Because the potion worked and no visible side-effects were visible the training was upped even more. Luckily, there weren't a whole lot of potions in stock, so there could only be around 5 long sessions a day. This didn't make the training any easier, but it was a form of relief to know how many he still had to drink. This drink made sure you had energy left over so you could continue the training. It filled your belly, so to speak, but this was also a cause for the baron to scrap any other meal that he needed. As the potions were enough, in theory. Lucas was still hungry even with the potions in hand, they filled him with energy, but his stomach still produced acid to digest his meals. The potions weren't enough, so he needed to get food one way or another.
"Liam, I know that the baron scrapped my meals, but I'm hungry, can I get something to eat?", the innocent way he asked for such a simple desire made Liam think twice. "I don't have any on hand, but you can always visit the canteen and ask the servers for food, they shouldn't know that your meals have been scrapped."
Even with a solution on hand, Lucas wasn't sure if he could even go through with it. Asking a random servant that he didn't know stressed him out, but leaving his hunger would only hurt him in the long run.
Going to the canteen, there were fewer people than last time, a few ten perhaps were feasting on what looked like a giant chicken. Lucas approached one of the servants and asked if he could be provided with a meal as well. Besides the small laugh that the servant let out after seeing Lucas again, he did indeed agree to feed him.
'Liam was right, he's trustworthy.'
'He only did the bare minimum, no reason to put your trust on him, we're alone in here, always have been.'
'No, there are people who we can get on our side, you just can't see that yet.'
'I won't believe that until I see it.'
The meal was a little sober, a few potatoes and a few vegetables, meat wasn't an option apparently, but Lucas didn't even care in the slightest. A warm meal was placed in front of him, how could he not feast on it? The soldiers in the canteen glanced every now and then at Lucas, making him feel very uncomfortable, but they didn't do anything, simply gawk.
Many days later
After one of his daily training, Liam approached Lucas saying that he was sorry for what he had to go through. His daily training consisted of a warm-up that was around 80 laps around the courtyard, this was about 3 miles in total. This might not seem like a lot, but for someone his age, it was a challenge. Each time he slowed down or needed a break he had to do 10 pushups at the end of the run.
In the beginning, he slowed down a few times simply because he couldn't handle it, so pushups became an extra daily training exercise. Eventually, he became used to running all his laps without slowing down, but that was merely the warmup. After each run drinking, the potion filled his muscles with extreme pain, but it did improve the muscle fibers by a lot. Cramp also got solved by this disgusting potion, so Lucas didn't have much of a choice with such brutal training.
After the runs came weight lifting, then another athletic exercise, then sword swinging, then another run, then...until the potions were depleted. His mealtime also got disrupted once more, the soldiers in the canteen knew about Lucas resting period, so they used that time to visit him.
"Hey you little brat, what do you think you're doing huh?", Lucas struggled to respond, he was torn between starting a fight and keeping it peaceful, but before his mind could come to a conclusion the soldier's friend spoke. "Yeah, all of this food, just for you? You can't be thinking that YOU deserve this, right? A stupid commoner and a brat at that shouldn't steal food from the hard workers!", he said snatching Lucas' plate away.
"HEY, give it ba-urgh", a foot was planted right in his side. He fell from his stool on the ground, "Hahaha, yes, that's where you belong, how did I not see that yet? The ground is clearly where you need to be, below us!", the soldiers started to laugh, but Lucas wasn't having it. He stood up to grab the chair, but the soldiers already saw what he wanted to do. BAM, a strong punch landed right on his nose, flinging him back again. "Hahahaha, don't even think about it, you little shit!"
It started with simple things like taking some food away or insulting, but nowadays it was a moment Lucas had to fight for even a sliver of food. The soldiers immediately took his plate away the moment it was placed on the table, the servants wouldn't dare fight against the soldiers so they went along with all their demands.
Then they ate whatever they could and gave the scraps to Lucas, but even that was taken away from him, they started to urinate on his plate, to see how far he would go for some food. They called it 'hazing', but it was simply bullying in Lucas' view. Now, he didn't go anymore, since he wouldn't be capable of eating anything anyway, he had to learn to live with a pang of constant hunger and thirst.
"I never intended to make this training so terrible, it was meant to be something difficult but fun. Now that has completely been thrown out the window."
"It's fine sir, as long as I can become a knight, I'll be capable of leading my own life."
