“How much longer do I have to do this?” Ryan mumbled inaudibly as he punched the side of a cliff for the umpteenth time.

Richard was only a few metres away handling raging flames over a cauldron and a few jars; although he heard Ryan’s cries he simply ignored them, exerting all his focus on concocting pills.

Noticing that his plea was uncared for once again he carried on punching the stone cliff with even more force. After about an hour he went and picked up a sword and begun practising lunges, strikes and different other stances for a long period of time before picking up an axe to cut down a tree into small evenly sliced blocks for an hour.

He then picked up a wooden block from the tree that he cut and started carving into it and then finally after spending about 2 hours he sat down below a tree and meditated for the rest of the day.

For 2 months since the time Richard saved Oliver till now he spent his days under this dull schedule.

Just like that he repeated the same schedule once again the next day and so on for another week before his patience had been driven to the brink.

“AARGH!” He howled in frustration: “How much longer do I have to do this?!” His fist smashed into the Cliffside digging deep into it.

For a few moments, there was nothing but silence until a loud resounding laughter echoed from within the natural cave nearby.

Ryan twisted his head ferociously fast, snarling every word: “What’s so funny?”

Richard couldn’t help but chuckle a bit longer at the sight of Ryan’s warped expression, “You lasted over 2 months in this regime; I must admit I only expected you to last a month at most.”

“…” Ryan was on the verge of exploding, “Arggh! Forget it…” He grumbled.

“I don’t understand how this is training, I’ve spent my time practising the same thing over and over and over again, this is insanity!”

The same routine, every day that passed by was monotonous; every exercise was long and tedious despite all this he stuck to it all because he felt that Richard did this for his best interest.

“Insanity? Insanity is repeating the same thing expecting different results and this is anything but that.”

“Look over here,” Richard pointed at a Boulder with a small dent on it only a few centimetres wide and half the length deep.

“Do you not remember what I told you to do two months back? That was the result a small rock hitting a boulder a thousand times its size.”

Richard bent down, picked up a pebble and tossed it to Ryan: “Now throw!”

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Used to being told what to do, he held the pebble tightly pulling his arm back he launched the pebble, in a split second the hurtling pebble smashed into the boulder.

It only took a few moments until the results were visible spawning a dumbfounded expression on his face. The impact of the pebble created a crater half a meter deep and 3 times the length wide, if that was not enough webs of cracks appeared around the crater.

“The benefits right now are quite small, you may not realise this right now but you’ll understand once you become a Sage that these mundane exercises are priceless.”

Small? In what way is this small? Ryan’s earlier anger had disappeared and a feeling of achievement appeared in his heart.

“You’ll truly understand once you become a Sage because these exercises are tremendously beneficial for your control over your Sage force.”

“Just because it seems tedious doesn’t mean it’s useless, just from practising a thousand times your focus and control over your movements becomes an asset. A man once said this: ‘Fear, not the man who has practised 10,000 kicks, fear the man who has practised one kick ten thousand times.’”

“Strength is only gained through hard work, talent may let you grasp things faster than other people but a truly hardworking person with nothing but his aspirations in his heart will surpass a genius that never lifts a finger to get things done,” Richard answered with complete confidence in his own beliefs.

“Pick your sword.” He said to Ryan as he grabbed a stone from the ground, “Let me see how much your swordsmanship has improved.”

Without a second of warning, he threw the stone at Ryan, his eyes wide, staring at the stone drawing closer and closer to his face he raised the sword from his waist in one single fluid motion, and the sword arced through the air, the sun’s rays slightly glistened of its silvery surface.

“Clang!” The stone was sliced in half by the sharp edge of the blade its pieces flew passed him smashing into the tree behind him.

His grip hand trembled uncontrollably along with the sword’s edge; the force behind the rock was so strong, what is wrong with this man that could have killed me.

“Now look, if you hadn’t practised the sword like this for the past two months there is no way that you would have been able to block the stone I threw at you,” Richard explained to Ryan.

“The results of your training are right before your eyes my boy you just need to look around you. Don’t tell me you still haven’t realised this?” Richard pointed at the cliff where Ryan had trained his fists and on the Cliffside was a deep hole that he created a little while ago in anger

“Even the other exercises, punching the cliff for example, just because your body contains enormous amounts of strength you need to be able to use it for a prolonged time, so by punching the cliff you were able to strengthen your bones beyond its original limits.”

“Listen to me Ryan, by the time I finish cultivating you, only a few Sage Warriors will be able to hold their own against you.

Ryan stood there silently feeling guilt and regret rise in his heart if he had been more open-minded he would’ve realised everything without being told. Performing all the training in frustration and boredom he wasn’t able to realise the benefits that had slowly yet surely accumulated through his body.

“I’m sorry.”

“…” focussing on Ryan he shook his head: “Haha it seems you’ve realised your own inadequacies, Ryan you rely too much on me, rely on yourself more and figure things out on your own because there may be times where I won’t be there to solve your problems.”

Ryan nodded affirmatively.

Thereafter raising his hands silver glints appeared, coming together they formed a silver sword which he immediately grabbed: “From now on we’re adding an extra part to your training to make it more exciting, I’ll be sparring with you twice a day, both with a sword and without; hand-to-hand combat. This way you’ll gain experience in fighting.”

Lifting his sword straight at him, “Put everything I said aside for later and let’s begin!”