Training

Training

By the time Diya returned home carrying the two-hundred-jin Bristle Boar on his shoulders, the sun was already sinking behind the western hills. From afar, Diya saw a graceful figure in white pacing in front of his house, and he froze at once.

He quickened his steps. So it was Christiana. Diya could not help smiling as he rushed up in front of her. "Why are you here?"

"Ah, well, I got lost." Christiana did not dare look at Diya. Her face reddened, and with both hands hidden behind her back, she tore that sheet of parchment to shreds. Diya looked at her in amusement and did not examine the ground closely.

"Lost again? Come in." Diya opened the courtyard gate and walked inside. Christiana followed curiously behind him, carefully taking everything in. So this was where Diya lived. It was quite simple.

"Sit down for now. I'll treat you to wild boar meat. It's very delicious." As Diya spoke, he walked into the kitchen. Most of the boar's blood had already drained out. Diya cut off one of the boar's hind legs, set the rest aside, and began preparing the leg.

He had no money, so he could not afford good seasonings, but the simple seasonings at home were still enough to make a decent pork leg. Christiana walked into the kitchen and watched the sword-light flickering through Diya's hands as the pork leg was shaved into slice after slice.

Before long, a rich meaty fragrance spread out from the kitchen. Christiana could not help wrinkling her pretty nose and sniffing. "It smells so good."

"Go sit on the chair in the courtyard. It'll be ready right away," Diya said with a smile. This feeling was a little warm.

Before long, Diya came out carrying a large plate, piled with many neatly cut chunks of meat. "Here it comes, beautiful lady. Please taste honey-roasted boar hind leg."

As he spoke, he placed the roasted meat on the table. Christiana looked at it and could not help feeling her appetite stir. At Diya's signal, she began to eat.

The two of them ate the great plate of roasted meat clean, leaving not a single bit behind.

"It's so delicious, much better than last time. I've never eaten anything like it." Christiana gently rubbed her stomach. "It'll be hard to eat it again in the future."

"If you want to eat it, that's easy. Just marry me," Diya said with a smile.

"You... I hate you. I'm not talking to you anymore." Christiana pouted, both cheeks red. It seemed that ever since she had come here, the blush had never faded.

"Hehe, if you want to eat it, you can come every day from now on. As long as I haven't left Carlos, you'll be able to have it." Diya very much wanted to pounce over and take a bite, but he could only endure the feeling in his heart. He directly shoved this thought onto that damned Diablo.

"You really are leaving Carlos?" Christiana's tone was somewhat dim.

"Hehe, I've already said this. Within three years, I'll go to Tax Academy to find you." Diya smiled, not lingering on the question of leaving Carlos.

The two of them chatted casually, as if cherishing this beautiful time. At some unknown point, Diya realized that Christiana's image had actually been imprinted in his heart, yet he had no resistance to it at all. Why should he resist? Wasn't it fine to let nature take its course? If his strength were decent right now, he feared he might even take the initiative and launch an attack.

"It's already very late. Aren't you going back?" Diya could not help asking as he looked at the sky, now filled with stars.

"You want me to leave that badly?"

"Of course. If you're willing to stay and sleep with me, I'd be even happier."

"I hate you. I'm not talking to you anymore. I'm leaving." Christiana blushed and rolled her eyes at Diya, then got up and walked out of the courtyard. In her heart, however, she did not know why she hoped Diya would speak and ask her to stay. As long as Diya asked, she would definitely stay.

"Wait." Diya's voice rang out. Christiana's delicate body trembled. Was it coming? Was it coming? She was so nervous, her heart was about to leap out.

"I need to take the boar to the commercial street and sell it," Diya said, turning back into the kitchen. He came out carrying the three-legged boar, and when he saw that faint, hidden disappointment on Christiana's face, he could not help laughing. "Little girl, you couldn't be thinking of staying, could you? Let me tell you, the consequences of that would be very serious."

"Villain, you're always bullying me." Christiana's thoughts had been struck dead center, and even her neck turned red. She spun around and rushed out the door. Diya could only lock the door and follow her, or it would be troublesome if she got lost again in a moment.

After seeing Christiana to the entrance of Carlos Academy, Diya turned and left, carrying the three-legged boar to Rose Restaurant. Only by selling this kind of wild boar to a restaurant could he get more money, and as the highest-class restaurant in Carlos City, Rose Restaurant was a chain throughout the entire empire.

Through a waiter, Diya found the person in charge of purchasing food for the restaurant. After a few words, they settled on the price for the three-legged boar. Because it was missing one leg, the boar's price was not that high, and it sold for a total of ten silver coins.

