It was with an aching body that Zach woke up, pretty late though, he had some trouble to go down the stairs, when he got down he saw his dad nod to him, Zach responded to him with a smile, Zach ate his breakfast pretty fast.
"Thank you for the breakfast mom, dad, I need to go now otherwise I will be late for the lesson of Jess' father, have a good day !" Zach exclaimed while running toward the exit.
"Have a good day son !" Zach faintly heared his mother's voice answering him.
Zach runned as best as he could to reach Jess' house on time, obviously he eventually got there late, he was even the last one.
"Sorry for being late." Zach said when he finally reached his destination.
"Don't worry boy, I can see that you even pushed yourself to get there. Since everyone is there I will explain to you in what my training consist of, it will focus on enhancing your speed and reflexes. You will stand at one place without moving, I will attack you and you shall do your utmost to dodge every attack I will inflict you. Don't worry I will start easy and I will gradually increase the difficulty. Get in your place kids." Jess' father explained to them.
"As you can see there is a red circle on the ground, you can't get out of this circle or there will be a punishment, I will attack any of you without warning and without any particular sequence. As for the punishment it will be a surprise." Jess' father explained to them
Zach, Jess and Arnold placed themselves, they were about 2 meters away from each other, the red circle at their feet had a diameter of about 1 meter.
"Beware, starting now I will attack you at any time." Jess' father warned them.
The three of them were a bit nervous, they didn't know when he would attack and more importantly who will be the one to get attacked first. Though this state did not last long as only 2 seconds after he warned them he appeared out of the blue in front of Zach, he went for Zach's left side with a punch.
Zach taken aback tried to dodge the strike by shifting his body to his right, but he saw that he would not make it so in addition he tried to intercept Jess' father punch with his hand.
At Zach's despair he eventually saw that this punch was nothing more than a feint and the real hit was in fact a circular kick to his right side, which made the shifting he had done the thing he regretted the most. This was the last thing he had in head before getting hit on his head, falling on the ground and eventually fainted.
'Never thought he would be able to block the first one. As I would never thought I would be forced to use a feint to hit him properly. He has great potential, I didn't think that such a young boy could already have such good reflexes and instinct.' Jess' father thought about Zach's performance.
'Though it will be a bit problematic to surprise them if they are only two, we will see that later.' Jess' father wondered if he didn't go too far with Zach.
Putting this in the back of his mind Jess' father appeared behind Arnold and launched a kick on his left leg, Arnold only had the time to try to shift his leg and look behind him but he was too slow, he fell on his knees.
When Arnold was about to get up he felt a chill down his spine, he threw himself on the ground, he had done the right thing because he saw the foot of Jess' father where his head was just a few moments ago. When Arnold thought he would get a third one, he saw Jess' father behind Jess.
Jess saw her father disappear from Arnold's position, she knew he was coming for her. She was obviously right, she got a glimpse of her father at her left, she tried to avoid his punch aimed at her stomach, she surprisely succeed in avoiding it.
Unfortunately for her she only succeeded in avoinding the first punch because the second one connected on her solar plexus which made it hard for her to breath.
"Okay kids, I got a good understanding of your level, as you are all unable to continue, I will give you a 20 minutes break, go drink some water." Jess' father said to them, even if Zach was still unconscious, before he disappeared again.
Away in the darkness Jess' father and Aldrich were watching the kids.
"What do you think of them Aldrich ?" Jess' father asked.
"They all have a great potential, Rob, if we had to rank them, we would have Zach with the greatest potential then Jess and finally Arnold." Aldrich answered him.
"You are right, Aldrich, they are worth growing, especially your son, I had to put the same effort as if it was a low rank 1 cultivator." Rob said to him.
"Yeah, it's surprising, as for your daughter she has pretty good reflexes and instinct but for Arnold his reflexes are not great but he has a pretty good survival instinct. Though their cultivation path is not set yet, they all have what's needed for physical cultivation, we can only hope that they will have at least a decent talent in dantian's cultivation, if it's the case with that they could go very far." Aldrich analyzed.
At the end of the week each of them had made some progresses, Zach could now last 6 strikes from Rob, Jess could last 5 as for Arnold he could last 3 strikes.
They continued to train like this for 3 years. It resulted in them being at the peak of the human realm only at the age of 12, they got gathered by each of their father.
"You are now 12, you should awaken your dantian soon, and you are already on the verge of the low rank 1 physical cultivation, while waiting for your dantian's awakening all of you shall go train in the wild to get real experience." Aldrich explained to them.
"Yes, the moment you awaken your dantian we will test your potential and affinity with that we will be able to guide you toward the best cultivation method and path to walk." Arnold's father added seriously.
"From tomorrow and for one week you will go in the Pygma forest to train, don't worry the peak beast in this forest should only be on the verge of the mid rank 1, if you work together you should be able to defeat it. But beware if you encounter a beast at the mid rank 1 you shall run away from it." Rob announced to them with a hint of worry noticeable in his eyes when he looked at Jess.
They all nodded their head then they all went back to their home with their dad.
At nightfall, Zach was in his bed thinking of all he got through since he had been reborn. He was nervous about the expedition but he was happy that he will go with his friends.
'I never fought in real conditions, I hope everything will be alright' Zach thought.
A beam of moon light got through his window, lit up his room and blinded Zach. When this happened he heard in his head the same ancient robotic voice he heard when he was reborn.
[Ding ! System has detected that host's body is now ready to synchronize with the system.]
[Ding ! Synchronization with host's body shall now start.]
'The system ? I was worried that it would never awaken itself, he now wondered what it will do and how will it work ?' Zach was very joyful that his system finally awakened.
[Synchronizing with host ... Time needed for synchronization : 0 days 8 hours 30 minutes 0 seconds]
Zach's eyelids closed little by little before he eventually fell in a deep slumber partly caused by his exhaustion but mostly cause by the system and its synchronization.