Bobby Grant POV:

The next day we were all woken up by castle staff and brought to the dining hall for the knights. They had a special table set up for us and a man who stated that he was the knight commander of the 1st division of the Toltan royal strike corps. I didn’t know what that meant but the longer the title the more important they seem so this guy must be pretty important. He explained our schedule for the day and let us know that Shanks would be personally supervising and to ask him any questions. Apparently this was set up by Altru.

Our day was to start with “gift” training. I wish they would settle on one name for things; our ‘gifts’ are skills, powers, attributes and we are summoned, travelers, heroes, and transferees. Apparently the language that they speak in the Toltan empire is actually English and it isn’t just being translated, so it isn’t an issue with translation. I grumbled about it and the knight commander cleared his throat and mentioned that most people were having trouble defining us thanks to our odd circumstances. Apparently being both summoned to save their empire and having a heretic among us made our position and the “gifts of the gods”, in other words our powers, a debatable topic.

This was the first most of us had heard that Tony was officially labeled a heretic. May’s expression didn’t change at all, I know because I immediately looked to see if she was going to start shit. Guess someone told her already.

The knight commander moved on and explained the rest of the schedule before I got a chance to bitch any more. We had three things to do today; “gift” training, integration procedures, and basic combat training.

They were going to bring in experts in multiple fields with multiple talents to help us nurture our gifts and help us control them while also seeing what level we could bring them out. The integration training was learning the common sense of this world. As summoning was something the empire had done multiple times in their history this training was created to make integrating into the world easier. We would learn common knowledge about the world and its inhabitants, get introduced to currency and its value, and get national IDs created for us. The knight commander told us this process would take some time, and we would have these integration classes every day we had the other two training sessions.

The basic combat training would be hosted by the knights. Thanks to Altru’s words the night before about the need for strength in this world the complaints were few and we were all then given breakfast and an hour to make our way to the training ground not too far away from the dining hall. This finally gave everyone the chance to talk to each other and most took their time to catch up with those they knew.

I wasn’t interested in chatting and scarfed down my food before heading straight to the field. I wanted to see if I could start training right away. If I could waste time chatting I’d rather be getting closer to Shanks’ level.

I got to the field at the same time as May. Seems she didn’t want to chit-chat either. As soon as we entered the field Shanks and the knight commander walked up to us together.

“Well I see a few of you are raring to go. Unfortunately most of the experts haven’t arrived yet so I’m unsure if we can get you started on gift training yet. What were the powers of the two of you? I’ll see if someone who can train you is here already.”

The knight commander seemed like the cheery and chatty type and he always spoke fast. It would be annoying if it wasn’t so efficient.

“I have Rage Knight that increases my strength and Growth Up that makes my stats rise faster.”

“I’m a potential saint for the god of light.”

The knight commander looked like he was about to say something before he did a double take and looked at May in shock.

“Uh….. er well your training might prove to be a little…”

“Don’t worry, I’ll work with her.”

A voice came from behind us and when I turned around a man absolutely covered in tattoos that looked like they were crawling over him was standing there. He waved with a small smile at us both and turned to May.

“Miss May please come with me, I will teach you how to train holy power as well as the more… subtle nuances of being a saint candidate.”

May said nothing and walked away with the tattooed man to one side of the circular training grounds.

“Well that was surprising… Anyways, for your training you will be getting essentially a double dose of basic training. You’ll find that with Growth-Up the best thing you can do to get strong quickly is working on your muscles. People with the Growth-Up gift vary, but they usually recover far faster and see much higher benefits from any kind of training of the body’s functions including cardio, muscle training, and coordination. Since you will be getting combat training later I would recommend using the strength training equipment of the knights. One of our veteran trainers is there and can help you get started.”

Basic muscle training huh. Makes sense to me. I moved where he pointed and walked up to an old knight with a scraggly beard surrounded by training equipment that looked just like equipment from our world except bigger. The bars were longer and had more room for weights, and the weights themselves went up to 1000 Kilos. Guess they use metric here. There were also kettlebells, dumbbells, and chains. The chains even had metal balls attached on the heavier sets and looked impossible to lift.

I noticed as I walked up that the old knight was one legged, his left leg ending right above the knee. I guess I see why he became a trainer. I know better than to underestimate someone though, if he’s here he’s likely qualified and with the powers in this world you never know if a one legged man can turn you into dust with his mind.

As I walked up he looked at me with his sunken eyes and started immediately asking questions.

“What is your max bench?”

“Uhm… I only know it in pounds.”

“That is fine, I know the conversion.”

“Then it’s 220”

“Squat?”

“350”

“Deadlift”

“400”

“Not bad but imbalanced to the legs, do you intend to be strang in one area of focus or all around?

“Whatever is best for combat.”

“We’ll need to know the weapon you will be using before coming up with a routine but you’ll want to round out for now. We’ll work on arms. What’s your gift?”

“Growth-Up.”

“Good we can probably balance you out today if you don’t mind spitting up a little blood.”

“That fast?”

“Besides growth-up you now have mana. Even if you have very little you will find yourself getting stronger very fast. Are you ready to begin?”

I nodded. I love this man already. No nonsense, no chit-chat, just work. Perfect.

…

About an hour later I decided I hated this man. He pushed me harder in an hour than I’ve ever trained in my whole life. He kept stacking on weight after weight until it was impossible to do and would only spot me if the weight was about to kill me. My shoulder dislocated about a half hour in and he called a priest over to fix it and then coldly said to “try again”.

The scary part was I managed to do that weight after they healed my shoulder, I could literally see results which would have been impossible back home. The whole training session was supposed to last 3 hours and I got here early so I got to experience the joy of trying to survive for about 4 hours straight, the only breaks were for water between sets. Apparently with priests around recovery isn’t important. Fuck.

Others showed up but I was busy with my personal hell and didn’t have time to see what everyone else was doing.

After 3 dislocations, one broken bone, and a major tear in my bicep, the session was finally over.

“You did good. Didn’t even complain. Impressive. Let's do one last set to measure your progress and then we’re done.”

He went and set up a basic bench press. I didn’t ask questions and got under the bar.

“One rep, two if you can.”

I pushed hard and managed to get both reps in, though it felt like something tore again. I set the bar back on the rack and my arms fell limp.

Above me the grizzled old man gave me the first smile I’d seen all day. Then he asked me a question.

“How much do you think you just benched?”

To tired to think of something irritable to say I just told the truth.

“I guess 250? It was definitely heavier than my old max but not by much.”

His smile grew wider.

“300.”

What?

“That was about 300 pounds.”

“What the fuck?”

“Welcome to newbie gains kid. Mana and Growth-Up together are potent if you’re willing to endure some pain. Don’t expect this kind of result every time but I wanted you to see that progress can be fast. Make sure you come back and don’t bitch out.”

I only now realized that I didn’t know my trainer's name, or why he knew so much slang I felt like no one else I had met on this planet used.

“Who are you?”

“You can call me coach Creed. Previous hero or summoned or whatever the shit they call it now. You’re Bobby right? Come back tomorrow, now that your arms are ahead we’ll do a full body workout. You seem like you can take it.”

Turns out he was summoned here too. No wonder he knew pound to kilo conversion.

I nodded and limped off to the priests for one last heal before we headed to integration training. Only then did I see people looking my way. The soldiers around looked impressed. Apparently there was hardly anyone who could handle coach Creed’s training for more than an hour.

No pain no gain. If I can get stronger faster, it’s all worth it.