"Wait, why are we going to the hospital? The garden seems like a better place to learn." Abhin inquired. His instincts were trying to warn him of the impending doom. And seeing Ed meekly follow that burly furry further deepened this premonition. But the fuzz he tried to create didn't change the fate he was assigned to.

And soon they were in front of the basement of that hospital.

"Umm.. doctor. I don't feel so good about coming in here.." Abhin said as they went inside that eerie-looking place. It was just like any other basement you would find on Earth, except that it was far too voluminous and extremely creepy, even when encroached with light.

"Shut up.. up. up.. p.." The coarse voice of that freak reverberated throughout the basement.

"Rat-face, go stand at the sidelines. Give me and this brat some space." The tutor ordered in an intimidating tone, which Ed followed as left without saying a word.

"I am giving you five seconds to prepare. All you have to do is to escape from me. If you are successfully able to hold on for five minutes, you pass."

"Wait a min.."

"5"

"What?"

"4"

'Damn, what do I even prepare?'

"3"

'Fuck. The best thing I can do is try to run away. That's the only thing I have done ever since coming here.'

"2"

Abhin ran away from the savage as fast as he could, without even sparing a glance at him. He ran towards Ed as he was the only 'human' he had met until now.

"1"

But he was stopped midway as the bulky figure rushed at him with speed invisible to naked eyes. His wide hands grabbed the human's twig-like arm and ripped it apart. Abhin watched as his blood smeared all over his face and he fell down. He saw his now dismembered arm in the savage's hand, getting crushed. His eyes trembled at that sight. He tried stopping the excess blood flow, but the pain soon kicked in and he let out an agony filled cry,

"Tch. Too weak." The savage said as he kicked the human in his stomach. Abhin slid towards Edgar and crashed at the wall near which he stood, leaving a bloodied trail. He even spat out a mouthful of blood. It seemed as if the kick had damaged a few of his internal organs too.

"Fix him up. I need him back on his feet in a minute." He ordered the Skal.

"A minute is a bit too short," Edgar complained, only to be greeted by a glare from the tutor. The Skal gulped as if he had swallowed back the words he had just spoken now.

"Hey, kiddo. Didn't I teach ya the method to stop blood loss and heal minor injuries? Try using it now." Ed thought that this would be the best moment to have him learn healing arts too, and so he waited for the human to try to heal himself. But Abhin only wailed in pain. In the end, Ed had to fix him up.

Since Edgar was now used to human anatomy, he could easily heal him in a minute or two. The human almost went mad in pain as he was healed without anesthetics (the tutor suggested it), his blood-red eyes trembled to the point of falling out of their sockets. He was gagged during the process as he made a lot of noise.

This same cycle repeated itself for the next few hours. The tutor tore out his leg in the next turn, then twisted his arms in the third, and so on. Eventually, his body ran out of the nutrients he needed to regrow organs or heal fatal wounds and so they had to stop. For the first few turns, the human was not able to stop his bleeding, but then he got hold of it and at the end of the day, he was 'roughly' able to prevent himself from bleeding to death.

The Savage then approached him and picked him up from his hairs.

"You must want to kill me by now, right? Don't worry, I won't beat you up anymore. All you have to do is to try attacking me with all your might."

Abhin didn't actually bother understanding what was said, and subconsciously tried kicking his balls. Alas, the savage was too tall and all he could kick was his brick-like abs.'

"I am standing right before you, wuss. Can't you even land a single punch on me?"

The tutor tried instigating his emotions and that caused Abhin's flow of mana to heavily disrupt. He tightly clenched his fist and poured all of his anger into it, but the muscles in his hand burst midway and the bones broke - due to the violent mana flowing through his arm - causing his hand to go limp before he could actually land a punch.

"Learn to control mana if you wish to ever beat me." The tutor remarked as he snorted loudly on the human's face as if asserting dominance on the pitiful human. (sorry MC. Rest assured, the prologue's almost over. And by the looks of it, you will grow up to be the villain I have imagined you as. So just bear with it for now.)

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He threw Abhin on the floor where Edgar tended his broken arm. The panic attacks which had mostly subsided now resurfaced. He didn't even budge an inch away from the floor on which he was lying. Sleepless nights once again started haunting him. To him, this savage was far more hateful (and fearful) than the Shura.

Days started passing by. Since Edgar was in the hospital now, he reopened it to the public. Abhin, in the morning, would accompany Edgar as he treated his patients, trying to learn the art of being a 'doctor'(he is just observing Ed in a daze while being in trauma, not actually learning). The tutor now trained him in the nighttime. Screams reverberated in the basement every night, as the savage would make a mess out of our MC, ripping out his limbs every now and then.

