Chapter 468: Gruelling drills
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Watching this elderly man, guide Kuchai took a step back, while he waited till the elderly man finished his meal. Finally, he clasped his hands and bowed before speaking.
“Venerable Grandmaster Yabile, I’ve brought the man here.”
Elderly Yabile finally lifted his head, he was clearly past the prime of youth; his back slightly crooked , and he wore a set of black clothes. Most peculiar, was the hood that was covering his head; if one were to brush shoulders with him, one would only be able to see the bottom half of his face. His exposed skin was abnormally white, having the trademark limp and wrinkled properties of an aged person. Nonetheless, he exuberated a hatchet-beheading incisiveness.
“You’re here to learn the fist?”
The guide shook his head.
“Not me.”
Sheyan then took a huge step forward, cupping his hands before politely bowing.
“I’m the one seeking to learn the fist.”
Grandmaster Yabile didn’t return Sheyan’s formality. Instead, he allowed Sheyan to remain bowing, while he turned to examine the guide before sighing.
“It has been a year, but Kuchai, your body is plagued by a huge problem.”
Guide Kuchai was taken aback and rejected.
“Nothing of such, my body is perfectly fine. I even had a health examination in my company last month.”
Grandmaster Yabile smiled faintly as he surveyed around. Noticing several remnants of aluminium wires beside the window, most probably left behind by workers, he paraded over before casually pinching one with his fingers. After returning and twisting it 20 times, that aluminium wire naturally snapped. Following that, he once again retrieved another wire, and this time, twisted it 8 times. Then, he placed it before Kuchai.
“My child, can you see anything wrong with this aluminium wire?”
Kuchai inhaled deeply and shook his head.
“I can’t.”
Grandmaster Yabile then earnestly continued.
“Using ordinary inspection means, you definitely are unable to deduce what’s wrong with this aluminium wire, that I’ve twisted 8 times. However, you absolutely cannot dismiss that it contains a hidden flaw now. Similar to the illness in your body, an examination may fail to notice it, but you cannot deny its existence.”
Kuchai prostrated himself deeply, before he pleaded courteously.
“I beg for Grandmaster to save me.”
Grandmaster Yabile frowned faintly. Mysteriously when he frowned, he had a bearing of prestige instead of anger; emanating an impression that one shouldn’t offend him no matter what, but to timidly retreat a step back instead. Nevertheless, he also issued another sensation:
Warmth.
A warmth enhanced with awe-inspiring prestige.
“For your illness to be thoroughly cured, you must forsake your current livelihood and become a monk here; stay away from the allurement and degradation of life!”
Instead, Kuchai lifted his head in solemn declaration.
“Grandmaster, If I cannot earn enough to change the conditions of my hometown, I would rather die early than give up.”
Grandmaster Yabile released a long sigh as he waved his hand.
“Barei heard that you were coming, he has matters to consult with you.”
Kuchai nodded before slapping Sheyan’s shoulders, and walked out of the courtyard entrance. Only now, did Grandmaster Yabile raise his head to glance at Sheyan; while Sheyan was still maintaining his politeful bowing posture. Grandmaster Yabile snorted slightly, before striding forward to pinch Sheyan’s muscles and bones. Then, he bluntly called out.
“Naizhu!”
A young thai maiden of approximately 17-18 years old, sprinted over. Her skin was rather tanned. She stroked her hair while asking.
“What is it?”
Grandmaster Yabile glanced towards Sheyan and replied.
“This person is here to train, and seems like he has certain foundations from before. Directly assign him to the second tier training regime. Since he is someone recommended by Kuchai, then accept only 5,000 american dollars as the training fees.”
Naizhu replied.
“Alright, but it seems like big brother Kuchai had already paid up the fee, and twice the amount at that.”
Grandmaster Yabile raised a brow, but didn’t say anything else. Upon hearing that, Sheyan suddenly stood up and requested.
“Grandmaster Yabile. I wish to directly enroll into the harshest training regime. Money isn’t a problem.”
Grandmaster Yabile raised his eyes to stare at him, before chiding him.
“Young man, why the rush?”
Sheyan returned the eye-contact, but answered without cowering.
“I insist.”
Grandmaster Yabile broke into a coughing fit, before pointing at Sheyan and sternly rebuking.
“We’ll talk after you can complete the 2nd tier training regime. Now get out and change your clothes. The training starts in the afternoon!”
Sheyan humbly bowed to Grandmaster Yabile again, before following Naizhu out.
Of course at present, Sheyan was following according to the method explained by Reef. Through his nightmare imprint, he had confined his attributes/regenerative capabilities to a scope of 1.5x the average human; roughly the levelled standard of a muay thai trainee. If not, no matter how gruelling the training was, he wouldn’t be able to force out that mysterious potential within his body; thus, failing to awaken his innate abillity!
In the following days, life became dry and dull for Sheyan. On the daily schedule that Naizhu issued, the first program was waking up at 6 in the morning, before heading out for a run.
