The next few days passed relatively slowly. Every day, I woke up in the evening and spent a couple of hours waiting for the lights to go out and the ‘healer’ to leave, then snuck out of the building and made my way back to the same broken-down training room I’d visited on the first night.

  Amara started bringing food after the first night. I’d not had the stomach for eating the first night I’d arrived, and on day two I’d gingerly picked at some rice balls after waking up, but after meeting Amara and scenting the aroma of the steamed delicacies she’d brought me, I finally felt real a hunger gnawing at me.

  I ate an orange soup with dumplings, a container of rice and fish, sliced chicken basted in a yellow sauce and covered with cabbage and a hefty portion of fried radish.

  Well, I’d assumed it was chicken until I tasted it. Honestly I wasn’t sure. I had no idea what gave the soup its orange colour either, but it tasted incredibly rich and went down smoothly.

  Some of the seasonings in the dishes were… purple and pink? I wasn’t sure if I was just unfamiliar with this kind of cuisine or if this was an ‘on another world’ thing that I was finally encountering, but when I saw what appeared to be a blueish stem on one of my ‘radishes’ I began to suspect not everything on these plates was what it seemed to be.

  Whatever. All of it tasted pretty spectacular. I didn’t waste a single bite.

  I’d tried asking Amara if she wanted any after devouring over half of it, speaking with my mouth full, sauce dribbling down my chin as I quaffed my first good meal in literal months, but thankfully, she said she’d already eaten.

  A part of me wondered if I’d be too stuffed to exercise as I’d finished my first proper meal. As it turned out, a Tier 1 Ascendant definitely seemed to need more calories than regular humans, and in addition, seemed to be able to consume a fair bit more than the average person could without getting belly-bustingly full.

  Safe to say that within fifteen minutes of eating, I was up and about and ready to work out, feeling better than I ever had the night before and having a whole new appreciation for Amara’s cooking skills.

  Unfortunately, a satisfying workout wasn’t what I had to look forward to next.

  Nope! Just torture.

  Just when I was starting to warm up to Amara, she turned into a friggin’ drill sergeant. Going through forms and stances with me, exercises and motions which I had to follow despite my busted ribs and my million bruises, with far too little breaks to speak of.

  Turns out she was from more of a warrior family than a mage family. Useful for getting me back into fighting shape, but terrible for giving me a break to rest and do some easy reading.

  I almost considered pulling rank on her at one point. I was a third stage Tier 1, and she was only second stage! I should decide my own workouts!

  But… I knew that wasn’t true. First off, I wasn’t anything, besides a body inheritor, and I barely had a clue what I was doing, and secondly, Cael Soulgrave hadn’t had a clue what he was doing either.

  I mean, he’d known his sword stances well, as those were actually trained from a skilled instructor in his youth, but most of his physical regimen he’d just made up. And the thing is, when I examined the memories more closely, I found that Cael was actually proud of his almost complete lack of formal education and refusal to engage with outside teachings, because of course he was.

  He seemed to think himself a genius for making his way through three whole stages without ever having read a book on advancement, despite the fact most in his family managed that feat or more by their mid teens, plus the stupid amount of resources he'd consumed to get there.

  ‘They’re progressing faster than me now, but only because they blindly follow the teachings of others!’

  Cael had said that at some point in his life, rambling to some escort before he left home. He’d followed it up by proclaiming that he’d accelerate in leaps and bounds once he figured out his own foundations, because ‘the path he forged for himself would have no end, unlike a book or scroll’.

  That guy hated reading and loved the smell of his own bullshit.

  Have I mentioned I’m not fond of my predecessor?

  Anyways, back to getting my ass whooped by a girl.

  Yup. Sparring.

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  Well, it was more like me trying to hit her open palms and repeatedly missing as she moved them, but whatever, it felt just as mortifying. When I finally connected with a solid blow, I felt almost satisfied that she yelped and started shaking her hand like it was burning hot.

  …then I felt bad and went to check on her. She rewarded me for my compassion with another series of pushups.

  Whatever. We seemed to at least share the opinion that I could deal with a moderate amount of strain during my recovery, but mainly because of the medicine she was still providing daily. That was the thing stopping me from keeling over during these multiple hour sessions, and Amara had only promised me that things were going to get more intense once my physical recovery was finally complete.

