To afford the massive splurge on resources and trainers the previous day, Luke had sold everything but the clothes on his back and his phone. The raw cash from the sale, then renting an apartment, was better than keeping his house and belongings while paying taxes on them, in the relatively short amount of time he had to work with. Luke was set to live somewhat comfortably for the rest of his time on Earth, barring a sudden injury, which may require him to take some time off training to work.
The concern for which melted away as he focused on balancing on one leg, palms together above his head.
It was the first full week into his training. A normal human would have increased their bench press by about 10 pounds in a week. He'd already gone from 80 pounds to 760 in just one week with Rhonda's amazing potion - which had just run out after today's training - and Shoeberts's workout plan. A feat impossible without the expertise of Shoeberts in crafting a body to meet the desires of his clients and Rhonda's genius-level alchemical knowledge and ability.
Despite all his gains, he was quite a bit behind his desires in his magical studies. Most humans couldn't do any magic, at least without being trained since birth. Many of the kids growing up in a world with the knowledge of magic, being taught it in school and growing up with it becoming more and more around them, were significantly better than he was at performing it. He even saw a kid, who couldn't have been more than 3 years old, successfully fly one of those colored Tootsie Rolls from a bag to their hand, behind their mother's back, as they sat on the bus.
They weren't successful in being sneaky about it, but they did manage more magical ability than Luke could bring to bear.
I need a more distracting meditation if I'm still thinking about stuff like that, Luke thought.
His bare-bones apartment didn't offer much in the way of pleasures to enjoy during his downtime. It had a kitchen with a fridge, oven, microwave, and a couple cups - no toaster; a full bathroom; and some basic furniture the landlord had provided all the apartments: a card table, a folding chair, and a bed. No TV, no couches, the bed didn't even come with its own pillows or blanket. The cheapest apartment Luke could find. He could have taken a more expensive one and still had money for food and drinks all the way up to his execution date in the arena, but he chose the cheapest option to have a buffer for emergencies and to have better rounded diet for his rapid growth.
Despite his rapid increase in strength and speed, his muscles themselves were not large. For these first few weeks, he was training for maximum strength, not to become a body builder. That came with good muscles and a loss of his fat, obviously, but raw size does not determine a muscle's strength. Right now, he was close to maxing out every time he lifted weights, focusing purely on raw power.
That would change in a couple weeks, but right now, he needed to focus on his magical capabilities. His inability to believe in himself, as he'd taken away from what Laura said and his short time in a single therapy session, was the main thing holding him back. Something he could work on during what others would believe was his downtime. He'd need to slow down during this week, as the next potion wouldn't be ready until Tuesday of next week. That one wouldn't last him the whole week, either, as he'd need more and more as he got stronger and stronger. By Shoeberts's estimate, he should be maxing out around 950 pounds by the end of his second exercise potion.
He slapped his hands against his legs as he cursed his inability to stop thinking about his future. He needed to be in the now as he cast a spell. Considering the difficulty with doing so in the middle of a calm, empty house, he doubted his ability to do so during the heat of combat. That doubt was part of the issue, but not something he'd be able to just make disappear on a whim. He needed to work his way up, gaining experience casting basic spells in laboratory conditions, moving on to more and more distracting environments and complex spells as time goes on.
"Which will never happen if I can't stop thinking about things that aren't a spellform for even half a second," Luke said, out loud, as he lefty the apartment, closed and locked its door, and went to the park.
There, he found as many sticks as he could and sharpened them on the sidewalk before taking them home and began placing them in a large donut around his location. No one taught him this, but the basic idea of meditation being to distract your brain away from everything but the act of meditating was something he understood.
What better distraction than the risk of pain?
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So, he laid down a large donut of his sharpened sticks, covering every possible location his foot could land, should he lose his balance, and entered the pose once more.
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In one of his full rest days that normal athletes unassisted by magic must have to improve, Luke spent his time doing the maximum level of activity that he could without actually risking over training. Stuff he could use to build trust in his own capabilities. Primarily, he did some freerunning. Jumping over human-only alleyways, jumping from one bar to another, and generally slowly building up his confidence in his abilities. Alongside him were people primarily younger than him, as this was primarily an activity that people did to seem rebellious without actually doing anything that could get them in trouble with any laws.
