Chapter 7 of 10

Chapter 7

14 min read3,417 words

Yan felt extremely exhausted. He wasn't sure if bringing Zoro along to exercise was a mistake. Running around the village, he had to correct Zoro's direction 128 times, and the entire morning was spent with Yan's roars.

Finally, after the running was over, Yan led him to a small forest near the sea.

"Next is sword swinging practice!" Yan panted, "After the sword swinging, we'll do strength training!"

Another full thousand sword swings, and each time he had to focus entirely on the experience. However, it seemed that he was gradually getting used to it. After finishing the sword swings, Yan found that his arm muscles weren't as weak as they were yesterday.

Yan completed the sword swinging practice first. Then he found some ropes, tied two large stones weighing dozens of pounds, and found a sturdy tree. He threw the rope over the branches, using the branches as a lever. He held one rope in each hand and started pulling, mimicking the motion of punching.

This was a simple way of strength training, right?

While Yan was desperately training his strength, Zoro was still doing the sword swinging practice. After mastering the basic movements yesterday, Zoro today took up two bamboo swords and attacked the target tree stump with all his might. It seemed he was determined to stick to the path of dual swords.

Yan didn't bother with him. The two were actually training separately, using each other as motivation, and Yan would occasionally correct Zoro's movements.

When Zoro's sword swinging practice was finally over, Yan's strength training was also nearing its end. He was drenched in sweat and wanted to collapse on the ground.

"It's my turn!" Zoro eagerly picked up the rope Yan had thrown aside and started pulling it.

For a child, two large stones weighing dozens of pounds were no small feat. Yan watched Zoro's grimacing face and suddenly chuckled. He tied a smaller stone to the remaining rope and handed it to Zoro.

"Here, bite it with your teeth! And don't let it fall," Yan said.

"Why?" Zoro asked, puzzled, "You didn't do that just now!"

"Trust me, you'll need it in the future!" Yan said with a mysterious smile.

Yes, you will definitely need it in the future, because the path you will take is not dual swords, but triple swords!

Thank me, I'm helping you train your jaw early...

Due to Yan's mischief, Zoro started training for triple swords. He bit the hanging stone with his teeth, tried to stand as straight as possible, and pulled the other two large stones with his arms. His whole body started trembling, but he persisted bit by bit.

Yan didn't bother with him anymore. He picked up a larger stone, lifted it over his head with both hands, and started doing squats, similar to weightlifting, to train his waist, abdomen, and legs, which would effectively improve his speed.

So far, his attribute growth came from two sources: one was the bonus from cards, and the other was his level increase. Besides that, Yan wondered if his attributes could also be improved through his own training.

So all the training he was doing now was just exploration.

The two didn't talk much, sweating profusely, and continued training until noon. When they were too sore to continue, they finally stopped.

Lying on the ground, both were panting heavily. Yan adjusted his breathing, trying to recover his strength as quickly as possible. After a while, he finally managed to get up. Just as he was about to call Zoro, he found that the kid had fallen asleep!

This habit of falling asleep so easily, did it start from childhood?

Yan shook his head helplessly, picked up Zoro, and slowly made his way to the dojo.

What they didn't know was that on the hill above where they were training, Kuina appeared, equally tired and sweaty. But when she looked down at Yan and Zoro's training spot, her eyes were filled with determination...

After lunch and a rest, Yan took Zoro to the dojo's fields, where they started working with hoes. In the evening, they continued their training.

During this time, Zoro would seize every opportunity to challenge Kuina, but unfortunately, he was always defeated.

Strangely, even though Yan and Kuina were now evenly matched, Zoro rarely challenged Yan. Instead, he followed Yan and trained with him, but he was always eager to challenge Kuina, even though he was always beaten up. This happened at least three or four times a day, which made Yan suspect that Zoro might be a hidden masochist...

What Yan didn't know was that Zoro's thoughts were actually very simple. For Zoro, Yan, who had been training him to get stronger, was like an older brother or a senior. But for Kuina, she was his rival.

Different roles naturally led to different treatments. Being occasionally beaten by a senior was normal, but being beaten by a rival was unacceptable.

Except when challenging Kuina, Zoro almost always followed Yan. Just like Zoro didn't want to lose to Kuina, Yan didn't want to be outdone by this two-year-younger kid. The two worked hard to get stronger, which in turn motivated Kuina to train even more.

A strange competition formed among the three...

Gorosei, of course, saw all of this but didn't interfere. He just smiled and let it be.

Thus, more than a month passed.

During this month, Yan's body underwent significant changes. His muscles started to form, and although he was still a bit thin due to his young age, the aura of strength was beginning to emanate from him.

His hypothesis was confirmed: self-training could also improve his attributes.

However, this improvement was slow. For example, if he could lift 100 pounds with 20 points of strength, he would need to lift 110 pounds or more to gain another point of strength. Each time he broke his limit, he would gain 1 point of strength.

After more than a month of continuously increasing the weight of the stones, Yan had only gained 3 points of strength...

It was slow, but it was a supplement to Yan's strength. In the peaceful village of Fushimi, there were no bandits, let alone any enemies. The only opponents Yan could find were Kuina and Zoro. However, he couldn't beat Kuina, at best they were evenly matched, so he couldn't gain any experience. Zoro could be beaten, but the experience gained was minimal, only 50 points each time, while leveling up from level 1 to level 2 required 1000 experience points.

He couldn't possibly beat Zoro every day, right?

In other words, Yan's level wouldn't increase much in the short term. Without leveling up, his cards couldn't be upgraded either. He had asked the system, and the card level couldn't exceed the host's level.

So the only way to increase his attributes was through self-training.

Fortunately, after more than a month of relentless practice, his basic sword skills finally reached full proficiency.

It was a strange feeling. When his basic sword skills reached full proficiency and upgraded to beginner-level sword skills, Yan suddenly found that his body's memory of the sword was completely different.

There was no obstruction or hesitation. The bamboo sword in his hand no longer felt like an external tool. It felt like a part of his body, and he could control it as easily as his own arm.

Perhaps due to long-term, consistent practice, the improvement in his sword skills came naturally, and the bottleneck he had imagined didn't appear.

This should be a process of qualitative improvement through quantitative change, Yan thought.

[Beginner-Level Sword Skills: You have gained a qualitative understanding of the sword. Your sword speed +10%, destructive power +10%]

This was the system's attribute description for beginner-level sword skills. The increase in sword speed was easy to understand, but the increase in destructive power was a bit confusing. While the data was there, there was no clear standard for what 10% destructive power meant.

So, after some thought, Yan could only interpret it as causing more severe injuries when hitting an opponent.

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