Chapter 3.2: Dancing with the pebbles.
He was snoozing on the table; it flows down like a river to a waterfall as his drool leaves the table onto the floor. But suddenly, he felt a cold sensation as ice water was poured on him by Feld.
“Wake up Rei! It’s time for morning training.” Feld said with a grin as if he was about to give punishment
Still drowsy, Rei proceeded to go in the training area.
“Am I gonna dodge the pebbles again?” asked Rei
“No, you’re gonna deflect them this time.” answered Feld
Feld threw a wooden sword at Rei.
As Rei caught the sword, he notices that the wooden sword was too heavy for a wooden sword. He then asked “What kind of wooden sword is this? It’s pretty heavy.”
“The wood is made from the trees in Sugtar forest. The wood there is strong and heavy; it can probably take a few tough blows from a real sword and survive. Plus it’s cheaper than metal! And since it’s as heavy as a real sword we can use it for training.” Said Feld
“Now, you have to deflect every single one of the pebbles and for each failure to deflect a pebble you’ll be punished by 25 sit-ups and push-ups; I’ll start slow, we’ll start with 50 pebbles.” Feld continued
“Yes sir!” said Rei
“Let’s start!!” said Feld
Feld started pitching pebbles against Rei; he threw a pebble every two seconds.
Rei had no problems with the first 20 pebbles but Feld started to challenge Rei by throwing it in different locations around Rei.
Rei is getting confused trying to predict where Feld plans to throw the next pebble.
The 50 pebbles were successfully deflected by Rei, but he suffered a significant drain in both mental and physical stamina.
“Alright, not bad kid; we’ll do 75 pebbles next. I’ll throw a pebble every second” (Feld)
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The next batch of pebbles were coming at Rei in great speed, even Rei wasn’t able to believe that he had already deflected 50 pebbles. But Feld started to make it more difficult for Rei as he now throws the pebbles in opposite directions, making Rei chase after the pebbles.
Not impossible but extremely difficult for the worn-out Rei to chase the speeding pebbles pitched by Feld; and because of that Rei missed 9 pebbles.
Missing 9 pebbles meant doing 225 sit-ups and push-ups making Rei exhausted.
After Rei finished the punishment, without giving him time to rest Feld said “Next batch is 100, let’s go.”
Exhausted like a horse running non-stop, Rei continued to push himself to the limits as he still tried his best to deflect all the pebbles.
Pebbles were coming at Rei left and right as if Feld wanted him to miss, but Rei didn’t give up; tired as he was, he was still able to deflect the pebbles.
Feld was astonished because Rei learned to use footwork he has never taught.
Turning and spinning his body and with swift footwork, Rei began to deflect the pebbles coming at him with ease; he began rotating the sword and passing the sword between his left and right hand to deflect with style.
Feld was surprised as Rei deflected every single one of the pebbles he pitched.
Feld then said: “Nicely done kid, I honestly thought you were gonna miss at least 50 pebbles. But you astounded me with your footwork and style”
He couldn’t believe what he had done; he deflected a hundred pebbles in that speed while he was exhausted. Because of this amazing feat, he wasn’t able to respond to Feld’s praise.
“We’ll now have lunch, go get some rest while I buy us lunch; we’ll restart training in the afternoon.” (Feld)
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