After Axel left, Vargas magically appeared in the room and asked, "Will you truly let him attend the academy?"
Daniel looked at him for a moment and said, "No."
The butler sighed and stated, "Daniel, even if it may be out of place, I must say that what the boy said was not wrong." Daniel's gaze intensified at the Butler, who was his friend as well as his subordinate."What happened after the disappearance of the previous patriarch is a clear example of this. He always pampered you, just like you do your son. You know this as well, that you could have become so much stronger, and you had great potential as well, yet look at you now."
With every word Vargas spoke the pressure of Daniel intensified on him, but he did not stop from speaking the truth, "Would you rather give the boy false peace, rather than a chance to obtain true control, something that will finally shift the scale of the power."
Vargas could feel that his bones might crack if the pressure increased any more, yet his eyes were resolute as he kept hammering truth in his friend, "Sooner or later, he needs to become a Seeker, even for his own sake. The royal's will soon summon the Valkyrie. The threat of war hangs in the air. At that, you won't be by his side. What I meant by protecting him is ensuring that he has enough strength to protect himself." "And our enemies shall not stay idle, Daniel."
"YOU MUST UNDERSTAND…." he could feel his bones cracking, but the pressure soon vanished. Daniel let go of his body as he slumped in the chair. A defeated expression was plastered on his face.
They both kept silent until Daniel said, "Fine, but Axel needs to be good enough to get a spot on his own. And I will allow him to enter the competition only if he shows promising progress in 6 months."
Vargas smiled hearing that, "I will personally train him before the last 2 months of the competition. And 1 month after the competition, the academy will open."
Daniel felt defeated by his friend for some time, and he said while walking out, "I hate you." But the loyal butler only chuckled after hearing that.
A week passed and continued as usual for Axel, he could do basic exercises and train his body in the mansion until his instructor appears. But his instructor finally appeared on that day. It was a man with sharp features and bulging muscles but he wasn't too buff.
He had a well cut beard on his chin and his hands were not covered by clothes. He had intense gaze on his face as inspected the Young Master he would train. He introduced himself as 'William' to Axel and he was a 2nd Phase Seeker. Which surprised Axel greatly. He did not expect his father to get such an expert for his starting training when it seemed like he was more inclined to keep him away from any danger.
He also stated his position as the leader of the Guards unit of the Obsidian Trade group. William was likely one of the well-trusted men of his father. Though he wasn't the best in combat in the whole merchant group, he had his fair share of life and death experiences, which is why he was selected for his training. He also stated that he often trains recruits for various groups, so he was a very good instructor without a doubt.
William inspected the boy from head to toe, Usually, he would be very careful and handle the heir with care. Since the boy was the only child of their master, he most likely won't have any child in the future as well. Considering how much the patriarch used to love his late wife and still does. He could see the similarities the boy has with his mother just by looking at him. He also lost his memories of the past, which was another sensitive issue.
But Williams mind went back to what the butler said to him when he brought out the topic of training the heir, "Do not go easy on the boy. Be as harsh as possible in his training."
William was instantly angered, "Do you want me to die or something? Everyone knows how much the master loves his son."
The butler brought out a sealed emblem and gave it to William. He opened it and read its contents, and a serious expression appeared on his face. He looked towards the butler again and asked him just to be sure, "Are you sure about this? He won't be able to earn a good spot in the competition with this little time of training."
The butler said, "I will personally take over his training in the last 2 months, I only need need you to heat the metal, I will shape him into the sword."
He sighed and obeyed the orders that he was given. His mind focused back to the present. Now that the basic introductions were over. He started speaking to Axel in a authoritative voice, "Young master, from now on you will have 2 sessions of training everyday, for the first two months."
"One in the morning and one in the afternoon. There will be no rest at that time. When training is on-going."
First, will be training of the body. Second will be basic attack movements or weapon wielding.
These 2 will be the trainings in the first two months depending on the progress that Axel shows. Then we move to the next steps of the training, which is real combat. You will have to face me every day.
"Now, let's get to physical training." Stated William.
He asked Axel to do pushups as many times as possible until he was unable to do any more. Axel did as he was asked to do. He was only able to do 30 with all of his might. He was then asked to do a series of more basic exercises. His routine in the morning was basically to do 7 to 8 types of basic exercises without any equipment and some running for a certain amount of time. But there was a catch: he had to do one more of it every day.
Since he performed 30 push-ups on the first day, the next day, he would have to do one more. As for running, he had to run 1 meter further every day from the previous day in the limited amount of time.
The morning training session would begin every day at 8 am. Failing to do any of the exercises would make him need to do even more exercises. That was his punishment. He was a bit disappointed seeing that the training was nothing special. But he did not say it aloud. Even though it was something simple enough, he had a hard time doing all those exercises every morning.
As for his training in the afternoon, it was something similar but different. He was asked to perform various type of sword attacks on a wooden dummy. William counted the highest number of what he could do of every slash and he had to do one more everyday.
But that wasn't all. The sword he was given to wield was quite heavy and made of blunt and heavy iron metal. It was hard for him to lift the sword properly. Then, every time he swung his sword with the slightest wrong posture, it did not count, and he had to keep swinging it whether he liked it or not.
He refused to do one more slash after he was too tired at a certain point. He was beaten black and blue with a wooden stick. He glared hatefully at William, but he didn't care. The patriarch was the one who instructed him to not hold back on his punishments, and naturally, he wouldn't disobey those orders.
So, Axel could only endure regular beatings non-stop. When his physical situation became too severe, he would be given a low-quality magic potion that returned his body to normal. But that happens only when the situation becomes too dire.
Almost one month had passed till his training had started. Yet, his situation only kept worsening. William never complimented him, not even once, which only made him think that he wasn't doing well enough. At first, he was unable to keep his eyes open everyday right after the training. He would go straight to sleep the moment he entered the room and laid on the bed.
But his body slowly got used to the torturous training that pushed him to his limit in every single exercise, specially the afternoon training. He would still feel like going to sleep immediately after entering his room. But he forced himself to remain awake.
He brought back some books from the library. Things related to history, politics and governance, such general information's. It was quite strange, Axel remembered some things from the story yet there are a lot of things that he doesn't remember.
But the weirdest part is that he remembers a few things. The novel he read was quite a while ago, it was dropped by the author for some unknown reason. Unable to figure out anything about it, he simply decided to open one of the books related to history and started reading it with a tired mind.