“Dead.” He said again, and again a few moments later.

  I tried to calm my breathing, it was the seventh time he had hit me on the head, the same place. Every. Single. Time. Annoying.

  Although now I had to admit, I had become much better than when I began, even from the start of this session, I had some major improvements. This had shown me some of my many weaknesses.

  Li Tian wasn’t just bullying me; he was working at a reasonable pace relative to me. I needed to adjust and learn.

  I attacked again, this time opting for a simple thrust. I aimed towards his chest and twisted my body to generate force without trying too hard, and it kept my distance from him for the counterattack.

  I, of course anticipated that the attack would fail, but that wasn’t my goal. I actually wanted to be able to deal with the counter.

  The thing I needed to know is how he would deal with it, parry or dodge. I tried my best to notice any subtleties that would give away how he would move, would he move his hand or his legs?

  There!

  Li Tian’s legs moved before his hand. I now knew he was dodging and would strike me on the top of the head, as usual. Instantly I stopped my attack, well, not instant, just as fast as I could.

  I change my position to block the incoming attack that was coming down at my head. Because I wielded a wooden sword, I held both ends of it to keep steady as the strike came down, just as expected it to.

  My hands vibrated as it blocked Li Tian’s attack, it was quite painful and shocking, the damage wasn’t the shock, I had somewhat expected it. What made it shocking was the fact that I actually blocked it.

  Before my hands could recover, I felt that now all too common hit to the head. Sure, the block had worked, but after that? Still dead.

  Combat is hard.

  I couldn’t help but suck some air through my teeth in agony. Damn this hurts.

  To be honest, it was more annoying than anything. Being hit on the head constantly was extremely frustrating, it’s a stupidly good motivator though.

  “You did well.” Li Tian complimented with a smile on his face. A perfect smile… Annoying.

  “Thank you.” I replied, actually quite proud of my progress. Even though it was very annoying, I didn’t really dislike the process.

  I truly really appreciated Li Tian, he had been very kind to me and seems to be a good guy. His only problem just happens to be that he’s the one constantly hitting me, so I’m not exactly his biggest fan in those moments.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  We continued training for a long time, Li Tian managed to get a new record on how many times he could hit me. Despite this, I was extremely happy with how it went. I managed to block a whole three of his attacks, and even pathetically roll out the way of another one.

  To my horror, after the third block, he started to hit other places too, my liver, my leg, stomach, and worst of all, the solar plexus.

  That one sucked. It completely took my breath away and I needed a little time to recover from it.

  After the gruelling session, I tried to do some physical exercise. I got down for some push ups, but I only managed about three before collapsing.

  Bad idea to do this after training, I was way too exhausted for that.

  I needed to note that. New order, stretches, exercise then sparring.

  There was nothing I could do about it for the time being, so Li Tian and I made our way to the river to bathe, after another spa like experience, I made my way back to my courtyard.

  Somehow time flied by, when I said my goodbyes to my new best friend, the sun was falling out of view in the distance. Is the sun bigger? I shook my head, ignoring pointless thoughts for now.

  Although time went fast, It wasn’t that I didn’t feel tired. I was absolutely exhausted, but the day just didn’t feel long. When busy, things just seem to go by before you knew it.

  I got ready for bed and got under the comfy covers, before sleeping I wanted to dedicate some time to reading, the more reading I could do the better. I thought maybe a rule of at least thirty minutes of reading would be a good idea.

  I managed to get about 20 minutes of reading with the plants and herbs book before, once again, my body betrayed me and I drifted off to sleep.

  The next day I woke up feeling a little drowsy, I tried to get up but failed miserably. It wasn’t my fault though, the pillow was delightfully soft, and the poor thing was lonely. Naturally I was magnanimous enough to spend another hour together with it.

  When I woke again I felt much more energetic. I got up and dressed in black and blue robes this time, I was trying to aboid white clothing in case it got dirty in the training grounds.

  I didn’t really know what to do first today, I had the whole day to train or to read, perhaps there was something else I could do, I wasn’t sure.

  I thought the best plan of action was to write some things down and get myself a solid schedule.

  I needed a timeline, to know what I was working with. My goal for now was this so called sect examination, I wasn’t sure on its details other than testing ‘Spiritual Roots’, so I noted down that I needed to ask about it more with Li Tian.

  I had three months until its actual date, not exactly a long time but not short either.

  A crucial thing in this world was Qi, and I was very ignorant on it, I also made some notes on this, but there wasn’t anything I could really do yet other than enquire more.

  Apparently to use Qi before real cultivation I would need a strong enough body, if there were other restrictions, I would need to find out. Again, I would have to ask, or perhaps I could find my answers in books.

  So, for now the priority was getting to use Qi, I felt very venerable without being able to use it. Since this was the most important to me, I created my schedule around this.

  In the mornings I would exercise, then I would take some time to gather information, maybe trying to talk to others rather than just Li Tian.

  Perhaps I could make a trip to the cafeteria and eat with the others, so far, I had magically found my meals in my room when I got back here, quite a convenience but it was a little lonely eating by myself.

  After this, I would spar with Li Tian, or if he couldn’t I would ask the others since practical application was crucial. Lastly, at night I would read.

  If possible, I would try reading in the mornings too, but considering the incredibly harsh conditions I’m putting my body though, it would definitely need a lot of sleep. My mornings would be pretty rough.

  Schedule done.

  Perfect! Time to exercise… yay.