The exercise’s activities were for him to enhance his endurance, and refined the strength of his leg muscles; which would do great benefits for a muay thai expert when attacking or defending in an arena. Besides, a muay thai master had publicly acknowledged running as the fundamentals of training in this thai martial art. With Sheyan being directly enrolled into the 2nd tier training regime, he had to run barefoot with sandbags fastened to his calves.
After running a distance of 10 kilometres, revolving the village at a uniform velocity, he would then proceed back to the village for breakfast. The breakfast here was served in piping hot olive green banana leaves, and placed on a wooden table. Everyone would then scoop food with ladles in their bowls, and use a tiny plate to fill the ingredients.
Fragrant rice was steamed into cooked and dried rice; snow white and steaming hot. There were two types of ingredients – using mint leaves to wrap and boil fish, and the second was shredded pork and paste which was similar to sweet and sour pork.
However, those two ingredients had profoundly damaged Sheyan’s tastebuds, because the shredded pork had a flavour distinct of a blend between sweet and spicy; like having a bowl of simmer-fried beef noodle soup poured with a can of coke. As for the fish, it had a wave of minty taste, but added with a bizarrely strange sour flavour. Frowning as though he was about to die, Sheyan quickly found a sliver of solace in the form of the fish’s belly…….
At this moment, the panting Sheyan scanned around, tremendously craving for pickled tofu. Instead, he noticed the burly chap beside him sampling a method – soaking his fish with a soy sauce like item. Sheyan then asked to try, but was quickly defeated by the foul taste of something akin to rotten fish and shrimps. Actually, this was something called white soy sauce, a seasoning made from fish sauce. Its method of manufacturing was pretty similar to China’s soy sauce, mainly extracting the fermentation drips of small fishes and shrimps.
Hence, Sheyan could only grit his teeth as he headed to the kitchen in search for normal soy sauce, before wolfing down his rice. Fortunately, Thailand’s fragrant rice was world renowned. Moreover, this tiny village was exceedingly remote, its greenish pure nature was without much pollution. The rice cooked were purely white and al dente, where an unexplainable fresh taste would ooze out upon being chewed. Sheyan consecutively gorge himself with 4 bowls, before he exhaled happily and rubbed his stomach in satisfaction.
After resting for half an hour, the new recruits would change to a down-filled garment/cotton-padded jacket like clothings, and commence their rope skipping regime. The request was for them to skip over a hundred times every minute! Such skipping caused their bodies to be soaked in perspiration, even before sweat droplets had a chance to evaporate. This activity aimed to enhance the agility of their legs, and the reaction strength of one’s muscles.
Sheyan could clearly fathom that for some expert boxers, their rope skipping would unleash incomparably oppressive buzzing sounds of ‘shua shua shua’ into the air; appearing as though they could execute minimally 200 jumps in every minute. What was more absurd, were the 3 profound martial experts to his left. When they skipped, there would be others hurling plastic globes at their heads! Red plastic globes would require them to dodge, while white plastic globes would require them to headbutt with their heads!
Whenever one committed an error, their supervisor by the side would brandish a whip, and lash their bodies. A lash was enough to imprint a terrifying bloodied scar, obviously done without a shred of emotions. Furthermore, Sheyan could observe that those expert martial artist had their bodies riddled with dense masses of scars; both old and new. Evidently, they had gone through uncountable rounds of torture.
Witnessing such a scene, Sheyan wasn’t frightened but instead became joyous. He could sense that only with such stern training systems, could his innate ability be catalyzed out! Thus, he accomplished his tasks strictly according to the rules.
After the rope skipping regime was completed, a half an hour rest would again be continued with running. However this time, it was engaging in a repetitive, cross-country like, running exercise, at the mountains behind the village. This exercise persisted for roughy 2 hours.
After having lunch, they would finally get to rest. This rest period was relatively longer, and would persist until 4 in the afternoon; probably due to the morning exercise being too strenuous.
Following that, was shadow boxing; to operate their limbs.
Punching sandbags. Sheyan was instructed on several routine movements in circling around the sandbags. On one hand, it was aimed at polishing his footwork; on the other, it was to teach him to select his positioning, angles and distance when executing an attack. Moreover, he could observe several muay thai practitioners training with great excitement. Prancing and leaping high into the air, left and right movements, as they concurrently unleashed chain strikes of knees against their sandbags. Even the sandbags and its supporting frame were emittingmoans of heavy burden. One could describe their methods as incredibly vicious.
Finally, the last sequence was naturally duelling and sparring. But by now, this wasn’t something that involved a rookie like Sheyan. He changed into his shorts as he was led into a hut.
This hut had an utterly empty interior, and the floor concrete was embedded with densely packed holes. The concrete floor was smeared with purplish black stains, and the atmosphere had an unspeakable bitterness of cruelty. Sheyan scanned his environment, while his heart thought; did I just enter an interrogation torture chamber?
Naizhu then entered with a wooden stick wrapped with skin, and poked it into a concrete hole on the ground, setting it rigidly in place. Then, she proceeded to instruct Sheyan, and demonstrated a series of moves that required one to stand motionless where one was; before employing one’s shins to kick forth. However, using one’s sole to stomp was disallowed. Only after snapping the bowl-sized thickness wooden stick, could he rest.