ch-23 Addiction

'I'm going to make him pay for this,' William thought, panting, barely catching his breath as he swung his blade.

He had been in his dad's training room, swinging the piece of wood in his hand, for the past 5 hours.

He had started at 5 AM, and it was now 10 AM; his whole body was hurting.

The whole area around him was covered in his own sweat.

When he started, he thought he would be done in an hour or two max, but now here he was repeating the same piece of movement for the past 5 hours.

He didn't even feel any improvement in his stance; he was repeating the same swinging motion like a machine.

He had tried to drop the sword or lay on the ground for a moment of rest, but each time he would be greeted by a kick and get sent flying.

This wasn't even training anymore, but just torture. William had considered using mana multiple times, but each time he was reminded of his father, who was observing him with a smile as if enjoying his misery.

William had wondered if his father was always such a sadist or if he had done something to offend him.

But each time he got distracted by useless thoughts, he reminded himself of the humiliation he suffered at Zephyr's hands.

How would he ever beat a god if he couldn't even follow a simple training routine?

So with a burning determination to get his revenge, he pushed forward, following Rex's instructions to the T.

Rex was observing William from the sidelines; he was hurting from inside, seeing his son's condition.

But he knew he couldn't stop; he needed to know just how strong William's willpower was.

Swordsmanship isn't like magic, where you can get carried by talent; for swordsmanship, hard work is arguably more important than talent.

Rex knew all the countless nights he had spent just training with the blade, and the bruises on his hand were proof of that.

Truth be told, he had expected William to give up in an hour or two max; after all, he's just a kid who's yet to experience the hard ships of life.

But yet here he was, even after 5 hours, pushing his body to inhumane degrees, all in pursuit of power.

Rex was quite proud of William for his willpower, as he knew even he couldn't have displayed such insane willpower back when he was William's age.

***

Another three hours had passed. William was hurting all over his body.

His eyes hurt from the lack of sleep he got last night, his muscles were sore from over exertion, his stomach was begging him for some food, and his arms were completely numb, with William no longer being able to feel them.

But despite all that, he had a smile on his face, covered in his own sweat.

Finally, after so many hours, he was able to notice improvement.

His stance was getting better, and his technique was becoming more refined.

For the past 8 hours, William has only been practicing 3 motions: vertical slash, horizontal slash, and thrust.

During the start, the movements felt unnatural and awkward, but now they came as naturally as breathing to him, and while William hadn't yet checked, he was quite sure he had acquired swordsmanship mastery.

Feeling himself getting stronger, William couldn't help but agree with his younger self that swordsmanship was fun.

While it wasn't as flashy or versatile as magic, the feeling of getting stronger after hours upon hours of hard work definitely had a unique charm to it.

William was once again regaining his love for the sword that he had lost after regaining his memories.

Another thing that caught his attention was the dopamine he felt from getting stronger.

In his past life, William never understood people who were into dangerous sports or did drugs all for dopamine.

But right now he could finally understand the feeling; this feeling was addicting.

*****

Just like that, another 6 hours passed.

By all logic, William should've long collapsed from exhaustion.

He was running on a lack of sleep; he was starving; his body had long gone numb; he was no longer able to feel anything.

His body was only 8 years old with undeveloped muscles, and with his mana sealed, he wasn't that different from a regular person.

He was still superior to a normal unawakened by quite a large margin, but it wasn't big enough for him to pull off such a superhuman feat of strength.

Even the dopamine, which had kept him going for the past few hours, had run out.

With all that in mind, one might ask, Why exactly was he still in the same location as before swinging his sword?

Well, the answer to that is simple: he had already passed out.

For the past hour, his body has been in a trance, mechanically repeating the same motion of swinging a blade.

For a normal person, this wouldn't make sense; however, one thing one must never forget when dealing with William is that he wasn't a normal person.

But rather a semi-divine human with the dormant potential to become a god.

Right now, his body is simply answering his subconscious desire to become stronger, and if no one interferes, his body will continue to answer his desires until it breaks, and judging by his current condition, that breaking point should be coming pretty soon.

Thankfully for him, Rex was still in the room and had been observing him for the past few hours.

He had tried to stop William multiple times in the past few hours; however, his son simply ignored him.

At first, he was proud of William's determination to prove himself to him, then he became elated seeing the smile on Williams face and the improvement he was showing.

Rex was certain that in 10–12 years, William would surpass him as a swordsman.

However, this feeling of pride was quickly replaced by a sense of worry for his son, who had been ignoring his existence just to mechanically practice the movements he told him to.

He wanted to step forward and stop him, but something inside him told him that if he stopped him now, he'd never be able to forgive himself.

William's expression resembled his own back when he was a teenager hellbent on taking revenge against the one who took everything from him.

The thing that drove Rex to such drastic lengths to forsake his own body in favour of strength was a desperation for power and a desire to take revenge.

But that shouldn't be the case for William; he was born with a golden spoon and a loving family.

So why would he make such a desperate expression?

In the end, the only conclusion he could come up with was that his son wanted his validation.

Maybe he had been neglecting William too much, which now made him desperate for his approval.

Rex wanted to beat himself up for being such a terrible parent, especially when he boasted about fighting the whole world for his son back when he was born. 

Now, a few years later, that same son is hurting himself just for his approval.

However, Rex quickly got out of his own self-loathing as he finally knocked out William and decided to carry him back to his room.

'I should spend more time with William from now on' With that thought in mind, he decided to leave the training room.