Raiden awoke, and he was back in his bed. Dang it!

  The day started like normal, minus the shot glass of bone density gag reflex, thankfully. Breakfast, PT, and then his lesson. Arriving for the lesson, Hehlef commented, “I’d ask how your training went, but I heard you slept through it. I did warn Mr. Maano to start gently with you.” After the lesson finished she wheeled him back to the training grounds and from this time on he would drink his stamina potion only right before entering the building for maximum benefit.

  Upon seeing them enter the building Zep sighed and lowered his head. Lifting his head back up he commented, “Is it that time of day already? I’ve been preparing this place for the beginning of the Annual and was sick of moving heavy furniture around all by myself. But with you here it doesn’t sound so bad and I almost want to get back to it.”

  “More light, Instructor Zep,” Raiden began in an attempt to shift the conversation.

  “More light to you…” Zep replied, and then deadpanned slowly, “Lunar boy,” finishing with a stare.

  Beating Raiden at the staring contest again, Zep took Raiden into the open grounds and said, “Ok, this time we are starting you at the rock bottom and working our way up. One rep of each drill with rests in between. You will end up resting more than a crippled sloth at the zoo, but perhaps we can at least drag out more total reps that way.”

  They have sloths here? Humans and now sloths, I wonder if everything here is like Earth.

  With the plan laid out they began. Zep shouted, “Give me a lunge you muscle deficient primitive achbee.”

  That answers that, I’ve never heard of an achbee, something for my word list. Raiden replied, “Yes, Instructor Zep.”

  “Now, sit and rest, you poached egg.” Zep finished with bitterness in his voice.

  “Yes, Instructor Zep.” Raiden said, adding softly in English, “you slave driver.”

  “Say what, now!?”

  “Nothing, Instructor Zep,” then even softer in English, “you stink for brains.”

  During the reps, Zep taught Raiden all kinds of new words and phrases. It was interesting how they translated. Raiden had a pretty good idea what phrases some of them were equivalent to in English but he chose to translate them in his mind to the literal words as he found that more entertaining. That way the phrases sounded more like, ‘your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries,’ and ‘I fart in your general direction.’ Ah Monty Python, classic stuff.

  Through the drills they went, and sure enough, Raiden was able to get through three rounds without passing out. He had gotten low on stamina, but Raiden hadn’t approached the point of his vision going dark even once. While the single reps had been working, there was a downside.

  With resting taking so much longer than the reps, it took a considerable amount of time to get reps done, and Zep was clearly frustrated. By the end of the third round Zep’s patience was spent. “Launch me one way to the veil child if I have to suffer another round like that. Let’s increase to two reps per drill and see which of us passes out first.”

  Raiden was rather surprised at how many total reps he was doing. Two more rounds at two apiece jumped his total reps of all drills from 12 the first day to 35 the next. Interval training was exactly what he needed for total progress. Zep, the old cretin, knew his stuff.

  “Alright son, I can’t let you leave here without pushing you to your limits, and we’re nearly out of time. Get up and walk to the door at a brisk pace. It’s only about 10-12 strides. I’ll place your wheelchair over there—let’s see if you can reach it.”

  To Raiden’s surprise he was already walking more at the end of the workout than he used to be doing at the beginning. I just might make it to the chair, Raiden said while counting his steps, 6, 7, 8,—blackness surrounded him and he was out.

  The next morning, Raiden woke with infused excitement—and cramps up and down both legs. Tossing and grabbing his legs, he feared he might pass out from the exertion of the cramps, and then waste an entire day. Hehlef quickly came to his rescue with a thimble of something that looked like engine coolant. It was green, but almost glowing green like radiation.

  Could this turn me into the Incredible Hulk? Raiden’s thoughts began distracting him from the issue at hand until the spasms in his legs reclaimed his attention. He was unwilling to pause long enough to ask what it was, so he quickly downed the potion.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  It had a similar feeling as the stamina potion did, the energy rippling through his body; but the taste, oh man, the awful taste. No honey in this one! It’s more like super earthy spinach—moss?—green algae maybe.

  Algae or not, that energy ripple did move the potion through his body at a blessed speed. And where the potion went, the energy gathered and quelled the cramping. His muscles were still tight and tenuous, they weren’t healing instantly, but he could tell it was healing fast enough to observe it.

  In relief he sighed, “Thanks Hehlef, I really needed that. What was it?”

