> Quote:I'm expecting there to be more mistakes than usual since I felt tired and I can't keep my concentration up right now, but I also feel I need to post something so here you go. Any opinions/corrections are welcome as usual.

They started by jogging in a circle around the stadium lead by the instructor. It was at a quite fast pace as some of the newcomers had trouble keeping up but the instructor ignored them he had warned them before hand after all.  

Eventually all of the people who joined after Aleyn had dropped off and returned to audience as they couldn't keep up. Aleyn herself had easy time until they reached lap fifteen and the instructor increased his speed. She could hang on for a few more laps but after that point her legs just refused to move anymore and she moved out of the way.

The instructor having ran past her was quite surprised. He had thought that all of the audience participants had already returned back to the audience but here was a dwarf girl who had stayed until almost the very end of the jog..

The group did five more laps and then returned to the middle of the arena but before the group could relax the instructor yelled.

"Push ups!"

Everyone dropped down and started doing push ups. Having had a few minutes to catch her breath Aleyn took a spot behind the group and joined in.

"one, two, three..." she counted in her head.

But after a few minutes and who knows how many push ups she couldn't keep up with counting anymore and concentrated on the task. Her arms were screaming sweet mercy but she kept going just as did everyone else and in another few minutes the instructor granted them some release.

"Stretch!"

The feeling of stretching her legs was divine after that jog. Maybe she should start doing something to help her stamina and legs? She sure didn't feel her running abilities were up to scratch compared to her arm muscles which was more than likely due to blacksmithing. Very little running around but a lot of strength usage.

At that point the instructor yelled again. It was time for more.

The training lasted for half an hour and they cycled through quite a few basic exercises. Aleyn could just about keep up with everyone much to the instructors surprise. Aleyn thought they were about to finish up but then the instructors voice boomed again.

"Rest and stretch! Next up we do some mock fights!"

Mock fights, really what are they training for? Aleyn thought and at that moment the instructor turned to her. He had been keeping an eye on Aleyn but never said anything until now.

"You gonna join? I'm not gonna let you fight for real but that doesn't mean you wont leave without bruises."

"I'm not afraid of bruises."

"Good, then I'll instruct you for a bit. It's just basic fist fighting."

The group was slightly shocked at the last statement and started eyeing between Aleyn and the instructor. The instructor saw their looks and sighed.

"I'm not gonna beat her up."

A sigh of relief echoed from the group.

"What if I beat you up?"

The group turned back to Aleyn who just said something unexpected. The instructor eyed Aleyn up and down and gave another chuckle.

"You can try. You thinking the captain of the guard is easy to beat up?"

"Captain of the guard?" Aleyn asked.

"Oh you didn't know? Yes, I'm the captain of the guard Bokham and these are this years trainees."

Aleyn took a look at the group and then turned back to Bokham.

"Aah! I get it now. Training the new guards. Got to say, I respect the work you guards do."

"Thank you. And who might you be ?" Bokham asked.

"Oh, I'm Aleyn I'm a blacksmith."

Bokham eyed the dwarf girl up and down then smiled.

"Nice to have you here Aleyn."

After saying that Bokham turned towards the trainees.

"Okay scrubs! Keep an eye on us. See all the mistakes and do not dismiss anything that's done right."

He then approached Aleyn.

"I want you to take a stance you would use for a fist fight. You have an idea how that would look?"

Aleyn thought for a moment then put her left leg and left arm in front. There was only really one fighting stance she knew of and it was the boxing stance. In real life she had practiced hitting boxing bags in the gym and occasionally gotten pointers from the people around her so she had some clue how she should stand and punch.

Bokham was eagerly ready to adjust her stance but to his surprise and disappointment there was nothing to adjust. Her stance was what he would call a common hand to hand fighting stance.

"You know some martial arts?"

"Not really. I'm just copying what I've seen."

Technically she wasn't lying. She had very little experience and it was the first time doing it in a dwarfs body.

"Well it's a good start."

Bokham took his own stance in front of Aleyn.

"Now the main thing to learn for fighting is how to defend yourself. I'll be throwing some punches at you and I want you to avoid or block them. It's not particularly hard but you need to get in to a good rhythm yourself."