"Hahaha, kid, if you want to hide your intentions you need to formulate it a lot better you know. If you want to be free you shouldn't say that to someone that's in a higher rank than you, I'll just pretend I didn't hear anything."
"Thank you, sir."
After a lot of training, Liam and Lucas started to develop a friendly relationship. Liam was impressed by his determination and saw himself and his children in Lucas, so he wanted to give a helping hand now and then. Especially when it came to food, once he heard how Lucas had been treated he secretly brought his leftovers for Lucas to eat. This might seem like an insult, it was obvious between the two that it was a gift. Liam couldn't really reprimand his troops for that would be against the entire system of ranks that they lived by. As long as Lucas was a commoner, he would be looked down upon, no matter what.
He was taught a lot about the world from Liam's perspective. He got to know that he was living in Baron Havi's mansion, located in the north of The Holy Kingdom, very close to the border of the kingdom in the north called Frigus. Next to some general information, he got to learn a lot about how the human ranks worked and how harsh reality was.
His muscles developed at a much faster pace than any child could have. The potions forced his body to grow at an outstanding rate, completely breaking the natural growth of a human. His endurance was increased to that of a grown adult and almost even better. But he was still a child, the concoction made wonders come true, but it couldn't defy reality, he was still too young to truly train his muscles to the point it could be compared to an adult.
"Oh yeah, Lucas, tomorrow we'll be doing a special exercise that the baron's mage asked for."
"That doesn't sound like anything good." Lucas developed physically but also mentally, through the multiple forms of pain, he started to grow a lot more mature in a very short time. Strangely enough, it seemed like the more cynical he started to think the more normal he felt like it was his normal state.
"You don't know that, perhaps you'll get to learn how to fight with a sword or something."
'Don't you even dare think that he's right on the mark.'
'Why not? Liam has always been trustworthy, so why can't you just accept his perception, he should be a lot closer to the mage than us.'
'You serious? He said he doesn't know, even if he has some insider information, there's no way to predict the future.'
'Fine, we'll see won't we.'
The next day came and Venion was at the training grounds again, looking at Lucas he appeared a bit hurried. Lucas looked like a 12-year-old because of his build and a small increase in height. The potions forced his body to improve at a rapid speed, thus altering his appearance as well. Liam glanced at Venion to ask about the new training.
The mage explained that Lucas' body needed to be a lot more durable if he wanted to be a knight. Liam didn't understand what the mage was talking about, he knew what it meant, being a knight, and while endurance is important, Lucas couldn't do a whole lot more with physical training. He simply needed to grow naturally to gain the muscle mass that he could train. Yet the mage had thought of a new form of training that would work perfectly with the potions. After explaining it he left right away.
'Damnit, this is going to hurt again.'
'I'm sorry, it seems you were right, we really need to work a lot more together you know?'
'I'll do that the moment you stop being so naive.'
'And I'll do that the moment you stop being so cynical.'
The new exercise would see Lucas standing in a circle. He could not move out of the circle while 4 men would shoot blunt arrows at him. He had to avoid the arrows until they ran out. Each soldier had about 20 arrows that they could shoot.
"This isn't even training anymore, this is just battering someone." Liam said to himself, but loud enough to want Lucas to hear him.
"If it makes the other training obsolete, I'll gladly try it out. I was pretty fast in my village, I can dodge a few arrows." Lucas always wanted to stay positive, his personality was always split, but the optimistic side was in control most of the time.
An arrow shot from a crossbow is not something you can easily dodge. Standing in the circle the four randomly selected soldiers started to load their arrows.
"Start!" Liam yelled out, letting the beating ensue.
Lucas looked forward to one of the men, but he was surrounded in a square formation. There was a bit of distance between Lucas and the men, but the speed of the arrows made that obsolete.
PANG
"Auw" an arrow landed right on his back, so he looked behind him, but by then the others also shot their arrows. The arrows were blunt dummy arrows with a ball of cloth instead of an iron tip. So the arrows never pierced his skin but left big bruises. The arrows kept coming, he started to avoid one or two, but that was because the soldier didn't aim properly.
Liam watched as Lucas was being turned blue from all the bruises, some of them even started to leak a bit of blood. The soldiers didn't care where they shot as well, some landed straight on his head, and one even got his eye. One of the soldiers was even aiming specifically for his groin, "C'mon guys, if you can hit his balls it's five points, all other parts are 1, HAHAHA!"
"No wait, his head has to count for three right?"
