Zephyr Family Manor, Ethan's Room
*Yawn*
"Good Morning, Young Master! You woke up early today. Is something the matter?" asked Emily, my personal maid.
She was assigned to stay in my room until I was five.
"No, Emily. It is just that I am starting my training starting today with the knights. Also, prepare a bath for me when I return."
"No problem, Young master. Have a great training session!"
I went to brush my teeth. After washing my face and getting ready, I changed into a training outfit. I then made my way towards the training ground.
When I reached there, it was empty, but after some time, it started to fill up with knights. When I saw Commander Ronald, I made my way to him.
"Hello, Sir Ronald."
"Hello, Young Master. Are you ready for your first training session?"
I nodded excitedly.
"Ok, then. From today you will train with the knights under me. It will start with making rounds of the training grounds. After that, we will do some flexibility exercises to increase your agility. Lastly, we will do some light workouts for you. Let us start!"
I made my way to the track surrounding the ground. After the whistle, I started running with the knights. They were obviously ahead of me, and I was getting tired after a few rounds. But I still kept going. Just when I thought I was going to blackout, I felt like someone picked me up.
"That was impressive, Young Master. If you continue to be this dedicated, then you will soon be able to surpass the knights. You can rest for some time until we start the next routine."
He then dropped me off at a bench. I saw a bunch of cold water bottles and went ahead and picked one.
*Glug Glug*
Ah! That felt refreshing. A cold drink after a workout feels great. I should have also worked out in my previous life.
Soon, the knights finished their sprint. I was again in awe and admiration of the power in this world. They quickly ran more than 50 rounds of the track. It was not even humanely possible on Earth, and this was just their warm-up exercise.
After that, they lined up, and I lined up at the front. Shortly, Commander Ronald spoke, "You already know the basic stances, but I am going to repeat them for the Young Master to see. Young Master, watch carefully."
"Yes, Sir Ronald."
After a nod, he started by doing what I could guess was a more defined way of stretching.
"Now repeat what I just did."
I repeated what he did as best as I could in that order.
"Good. Now here comes the important part."
He then started doing those stances again, but this time it felt like they were just one big dance move. All the different stances somehow seemed connected.
I then tried to repeat what he did but didn't go too far. It was exponentially more challenging to do them connected to each other. I then looked around and saw that the knights were sweating while practising.
The thing I heard next was what gave me the reason for my slow progress.
"What you just did was the Basic Body Training method of Zephyr knights. It trains your body to adapt well to any combat arts. The maximum rank you can achieve with this is Rank 3: Adept. But it is considered a good exercise for building the foundation."
After some unsuccessful attempts, I was again tired. Then I went ahead and sat on the bench again.
For the light workout, they did push-ups, pull-ups and some gym exercises. After that, the knights practised some sparring. I was still very far away from that.
I went for a bath after the training was completed. It felt like all my muscles were relaxed as soon as I soaked in the tub.
I then came out wearing my bathrobe. Emily quickly changed me into my noble attire, which consisted of a black shirt, black pants and a long white overcoat with golden lines and the family emblem, which was a breeze in the shape of a bird wing.
I came downstairs to the dining room for breakfast with my parents.
"Son, how was your first training session?" asked my father.
"It was good, father. Although I was tired many times in between, I liked the feeling of becoming stronger."
"Haha! That's my son. Your mother was going to kill me if you gave a negative answer, you know.", he said with a wry smile at the end.
"Little Ethan, are you sure you want to continue on this path? You know you can become a mage like mother.", said my mother with worry and love plastering her eyes.
"Yes, mother, I want to continue on this path. Also, who said that I can't become a mage if I walk on the path of a swordsman."
As I spoke that, my mother gave a radiant smile.
"Ah! Your little sister has started speaking, and you won't believe what her first words were. They were Da-Da. I think she loves you the most among us."
I was happily smiling at the thought of a cute little sister. And the fire to get stronger inside me started burning more.