He started by throwing his right arm in a long arc towards Aleyns head. The punch it self was awkwardly slow and Aleyn dodged it without a care. He then threw another punch with his left arm, this time putting more speed in to it but it was still too slow to be considered anything threatening.

Bokham kept throwing punches at Aleyn while increasing his speed and she had to progressively put more effort in to avoiding the punches or in worst cases block them with her own arms. The punches them self were rather light when they did connect, Bokham had very good control over his own strength it seems.

When the punches started to feel more realistic it became very clear to Aleyn that her movements were quite awkward and clumsy but that feeling started to disappear gradually as she got the hang of it.

While trying to hit Aleyn, Bokham was quite impressed with her ability to minimize the hits that connected. It was awkward at first but once the speed picked up it felt as though she had found a good flow. At that point he wanted to see how she would handle a bit more so he kept increasing his speed.

Aleyn was happily dodging and blocking the strikes as they came and even she could tell that the speed and intensity was increasing. She avoided the punches for quite some time until suddenly Bokhams fist reappeared in front of her out of nowhere.

"?"

She had just blocked him a second ago, how in the world had he recovered so fast and thrown another one with the same arm?

She had no elegant way of defending herself so she raised her left arm in front of herself as a shield to block the strike. The danger was averted and he hit her arm but just as it hit she felt another punch coming. With no time to recover she raised both of her arms in front of her, she was guarded against any frontal attack but she couldn't see in front of herself.

The fist hit her guard but right after it landed she felt another punch right afterwards. At that point she had no choice but to keep her arms up as the intensity of the punches grew in to a rain of blows.

Bokham continued hitting Aleyns block for five seconds and then stopped.

"That is your limit. Realistically if an opponent gets to that point you would lose the fight since you can't recover and the opponent has free reign. You did very good though, I doubt many civilians could last up to that point."

Aleyn lowered her arms and looked at Bokham who hadn't even broken a sweat, while her arms were quite sore and bruised. Captain of the guard was no joke it seems.

"Next up I want you to keep your guard up and try to hit me. I'll be looking for holes to strike back." Bokham stated.

They both took their stances and Aleyn inched forward while Bokham stood still. She threw an experimental punch with her right arm. It was quite clumsy and had no power behind it but that was within her expectations.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Bokham blocked the strike with his left arm without a care, he got the feeling that it wasn't much of a serious punch and kept an eye on her. She repeated the punch with her right arm a few times until it felt more natural and then moved on to doing the same thing with her left arm. With the experiments out of the way she had a proper flow about her punches and got more serious.

From Bokhams point of view the strikes them self weren't that heavy or threatening but the flow and technique she exhibited was above beginner level already. At first she had thrown some very bad punches but they improved very fast and it had not taken long for him to have anything to add to her technique and with that said, there was nothing else to teach a civilian.

"How about we stop with a bang? Hit me with your hardest punch." Bokham said while still blocking.

"Oh we aren't going to fight seriously? Aleyn asked while still striking his guard.

"Hmmf. There's no point for Captain of the guard to fight a civilian seriously. Sorry to disappoint you. Come on, hit me hard."

She understood what he meant but it was still quite annoying to hear. She kept throwing a few normal punches before getting ready for a bigger punch.

"What if.." She thought.

She took a quick breath. Before throwing the next punch she concentrated her energy towards her right arm. She was quite curious on how much it would effect her attack if she was to enhance her strength as she punched and surely Bokham wouldn't be too effected, him being so confident and all.

Bokham felt something off as Aleyn readied her next blow and as it came he realized exactly what was going on.

"Ooh. You still had something like that up your sleeve?" He thought.

As a response Bokham raised both of his arms in from of himself to block the blow. Aleyn saw it and was puzzled but had no time to think further as her fist connected with Bokhams guard.

When her fist connected felt like the usual impact force had disappeared on her side. It was as though she had just stopped her fist mid air as her punch came to an end, but in reality something else entirely had happened.

When the punch connected with Bokhams guard, her fist had pushed him backwards. Bokham had been sent moving back a few meters and even left drag marks on the ground. After seeing the scene and understanding what had happened Aleyn felt a surge of surprise and joy. It was the first time she had used her own power in combat and the results were much grander than she had expected.

"Hehehe. That's a good punch girl."

