Day after day, the gruelling training tinued. Drauscles ached, his hands were calloused, and his body was covered in bruises.

  But he never pined; rather, he couldn’t. He was warned but still agreed to it regardless.

  He was also seeing some results from his training, so everything was fine for now.

  Oernoon, as Draco ractig his melee arts, his randmother Rita came by for a visit.

  "Oh, my poor dear!" she cried, rushing to Draco's side.

  She had been away from home for a while, so she was feeling a ess deficy from her grandchildren.

  "What have they doo you?" She gently brushed the dirt and sweat from his face, clug in disapproval.

  Anita just scoffed. "The boy o be strong if he's going to survive in this world," Anita said.

  "Survive?" Rita gasped.

  "He's just a child! He should be pying and having fun, not beien senseless!" Rita pined.

  Anita gred at her.

  "Rita, you've always been too soft. He o be fed in the fires of adversity if he's going to bee strong." Anita replied.

  ‘This smells like trouble,’ Draco thought. Rita's face flushed with anger.

  "I won't stand by and watch you destroy him! Didn't you learn anything after what happened with our kids?" She tered before scooping Draco up in her arms and stormed off, leaving Anita shaking her head.

  Draco wao say that he asked for this, but seeing even his grandpa Joh quiet, he decided not to speak too.

  Later that evening, as Draco y in bed nursing his aches and pains, Rita fussed over him.

  "Don't you worry, my darling," she soothed.

  "I'll talk some seo that old woman. You shouldn't have to gh suent," she said while messing with his body, experimenting with his reas.

  ‘Sigh, just as I suspected. She just wao mess with me and needed an excuse,” Draco thought, surrendering in resignation.

  But the day, Anita was back at it, pushing Draco to his limits.

  Rita tried to intervene, but they refused to listen.

  She wanted more time with her grandchildren too, but they were being monopolized by Anita, John and Marcus most of the day, something she didn’t like since she was bored.

  "Here is what will happen; we will reduce the training time a bit so you cuddle them all evening before and after dinner, alright,” Anita relented after Rita insisted oering.

  “Yay, e see grandma after training, my little Dragon, don’t make grandma e find you,” Rita said, leaving happily.

  ‘That sounded like a threat,’ Draco thought.

  And so the training tinued, day in and day out.

  Draco's skill in unarmed bat and basic on bat had improved dramatically.

  Rita would often e by to che him every evening, trying to vinita to give her more time with him.

  She did the same with John and Marcus, who were training the other kids; because she was simply just bored.

  …………………………………………………………………………………………………….

  4 years ter………………….

  Just like that, 4 more years had passed siraining had begun.

  The physical training program for the children had been mostly pleted; all that was needed was staition.

  Everyone was w towards disc their style of bat; Draco had discovered his own.

  He preferred using his natural cws most of the time, but his actual preferred on after his cws was a heavy spiked club.

  He was influenced by Anita and her heavy hammer; he also liked John’s bat style, but he used a sword, the most cliche on that existed.

  “Ha, ha, ha,” the sound of children shouting while hitting dummies made out of straw echoed the surrounding.

  Snap!

  “That’s enough for today,” Drauttered after hitting his dummy with a tail whip, a form from his self-made 'Dragon bat arts.'

  The years had gone by awfully fast, and before he k, Draco realized he was now 8 years old.

  Marcus had been right; Anita and John were really crazy.

  Rita was the one who treated him and the others after each day of training.

  Treating was a stretch as his natural healing helped him recover faster; she just used the opportunity to mess with his body, soothing her curiosity.

  Talks had been made about his magical training, but no word had e over the years from the elf Anita had written to.

  It was only st week that a reply came, stating that she would be arriving today.

  He could have trained himself, but after listening to some repercussions of non-falna based magic, he refrained from messing with it.

  He still had a few more years before heading to Orario; after learning the proper way, it wasn’t too te to create his own spells.

  He only had one life; there was o risk it because he thought he knew better.

  “Sigh, since I am 8, no 7 and a half since my birthday is in December. That means it’s about 12 to 13 years before . Around the time the Zeus and Hera familia are wiped out,” he pondered.

  He pnned heading to Orario whe a wall in his training.

  “Draco here,” Cir called out, handing a piece of cloth for him to wipe his sweat.

  “Thanks,” Draco replied, snapping out of his thoughts.

  Cir had been struggling over the years to keep up with the others but couldn’t.

  Draco had helped her bounce back with his daily advid encement.

  Somehow, she became attached to him, something he didn’t foresee.

  The whole Rose and Mark thing had e to an end, but it did end up putting Cir in a weird position.

  Perhaps that’s what aided her attat, he thought.

  “Draii, Nii,” he heard his name being called. Looking at the source, it was Vasiliki.

  “What is it?” Draco asked; she looked so excited.

  “Grandma is calling you,” Vasiliki said, she seemed restless, hopping like a rabbit while talking.

  “What has you all riled up?” Draco couldn’t help but ask.

  “I saw an elf, one of those beautiful long-eared people Grandpa John talked about,” Vasiliki said excitedly.

  “I see, let’s go,” Draco said; there weren’t any elves in the vilge, which had now bee a small town.

  ‘Hohoho, finally my elf waifu arc begins,’ Draco pyfully thought.

  The vilge was mostly filled with a variety of beast people and some humans, at least from the little he had seen.

  The children weren’t really allowed to go out without supervision sihe kidnapping i.

  Additionally, they were training most of the time, so there were only a few ces to i with most of the other vilgers.