I was awoken at dawn to my door being pounded upon. While I had been waking up earlier since since coming to this world, even this was still a good hour before I would’ve woken up. While it took me a second to realize it was my door, I groggily got up and opened the door. My eyes half opened not remembering the importance of today, I said “Hey I thought I still had an hour before training, is something wrong?”. Before I managed to look up at who was at the door, I get lifted up a foot into the air, my lungs emptied, as a giant meaty fist delivers a right hook into my stomach.

“Good, you are awake now. I’ve been told you wish to become a martial artist who breaks bones and disables even the mightiest of opponents. I am here to break you down and build you into that vision. Now you have five minutes to get dressed and meet me outside” the mysterious voice says. I hear a couple pairs of footsteps walk away from my door. By the time I catch my breath and get back to my feet, the people have already left. Thinking to myself that this is going to be a week of struggle that even Rocky would feel pity for me, I hurry and get dressed for a workout. Stumbling out of my door, having splashed water on my eyes, to actually wake me up, I go out looking for whomever woke me up.

Finding some large open area, with what looks like a track going around the edge, I eventually find two middle aged men. The bigger looking man, motions to me as I near them. “I am Jiannan, the [SteelFist Mixed Martial Artist] and I will be your new primary trainer. The guy next to me is Nuedai, the [Limb-breaker Fighter], and he will be another trainer for you. He specializes in the the type of fighting I have been told your martial art focuses on. There are others that will also be sitting in on your training sessions, as well as sparring partners, but they won’t be here for the first few days until we establish a baseline” the man says matter of factly. Jiannan proceeds to tell me to run eight laps around this quarter mile long track, and if I begin to slow then Nuedai will take that to mean I need “encouragement”.

Looking at the lithe, but clearly dangerous [Limb-breaker Fighter] I gulp a bit. When I mention healing for broken bones, Nuedai grins, then motions over to a big glass jar half my size. “That jar contains plenty of healing pills for broken, dislocated, or fractured bones. Although after a month I’ll probably need to get it refilled” Nuedai says, which arguably made the situation even worse. I mentally tried to count how many pills would be in the jar, losing count after a hundred, knowing I didn’t even count a third of the total medicinal pills. Just to really make their point, Jiannan pops into the corner of my vision. [Steel Breaker Punch] I hear get muttered before his fist makes contact with my rib cage, his fist now coated in the silver of steel. Immediately I can hear the crunch of a rib breaking, where he tells me I don’t get a pill until I run a lap.

I glare at them both, knowing deep down that I will probably make a serious attempt at their lives before the week is up. Gritting my teeth tightly, I slowly walk over to the trail, a hand pressed against the spot where my rib was broken. It takes me a bit, but I slowly get up to speed as I jog around the track. The entire time I am dying in agony, but the thought of getting healed as soon I finish the lap gives me strength to continue, albeit slowly. As I near the starting line, I pick up the pace a bit, that sweet pain release giving me the energy needed to run through the pain. As I run through the starting point, I put my arms up like I just won a marathon. As I slow to a stop, Nuedai walks over and hands me a pill. I toss it back quickly, having to choke it down, as all medicine tastes horrible, especially the ones they “flavor”. After a few moments of discomfort, feeling bone and muscle move as they realign and fuse back together, I finally feel better.

Right as I turn to begin my second of eight laps, I see a punch coming at my other runs from the corner of my eye. As the strike was unaided by a Technique to speed it up, I managed to move away enough to avoid most of the punch, but then the grazing strike starts to hurt badly. That’s when I hear Nuedai mutter [I Only Need a Touch] before I feel a couple ribs break. “Oh come on! I just got my other ribs fixed” I yell in pain.

“A true fighter will need to fight through much worse than a broken rib or two” Nuedai says, then motions for me to do another lap. I resign myself to my fate, already knowing what’s going to keep happening. I begin the long haul, jogging another lap, but this time without the same fire in my eyes. As I near the halfway mark, I don’t speed up any, knowing I just need to make it through each lap, with a brief moment where I won’t have any pain. It was at this moment my hip flares up in massive pain.