  “That was a healing potion.” Hehlef stated, holding up the empty vial before placing it in her pocket. “Given your weakness, a basic body elixir wouldn’t have worked quickly enough to stop your cramps before you passed out. However, healing potions are extremely expensive, and if you did not need such a small amount, I would not have been able to give it to you. So, enjoy it while you can because starting tomorrow, you will only receive the body elixir.

  “Someone will give it to you first thing every morning, as we did with the bone density potion. The day after starting new workouts is always the hardest, so you should be fine with the body elixirs from now on. I would give them to you after workouts to work while you sleep, but it is better for your body to learn to recover more on its own right now. This will help you build up your recovery speed. Besides, you never return conscious enough to drink it.”

  Recognizing this would help him immensely, Raiden shared, “I double thank you, then. So…what exactly is a body elixir, and how is it different from the healing potion?”

  “A body elixir contains the physical materials and nutrients your body needs for healing, already pre-digested for immediate use. It has no magic; instead, your body’s natural recovery does the healing. This means it only works as fast as your own healing process allows. Still, it provides everything your body needs to ensure you will heal at your maximum possible speed.

  “It also has the same unpleasant taste of a healing potion, minus the tingly sensation of immediate healing, so that you can start your day with a foul taste in your mouth.” She smirked with a half grin.

  You just couldn’t let me go without a miserable drink to start the day, could you! He steamed in a mumble to himself. “Hehlo darkness my old frieeeend,” Raiden sang, “you bring me poison once again.”

  Hehlef gave him a confused look. “You never run out of those do you?”

  “Nope.” He replied.

  “Returning to your question,” she resumed, “a healing potion is a body elixir infused with magic. The elixir provides the material your body needs to recover, and the magic accelerates and enhances your healing ability to use those materials. It speeds up your healing process and expands what you can heal.

  “While your body wouldn’t naturally regrow a finger, a healing potion could achieve that. The higher the quality of the potion, the more it can heal. This magical infusion is why you felt the energy spread throughout your body, similar to the stamina potion.

  “Because someone with magic used their energy to infuse the potion with a healing spell, it costs more than a regular body elixir. You’ll learn more about this from your instructor when the Annual begins.”

  With that Hehlef walked out and Raiden could hardly contain his excitement. This new world had magic, and he was going to learn it!

  Soon Rehtu arrived with his breakfast. “More light, weirdling.”

  “More light, Master traveler.” Raiden replied as they exchanged grins.

  By the time he finished breakfast he felt more sturdy and ready for his daily PT. Raiden wasn’t entirely sure why they continued with the PT because he had nothing to heal from; but Rehtu continued to mix up his regimen and he figured it was designed for his low muscle density. Balancing exercises had been added by now and all of it was still doing him some good.

  Later that day when Raiden arrived at Zep’s office, Zep was visibly less agitated than the day before, and they went right to work.

  “Alright, Lazy Lunar, today we’re stepping up the intensity,” Zep barked out. “To maximize stamina training, we need to alternate muscle groups to prevent fatigue from yesterday’s exercises. So, today’s drills are different: walk up the mound two steps, rest, walk down two steps, rest, two sit-ups, rest, and finally two push-ups. Let’s get to it!” This time on round four, Raiden passed out during his third pushup.

  The cycle continued: reps, pass out, repeat. Soon, walking was removed from the drills and just used as a way to get to new drills. The variety of the drills also expanded to include using some of the equipment near the grounds, walking on a balance bar with the help of hanging rope, monkey bars made out of wood, uneven stairs and a rope swing.

  The monkey bars were especially menacing to Raiden. Trying to hold his weight with his hands was nigh impossible, holding with one hand to grab the next bar took a lot out on him. At least he could use both hands with the rope swing. At first he would only travel two bars, one for each hand, and then Zep had to help him down.

  Dropping from a height of only a few feet was not a good idea for him in his condition. Zep wasn’t a fan of having to haul him up and down, but Zep continued with it. Raiden wasn’t entirely sure if Zep wasn’t just doing it as a form of torture. Already his hands were blistering up.

  As the days passed, Raiden kept increasing his reps, Zep varied his drills, and Raiden ended each workout by passing out.

  Raiden also kept learning new phrases from Zep, albeit ones he probably should avoid using. Raiden had no way to tell which expressions were harmless and which were universally vulgar, but he was pretty sure at least some of the nasty ones were mixed in there, and it was always better to be safe than sorry. Maybe I should just say them in Spanish so they don’t sound so bad? That worked at home.