Adam sat back against the wooden panelling that acted as a wall. His back was covered in sweat, it made the white shirt he was wearing uncomfortable stick to his back. His jacket was unceremoniously dumped towards the side, clearly ripped in multiple places and covered in a thickened sort of dirty dust, the type of which you find in a dustbowl. His pants were similarly dirtied, however, thankfully they were spared from any profuse ripping. His belt had multiple brown streaks besmirching the glossy black leather surface, the belt buckle was no longer a shining silver but a battered metallic object.

Adam would want nothing more than to enter the sweet embrace of sleep at this moment in time, from his rolled back sleeves could be seen a great many red marks, the prophetic herald of unrestrained bruising. If he had a mirror, he would find similar marks around his face and a very inflated left brow.

"Get up." He said.

It was getting repetitive, every time he wished to lie down he would get pulled back up for another round of beatings by Mr. Li.

Another damnable beating by this man, Adam could swear he would die if he was pulled back up one more time, this time he refused to stand up, instead sprawled on the floor and leaning on the wall.

He just felt so tired, the worst thing was that 'Adam' was just standing by, almost as if his life wasn't in any danger.

Adam closed his eyes, he just wanted it to stop.

Adam lost himself in the bliss of the hard wooden floor, his body ached but at least he wasn’t being hurt anymore.

He thought back over his life so far.

A man talking to his primary school teacher, the man resembled Adam in many different features.

His mother preparing a delicious dinner, his father reading the newspaper by the side.

His father in a business suit, heading off to go to work.

Two sombre men dressed in black suits, much like the one that he had been wearing hours prior.

A letter in his hands which the two sombre men had given him.

A tearstained letter.

A tearstained letter detailing condolences regarding his father's death.

…

Mr. Li couldn't have been more aghast to find the work ethic from his new disciple.

He couldn't even spar with him for more than two strikes, the first one of which was a probing strike.

No matter what Mr. Li tried, this arrogant young man refused to stand up, just because he had gotten a few bruises here and there.

He sighed and took a long look at this failed disciple, cowering on the floor like a whimpering stray.

Mr. Li had held great prospects for this young man, perhaps he could have even surpassed him with his amount of martial talent.

Adam was still sprawled on the floor, until he suddenly had the nerve to close his eyes, just doze off to sleep right in front of him.

Mr. Li snapped and was about to perform the seventeen kicks of defection on him when Mr. Li suddenly spotted a tear form on the corner of the young man's eyes.

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It wasn't one to be formed from immense physical pain, but rather, emotional pain. Mr. Li could see much of his own life within the tear that this young man had shed on the floor in front of him.

He resigned himself to a sigh and determined that this young man should maybe deserve a second chance, simply from the virtue of being kindred spirits.

Mr. Li held the young man's arm and lifted him to his feet, then he led him to a wooden well in the courtyard of his home.

The young man was shaken from his sleep, his tears were still smothered around his eyes. However, instead of finding an expression of complacence, he found an unyielding spark of anger within the greyish green pupil of his eyes.

A spark of utter rage, one that promised a deep-seated enmity with the world.

Mr. Li smiled, perhaps there was some hope for this unwilling pupil just yet.

Mr. Li lifted Adam with both of his arms, then he threw him into the well.

Swiping his sleeves, he closed the cover of the well to the sound of a body being plunged into a body of water.

…

Adam had gone past the point of panic, by the point that he realised that he would be thrown into the well he was already calculating the best way to survive.

Thankfully his heightened [Awareness] didn't require him to be in a sound physical condition, in fact it even worked while he was unconscious as he seemed to predict when Mr. Li would suddenly grab him.

When he was falling into the well, he used his heightened perception to observe his surroundings. The walls of the well were made of coarse cut stone, mould and foot holds prevalent all around them. The water was about six metres from the surface of the well, it seemed to have a low level of turbidity as it was quite clear in the low level of light.

Under the surface of the water the well went on for another ten metres until it reached a stone bed covered in some sort of algae. A number of critters seemed to have made this place their habitat, three lotus flowers were in the process of blooming within the well, a frog sat in a corner of the well, sitting atop one of the lotuses and preying on the mosquito population.

When Adam had plunged into the water the only thing he could feel was a biting chill penetrate into the deepest recesses of his body. A stinging sensation seemed to tentatively emanate into his body, similar to when one's body is falling asleep, however a thousand times more painful, feeling more like icy needles digging into his skin.

He had to get out of here, he would die if he did not.

This would be the first time there was a real threat to Adam's life, that time with the vigilante wouldn't count because he had the entire situation under control.

Inside this well however… Adam could very well imagine the cold stone walls of this place becoming his watery grave.

Maybe within a few decades, all that would be left of him would be a cleanly picked skeleton the colour of pure alabaster, of course, inside the soggy remnants of his funeral clothes.