"Fair enough, let's see who can get the highest score!", they all started to laugh, only Liam was showing a cold face, he could see the mage once again standing in the window, looking over them. He had to be obedient once again, once again he needed to reject his own thoughts to follow another's.
Battered and extremely tired the arrows were all shot. "Hey Geoff, how many points you got? I got 25!", the soldiers were comparing their scores to see how well they did. "I got 31!"
"Ha, you're all losers, 37 boys, try to beat that!", the man laughed loudly as he secured his victory, the others started to enjoy their little game as well. Now that it became a competition, they wanted to try again and do better than last time.
Drinking one of the potions, hurt a lot more this time, but the advantages were also present. His muscles became a lot more durable. Meaning this time, he would have to be hit a bit more before getting the same cramp in his muscles. Still, the potion remade muscles, not skin or a battered eye, those remained even after the potion was drunk. Even though the mage was watching and saw that his superficial wounds weren't healed he didn't come by to help out.
It was only after a few rounds of arrows that the mage came by because Lucas couldn't walk anymore, he was a living corpse at that point. His entire body almost looked blue or purple, so the mage decided that it was enough.
A single healing spell later, Lucas was freed from all the spots and his eyes were fixed again, but the potions weren't completely gone yet, so he knew that it wasn't over yet.
A few days later
The new type of training started to work its wonders. Lucas had to start thinking outside of the box to avoid the arrows. The training was about to begin again, but he had a little tactic this time.
Taking a deep breath, he waited for Liam to give the signal again.
"Start!"
Lucas started to develop his sense more and more. His reflexes also grew at an outstanding rate. Before the arrow is shot, you can hear the crossbow being activated, so as long as he listens in which order they're being fired he has a chance to avoid them head-on.
'At the left, front, back, right.'
He turned to the left to see where the arrow was going, it looked like it veered a bit to the right, so he just took a step back while facing the front again. This time the arrow was aimed at his torso, if he looked towards the back now he would get hit around his shoulders. So he ducked slightly while completely facing the third shooter. While he was ducked he saw that the arrow was now coming toward his face so he rolled to the side. While rolling to the side he was a bit too sloppy and the last arrow hit him on his left shoulder. The arrow he was trying to dodge hit him as well.
'Two out of four, I'm already halfway!'
The next batch of arrows came and he decided to try something out. When the first arrow came toward him he tried to grab it. This seemed like a smart move, if he could catch the arrows he could throw them at later ones. He reached for the arrow with precision timing, but when he got ahold of it the arrow still went at a fast speed, forcing a bunch of splinters inside of his skin. Letting go of his arrow the others landed on him.
Before a new wave of arrows came he had the chance to think his strategy over again.
'Shit, catching doesn't work, I need to deflect them'
Trying out his new technique, he started to overcome his trials a lot better. Deflecting them in the right order still wasn't easy, but he grew accustomed to the speed and started using a combination of avoiding and deflecting to get through this trail.
A few rounds later he succeeded in avoiding or deflecting every single arrow, besides a lucky shot or two, he could live through it without any pain. He drank the potion almost out of habit, while he didn't have any bruises on his body. When the pain subsided again he saw that the splinters were still in his hand, figuring out some of the limitations of this drink.
"Well done, my boy, using techniques and figuring out strategies is one of the basics of being a knight!" Liam was starting to become proud of his little student. He was an orphan with little to no knowledge about the world of knights, yet he had the determination. He was a hidden gem in Liam's eyes, someone to grow into a powerful commander.
The soldiers on the other hand started to really hate that they couldn't hit Lucas anymore, they tried their best to aim precisely where he would go, but they couldn't predict his movements. Shouting or distracting him only worked in the beginning and it had already lost its effect. Their little game was over.
He was snapped out of his enthusiasm when he noticed that Venion was standing next to him without him even noticing. Being shocked for a moment he quickly suppressed all of his emotion to look at the mage.
"Is there something sir? Lucas has been doing this training for some time, he has seen fantastic results."
The mage didn't say anything and just kept looking toward Lucas who was slowly starting to smile while enduring his training. He saw the happiness one would get when one overcame a challenge.
"Up the archers to 8. And I'll add a new training!" the mage said before disappearing again.
"What!" surprised by the statement and the sudden disappearance he raised his voice a bit. Lucas noticed this but didn't have the time to look at Liam, but part of him thought there would probably be something good from succeeding in his training. While the other part of him chastised that thought.