In short, if you were to remove the four hours he slept and ate(his appetite increased almost fourfold), all he did was train himself( More like he was bullied a hell lot by that human-faced minotaur). Edgar even taught him to quickly digest what he ate using mana, so the number of times he had to shit also reduced considerably. Although Ed advised him not to completely rely on mana for digestion, or his digestive organs might fail one day.

A month went by in a flash, Abhin had improved in meanwhile. Although the core mana he had stored didn't increase by much, his skills had improved by leaps and bound. He could now properly use mana without bursting his hand(too much improvement in skills, you see). A month of escaping the savage had honed his combat(sixth) sense too(Basically, his mana grew sensitive to the mana of stronger beings, so he can avoid places with greater dangers. Although this ability of his is only at the rudimentary level as of now.)

Whether intentional or not, the savage would attack him using the same pattern until Abhin learned how to counter him. This did give him a sliver of hope, but that soon changed into despair as he thought that the tutor was toying with him. A month of dismemberment helped him grow his healing capabilities too. He could not yet heal fatal wounds as he lacked sufficient core mana, but he could at least heal most of the superficial wounds.

As more time passed by, he stopped speaking, even with Ed, although agony-filled cries were almost a routine. The panic attacks were at the peak and he was at least on the brink of a nervous breakdown if he had not already broken down.

But this routine changed after the second month, as the tutor decided to do things a bit differently, presumably under the orders of this so-called 'Mr. Mint'. They shifted their location of training. Their destination this time was one of the cities Abhin saw through the jet earlier. Well, not the city, but the ruins near it.

"You will learn archery from now on." The burly savage suddenly said as they entered an abandoned shooting range.

"..."

"Watch this holographic video. Use it to learn the basics of archery, like the posture, the mana flow blah blah... Since I don't know how to use a bow, I will only invigilate here."

"..."

"For the first shot you miss, I will stab this sword in your guts, and for all the consecutive misses, I will twist it within you. If you want this out of your guts, better shoot your target accurately. That rat will keep on healing you constantly so you don't have to worry about dying"

After 4 hours of watching that hologram and practicing some stances, he was given a bow and some arrows and was ordered to shoot a stationary target in front of him. Condensing arrows using mana was a far cry for now, and so he was given physical arrows to nock the bows with.

The first arrow he shot didn't even cover half the distance it should have.

"Uggh" The sword neatly slid in his guts, and the red pointy tip could be seen through the other side. Abhin gritted his teeth as he nocked the bow once again.

The second shot had mana infused within it and so it reached the target, but the accuracy was way off.

*Skwish* The sword within his guts twisted - as blood trickled down his waist and lips. The pent-up frustration within him was immense, and he could not even cry to release it, as his eyes were all dried up. He was brought to the brink of insanity. No, he had probably crossed that threshold long ago.

** **

Something that should have taken him almost a year to learn took mere ten days and just a few thousand stabs. He could now shoot still targets with ease. Another 30 days and he could shoot most of the moving targets. His healing capabilities also increased overall.

But even after taking in thousands of sword stabs, all he became was a novice bow user. After all, no target moves uniformly on a battlefield. A variety of variables like speed and direction of airflow, the height of the ground, type of bow, the weight of the arrow would influence where the arrow would land, and Abhin had zero knowledge of it. Still, improvement was an improvement, and he had enough skills to bag himself a top-three position if he were to compete at a national level competition on Earth.

There was still more than a month left before he was to be sold, and so the savage decided him to teach various melee combat arts, using the same sword stabbing method. A slight error in his posture would result in sword impalement. Well, thanks to this, at least his knowledge of his own guts increased substantially. He could now heal his insides in just twice the time Edgar took. His core mana storage almost doubled since he came here and now he had enough mana to grow back half his arm without exhausting his core mana. After all, even as a healer, he could not heal himself indefinitely, unlike Edgar who had various instruments to assist him. He could even conjure some extremely-disfigured-to-be-even-called-arrows arrows, just like the lady from the hologram.

Reid came by as this month too came to an end. He was extremely happy with Abhin's improvement and praised the savage a lot for the same. The tutor left as soon as he was paid his fees and only the trio was left.

"You have truly improved a lot, Abhin. I have almost grown attached to you."

"..."

"Alas, every good thing comes to end, and so will this relationship."

"..."

The shura was extremely surprised, as the Abhin he knew would have started retorting or shivering by now, but the one in front of him did none.

"Anyways, I am selling you tomorrow. But since you have done such satisfactory work, I must reward you. So as a reward, I will implant a chip within you, which will help prevent others from messing with your brain."

'That would also prevent others from knowing more about me.' Reid added in his mind.

"And please don't mess it up this time by being a rebellious prick. After all, you wouldn't want to go through all this again, would you?" He winked as Abhin once again blacked out.

And with that, Reid tied up his last loose end. Or so he believed.