"Come on! Just five more push-ups! You can do it!" Buster encouraged me to keep going after achieving the milestone of twenty push-ups, which, for a previous loser without muscles, was a lot already. It's been only a few days since I asked Buster to train me, and the physical training has been tiresome.
Most of the exercises require that I use my body weight to exercise, and I have got to tell you, the pain I feel at the moment is terrible. Still, I feel great whenever I finish and look at my progress. It's only been a few days, but I already feel much more solid and confident in my body as I get to know my limits through exercise.
I get to do sit-ups, planks, push-ups, run around for a while, and even lift water buckets. All to make me more capable, and although I feel tired and my muscles ache, I can tell it's working since my confidence is at an all-time high. Right after I finish a set, it feels good.
"Alright, Annabel! It's time to go out for a quick run! We are going to the river back and forward!" I can feel my knees about to give up. While Buster also notices I am at my breaking point, he encourages me to keep pushing, so I continue moving my limiter to the maximum, following behind him on a quick run to the river, which was only about a mile away.
My tired feet can barely keep up with Buster's incredible speed as I feel the air in my lungs is insufficient to keep going. Yet, sweating so much was kind of crazy; I finally realized that my body heat was so great I didn't even feel the air's coldness or the forest's loneliness as I chased after Buster.
All I could see and feel was the flow of energy bursting within me, pushing my muscles to their limits while pressing my feet firmly against the ground. With so much strenght, I felt in total control of my movement. I was in total control of my body for once in my life. I pushed myself to do something I hated doing.
Yet, instead of feeling bothered or incredibly tired, I felt great, almost as if I had always wanted to do something like that but never bothered actually to put in the work.
"There are skills that one must polish for an entire lifetime to be the best at it so that one day you can pass down your knowledge. This is my lesson today. I will teach you how to craft a bow from nothing but deer hide and a good stick." Buster's words make my eyes sparkle as he shoots out his massive bow into a nearby tree with such precision it's impressive.
Without further ado, I follow Buster to another nearby location where he dries the deer hide of several deer he has killed over the months and others from years ago. "The deer hide must be dried first for a little bit before we cut it like this."
I observe Buster's hand movements as he effortlessly cuts the deer hide in a spiral pattern down to the center of the hide. "You must cut around your finger's thickness since yours are so skinny. Here, try it with that other one." Buster hands me the knife, and once he is done with his side, he points to another hung deer hide next to me.
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As far as how I did, I could've done better, but because I am not used to such weird cutting knives made out of obsidian and other weirdly sharp rocks, I botch the cut more or less. As Buster soon pointed out, it wasn't so bad, but I couldn't help but feel dumb.
"Alright, now it's time to turn, twist, and stretch it. Play around with it a bit," I see what he does next as I try to copy what he does, which is just to do as he said. Buster simply twists the little string-like cuts he made, all while bending and stretching it with care as I assumed he could easily break it off.
"You're probably thinking that this will either make an extremely long or thick string, but trust me, it will be just right once it's done." Buster's suggesting that I would even doubt whatever he says baffled me feel like I would know anything about making anything.
I'd been training and carving pieces of wood daily, and I've somehow got worse so far. Regarding technology and math, I outclassed probably everyone in this world, but in terms of survival skills, I have next to none without Buster babysitting me all the time.
"I would never doubt you, Master."
"Alright, well, once you're done twisting the skin, you want to start making it into a knot on itself. Here, let me show you how." Buster brushes off my feelings aside and continues with the crafting lesson as he repeatedly tries to show me how to knot the dam thing unto itself, but I just can't get it.
Buster's huge hands are somehow able to quickly move the little thin cuts of twisted deer hide unto a very complex knotted U-shaped hook like it was nothing while I couldn't even comprehend how the fuck he had done it. I watch closely at his hands repeatedly until I repeat what he does, and he surprises me as my hands manage to do the same while I watch him.
Still, whenever Buster would stop showing me his movements, I would just freeze until he resumed, slowing down even more every time until I finally got my little knot done. "Oh my god, I was dying there; how do you make it look so easy?" I ask Buster, who just chuckles and answers me with a sweet response.
"I've been doing it for years; it would be shameful if I still found it difficult now, wouldn't it?" I finally breathed once I heard him laugh again since I had become so tense that my hands were stiff.
"Alright, now comes the easy part; you just got to twist this whole thing into a Norean twist, not a reverse twist, alright? Here, let me show you." I once again watch as Buster does some kind of weird shit around with his strings, all while I watch, not being able to understand how the fuck he does it again.
"You got it?" Buster asks me to, to which I respond with silence and a subtle shaking of my head. "Alright, I'll show you again, but slower; try to follow me again." Buster doesn't waste a breath as he quickly dismantles his progress, just doing it again in a very slow motion so that my smooth brain can understand it.
It was basically like a braided type of twist with simple knot-like twists in between so the three strands wouldn't disappear whenever you finished a section. It took Buster literally ten seconds to do it, but it took me around half an hour to do it as I kept messing it up and redoing it multiple times.
"The last part with the string before placing it into the bow is to let it dry to which we will just use the weight of these heavy wooden sticks that we can attach to our string overnight while I show you how to pick a good stick for the bow of course."