After giving Kyle some words of encouragement, Brock brought two wooden swords and threw one toward him.

"So for starters, let's have a small practice match to see what you can do, ready?" Fumbling to catch the sword and then readying himself, Kyle assumed an awkward pose.

He looked at Brock and said yes. The moment he did, Brock launched at him at full speed. Seeing Brock's hands move upward, Kyle took a defensive stand, intending to block the vertical swing. Indeed, that’s what happened, but the problem was that he was too weak to even block, causing the sword to drop to the ground. Kyle fell backward, his hands feeling hot as if they were about to explode. He could feel them throbbing with every heartbeat.

"You are indeed in need of more strength, but strength is not the only thing that matters in a duel. Let's switch it up. Now, you do the attacking."

With his hand still in pain, he picked up his sword, trying to be more serious this time.

He tried to remember the patterns he saw the first time he picked up a sword, taking a better stance than before and readying himself once again. Brock smiled and motioned for him to start. Not waiting any longer, Kyle dashed toward him, attacking in arcs, trying to hit the known weak points of any human being.

But even with a hand behind his back now, Brock was able to easily dodge and repost all of Kyle's attempts. To end the fight, he just made a spinning motion, hitting Kyle’s leg, making him fall to the ground and stumble to get up.

As soon as he was ready to get up, he saw the wooden sword inches away from him; it was his loss again.

"Well done, kid. That was way better than the first time. It looks like you know some moves. Did you learn swordsmanship by any chance?"

"Yes, I did learn some, but I’m not really that good at it yet," Kyle answered, cleaning his dirtied clothes.

"That is amazing. Being able to learn swordsmanship fairly young and with so little strength, with a little more strength, you could even be able to enroll in the Capital Knight Academy and graduate with a higher rank."

"I’m sorry, but I’m not really interested in becoming a knight."

"Don’t worry about it, kid. I won’t push it further. It's just that seeing young talent gets me excited for their future, and I’m going to make a beast out of you, son. Hahaha, hope you are ready."

"Y... Yeah," Kyle thought. "What did I get myself into? This is not going to be easy, is it?"

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After the sparring, Brock decided to put Kyle in a group of 11 men and then made them partner up, calling up one by one until his name and his partner’s name came up.

Kyle saw a familiar face; it was the younger guard he met the first day he came to the village. The guard came closer to him, introducing himself with a handshake.

"Isn’t it Mr. Suit? I guess we are partners. I’m Shawn."

"Hi, Shawn. It’s a tracksuit, not a suit, and my name is Kyle."

"It still has 'suit' in the name. Anyway, what are you doing here, trying to become a knight?"

"No, I’m here just to train a bit and get stronger."

While in conversation, a whistle followed by a loud shout got everybody's attention. Everyone but Kyle knew instantly what to do; they all hurriedly lined up, arms to the side, chin up, chest out.

Seeing this, he hurriedly followed, looking in the direction he saw Brock standing straight, looking in their direction now with a serious look on his face.

"Men, today you welcome a new comrade for training. He will be participating until I say otherwise, understood?"

A unified shout rang out, surprising Kyle who was not expecting it one bit.

"Yes, SIR!"

"Good, now I’ll be giving you the training regimen for the day. For starters, you will be running laps around the tracks for 45 minutes, next 1 hour of sword sparring followed by an obstacle course, and finally a wrestling session. Also, today is cleaning day, so the last person to finish his laps gets to clean the pit."

Hearing that, the men got excited, smiling and shouting, getting in position. Seeing everybody ready, Brock announced, "Then I won’t hold you longer. 3…2…1… start!"

Everybody shot up, fire in their eyes. Kyle thought these people were fools; he knew that not overexerting yourself would give you enough stamina to be able to finish all the laps. For now, they were a few laps ahead of him, true, but he would catch up sooner when they got out of breath. However, watching them run, he got more and more confused after passing him multiple times, and now on the 8th lap, most of them showed no sign of getting exhausted.

'The track we are on looks to be around 650 feet, and they are now on the 8th lap. Wait, that would mean they just ran a full fucking mile in less than 4 minutes and are not even a bit out of breath, showing no sign of exhaustion.'

The same pace was maintained for the first 18 minutes, trying to outrun each other, which started to diminish slowly, and everybody began to hold a constant position apart from someone trying to jump ahead once in a while. The race finished, and Kyle was the obvious loser.

He was sweating too much, as if he just got out of the shower, having trouble breathing, and laid on the ground. The man who ended before him patted him on the shoulder and thanked him for losing, or else it would have been him cleaning the pit.

He introduced himself as Gil, short for Gilebin, and as a thanks, he gave him a hint: everything was in the breathing. If he got it, he would be able to do it. Hearing that, Kyle was a bit confused;

'Breathing? Is there a special technique they are using? If so, when can I get this technique?' But he had no time to dwell on the subject too long since the resting time was over in a flash. Sword sparring was no different; he got his ass kicked by Shawn.

The skill he had was of no help, and that made him a bit angry. It was understandable to get beaten up by a senior knight and a captain, but a trainee? It was either the skill was useless, or he was using it the wrong way. Kyle kept failing again and again, be it the obstacle course where he face-planted multiple times in the dirt, or the wrestling match where he wasn’t able to push his opponent even an inch. With another loss, the training came to an end, and Brock told the trainees to go back and rest while eating lunch, then assigned Gil to show Kyle to the pit after they were finished.