ending with his mother breaking the barrier and bellowing his father's name.
Back in the whirlwind of cyan and black, Eric continued to wrestle with fear. He grit his teeth in anger and looked through the memory of losing Sil.
Eric felt the deepest wound he'd ever felt, his fears laughing at him. The whirlwind starting to morph as a figure formed above his head.
Rudolph was no longer sitting and now stood nearby watching a dense black and cyan aura swirl around Eric.
'Damn it kid, get it together.' Eric's figure pail while his body trembled.