Luke got a running start before hopping onto a low metal tube fence and using his momentum to jump from it to another, similar fence, both used to prevent parking vehicles from going too far and falling into a pit which seemed to have no purpose. It was probably some sort of installation or maintenance access for something in the past, but now it was just a good basic obstacle for beginner freerunners. Finding a group in his area was somewhat hard, considering his tight schedule, inexperience, and inability to get himself around without public transportation.
He loses his balance as his momentum continues him forward, his landing imperfect for fully stopping his momentum like he'd seen other members of this group do. Before he could twist an ankle or damage one of his wrists, he just stepped off the fence, his momentum making him take a single other step to come to a full stop.
"Old man ain't got game," one of the teenagers said as another came in behind Luke, not only jumping from one side to the other and landing with minimal effort to balance himself on the landing, but performing a full 360 spin in the process.
"Knock it off, Q, he said the closest thing he'd done was monkey bars as a little kid," another said to him.
"Plus, if we're mean to every newbie, we'll lose more people than we'll gain. It's already hard to find a good group to get with, don't make it harder by scaring off newbies," the oldest, non-Luke member of the group said.
"I'll be fine. I just needed some guided free time to boost my confidence in my own abilities. Improve myself and see that I am able to actually perform stunts I didn't think possible before. If I knew something similarly strenuous and risky feeling without real risk of injury, I could do that instead, but this will work well. I'll only be coming along every other week, anyway," Luke replied, getting back in line in their little game of horse. So far, he was pretty close to getting out, only able to perform and set very basic stunts.
"Work got the old man locked up?" the first teenager asked, getting an elbow from his friend that said to knock it off.
"Nah, I'm jobless. Sold everything but one pair of clothes and my phone to get resources and trainers to improve myself as fast as I can before my time in the arena. I just need the self image shift that something like this should be able to bring so I can use magic. I've never been one for acrobatics, so becoming confident in myself through them should be a decently fast way to do so."
"Man, don't bring up depressing stuff like that here," jerk said.
"You're the one who asked. Maybe don't ask questions you don't want answers to."
"Know any magic yet?" The one who did a 360 asked.
"I know the spellform for just moving stuff, but I can't properly construct it fully in my head. Even the basics are too complicated for how little confidence I have in my own abilities."
"Ah, yeah, I remember my dad trying to teach me that a couple years back-"
"Here we go again," jerk's friend said.
"-said I just needed to trust in myself better. Used some quote from some old anime I've not watched and won't watch. Didn't really make sense. Anyway, he blindfolded me and took us out to the forest a few hours' drive east and we spent a few weeks camping out. Took a tent and enough supplies to last 3 days. Had me do everything we needed once they ran out. Make fires, fish, hunt, skin, scale, gut, cook, boil water, everything. Like a miniature, if way more dangerous, boy scouts. The way he talked, felt like our lives were on the line.
"Made a spring trap out of some bamboo looking stuff and sharpened sticks. Triggered on a big deer, broke one of its legs. Followed its blood trail and dragged it back to camp. Dad's never looked prouder. Had to create a makeshift tourniquet out of a bit of shirt I ripped up after I fell while spear fishing to stop the bleeding in my left arm. Got that healed up properly once we got back to civilization. There were a couple times when I thought the mosquitoes would be the death of me, still have some scars where their bites caused me to scratch too much and I started bleeding.
"Looking back, and hearing the experience from my dad's point of view, we were obviously safe and in no danger of ever dying, despite what it felt like in the moment. He had a satellite phone and a backup walkie talkie my mom would come into range of while I was out hunting or fishing, in case we had an emergency. Worked perfectly. I don't have the physique to do anything more than hover some stuff in the air without magic overload, but it was perfect for my ability to trust in myself. I'm not saying to go disappear into the woods for a month, but it worked wonders for me. Anyway, looks like you're up."
Luke thought about the story for the rest of the day as he continuously failed some tricks over the pit and other various obstacles the group found. He felt like he was improving, even managing to do a few very basic ones, but at the end of the day, he wasn't really sure if he felt much better about his own chances of performing magic. There was less hesitation in the run up for jumping stunts, but he was the obvious first loser of all their games of horse.