Over the next ten days, Diya went to Twilight Rainforest almost every day. Sometimes he found nothing; sometimes he hunted a boar or a python. After ten days, he had almost earned close to one gold coin. During these days, Christiana came four times in total. Each time, Diya teased her, but each time, aside from her coquettish annoyance, Christiana's heart was always sweet, in a way she could neither explain nor describe.

In the blink of an eye, the time he had agreed upon with Mousse arrived. Early in the morning, Diya set off and arrived at Mousse's blacksmith shop.

"Little brother Diya, you're here. Take a look at these things and see if you're satisfied." When Mousse saw Diya, he hurried over, handed five small swords to him, then pointed at the gray-black objects on the ground and said.

"Your craftsmanship goes without saying." Diya smiled. "I'll go find a carriage to haul them."

Beside Mousse's blacksmith shop, there was a carriage business. Besides renting and selling carriages, they also did hired hauling work. After settling the price, a carriage arrived at the entrance of Mousse's blacksmith shop. With Mousse's help, Diya loaded all those things onto the carriage, then climbed aboard himself and returned home.

After moving everything into the courtyard, Diya paid ten copper coins. The carriage left, and Diya began fiddling with those training tools.

Actually, these tools were all very simple. They were just relatively heavy. They were things like dumbbells, barbells, and horizontal racks. There were three rods in total, two small and one large. The small ones were about thirty centimeters long, while the large one was two meters long.

The rest were weight plates, some large and some small. The lightest were twenty jin each, nine plates in total. Then there were four plates weighing fifty jin each, followed by two plates weighing one hundred jin each.

Added together, if they were all placed on the large bar, the weight would be five hundred and twenty jin. Diya had already decided that when both his hands could easily lift a barbell weighing five hundred and twenty jin, that would be the time to leave Carlos City.

After assembling the dumbbells, Diya placed two fifty-jin plates on each dumbbell, then added one twenty-jin plate to each. He raised them with both hands and tested them, discovering that this weight still was not what he wanted. After testing until the end, each dumbbell had to reach one hundred and ninety jin before Diya felt it was strenuous to lift.

But only this way would it be effective. Heavy dumbbells challenged his limits. Although it was impossible to complete many sets of movements in one go, they had a unique advantage in training strength, while the lighter ones were meant to train the body's muscles and endurance. Diya alternated between these movements. What a strong person needed was not only powerful strength, but also sufficient endurance.

After finishing his dumbbell training, Diya began barbell training. At present, three hundred jin was a level Diya could easily reach, so Diya increased the barbell to three hundred and ninety jin, then lay down and began doing bench presses, flat bench presses, incline bench presses, and so on, not stopping to rest until both arms went soft and he no longer had the strength to lift.

From then on, Diya did this kind of exercise every morning. After midday, he would run briskly to Twilight Rainforest, find some ferocious beast or another, hunt it down, and carry it back. After a day like this, not only was his upper body trained, his lower body was no exception. With a plentiful supply of wild beast meat, Diya's body was rapidly strengthened.

Day after day, time passed. Aside from every few days, when Christiana came here once and Diya would take out a little time to keep her company, Diya spent all his other time immersed in training. Simple training tools, along with an ample supply of nutrition—day after day, Diya constantly broke through the limits of his body. With one hand, he could already easily lift one hundred and ninety jin; even two hundred jin could be lifted with ease.

However, there was still some distance before the goal Diya had set. And every day when he went to Twilight Rainforest to hunt ferocious beasts, apart from keeping a small portion to eat himself, Diya would take the rest to Rose Restaurant and sell it. This made the owner of Rose Restaurant very happy.

Because lately, with the ferocious beast meat Diya supplied every day, Rose Restaurant's business was much better than usual. Along with that, when Diya sold ferocious beasts, the price also rose somewhat. Therefore, after a month, Diya had already saved three gold coins. Added to the original one, he now had nearly four gold coins' worth of money.

Diya estimated that by the time he had completely finished his training, he would almost have saved five gold coins. It seemed this speed of earning money was not bad at all. If Uncle Fu were still here, he would definitely be very happy. They could have lived good days too, and all the hardships they had suffered in the past would have gone far away from them. It was just a pity that Uncle Fu could not share this happiness with him. Fortunately, during this period, Christiana came now and then to keep him company. Up to now, Diya had discovered that he truly had fallen for Christiana, and Christiana was the same. It was only that neither of them had pointed it out yet.