Increasing The Stakes

I woke up the next morning feeling fairly sore, but I could still move around. I did my morning stretches, and went for a jog. I figured I could jog off the pain, and it actually worked fairly well. The constant pain was almost gone, but I was still fairly achy. After the jog, I ran another lap to get my running in after a quick warmup, and after running a lap around the village I looped my way around to the market to start my errands. 

It was the same old same old, still delivered the vegetables to the one lady across town, but that was the only consistent delivery I had. I used that delivery as a guage of my progress based on how fast I can do the delivery. I've made tons of progress compared to my first time getting there. I'm slowly getting less and less winded, and am delivering it four times as fast. Now that's what I call progress! 

After getting the errands done, I went off into the forest to check my traps, an then got right to training afterwards. This time something felt off while I was training, but I couldn't figure out what. I was struggling to concentrate on my training because for some reason I was on guard for something that wasn't there. I eventually got tired of it and stopped training to look around. Of course I found nothing, but even though my curiosity was fulfilled, I was still on edge and it bugged me. 

Either way I continued training focusing on taking deep breaths because they took the edge off a bit. I was actually starting to bleed from this training since I'm doing it for more extended periods of time. I figured if I'm gonna strengthen my body as fast as possible while still being able to move, this is the way. I just hope I don't regret this later. 

After a while it turned to be around noon, so I took a break and went back for a bowl of soup and a half an hour break to give my body a rest for a bit. The soup tasted a smidge off, but man did drinking that hot goodness in a bowl literally warms the soul. It's great for relaxing because it warms you up making your muscles relax. 

After the break was over I went right back to training. This time though it didn't feel as off. It just felt more normal. I have no idea what that was, but now I can concentrate better on keeping form, since I can actually think straight now! The feeling is still there, but it's not as bad. 

I went through the training for a while, but decided there was something missing. I went off, bought another large pot and 2 lids for the pots. I then made my way to the villages spring. I collected water almost up to the brim, corked the pot and carried it all the way back to the forest. That was extremely difficult speaking of how heavy water is! 

After that I set the water down and soaked my hands in it. It felt absolutely incredible! I then realized even though it felt good, I'm gonna need to add a bunch of salt to have it act like a sterilizer. I would rather not get infected from all these cuts and stuff. 

I went off to buy salt because I didn't feel like making it, and my salt may not be pure enough and only infect it more. I'd rather play it safe. I brought a full bag of salt back to the training area, and slowly added the salt. I added it in chunks, so I would dump some in, mix it up with my hand until it desolves and do it over again until the bag was empty. It burned the whole time I mixed it, but that was the whole point of doing this. That simply just means it's working, and that's good. After the bag was empty there ended up being a layer of salt at the bottom of the pot, so I put the pot over a fire to heat it up. 

I remembered from a science class that if you heat the water up the salt diffuses better into the water, and you can disolve more into it. I found a large stick to mix it with and while the pot was heating, I was burning the outside of the stick. This would make fhe stick get disinfected, and cause some charcoal around the outside to act as yet another sterilizer. Or does it act as a filter, I can't remember. 

Either way I brought the pot up to boiling and started mixing like a witch with their cauldron. I also had a thought that if I use a hotspring to train, I could increase my heat tolerance, and my endurance since the steam would make it hard to breathe.

Also, in my past life I had a super high heat tolerance from burning myself over and over again accidentally. It got to the point that I wouldn't even get a blister, but my skin would just become black and chatred, then peel off when the layers of skin under were ready. I wonder if I can replicate that here? It's worth a shot, but I'll do it later in the training. 

After getting all the salt mixed into the water, I went back to training while I let it cool. After about 30 minutes of bleeding again, I walked over to the water and it still felt warm when I put my hand over it. I quickly stuck my finger in and out to check the temperature and it only felt warm. 

I then plunged my hand in, and found out that just because the surface is warm, doesn't mean the whole thing is. The mixture of hot water and salt sent searing pain through my whole body, and I quickly pulled my hands back out. After standing fir a minute waiting for my hands to cool off. 

After they cooled off, I prepared myself for the oncoming torment of pain, and plunged my hands back into the water. I grimaced in pain as my body screamed to pull my hands out, but I endured the pain as long as I possibly could. As soon as I couldn't handle it anymore, I pulled my hands out and looked at them. They were a bright pink color and throbbing from the pain they just endured. 

I let them cool off and went right back to training, but this time I did my legs giving my hands a well deserved break. It's safe to say my legs were probably gonna be extremely black and blue by tomorrow. After making them bleed once more, I straight jumped into the hot water once again feeling the pain shoot up my legs. I grimaced once more, but could barely handle all the extra surface area being heat up and burned. After I couldn't tolerate the pain anymore I jumped out of the water and laid on the ground with my legs in the air red like lobsters. 

"I definitely need to do heat training!" I said to myself "that was pitiful"

After my legs cooled off I went to train my forearms, and after that I was gonna be done for the night. I'd rather still be able to walk tomorrow. I went to check my traps once more, but they were all empty. So J headed back to my room back in the village. 

I poured myself another bowl of hot soup before going to bed. It still tasted a bit weird, but delicious none the less! With hot food in my body, and fatigue settling in, I finally dosed off.