《The Sensible Knight》The third son of Earl Radcliffe

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The YEAR 1197, Papal calendar. 300 years have passed since the last was defeated by the Makishima Kira who was summoned by Rockshire empire. After defeating the demon lord, the hero married his party members - human princess Ada Rockshire, elven princess Galadriel Undomiel, tiger princess Sheera and the half-dragon Rose. The demon kind had scattered after the death of the demon lord and were subjugated shortly afterwards. The hero expressed his disinterest in worldly affairs and settled down with his wives at the border of the human territory and Dragon Isles. Although he lived a slightly longer life due to his enormous mana reserves, the hero passed away at an age of 150. Overcome by grief, the elven princess willingly entered Eternal Slumber, the closest thing to death for the immortal elves. The elven community was enraged at the loss of such a prominent figure among their kin and therefore closed tied with humans. Rose simply left for the Dragon Isles. Sheera used her grief as motivation and united all beast kin and created a huge empire. She named it the Kira Empire, crowning herself queen.

As the 12th century was coming to a close, the oracles of all temples around the world proclaimed the 13th century as the century in which a new demon king will rise. Tensions started to run high as human nations started to wage wars amongst each other rather than cooperating. The Rockefeller Empire, ruled by one of the oldest families of the continent, managed to maintain a strained peace. It is here, at the capital city of the Rockefeller Empire, called Sino, that we spy a young man wearing full body armour and doing basic exercises. His name is Maximilian Radcliffe, the 3rd son of Earl Radcliffe, the Radcliffe family one among the 15 earl families of the Empire.

Maximilian is the 3rd among 3 brothers and 2 sisters. Being the "middle child", he received a little less attention from his parents. This matter was not helped by the fact that little Max was a quiet and obedient child and didn't like to cause trouble for anyone and liked to stay by himself rather than socialise. This caused his parents' attention to gravitate more towards their attention-seeking and more troublesome children. Max was neither was happy nor sad by this treatment and simply liked his lifestyle.

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When Max was 5 years old, he was involved in an accident in which he fell inside an abandoned well. He stayed there for 6 hours until he was rescued by his family butler. The well led to a natural cavern which was home to thousands of bats who continuously swarmed Max. In the beginning, Max was very scared but soon he got used it, rather it started to feel rather nostalgic as if he had seen this scene somewhere before. For the next few nights, he dreamt about a black-caped and black-masked vigilante hero who used the bat as his symbol. Max didn't know why but he was very intrigued by this character, especially the extent of his knowledge. Thus Max started to study on his own. The earl's library contained large amounts of books regarding geography, herbs, fauna, politics, finance, battle strategy etc. He began to devour these books so thoroughly that his tutor sometimes had to force him to take a break. He also started to remember strange information about exercising his muscles, called yoga. It involved breathing exercises and also included holding specific postures for an extended period of time. He started holding the horse stance with water filled bowls on his head, thighs and forearms. These actions gained him suspicious looks from his family and they started to avoid him even more, thinking he was getting eccentric. In this period of time, Max also remembered an art called gymnastics. He felt as if he had been doing gymnastics for a very long time and started performing routines filled with leaps, flips and cartwheels.

Years pass and our boy Max has grown to be a rather handsome 13-year-old. Doing yoga and gymnastics for 8 years cause him to develop a rather lithe body. His body is very flexible and his dense muscle give him an explosive strength. But his more than average height combined with his slim figure caused him to be teased by his brothers as the "scholar". Max didn't mind the nickname and would give a small smile when teased. Max had graduated from middle school and was now free to choose his future path. Since he had no chance to inherit the family title, he expressed his desire to become a knight. He didn't know why but he wanted to be called to "Dark Knight" and carry out justice. His parents agreed easily (A little too easily, but he didn't mind). So, it was decided that from the next year, he would be attending the Royal Academy for mages and knights in Sino. He was sent to the family mansion in Sino a year earlier so that he could get used to life in Sino.

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Once he reached Sino, the bustling life and vibrant colours hit him like a hurricane and it took him quite a long time to acclimatize himself to the fast life of the city. Meanwhile, he started to dream about his second hero. He is a man named Saitama, a bald-headed caped hero who claimed to be a hero for fun. Opposite to Batman, this guy was a goof but defeated every enemy with the overwhelming strength of a single punch. Although not as righteous as the dark knight, his kind of strength was enviable. So our Max started to emulate his process for getting strong. 100 pushups, 100 situps, 100 squats, 100 pullups (added for muscle balance) and then a 10-kilometre run. The first day he did it, he collapsed in the middle of his run and had to be brought home by some kindly bypasser. One week later his knees gave away and he became bedridden. The pain made him question why he was doing such a foolish task. But our Max is not a quitter so after rehabilitating his knees for a month, he started again. This time he started slowly with all exercises reduced to 50 reps and 10 kilometres run changed to a 5-kilometre brisk walk. Every day, he tried his best to do 1 extra rep, to walk a bit farther, a bit faster. Week by week, month by month, he started to feel the little improvements in his body. Even though he did not gain godly strength, his breathing naturally grew deeper to accumulate more oxygen, his muscles became even denser to cram as much energy as possible. Max was never a miser with his meals and his meals were jam-packed with carbs and proteins. He also took muscle promoter and tendon strengthening medicine from the alchemy house. These medicines were generally used by knights and were quite expensive but it was not too much for Max who was the son of an earl. The tendon strengthening medicine made sure that his knee could maintain function even after the intense punishment he dished out to them. Max never forgot to stretch before and after his workouts so his flexibility did not decrease even as he put on more muscle. His body lost in fat what he gained in muscle. With his baby fat all gone, Max became a chiselled Greek god of a man with jaws so sharp it could cut butter.

By the eleventh month, Max was so comfortable with the full routine (100 reps, 10k run) that he started to add pieces on standard knight armour while training. First the mail shirt and tunic, then gloves, greaves, shin and thigh guards, then chest plate and finally the helmet. The whole set added almost 50 kilos to his weight. Even with that, Max managed the 10k under an hour. He even started to perform rolls, cartwheels and flips in the armour as the start of the school came near. This brings us to the present day as the 14-year-old Maximilian Radcliffe eagerly waits for a new chapter of his life to begin at the Royal Academy.

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