  Yup. Can’t freaking wait.

  As for my recovery, according to her, it wouldn’t be long. By the third night in, I was already starting to feel less fatigued and like my muscles and bones were under less strain than usual. I was still in a lot of pain, but most of that felt as if it was from how I was currently pushing myself, rather than old injuries flaring up.

  Not that Amara wouldn’t proportionately step up the physical side of our training every night to compensate for my recovery. A part of me was growing to hate her, at least for brief moments, when I could barely catch a breather or when my entire body felt as if it was locked inside of a furnace.

  She’d tell me I had all day to rest in the hospital, and that unless I wanted to be dead a month from now, I needed to deal with the pain and learn to embrace it.

  I didn’t wanna embrace it. I wanted to curl up in a ball of pain and sweat and take a long ass nap on the cool stone floor.

  Unfortunately, whenever I tried to, I got prodded with a stick.

  Did I mention I hate this?

  After straining, struggling, and pushing myself to meet her impossible standards, she’d change again. The instant the workout was complete, even though I often hadn’t managed everything she’d asked of me, she’d regard me far more calmly. She became compassionate. Patient. Willing to listen to me or wait a while before we went through the dreaded pill ceremony.

  Yup. Every day. Fifteen minutes of swallowing pills and feeling them do funky things to my body. Compared to the exercise part, it was pretty tame, but that didn’t make it any less weird. You try swallowing pills that make you feel static across your entire nervous system, or make every muscle in your body tense at once. It’s fucking weird.

  ***

  “You’re not fully applying yourself,” Amara finally told me after the fourth day of training. “You should be fully recovered by tomorrow. If you’re not putting your all into this from then on, then I’m worried we’re not going to make any real progress here.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. Usually she stopped with the hardcore stuff after our training had concluded, but today I’d collapsed in a heap of pants and groans after only an hour and thirty minutes.

  I grit my teeth as I looked up at her. “Hey. I’m trying. You try training through all these injuries. If I’m actually recovered tomorrow, then I’m sure things will pick up from there.”

  Amara stared at me. “You should’ve been finding things easier with each passing day. I’ve been raiding my family’s stocks for you and pushing you as far as I can, but you’re still struggling so much.”

  She sat down beside me. Brushed her hair to the side. “You’re a lot stronger than me. What I can do, you should be able to match it injured. Surpass it, even. You shouldn’t be collapsing after an hour of sword drills.”

  I knew she was right. It only took small glances at Cael’s past to see what he was capable of. He’d train for six or more hours at a time usually, and he’d often sustained injuries in the process. On average, he was able to push himself twice as hard as I currently was. Plus, at least until recently, he'd been able to use basic spells.

  And that was without his life on the line. That was just for the sake of training and growing stronger.

  Maybe I just wasn’t fully accustomed to his body yet, or maybe I just didn’t have his resilience. I dunno. My Willpower was meant to be high, wasn’t it? Why was I struggling so damn much?

  Amara bit her lip. “I don’t know. We’ll try again tomorrow. Try not to worry about it. All you can do is try your best, after all.”

  “Maybe it’s time I started studying?” I said with a glimmer of hopefulness. Truthfully, a day off of physical training sounded like it’d be wonderful, and I was almost certain that the mental stimulation and learning would do more for me than this training would anyways.

  She shot that idea down fast. “You need to push through this and get back to your full strength first. Once you feel properly accustomed to your body again, then you should turn your focus to your studies.”

  The irony of that statement. I’d never been accustomed to this body. That was the problem.

  I stewed on it for a while, feeling an ugly resentment linger in the back of my mind.

  Why couldn’t I just drop the training stuff and try studying already? I’d rather accept my limitations and do something I’m better at. Cael was the good fighter. I was good at learning stuff. So just let me learn and quit bugging me about exercise!

  I’m not Cael Soulgrave. I’m me.

  I sighed.

  The truth was, I knew I wasn’t doing enough. I could feel myself coasting. Giving up when things got painful. Refusing to push myself to my limits or even recognise the limits that this new body had. Refusing to work with my mana.

  I had an idea forming. Maybe a stupid one. I wasn’t sure. But I suggested it all the same. Something had to give, and if I couldn’t even do this, I had no chance when it came to the duel that would decide my fate.

  And so I said it.

  “I wanna have a real fight. Something where I can get hurt.”