Chapter 98: The Talent of Being Able to Give Up (1)
Luke, Anis, and Taragon, the three under Keter's instruction, faced both agony and joy in their grueling training. They pushed their stamina beyond its limits, pulling strength from nothing to escape the deadly experience of their bodies lighting on fire.
Conventionally, after such severe physical strain, rest was mandatory to recover from injuries and muscle soreness. But when they woke the next day, they found their wounds healed and their strength fully restored. This was thanks to Keter's use of middle-grade elixirs, each costing a staggering one thousand six hundred gold. Upon realizing this, they could only laugh while holding back tears.
They always had the option to quit. Keter reminded them frequently that if they wanted to give up, they were free to. Yet no one ever did—not because of the expensive elixirs but because they had their own reasons, their own desperation to persevere.
Day after day, they repeated the same grueling regimen. They ran until completely drained of stamina, and when they couldn’t get up, they were lit on fire. Time seemed to crawl during their runs across the training grounds, every second stretching into an eternity, but by the time they came to their senses, the day would already be over.
Normally, awakening Heavenly Strength would take at least half a year. But with Keter's relentless, unyielding methods, the three managed to awaken it in just one week. Their endurance and physical strength had also grown exponentially.
“Well, running laps every day was boring, right?” Keter said with a smirk. “Now that you’ve got Heavenly Strength and some decent stamina, let’s move on to something more fun. That was just the warm-up.”
Taragon muttered in disbelief, “That was a warm-up? I swear I saw my life flash before my eyes at least six times.”
Luke and Anis didn’t say it aloud, but they felt exactly the same. There was no way to mentally prepare for what kind of training was going to come next, especially since Keter’s training methods were so unorthodox and often beyond imagination.
“Do you know what you three are lacking the most right now? Everything, but the most critical ones are imagination and faith.”
“...?”
Sure, Taragon might not have understood as he was the most ordinary among them, but even Anis and Luke, who were considered prodigies and gifted, couldn’t understand. No one could, regardless of their background.