With a quite smile on his face. Fred stood to his feet. He brought his fist near his face. And flexed his bicep. It was at least 2 centimetres larger than it was previously. ~This must be the same thing that caused me not to die last time.~ Fred looked up at the moon. ~Whenever the moon comes out I completely regenerate~. The quiet smile on his face developed to a superwide grin. ~This means that every single day I get full recovery. I was cut up when I died. But now. My muscles, my ligaments, my cartilage, even my bones! They all healied! That means that I could train so hard that my body would fall apart and as shown by my grown muscularity. I would reap only the benefits!~

Rodrigo got up from his sitting position and leaped to a boulder about one hundred feet away. He lifted the boulder up with one hand and threw it into the air. He Leaned back on one foot and stabbed his boot into the boulder. Like he was kicking through an unreasonably large block of butter. After about a second of him breaking through it with his feet the boulder finally shattered. As if time had caught up with it shards of rock were suddenly sent flying in every direction.

One whizzed by Fred’s face barely missing his head. ~I don’t think I’ll ever get to his

Level though. But still! This is a way for me to defend myself.~ Fred walked towards Rodrigo for a moment before realising that it was easier just to call him.

“Hey Rodrigo!” Yelled Fred. Rodrigo leaped through the air arriving at Fred’s location.

“Yes?” Said Rodrigo.

“Could you train me?” Asked Fred. Rodrigo grinned. He lifted Fred into the air.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! You will become my immortal battle brother!” Rodrigo threw Fred up and down in the air like he was a small child. “NO! MY LITTLE IMMORTAL BATTLE BROTHER!” Rodrigo threw Fred so far into the air that it was almost certain that he would suffer a fatal fall. Luckily Rodrigo jumped into the air and caught him bringing Fred down safely. “We will start tomorrow!” Rodrigo yelled right into Fred's face. A fleck of spit impacting his forehead.

Fred woke up with the sunrise. ~Ugh I thought I would have to deal with that trope where the warrior wakes you up super early on the first day of training.~ Fortunately he did not have to deal with that. As Rodrigo was sound asleep seven feet adjacent to Fred.

“I guess I should get started.” Fred dropped to the ground and did two hundred pushups showing no fear of injuring himself. His arms burned while he was doing the push ups but the pain was not much in comparison to getting your head sliced open.

After push ups Fred moved on to sit ups. He did about a hundred sit ups till Rodrigo interrupted him.

“HEY! TIME TO TRAIN!” Yelled Rodrigo. He leaned down and grabbed Fred by the shoulder lifting him to his feet with one hand. “We start with running. We will run around this volcano three times.” Said Rodrigo. He stabbed his sword into the ground as a landmark and then began to run without hesitation.

Fred scrambled right behind him.

Rodrigo looked barely phased by running in his full plate armour while Fred in his normal cloth clothing was left gasping after the first eight minutes.

Fred vomited three times during the run and was reduced to dry heaving for the rest of it. He was left gasping his stomach curdling from the exercise.

“You sit there. I’ll go get you some food.” Said Rodrigo. So Fred laid there. Waiting patiently for his food. His knees and shin felt like they were on fire while he did so. But it was nowhere near as bad as getting his head sliced open.

Rodrigo came back with two large cockroaches.

“Eat.” He said. Not hesitating Fred ate the cockroaches going down easily. ~I’m so hungry that I don’t even feel disgust at eating something like this.~ Fred half the cockroach, which must have been a fourth the size of his body. “Now we climb.” Rodrigo rose to his feet. Leaping off the edge of the volcano.

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Fred jogged over to the edge. He rested down on his knees and looked over the edge. There quickly lowering himself down the edge was Rodrigo. His finger grasping in between cracks in the mountain like it was nothing. Fred bit his lip. I could die if I do this. Bloody impressions swam through Fred’s head as he looked down the cliff. He would fall. Shatter. Agony the likes of which a memory could never imitate threatened his mind.

“I’m not sure I want to do this.” Said Fred.

Rodrigo looked up at Fred, his expression unreadable due to the helmet covering his face.

“Don’t worry. I’ll catch you.” Said Rodrigo. Those words reverberated through Fred’s mind. ‘I’ll catch you’ although he hid it with his hand a smile appeared on Fred’s face.

“Okay.” Fred began to climb down under Rodrigo, grabbing onto and hand hold available. It felt as though his hands would shatter when he tried to hold the cracks. But he didn’t stop. After all, it was nowhere near as bad as getting his head cut open.

. .

Fred fell five times in total while climbing. But just like Rodrigo said he would, he caught him every time. Sometimes even leaping into the air in order to catch him. After five hours they had finally managed to make it to the bottom of the mountain and back.

Fred stood at the top of the mountain. Rather than having any sense of accomplishment after having reached the top he thought only one thing. HUNGRY. He looked at the half eaten body of the cockroach, drool almost dripping out of his mouth.

“Eat first. Then we’ll spar.” Said Rodrigo without looking at Fred. Then suddenly his head snapped in Fred’s direction “lil bro.” He said. Fred facepalmed.

“Cringe.”

“I don’t know what that is!”

Fred gobbled down the cockroach in just thirty minutes.

Rodrigo stood thirty metres away from fred. He squatted into a sparring stance.

“COME AT ME! COMRADE!” Yelled Rodrigo. Fred dashed towards Rodrigo. Fred shuffled in Rodrigo’s direction. A grin on his face.

“I’ll have you know that i did martial arts when i was a kid.” Fred said with a grin, “So I’m no slouch.” Fred threw out a feinting jab and pivoted into a round house. Rodrigo fell to his knees narrowly avoiding the roundhouse. He slammed a fist lightly into Rodrigo's knee. Only strong enough to cause him to lose his balance and fall over.

“When you kick like that your lower leg is pretty much locked in place. A move like this will never work against an opponent more than two levels above you.”

“Levels?” Fred asked from the ground. Rodrigo flicked his forehead.

“Sorry. I forgot, Okay a level is actually just a phase of adaptation as a result of training. For a warrior the levels are as follows. Hypertrophy. The muscles of a hypertrophy level warrior have grown to the max size. Next level is veins. The oxygen distribution of muscles has reached the max level and can now perform at max level almost forever. After that it’s bones. The bone density had reached the absolute max as well and above max force exertion is now safe and easy to do. Those are the three mortal phases. Any phases beyond that are unpredictable and can only happen due to a unique constitution or a magical item.”

“What phase are you at?” Asked Fred.

“I’ve done muscles, veins and bones. As well as sweat and eyes.”

“Is that strong?”

“It’s top one hundred thousands for war times and top thousand for peace times.” Said Rordigo.

“Wow that's really impressive i hope that one day I-”

“Stop stalling. Let’s fight!”

“AWWWW COME ON!” Rodrigo pulled Fred to his feet and forced him to spar until he was black and blue.

. .

Fred looked up at the moon. All his wounds had disappeared. HIs muscles had grown a bit larger again. ~With my ability I should be able to get through the mortal phases pretty quickly.~ Fred’s vision flickered red for a moment. ~There’s a limit to how many times I can die. I’m not someone who can survive any hardship that is thrown at me. I need to make myself strong now to prevent dying while I’m here. But as long as I’m here people can still rise to power. Even if I become akin to a god I still can and will be killed. I need to get strong and get out of this world as soon as possible. Because if not. Fred bit his lip so hard it bled the blood pooling under his tongue. Because if not the me that I am now. Will die.~

Images behind his eyes that made little sense. Sightless journeys through ash. Malicious intentions from a man he’d never known. This world was no heaven.