The outside looked abandoned, but the inside looked well maintained. The main lobby was spacious with a chandelier hanging from the roof, lighting up the room a royal gold, with red carpet on the floor and the walls looking like polished limestone and beautifully adorned with numerous paintings of nature. It had two large staircases that went up in a curved fashion to an inside balcony, leading to the second floor.
Arthur stopped admiring the mansion and snapped back to reality, facing Niles. "What is this place?"
"It's my house. Ah you must be wondering how I got my hands on it. I had a bunch of gold and historical artefacts with me down in the tombs, so I won't be short of money any time soon. I call this my house, but in reality this is more of a headquarters."
Arthur returned a puzzled look. "Headquarters?"
"Yes, headquarters. I need some kind of base of operations, I'll be working globally after all. And you won't be the only one who'll have keys to this mansion, I plan on recruiting more people in the future. It's got a large backyard so that's perfect for your training, plus almost no one comes by here. So yeah, welcome to my humble abode. You can think of this as your second home."
Arthur stared blankly at the man. He didn't know what to think. Seconds went by in silence, Arthur just stayed in the same spot as Niles walked to a double door between the two staircases. "Come. Follow me."
Arthur followed in silence. They were in a dimly lit corridor that also had paintings, this time paintings of historical events. The corridor had multiple doors on both sides, and at the end of it was a sliding glass door. Behind the glass door was the backyard which was larger than the front garden and mansion combined.
"Spacious right?" and without waiting for a response, Niles commanded Arthur; "Strike me as hard as you can."
Arthur stumbled. It was not often that he was told to strike someone outside of training, especially at an elder. Niles classified as an elderly person right?
"You don't really think you can hurt me, right?" Niles chucked loudly. This annoyed Arthur greatly. He was by no human standard weak at all, in fact he's always been one of the strongest, proven by the fact that he was the MMA champion of both the light heavyweight and middleweight divisions of a high-level league in the United Kingdom, and at the young age of 21. Without hesitation Arthur lunged forward and threw an overhand punch. He's never experience the speed and power he was producing right now, but it was amazing. Everything felt smooth. Everything felt perfect. His technique was perfect.
His fist was accelerating towards Niles' jaw. He could do it. But he didn't. He punched the wind. He missed, or more correctly, Niles dodged the punch. One second he was in front of Arthur, and the next he disappeared. Arthur's eyes sprinted everywhere. He was gone.
"Excellent form! If you were fighting like a normal human." A deep voice exclaimed.
Arthur's eyes darted at the source, and he saw Niles slouched over a bench next to the mansion.
"How?"
"How? Don't mind that. We have bigger things to care about. First things first, that technique was subpar. Why do you reckon that is?"
Arthur's blood was boiling. He wasn't a man with an ego, but he had a deep sense of pride in his fighting capabilities. To be told that his fighting is below average was one of the worst insults for him, but if Niles, someone who easily dodged his punch told him it was subpar, it was.
"I was slow?"
"Wrong. No, you were not slow. For a beginner you were quite fast, but no that was not the problem. The problem was that you were fighting like a normal human. Modern martial arts are made keeping human limits in mind, but now you're beyond those limits. You have to unlearn everything about fighting and ignore your instincts, so that you can learn how to fight with your new body."
Having to forget everything he learnt over a decade and a half of fighting was not easy to accept. He was reluctant, but he knew that Niles was right. He hesitantly nodded and agreed.
Niles smiled. "Good. Go home and go back to university. And I'll call you back here in a couple of days." he said as he handed a pair of keys to Arthur, one for the front doors and the other for the front gate.
After exchanging contact information (Niles unsurprisingly had the latest phone) Arthur left the mansion. In front of him was a vast field of grass with just one road going through the middle of it.
'I have to run back home don't I?'