Winter had arrived.
A white blanket covered the surrounding region, with the morning sun's light giving the snow an ethereal glow. The pond hadn't frozen over yet, but some of the thinner parts near the shore had some ice in them. Lukas, admiring the beautiful scene before him, remembered something that Bene said:
"...Come winter, I will not only attempt to catch you. But freeze you..."
"What are you staring at? Did you hear what I said?"
"No..."
Bene sighed and explained again.
"For winter, your endurance training will be slightly different. You will only have to run 2 kilometres into the forest before coming back, and this number will not increase. However, after you do 5 runs, you'll have to swim in the pond for 10 minutes. Additionally, I will not chase you. Instead, I will be keeping a fire going so you can rest every once and a while. You will have to keep track of your training on your own."
"Could I just not do it?"
"You could, but that would do you more harm than good. Also... I will know if you did. I have to start the fire, go ahead and start whenever you like."
Lukas hesitated. He didn't want to do this, at least, the swimming. The running he could do just fine, even with the snow. But swimming would be torturous no matter the circumstances at this time of year.
But, he took a deep breath and started running. This time, much faster and more efficient than last time. Either from his training, his recovered feet, or the lack of pressure and traps. Perhaps all three played a part.
After five runs, totalling 10 kilometres, he took a break to catch his breath. Drank some warm water by the fire with Bene for about a minute or two.
Then, he took his outside layers off, leaving only the plain white gi on, and jumped into the freezing pond off the dock.
As soon as he did, he regretted it. He wanted to get out but found it so hard to move. Lukas could swim, but he had never done so in winter, so this was a new and not-so-pleasant experience.
Bene watched from the cabin, ready to get up and help Lukas if he was needed.
But after Lukas sank to the bottom, he reoriented himself and came back up to the surface. He took a deep breath and started swimming. To keep himself focused he counted to 10 minutes in his head, sometimes out loud as well.
When those 10 minutes expired, he climbed onto the dock, ran over to the fire, and warmed himself up.
After about a half hour of rest, he would repeat this vicious cycle. Run 10 kilometres, swim for 10 minutes, and sit by the fire for 30 minutes. No matter how good or bad the day was, through snow or shine, he kept this cycle for the rest of the week.
When he had to train his strength and skill the following weeks, the routine was about the same. The waterfall was cold this time of course. However, he found that he could move the second stone. Which he estimated, weighed about 50 kg. He couldn't quite lift it yet, but he did push it a few centimetres.
Additionally, his skill with the sword had improved considerably. Sure, he wasn't exactly training, but he did count the amount of swings he did, and it was more than last time. On top of that, according to Bene, his form and stance had improved, but Lukas himself could not verify that.
One thing he did notice was that he could put more power into his strikes. Both with his fists and with the training sword. He was very much stronger, but he was unsure to what degree. He wasn't on par with Bene of course, not even close. But he was significantly stronger than his past self. Was he twice as strong? More than that? Or, perhaps a little less?
He couldn't know and instead decided to focus his efforts on something somewhat quantifiable. How much of each thing he could do. What was the largest of the stones he could lift, and for how long? How fast could he run? How long did he need to stay by the fire after swimming? How many sword strikes could he perform in six hours? So on and so forth.
The week after however, was the coldest by far, to the point where Lukas had to train by the fire as opposed to by the waterfall. He still decided to train with the chain-sickle, which he learned from Bene was called a kusarigama.
Why did he decide to still train with it? He wasn't sure, but he still did despite that. And like the last time he trained with it, he found an intuitive understanding of it. He even found it easier to control the chain and dance with it. Maybe the fact that learning it trained both his understanding of the weapon and his footwork was the reason he kept learning it.
In fact, come the end of the week, he trained with a combination of both the kusarigama and the tachi. It... didn't work at first. In fact, for the entire day that Lukas experimented with this hybrid style of weapons, it failed, every time.
He didn't want to give up on it though. He just misunderstood something, he tried to switch fluidly between them. But perhaps, he could have two distinct ways of fighting and occasionally switch to confuse and befuddle his opponent.
Plus, it would allow him to fight at a variety of ranges. Albeit, he still could not fight at a distance. But he wouldn't necessarily be forced into close quarters in every fight. He could, to some extent, control at what distance he fought his opponents
So he kept at it, learning everything he could at a breakneck pace. However, he still lacked something. At the beginning of all of this, Bene mentioned something called a Frequency. He was told he almost certainly had one. Yet he still lacked this... Frequency. He wondered what his would be. If he ever got it.