A dog man and a human with violet hair were fighting with wooden swords.
The dog man was mostly on the offense, continuously attacking while the human absent-mindedly deflected and blocked the attacks.
Suddenly, A muscular dog man, who was standing behind Ivar, urged the other dog man to stop attacking.
As the dog man stopped attacking Ivar, Ivar was still in a stance absentmindedly looking at the air. The muscular dog man walked behind Ivar and slapped him.
"Snap outta it kid! You gotta attack." Bismuth slapped Ivar.
"O-ok. I will attack." Ivar lunged towards the dog man he was fighting with before and started proactively attacking and looking for openings.
After a few hours, Bismuth dismissed them and ordered them to drink water and food.
Ivar sat on a wooden bench with no one and started munching on the dried meat. There was a lot on his mind. Sending the letter to Aira had reminded him of his life before.
He was still just a 15-year-old kid.
His life was better before if only he had–
Before his thoughts would overtake his being, Ivar pinched himself, hoping that it would bring a semblance of rationality and calmness in him.
'There is no use going down that hole once again.' He audibly laughed mocking himself, 'And here I thought I had a strong mind.'
He looked at Bismuth training small and cute dog men childrens. The kids tried to look serious but they couldn't help but look cute in Ivar's eyes instead.
Ivar unconsciously smiled, looking at the group of small dog men. It looked like it was their first time. Well, he himself was a newbie here, too.
"Pups! Why do you want to be strong? Why will you wield a sword!" Bismuth shouted at the kids.
The small dog pups tried their best to sound stern and replied, "To protect the demon sect! For Lord Vector!"
"Repeat again? Did you not eat today?!"
"TO PROTECT THE DEMON SECT!! FOR LORD VECTOR!!" the kids shouted, even more loudly this time. Maybe this wasn't their first time.
A thought popped into Ivar's mind, Why do I want to be strong?
The reason was quite simple. And selfish.
He wanted to be strong because he didn't want to die like John or like the people who were killed in a caravan. Or be under total surveillance of the messenger.
He didn't want to let anyone decide his life or death.
He didn't want anyone to decide his fate.
Of course there were other factors too, people are shaped by their memories and childhood. With how most people expected or joked for him to become the strongest, he as a kid couldn't differentiate between joke and reality and took it to heart.
His desire for strength might also be the amalgamation of this desire and reluctance to be weak.
***
"Haha, Exactly seven days!" The muscular dog man stood with his hands crossed in front of Ivar who was mediating crosslegged.
The dog man's happiness wasn't reflected on Ivar's face as layers of sweat were driving down his closed eye.
This was a critical juncture in the transplantation!
Other people also failed at this! They couldn't let the transplanted muscles properly adapt and assimilate to the body while completing their next circulation.
Coupled with the fact that they had lower talent in vital energy conductivity, refining, and other stuff as compared to Ivar, the muscles couldn't adapt to their body and reject the body! Ultimately resulting in a failure!
Ivar stayed in the lotus position as he slowly guided his vital energy all over his body careful. The process was incredibly slow lasting more than an hour, throughout which Bismuth's expression slowly changes to that of worry.
After a while, Ivar slowly opened his eyes, and nodded towards Bismuth, and immediately laid down on the floor with his sweaty body and face.
Bismuth on the other hand was excited and pumped his fists, "Haha, No this is the first human I trained! Incredible talent and hard work! I was worried that you were going to slack off on the first day but turns out it was for nothing."
Ivar stood up after a few minutes and went to the backyard of the building. He slightly crouched, tightening his muscles and braced himself to jump.
Bam-
Ivar pushed his body upwards as his distance from the ground continued increasing from 2meters to 6 meters and finally stopped at 10 meters as he started falling down! He gracefully landed on his feet as his knees slightly bent outwards.
Bismuth smiled, "Good Job kid. Never seen someone this weak jump this high."
"Thank you, Bismuth." Ivar smiled back at Bismuth.
"You should eat something and wait for Puggy to pick you up. He should come back soon."
Ivar nodded and went inside to eat some dried meat and water. After resting for a while he continued to stretch his muscles, putting more emphasis on his legs.
After a few hours of light stretching and training, Puggy arrived infront of the dojo.
Bismuth grinned as he walked outside with Ivra on his side.
"Nice seeing you again Puggy! How is Lord Vector doing?"
"He is good…as usual. Ivar is ready…right?"
"Yeah, He is as good as new!"
"Come Ivar…this time we walk." Puggy gestured at Ivar.
Ivar followed Puggy as they walked towards one of the stairs leading to one of the many holes in the hollow sphere.
"Remember the way carefully. You will be alone next time." Puggy informed Ivar.
The duo reached the hole after climbing the stairs and entered the dark hole leading to the corridor enveloped by darkness.
They walked slowly as Ivar tried his best to memorize the way. He guessed that Puggy would still escort him back to the city after the operation because… He probably would not be in a proper state to walk.
They continued walking until they stopped in front of a door with a number in front of it–45!
Puggy opened the door and nodded after seeing the two Scraps attentively guarding the main door like they were supposed to.
"You stay in your previous room…Lord Vector will come soon. I will go now."
Ivar nodded as Puggy quickly left Lab #45, closing the navy metal door.
Ivar walked through the corridor, skipping the room he had his transplant in, and went to the room he stayed in for a day before.
Ivar was shocked to see more books and some training weights left in the room. Vector probably arranged this for him to train and study.
Ivar walked towards the book and searched for a specific one " Detailed Explanation of Biological and Chemical Terms for Beginners". He hadn't finished reading this book after all. Ivar skipped training for today and red the whole book, he found it's contents quite interesting.
As Ivar couldn't know about the day and night cycle while inside, he at when he felt hungry and slept when he felt sleepy.
After, what Ivar guessed to be two days, as he had slept two times, Vector had arrived.
"Hey, Ivar. You ready to enhance both your arms?"
Ivar looked into Vector's eyes as he nodded.