In a dimly lit room, one can see the silhouette of a guy, about six feet four inches, neatly folding clothes and placing them inside duffel bags. This person is our MC, Avol.
It's been five years since he started his training and his body had gone through ground breaking changes. If you look in his eyes, you will see what can be likened to a will of steel. He had also kept his hair quite short during these five years when he found out that it only got in the way of his fights and exercises. Although the way he found out was quite brutal, with him having to take a beating in one of his spars against a gym member.
Well at the moment Avol was quite respected amongst the gym members as he had proved his strength even amongst those older than him.
In the past five years, Avol's training went like so.
For the first six months, Avol did a lot of body conditioning, which included increasing his base bodily statistics. Meaning he trained his base strength, speed, reflexes, stamina, endurance and a little bit of his perception.
For speed and endurance, he was made to run on the treadmill at a particular speed and he was told to not stop until he was given the permission to. At first, he wasn't able to properly do it, but a month later, after his eighth birthday, he experienced a breakthrough. It was almost like his body had been restricting him from doing anything that would be overly strenuous but after his birthday, he kept breaking through his limits little by little and his body kept adapting to his improvement.
For his stamina, this kept increasing along with his speed to accommodate him constantly breaking his limits. At the moment, he had enough stamina to contend with a high school student in his late teens.
For his reflexes, he was made to constantly dodge, catch or deflect fast moving tennis balls shot from different pitching machines from different angles. The pain from getting his by hit by the balls was enough motivation to do his best and dodge them without much complains. After all, if he couldn't even dodge them properly, how could he even manage to deflect or catch them.
For his perception though, he was first blinded folded and the made to dodge cane strikes from various directions. At first, he wasn't able to dodge any of them. He later developed a method to do so by focusing all of his concentration into his hearing and even then, he was only able to dodge two at a time. This method only worked for a short time though as Sebastian took over this aspect of his training and began sending strikes at Avol showing his mastery in weapons by not receiving any air resistance to make any moving sounds from his strikes. This caused Avol to receive several lashings since he couldn't hear them. But alas, he developed a form of sixth sense that informed him of imminent danger and allowed him to dodge as long as his body could keep up.
After training his body and reflexes, he then began his combat training. He first started by learning basic hand-to-hand combat. This was ensured by Sebastian to make sure he had a good foundation. He also added a little bit of meditation to it.
By the end of the next six months, Avol had already grasped the basics and was at the cusp of developing his own wild fighting style from sparring with different people at the gym.
Avol, then went on to learn different known fighting techniques, from MMA to taekwondo, Kungfu and even karate. He kept training this for the next one year and being the fast learner he is, he became quite adept at all of them. He was even able to contend to with some of the best in the gym due to him being able to transition between fighting styles quite easily which served to further confuse his enemies. This was his way to compensate for his lack of experience.
After this, he began his training with weapons, although blunt at first, they were changed whenever he reached a particular proficiency in them. At first Sebastian kept making him switch weapons to see which one was most suitable for him for him to learn and master, but seeing that Avol had a knack for weapons in general, both blunt and sharp, striking or shooting, Sebastian decided to put even more effort into teaching him all he knew about weapons in general as well as their mastery. He did this because it was really hard to find anyone who had this amount of talent for weapons and he didn't want such talent to waste. After all, why settle for one when you have what it takes to acquire all. So, with this thought, he invested more time into Avol's weapon training. This continued for the next two years and it could be said that Avol had reached a proficiency just below that of a Master. (I think that should be Expert, not too sure though.)
Then the final year arrived.
This year was dedicated to Avol gaining experience in fighting.
First of all, Avol was taken by Sebastian to different fight clubs to help him gain real fighting experience and also life and death experiences as this would help him have better judgment in a fight. It was during this time that Avol found out that Sebastian had quite a notorious reputation in the underworld as he was properly recognized as one of the best fighters in both Armed and unarmed combat. Although it was a disappointment that he was retired, people didn't bother to make trouble for him as they knew that they would be courting death. They continued jumping from one arena to another for six months until Avol had wracked up quite a number of wins. If the people that lost to him during a fight knew that the he was not even a teenager, they might bash their heads on the wall out of embarrassment. Well, they wouldn't know as Avol had posed as a masked man with a growth deficiency and they would never find out. Can't have inconsequential people making trouble for the Lancaster family now, can we?
For the final duration of his training, Avol travelled to various war zones in the world.
This was Sebastian's form of graduation ceremony. For the first month, Avol was to observe the mode of war and then by the end of the month, he was to choose which side to fight against. He wasn't going to show himself to either side as he wasn't really allying with any side. He was just choosing which side to fight against.
At first, Avol was very nervous and almost had a panic attack when Sebastian told him that he had to kill like any other child who hadn't ever killed in his life. Seeing this, Sebastian finally realized that even with all his experience and training, Avol was still a child through and through. A child that was just exposed to some of the things that happened for one to live in the world of the top dogs. He then decided to explain further.
"Young man, you need to understand that no matter how much you try, you will have to dirty your hands when doing business with the top dogs of society in order to not be pushed off and out of your position. This is meant to be your graduation ceremony. If you are able to kill someone, it would signify that you have what it takes to handle and protect your family's interests. After all, you can't bother about everything that goes on in the world. War is just something that sparks due to the excessive greed of those at the top and also from conflict in interest. You can't bother with everything. This soldiers that you see aren't all innocent. They kill, plunder and rape from the villages that they pass through even if said villages do not have what it takes to support the soldiers. What you have to do is find a purpose to stand. Whether it is for yourself or for your family. There will be a point where you have to choose between your family and others. Which will you choose. All of this is to prepare you for the time that you have to make such a decision."
It was at this point that Avol took the gun that Sebastian had given to him for this. He then asked Sebastian to give him until the end of the observation period to make his decision.
Avol pondered about his answer over the month and finally came up with his decision.
At the end of the month, Sebastian had captured one of the soldiers, tied him up and brought him to Avol for him to choose.
Avol took the gun that he had and without hesitation, shot the soldier in the chest. He felt something coming up his throat but just pushed it down before turning to Sebastian with absolutely resolute eyes and saying.
"I can't really do anything as I am now so my answer is this. I will get stronger as well as get the necessary knowledge so that when 'that time' come for me to choose, I will choose to save both as I will have the necessary resources to choose both."
After saying this, he rushed to the corner and puked his guts out as this was his first kill and it was human. The sight of blood definitely affected him as he was neither a heartless killer nor a psychopath.
Hearing Avol's answer, Sebastian was taken aback at first but he quickly regained his composure while smiling. He also promised himself to help this young apprentice of his to achieve his goal. What both of them didn't know was that this was the moment that would save the lives of uncountable people in the cosmos in the distant future.
Like this, Avol continued his final five months after choosing a side to fight against. During this time, he also became quite accustomed to killing without getting addicted to it as his goal was empowered by his will of steel. He couldn't get sidetracked by the death of strangers. He would only kill when necessary.
After his training, he came back a changed man.
He quickly started to pack his bags as he had to enroll for middle school to continue his education.