Chapter - 31 Weak willed (1)
Hhuahh!
Ahh!
Hahaha!
With a final movement of his trident, Alex whose legs were knotted and throbbing collapsed positioning Alex onto his knees.
Four hours had passed since the beginning of his training.
However, today's training was rather light compared to his conventional methods as he hinged more toward review and conditioning rather than vascular abuse.
Propping my head against the long steel shaft of the trident I slowly began to force my body's breath to recalibrate further.
Positioning my head in an elevated position, I took in the fine vista of the now-filled training grounds.
The once desolate environment had transformed into a loud, unsynchronized chorus of metal clanging and clomping against one another.
Scrunching my brow in confusion, I mused internally, noting how quickly time seemed to have passed during training.
"Wat da, how much time has passed?" Alex mumbled in between each of his rugged breaths.
Using my knee as a support I positioned myself up into my full stance.
With my non-dominant hand, I unraveled the course blackish red-stained cloth tethering my hand to the trident's shaft. With the mass of blood-drenched cloth now removed a casual view of my callused hands became visible.
The number of promenade dark irregular patterns etched into my skin had increased dramatically, and several of my hand's thick calluses had torn off in the aftermath leaving a view of whitish-pink tissue from underneath.
To prevent future infection I fetched from within my satchel a thin small vial of thick transparent liquid.
This was of course recovery liquid.
Placing a pin-needle-sized drop of the liquid onto the palm of my hand, I watched as the once novel view of immediately recovered flesh regrew the missing segments of my skin. This BS of a scene had long since become a commonly placed event within my day-to-day life.
Grasping the satchels strap I flung the bag over my shoulder.
With my morning routine complete I was about to vacate myself from the training hall and make my way to the mess hall.
"Leaving so soon?" came the voice of a woman in a teasing tone.
After hearing the teasing tone I stopped my swift march toward the exit and looked over my shoulder to better view the person whose voice I heard.
With my head now turned over my shoulder, I was met with the sight of a dark blue-haired woman of a moderately sized gate.
Recognizing the person from within my squad I palmed my pace before speaking.
"Raiz, I thought you were too lazy to train." I attempted to rebuke in a half-hearted tone of a tease.
"Yeah yeah, who cares, anyhow," the dark-blue-haired woman said in a mauver to diverge the topic of the conversation "Do you want' to spar?"
With my body now already faced with the woman I have the offer a few seconds of contemplation
"Nah, I'm going to go to the mess hall,"
"!!!" with a baffled expression the woman rushed towards my side pleading.
"C'mon it's just one spar, nothing long just 30-4- no scratch that how about just 12 minutes of sparing," the woman desperately said.
"Just ask someone else," I replied bored while I continued my descent toward the training hall exit.
"You know as well as I do that no one else in the squad is going to train this early in the morning, only you, you freak." the woman exasperated in a swift string of words.
Confused by the woman's annoying utterances I replied
"Then find someone else to spar with. I genuinely don't care" I replied with a shrug.
"Tch," clicking her tongue, the woman continued. "Then who am I going to ask? I'm already accustomed to literally only sparing with you, " the woman said in a feeble front of self-pity.
"You know fighting against a diverse range of opponents would actually benefit your battle strength rather than falling into a routine and constantly fighting against the same foe over and over again, until you grow so used to the point where you could easily evade and maneuver away from their attacks while countering with volatile swiftly since you know all of their major weaknesses," I said in an attempt to reason with Raiz.
Rolling her eyes from my lackluster response, Raiz eventually gave up seeing as I was committed to my stance on not joining as her sparing partner.
With the nuance now clear I began to make my way to change my way to the mess hall.
*
Faced with a relatively small one-story building, I forced the decrepit doors open.
As I entered, I was immediately overwhelmed by a barrage of dialogue and a confusing mix of smells.
Inside the mess hall, the air was surprisingly distinct compared to the other structures. It carried a peculiar blend of scents—salty, slightly sweet, and undeniably flavorful. Fortunately, the aroma in the hall was actually bearable, unlike that in the rest of the camp.
Stepping out of the way of the entrance I ignored the surrounding environment of people and immediately headed into the excessively long line to receive my meager meal for the day.