“[Ewa]? What is [Ewa]?” Searching through his past memories over and over again, yet Erhart is still unable to find any information on [Ewa] or anything similar to it in his old world. “Anyway it is not important right now. I really should put my study on [Ewa] on a pause, and start training my body first. Healthy and strong body is the foundation for everything”, Erhart thinks to himself, immediately pulling out a pen and writes his daily training routine on a piece of paper. A symbol after another, unlike his past self he does not dare to make a single mistake when writing. As he know unlike his previous world, in {Cuood} there isn’t a printing breakthrough, a paper making breakthrough and an industrial revolution. Papers are extremely expensive and rare to find. It is a miracle that Erhart is privileged to even have a piece of about A3 sized paper every week.

Erhart writes

30 minutes of house stance 20 minutes of jogging 100 vertical punch (both hand) 100 thrushes (both hand) 100 slashes with a sword (right hand) 100 stabs with a sword (right hand)

…….

>

He hopes to perform a total of thirty and more tasks everyday, like he did before he came to this world, but as soon as he begins the training he realises something is wrong. His new body is only FOUR AND HALF YEARS OLD! How the hell in the human biology can he sustain such heavy training, not to say ten of those tasks, his stamina cannot even sustain more than three of them a day, “Maybe I should take it slower”

…..

On the next day, after a morning of jogging around the village Erhart finds a shady and cool ground under a giant tree, where he can start his training in. The tree is gigantic, the biggest Erhart had ever seen. Its trunk is broad enough for ten children, holding hand to hand with one another attempting to circle around it and yet still unable to fully surround it. With the arrival of the summer, the tree’s branches extend out to all direction, covered in green leaves. By simply standing under it and look up, one may easily feel as if the sky had turned sap-green, Erhart breaths in slowly and breaths out. Smells the freshness of the morning air and tastes the baked apple pie like ammonia produced by giant tree. He closes his eye and begins to concentrate, feeling the spaces around him, listening to sound of the wind softly stroking the tree’s leaf and twigs. Adjusting his body to the position of a horse stance, he ducks down slightly, yet his two knees do not go further than his toes, the gap between his two feet is about the distance of his shoulder’s length; he directs the toe slightly inwards, grabbing onto the ground like the roots of a plant. He holds his head up high and body straight, making fists with his two hands and positions them around his ribs and finally directing whole body’s weight and force onto the bottom of his feet. “Now breath” Erhart tells himself,” now I am a part of the earth.”

Erhart is in a state of extreme concentration, ignoring the pains brought up to him due to the long-time horse stance, forgetting even the time itself. Inside his mind he did not feel as if a long time has passed, but in truth sun had walked half of its way across the sky.

Suddenly, Erhart’s cultivation is disturbed by a light flick on his forehead, Erhart slowly opens his eyes and under the sun light. He sees the pleasant face of Amelia smiling. She asks, “Hello, young Erhart? Do you know what time is it?”

“No?” Erhart’s answers, unsure if he is in any trouble.

“Lunch time.” Amelia says, while taking out a lunch basket filled with rainbow coloured sandwiches and cakes of all sizes.

“YAH!” Erhart’s face lights up in an instant, after a who knows how long of practising horse stance. He is famished. But as soon as he reaches forward for the food, a sudden soreness emits from muscles across his body, especially those on, around his leg. “Crap!” Erhart thinks, slowly lowering himself onto the ground, “that hurts. Next time I really need to do some stretching before I practice” He thinks to himself.

“what’s wrong?” Amelia asks worriedly, when she sees Erhart’s expression changes in all of a sudden and his face turns pale, then red as if he has received a sudden shock or something.

“No Nothing Nee—eeds Worry about!” Erhart says while starts to stretch both of his legs and arms, in order to ease the pain.

“What is it are you doing?” Amelia asks curiously.

“Oh, stretching, said to be good for one’s ligaments. I learned it from a book in the library.” Erhart says with first half of the sentence being truth and the other half being lies. The knowledge of stretching actually comes from his past life, but as for now he does not wish for Amelia to learn about he is in his second life just yet.

“I see, it must be an interesting book then. Here.” Amelia has no idea what “ligament “means, but she does not care either. The only thing he cares now is that Erhart gets his lunch. So, she takes out a sandwich from the basket and hands it to Erhart. Erhart thanked Amelia briefly and begins eating the sandwich. He does not know why but ever since he come to this world he has lost his ability to taste any food, it felt quite wired to Erhart at first as it is not that he had lost his ability to taste entirely, he tried his taste on herbs and other things. He can definitely taste things. It is simply food he cannot taste. First it comes to him as quite uncomfortable and strange. But as time passes, he becomes more and more adapted to his current situation. And of cause, he told Amelia a long time ago that he cannot taste anything, so she does not need to spent too much time on making his food. But of cause, she never listens.

“So? Why do you always keep to yourself, don’t you want go play with the others?” After Erhart finishes his lunch, Amelia finally asks the question she had always been wanting to ask for a long time now.

“Because it is a waste of time, playing with others.” Erhart replies without further information.

“Emm, well, what do want to do when you grow up, then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Any goals in particular?”

Erhart did not reply immediately, he allows himself to be sunk in his deep thought. Then gradually he rises his head and looks deep into Amelia’s eye. He replies, “To die.”

“what?” Amelia’s face instantly turns pale after hearing that, she is absolutely shocked, she felt as if she had misheard or misunderstood something. But Erhart smiles faintly and confirmed she did not misheard his reply.

‘

I do not seek glory and fame, I do not seek wealth and woman,

I only seek what is mine and what should have fall on me a long time ago,

a death, a death I will not regret; a better ending to my life than my last.

‘