The darkness was another factor that would have been the final straw that broke the camel's back for any other man. Any other individual would have broken down into inconsolable sobbing at the peril of the situation within the absolute darkness.

However, for Adam, the darkness was his only comfort. The embrace of an old friends throughout difficult times, that was what he needed now. Most humans would be afraid of the dark because historically they were the most vulnerable during night time, mere prey to be slaughtered at the whim of the hunters of the night.

However, [Shadow Monk] had changed him, he was no longer mere prey to be harvested at the coming of night, now he was one of the hunters on an instinctual level.

This brought him to his current situation, he had to get out of the water immediately, he didn't know enough technical knowledge to see that he would get hypothermia if he stayed in the water for an extended period of time, but his mind intuitively told him that it wasn't good.

There was a handhold in the cobbled wall next to him, he reached out for it and managed to pull himself out of the water with one hand.

His body seemed to weigh as much as concrete, worse, slippery concrete. At wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that it took a herculean effort to pull himself out.

Then, he slipped back down again, his lip smashed against the rocks, letting a stream of metallic taste flood his mouth and trickle out through his lips.

This wouldn't work, it handhold was at an incline in which it made it impossible for someone to hang on for more than two seconds.

His mind seemed to be working three times as fast as it usually did, he was able to spot trends, formulate numerous routes in which to stay out of the water.

Settling on one, he finally tried once more to pull himself up, then, instead of hanging on as much as he possibly could he pushed outwards and leapt towards the other side of the wall, finding a small measure of footing in the lotus flowers due to how closely linked they were.

He fell down again, however, he persevered, he tried time and time again until he lost count.

His entire body felt as if it had gone above and beyond multiple times, yet, whenever he applied himself he found that they always found something more to power them, to propel them that extra mile.

It may have taken hours, however, he found himself about a metre above the body of water and in a secure position in which both his feet were solidly placed in opposite footholds, allowing him to finally gain some small measure of rest.

Thinking back, before he had gotten the [Shadow Monk] class he would have never been able to force himself to do a tenth of the effort he had done in the past few hours. He may not have noticed it but levelling up seemed to grant an overall increase in his strength, it fact, the difference was as much as that between that of heaven and earth.

The current situation continued on for another two days. He was sometimes forced to lower himself so as to drink water, from the well.

In the beginning his body had felt as if it was going to tear apart, however, it slowly began to adapt. His body felt less sore and instead found some small measure of comfort whilst being strenuously exercised. He began to move in many ways he would have found impossible prior to being dumped within the well.

However, the human body had a limit. Even one that had been levelled up multiple times.

He was suspending himself against the cobbled walls when the hatch to the well opened up and a rope was thrown in. He eagerly reached out towards it, only to find that it wasn't attached to anything.

Both he and the rope dived into the well.

'You aren't making it easy for me, aren't you old man?'

'Adam' was laughing this time, strangely enough considering that it had stayed quiet all this time.

Holding down a lungful of air, he dived into the bottom of the well to pick up the fallen rope.

Within ten minutes, he had attached it to the multiple handhold in the well and used it to climb out, luckily it was night time so he wasn't blinded when he climbed out.

Mr. Li was standing a few metres in front of him, looking at him in an insulting manner.

"Ten minutes!"

"Every time you are late to one of my lessons, that's how long we will spar."

Adam didn't have enough time to register what was being said to him before Mr. Li had appeared before him, thrusting a palm towards his solar plexus.

Adam wasn't about to allow a repeat of last time and dodged backwards once more, however this time he formed shadows around his fists and copied the movements of Mr. Li that he had used yesterday.

It was a clumsy attempt, but it was an attempt which worked. He had managed to parry the first couple of strikes.

Mr. Li's pupils constricted when he saw the shadows around Adam's hands, but he shockingly responded by allowing a blue light to radiate from his palms.

Mr. Li was an awakened too!

Moreover he also seemed to have taken a variant of the monk class.

Mr. Li only seemed to be getting started, he advanced further with a flurry of attacks in which his own improvised techniques couldn't seem to handle very well, if not for the fact that Shadows were disguising and making his movements hard to follow, he would have been felled already.

Then again, as the aura of Shadow seemed to boost his own attacks, Mr. Li's aura similarly boosted his own.

The movements of his hand were constantly flowing, never stopping, an endless current of inexhaustible attacks. Furthermore, every single strike seemed to chill his arms, to the point that a layer of frost had appeared on the surface of his skin.

Furthermore, the extent of his techniques seemed all encompassing, almost as if he was only playing with him.

"Remember young disciple, the first lesson I'll give you, never be late!"

Henceforth, Adam was never late, not even for the most trivial of things for the rest of his life.

That was also around the time that his body couldn't hold up anymore against Mr. Li and succumbed to unconsciousness.