Aleyn snapped out of her excitement and turned to look at Bokham, was he alright?

Bokham was pushed back a good few meters but it was as though he had not moved a muscle in his body as he still had his blocking stance. He was completely unharmed and his arms seemed to be completely fine even after the impact.

"Yet you look perfectly fine."

"But of course! You think the Captain of the guard would be harmed by some unknown blacksmith? You would certainly be underestimating me if that was so."

Aleyn rolled her eyes. He sure had a lot of pride in that title.

Bokham turned to his trainees who had been dead quiet for the ordeal. At first they had no real expectations and felt frustrated that a civilian was eating their training time but after Bokham had given her a few blows without her even being bothered they had a change of heart. None of them expected her to blow him away even if she used some empowerment method.

He originally wanted to just humor her with a last hard punch while pretending it was stronger than expected, but his expectations had been far too low. Still, she hadn't been strong enough to get through Bokhams guard in any way.

"Now then, remember this. As a guard you are never allowed to underestimate. Criminals often hide their true power until they have a sure way of taking advantage of you and in most cases  cause severe harm If It was any of you who had taken that punch without caring I assure you, you would not be standing up for a good few months."

None of the trainees disagreed. Even though they could probably guard and suffer minimal damage, if they got hit head on without expecting it they would probably suffer greatly.

"Okay. No time for idling, we're behind schedule. You two at the back, you're next."

The duo took place in the middle of the arena and started fighting. Meanwhile Bokham and Aleyn sat down and started chatting.

"Got to say, its a surprise to have any civilian join the training. Is it the first time you've come here?" Bokham asked.

"Yes."

"Work not enough for ya?"

"Well after blowing up in rage over enchanting. I was given a four day ban to let out some steam."

Bokham raised his eyebrows.

"Though exercising today has made me feel a lot better already." Aleyn stated.

"You ever thought about joining the city guard? You would fit right in I reckon.Your physical condition is good, though you should probably do some endurance training since you couldn't keep up with the jogging part."

"Naah. I prefer not being tied to work like that, its far too much of a commitment." Aleyn said and shook her head.

"Shame."

**Smack**

A loud sound of fist hitting skin made Bokham and Aleyn look at the duo fighting. One of the trainees was on the ground holding their head while the other one stood over them menacingly.

"Okay that's enough you two! Next two, chop chop!" Bokham yelled and clapped his hands.

Two different recruits lifted the person from the ground and dragged them away since they had trouble standing up and two new trainees took place in the middle of the ring.

"Think I'll head out then. You mind if I join in some other time? I could use some training in fighting." Aleyn said and stood up

"Well I don't mind you joining. But honestly if you want to learn to fight then this is the wrong place. You should find someone who can teach you some proper martial arts." Bokham explained.

Aleyn thought for a moment.

"I guess that's a good point. Well thanks for letting me join anyway."

"Pleasure having you. Don't be a stranger." Bokham said and waved her off.

Aleyn returned to her inn room and went to have a bath to wash away her sweat and fatigue after which she dove in to bed early as she didn't feel like going out for an hour or two.

The next day she had a new plan. She had woken up very early in the morning at approximately 5am or so as she usually does, but today she couldn't just stride in to the workshop so she had a different plan.

Aleyn put on her leather jacket and pants before leaving the inn and left for the west entrance. The west entrance was only a short walk away from her inn and as she reached the end of the west entrance tunnel she took a look at the weather outside. Sun was shining and there was a little bit of snow falling but otherwise the weather was quite calm, just perfect for what she wanted.

Without further thinking she took off and started jogging at her own pace. The goal was to get back to the inn from the south entrance to the city. After yesterday it had become very clear to her that her stamina wasn't up to her own standards so she had to work it up gradually and there was no real other way to do it than just start exercising.

Running around the mountain wasn't dangerous either as the vicinity of the whole mountain was devoid of wildlife due to animals being scared off by the guards and people living around the mountain.

When she reached the south entrance she was huffing and puffing but she still had enough energy to jog back to her inn room. While jogging through the city she evaluated that her trip had not taken that long as the stores had not opened up yet and the merchants were still in the process of setting up their tents.

She reached back to her inn room and washed away the sweat before heading out to figure out what to do with the rest of the day.