Okay, maybe I didn’t understand.

  It had been about a week since I had agreed to become a swordsman under Mira’s instruction, and I was already regretting it. To say I misunderstood what she would put me through would be an understatement. I knew the woman was crazy and expected something a little challenging, but I assumed my natural talents and superior intellect would allow me to skate through it with ease. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

  I woke up to the sound of banging on the door of the room I slept in.

  “Reylus! Reylus, wake up now!”

  I groaned as I awoke from what was a pretty decent sleep. I knew who it was, of course. It was Mira waking me up for another day of training. This had been going on every day with no break, and though it had only been around a week, I was already sick of it.

  I reluctantly rolled out of bed, knowing that there was no use in fighting her on this. I had already tried it earlier in the week on the second day of training. I was so exhausted from that first day of training that I refused to get out of bed the following day. Mira, however, wasn’t having it and barged into the room, dragging me out of bed and outside to train.

  I opened the door and was met with the sight of Mira looking down at me with her arms crossed. Her red hair was tied up in the back, and she wore her usual annoyed expression that she had been wearing lately. I guess I had a knack for annoying her.

  “Why is it every day with you, Reyly?” she huffed as she gazed down at me.

  “What do you mean?” I knew what she meant, but decided to play dumb as I wasn’t in the mood after being woken up so rudely by her.

  “Don’t play dumb with me. You know exactly what I mean. Your sister is already outside starting her warmup without me even needing to instruct her. Meanwhile, every day I need to come to your room to drag you out of bed. You need to start putting in effort. How do you expect to take advantage of your gifts with this work ethic? Even the most talented will go nowhere without hard work.”

  I rolled my eyes. It was barely even sunrise, and she was already giving me another one of her quote-unquote “motherly scoldings.” Who cared if Liora felt so eager to torture herself with exercises that she did them without being told? That was on her. I wanted to get strong, but there was no way for me to focus on exercising or anything like that. I just needed to learn how to use my mana capacity to my advantage. Until she began teaching me how to use my mana to be good with a sword, I would half-ass all of her lessons as best as I could.

  “Did you just…?” Mira glared at me before grabbing me by the arm and dragging me outside. Apparently, she wasn’t a fan of my eye roll.

  ***

  Outside, we were met with the sight of Liora doing pushups in the grass. Even though it was nice and cool that morning, Liora was still sweating. Pushups were the last exercise in the warmup routine Mira had assigned to us, which meant that Liora was just about done and explained why she was so sweaty.

  The girl actually looked a mess. Her shirt and trousers, as well as her face and arms, were covered in sweat, dirt, and grime. Unlike Mira, she hadn’t elected to tie her hair back, which led to her long red hair becoming a sweaty mess.

  Liora didn’t seem to notice us as she continued to do her pushups. Mira walked us over to Liora, and we stood by her.

  “Good job, Lia. You’re doing much better than your brother. I had to drag him out of bed again this morning.”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  I glanced up at Mira with a glare. I didn’t appreciate her using me to prop up this brat. I was actually doing the smarter thing anyway by not overworking myself. And again, I knew there was no need for me to work so hard because of my natural talent.

  Liora pumped out a few dozen more pushups before she stood up from the grass, huffing from the physical exertion.

  “I knew it was a bad idea to let him train. He’s too young, and it’s not fair anyway. You didn’t even let me start training until now,” Liora said, annoyed.

  She wasn’t too fond of the fact that Mira was allowing me to train with them when I was only three years old. It had taken a ton of begging for Mira to even allow Liora to begin training, and she was apparently starting early. But I guess my natural gifts were too great an opportunity to pass up.

  “Lia, we talked about this. Your brother has a gift that should be honed early on.”

  “Yeah, I know. But it’s still not fair,” Liora replied, still annoyed.

  Mira put her hand on Liora’s shoulder. “Don’t be upset. Today we’re gonna do some practical training.”

  Liora’s eyes lit up, and her annoyed demeanor faded away instantly. “Really?!”

  “Yep. As soon as your brother finishes his warmup.”

  The two of them turned their attention over to me, in the middle of wiping the lingering grogginess from my eyes. I had just woken up, been dragged outside, and now they wanted me to exercise.

  Could this life get any worse?

  ***

  Of course, it could.

  I had finished running the thirty laps around the Pinekeep property and collapsed in the grass on the front yard of the home. Huffing and puffing and gasping for air, I lay on my back and stared at the morning sky.

  I felt like I was about to puke, which I felt like every time I finished this part of the warmup. It had to be the three-year-old body that I was trapped in. Why would Mira think it would be okay to make a three-year-old run thirty laps around such a large property? It was child abuse.

  In the middle of catching my breath, Mira’s face entered my view as she looked down at me. “You’re not done yet. Why are you resting?”

  I groaned. “Can I catch my breath for five minutes?”

  “Don’t argue with me. Hurry up and finish so we can continue. Your sister’s waiting. You should’ve been done already.”

  I begrudgingly got up to my feet and got into the squatting position. One hundred squats were the second part of Mira’s four-part warmup. Doing these straight after a run was the worst. Every squat made my legs feel like they were catching more and more on fire. I hated it. I hated every part of this training. If I had known it would be this bad, I would’ve never agreed to it.

  It took around thirty minutes to finish the squats. Because it was taking so long, Mira and Liora had begun meditating in order to pass the time. I decided to continue without rest, knowing that if Mira caught me trying to relax, she would be pretty pissed off.

  I moved on to the one hundred situps. These were the easiest part of the warmup, as my legs could finally get a rest. Though just because it was the easiest part didn’t mean it hurt any less. The pain in my abdomen was immense, though it was nothing compared to the pain in my tiny legs. The main thing keeping me going, however, was the fact that I was nearing the end of this wretched workout.

  I knocked out the situps in around twenty minutes, then finally moved on to the final part of the workout. By this point, I was already physically and mentally exhausted. This was the most I had worked out in both my lives, and I was starting to appreciate not having to do it in my past life.

  But I had no time to think about all of that. I needed to get the last portion out of the way. Planting my palms into the grass, I began my pushups. Because I had been doing the same exercises for the past week with no break, my arms were already worn out. Every push-up was agony, and I had to stop multiple times just to give myself at least a tiny bit of rest.

  After another forty minutes, I had finally finished the warmup. I was tired, covered in dirt and grime, and all I wanted to do was sleep. My cyan hair clung to my face because of the sweat, making it difficult for me to see. In my past life, I started balding early on, so I never had to worry about that issue.

  I stood up from the grass, gasping for air, and turned my attention to Mira and Liora. The two of them were surprisingly still going, meditating and gathering mana as they waited for me to finish. I took another couple of moments to catch my breath and mentally prepare for what was next.

  Mira had said earlier that we would be doing practical training. I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but I knew that it would probably be more exhausting than the theory learning we had been doing in the previous days.

  With my breath recovered, I walked over to Mira and Liora, ready to continue on with the exhaustive morning of training.