Every day, I opened Senjuro's book and practiced.
Morning.
Afternoon.
Night.
Whenever I had free time, I was practicing Nature Breathing.
And honestly?
It was hard.
Really hard.
The first form had taken me five days to learn.
The second form took even longer.
The third form made me accidentally launch myself into a pond.
The fourth form nearly broke my arms.
And the fifth form...
Let's just say it involved a lot of flying bamboo.
Apparently, Nature Breathing had seven forms in total.
So far, I had learned five.
Only two more to go.
The good news was that every form became stronger than the last.
The bad news was that every form was also harder than the last.
Sometimes I spent hours trying to understand a single paragraph in Senjuro's book.
Sometimes I performed a technique perfectly.
Sometimes I accidentally destroyed whatever I was aiming at.
Actually...
There was currently a bamboo shortage at the training center.
And that was mostly my fault.
At first, I only used one bamboo stalk for practice.
Then two.
Then ten.
Then twenty.
Eventually, the workers started giving me suspicious looks whenever I walked near the storage area.
One day, I overheard two of them talking.
"Who keeps destroying all the bamboo?"
"I don't know."
"Maybe it's demons."
I quietly walked away before they figured it out.
Meanwhile, training with Dorna continued.
Unfortunately...
I wasn't exactly doing great.
One afternoon, after I accidentally tripped during a run and knocked over three other recruits, Dorna called me over.
"FOGO!"
That was never a good sign.
I slowly walked up to him.
"Yes, sir?"
Dorna crossed his arms.
"You've been slacking."
"What?"
"You heard me."
I looked around.
I had been running hundreds of laps every day.
How was that slacking?
Then Dorna pointed toward the training track.
"Ten thousand laps."
My jaw dropped.
"WHAT?!"
"Ten thousand laps. Non-stop."
"That's impossible!"
"Good."
"GOOD?!"
Marie and Tobisa looked like they were trying not to laugh.
I stared at them.
"Help me."
"Nope," said Marie.
"You're on your own," said Tobisa.
Traitors.
So I started running.
The first few hundred laps weren't too bad.
Then the pain started.
By the 500th lap, I was questioning my life choices.
By the second 100th lap, I was questioning Dorna's life choices.
Then I remembered something.
Nature Breathing.
Specifically...
The Fifth Form.
Hurricane.
I took a deep breath.
The familiar energy flowed through my body.
Suddenly, I felt lighter.
Faster.
My legs moved almost by themselves.
It just took my a minute to complete ten thousand laps.
Marie stared.
Tobisa stared.
Even Dorna looked slightly impressed.
Using Hurricane, I pushed forward.
Lap after lap.
When I finally finished, I collapsed onto the ground.
Tobisa poked me with a stick.
"Is he alive?"
"I think so," said Marie.
"Unfortunately," I muttered.
The next few days were much better.
Dorna finally decided we were ready for something besides running.
Now we were doing push-ups.
Pull-ups.
Strength training.
And for the first time...
Actual gun training.
I stared at the rifle in my hands.
Finally.
Something that wasn't running.
Of course, knowing my luck...
The gun training would probably be even harder.