"Once you are able to hold this hammer here," She patted the handle.

"Um... what do you...?"

"Try holding it."

I walked over to the hammer, grabbing onto the handle, attempting to lift it to no avail, face flushed from the pain before giving up, falling on my ass.

"Ow... what the hell?"

"It's extremely heavy, plus..." She grabbed the handle, putting mana through it, "It is necessary to pour mana into it for it to be possible to hold."

"Let me try again."

I grabbed the handle again, putting mana into it, attempting to lift it again. Once again, I failed and fell flat on my ass.

"Shit..."

"Once you are able to hold that hammer, your basic training will be done and we'll begin the hardest part of the training."

"Hardest part?"

"You will start making weapons and doing more extreme work-outs."

"What would that entail?"

"First, you'd need to reach these goals."

She took out a whiteboard.

"Why do you have that?" I asked, moving closer.

"It's so I can make basic sketches before moving onto the weapon-making process."

"O-okay... what do I need to do?"

"Jump rope one hour straight,"

"W-wait, hu-"

"Shadowbox an hour straight, some slimebag work for an hour straight, kicks, punches, whatever you want."

"Slimebag!? Whatever I want?"

"Correction, an hour for each. Kicks, punches, and both."

"O-okay..."

"Then there is a 30-minute burnout."

"This is..."

"I'll repeat, these are just goals."

"O-okay..."

"200 push-ups, 60-minute mountain climbers, 60-minute plank, 100 burpees, 200 crunches."

"Uh... what should I start with?"

She shrugged, "Do it until you get there. We'll interslice practical training here and there."

"I... you've never taught anyone before, right?"

"Nope, these are just suggestions."

"These aren't proper teachings," I mumbled, "Wait... so?"

"We'll put slime weights on you once you get halfway through the training."

"I'm supposed to reach this goal in a couple of months!?"

"I can do that and more."

"You are inhuman! Of course you can!"

She looked confused, "You should be able to do it too since you're capable of being inhuman as well now."

"Can we have like... checkpoints for the goal? Like, at some point I get a reward or something?"

"Like...?"

"Like, if I get to 50 push-ups, I get like... uh... food or something?"

"Well, the more you work out and the more you eat, progress will become faster... so... that should work?"

"I'm just a bit overwhelmed."

"Let's start training today."

"What?"

"I will give you 10-minutes to run away through the forest. I will go after you then, try to survive as long as possible, either by hiding from me, or fighting me."

"Wait... I'm supposed to run and fight an S-Rank?"

"Yes, run, now."

She only used a bit of pressure to get me motivated, running in a random direction in the forest.

I kept running until I ran out of breath, only a minute passing.

I forced myself to keep walking through the forest, sometimes running intermittently before running out of breath again.

After a few more minutes, I began vomiting, snot running down my face, the ground being drenched by my sweat. At this point, 7-minutes had passed.

I managed to find a small living cavern under a tree, hiding within and waiting until 10-minutes passed.

First Minute: Catching my breath, watching my surroundings carefully.

A couple more minutes passed and nothing.

Fourth Minute: I could tell that she was only a couple of meters away, running off further into the forest, my whole body felt as if it could fall apart at any minute, tripping and falling on rocks and roots.

I fell face-first into a bush, covering myself with leaves and branches, curling up into a ball and lessening my presence.

I managed to make my mana less noticeable and I could hear her pass.

She quickly whipped her head around when she finally noticed me, kicking herself off the ground with one leg and appearing in front of the bush I was hiding in, grabbing me by the leg and pulling me out.

"Good job, keep trying."

"Okay..."

*****

"Hey... uh... Math... what happened yesterday?"

"Hm?"

Mikael looked at me with a confused look on his face.

"What are you talking about?"

Melamir butt in, "You're looking as limp as a noodle, didn't expect you'd become more pathetic in the span of a day."

"Shut the fuck up, kindly."

Mikael cut back in, "No, seriously, what was that?"

"Don't tell me to 'shut the fuck up!"

Mikael spun around to look at Melamir, "Could you quiet down for a sec?"

With the movement of her eyes, she went off to another classroom.

"Sorry... again... I wanted to ask what happened yesterday."

"Yeah... I got that. What are you talking about?"

"Well... we haven't been seeing you for a few days, and... you were so odd yesterday."

I couldn't process what he was talking about.

Beatrice entered the room, her perking up at the sight of me, letting out an "Oh!" Walking over to us.

"Hey, Math! You were super weird yesterday, what was that about? Experimenting with a new act or whatever?"

"I don't do that though?"

"You used to!"

"I-I guess...?"

Mikael sighed, scratching the nape of his neck, "Do you not remember?"

"I don't... I have no clue what you're talking about. What happened?"

"It wasn't anything crazy, you just weren't acting yourself. You were more... co-"

"Cool!" Beatrice cut him off, "You were cooler then! What was that about!?"

"Am I not already cool?"

"No... not really." Mikael looked away from me.

"Oh, that kinda hurts."

"Pft..."

"Don't laugh!"

We all broke into laughter.

As the laughter died down, I slouched back into my chair.

"No, but seriously, what are you two talking about? Can you show me or something?"

"No, we didn't really think about that."

"Well... if I'm like that again... could you show me?"

"Uh... alright?"

Pretty confusing but I went on my merry way back to my room since it was a rest day today.

The next day, I woke up more sore than the last, though Freyja treated me to quite a bit of food to compensate for my still sore muscles.

We did what we did before, she caught me again and I went to do my daily workout routine.

My workout routine consists of this; 10 push-ups, burpees, and crunches. Taking breaks whenever I couldn't continue consistently, though... I can only do 2 push-ups in a row and for the others, it's more like an attempt than anything. To get better with burpees though I decided to practice through squats and so far that has been easier than the other workouts though 12 squats have been my limit.

I've had some gaps in my days lately but I'm pretty sure it might be due to a lack of sleep or something and Mikael is dragging me around.

I kinda expected it to since they've pointed out that I've been sleeping more lately.

A week had passed and something odd happened again, it had to do with... uh... I dunno what to call it.

"Okay!" Beatrice came over to me, phone in hand. "Look."

It was a picture of me, my posture was better and my hair was let down. I also didn't seem to be wearing glasses as I always did.

It was weird... it didn't feel like me but it was me.

"So..." I pointed to the picture, pressing my finger against the screen slightly, "That's me?"

Beatrice nodded, "Yeah... you were acting odd again... weirdest part though was that you didn't seem to recognize us."

"I didn't?"

Mikael shook his head, "No, you didn't."