[Teleporting Punch], I hear once again, Nuedai appearing at my hip, crouched down slightly and his fist inches away from me. I grunt in pain once again, falling to one knee. After screaming about why another bone had to be broken I get my answer. He says something about not just running despite the pain, but running through the pain. I take that to mean I just wasn’t running fast enough, mentally calling Nuedai a sadist and wishing there was a hell. I get back up and start running this time, my “allergies” acting up, since I’m not going to let these two know they sent me into tears from the pain. I continue running despite the pain. I struggle through this lap, my eyes closed by the time I cross over the line.

Before I even have a chance to slow down to a complete stop, the pill is tossed my way, where I catch it and put it in my mouth. Once again the sweet bliss as the pain disappears, followed by some discomfort and bones, muscle, and everything shifts slightly, fusing right back into its normal state.

Right as I notice the sound of footsteps behind me, no attempt at even hiding himself, I hear the increasingly familiar [Steel Breaker Punch] being activated. I manage to turn around before the attack comes, even managing to send out a [Force Palm] to intercept the punch, but all was futile. My bone breaking palm strike Technique? All it managed to do was slow the punch down a bit, only this time several bones in my arm were fractured, and I got sent flying a couple feet, sliding a couple more feet, before coming to a stop. As I slowly attempted to get up without putting pressure on my injured arm, I clearly see them look at each other, then back at me. The questioning look between them making it look like they are unsure if I was dealt enough pain, or if more is needed for them to feel like enough struggle is being created for me. In the end, they just shrug to each other, some level of my fighting back likely being the tipping factor in the decision.

When I finally get up, I consider just leaving the arm limply to the side while doing the lap, but then I remember what happened in my second lap. Once I made the decision to bring both arms up for a normal running pose, I had notice Nuedai had inched forward a little bit. Not wanting to risk it, I went ahead and started running. All things considered, this lap went relatively smoothly, not counting the all encompassing pain in my arm or the fact that my arm was already beginning to swell up. After I finished this lap, they must’ve noticed some level of pain acclimation, as the next time I had bones broken, it was my collarbone and arm was broken this time. There was definitely a lengthy stream of curse words after that one. I would’ve prided myself on handling the pain if it wasn’t for the fact that in order for them to have broken my collarbone, Jiannan hadn’t leg swept me, followed by a [I Only Need a Touch] from Nuedai when he flicks me.

After another hour, basically every bone besides my legs, spine, and spine were broken. It started out with finishing the two mile warm up, but then proceeded through a bunch of high intensity interval training. Even then, that wasn’t enough, as they decided I needed all encompassing pain. After the near entirety of my body got busier beyond recognition, I was told to run another five miles. Now at this point I had firmly decided at least one of them were sadists, that was a given, but I had beginning to see where this training was making its gains. When a broken bone from the beginning of my training has been a searing brand on my body, it was a dull bruise in the background, recognizable and present at all times, but no longer the sole focus of my attention. I had even started playing a game of “what was broken this time” as I became so familiar with what certain bone breaks felt like, I could tell roughly what bone was broken.

It was around this time that I was given a half an hour for lunch, as the hours had blazed by through the torturous workout, noon having arrived before I knew it. Leaving the track area, I went in search of food, only to find a couple servants bringing out food to a nearby table. As you can guess, my calories were being counted, and my food was being meticulously planned out. Yea, they were wanting me to bulk up a bit, lots of lean white meat, saw a good chunk of fish in there. Omega fatty acids yippee. Here I thought I was a connoisseur of French fries, but they were keeping those delicious carbs away from me now. Well jokes on them, I get crabby when I don’t get French fries in a long time. Probably why I crushed that one guy’s nuts. Once my half hour was up, Jiannan came over and escorted me to another outdoor space.

It was here that I realized my new sparring sessions would be a bit more of a procession. There were a few younger guys my age, presumably sparring partners, as well as a dozen various other people. I could clearly tell some were healers of some kind, probably whatever sports medicine physicians are called here. Then I noticed all the other auxiliary staff, the ones bringing water and towels to other people, handling all the equipment, basically everything needed to ensure no one needed to leave this fifty yard space. It was then that I noticed the big man himself, the massive bow and quiver full of weird arrows making it clear who he was. Zhang Sheshou was here in person to observe his investment.