( Leo's POV )
The hellish training that Ben only introduced to Leo the previous day, became a reality the next time Leo logged in.
The very first exercise that Ben wanted Leo to do was to climb a near 90° mountain slope, with nothing but a rope to pull on for support and from the very second that Leo tried to mimic Ben and try to place his feet on the rock while holding his body via the rope, he crashed horribly onto the floor as his grip slipped.
"Bloody hell, this is hard" Leo commented, as he tried to repeat the process a few times, however made little to no progress with it as he kept crashing down again and again and again.
Eventually, he let go of his ambition to place his feet onto the rock entirely and tried to climb vertically using only the rope to pull on, however, after climbing only a few metres, he felt his arms becoming sore from the effort as his stamina bar depleted drastically.
Persevering somehow, he climbed a few more meters, however, unfortunately lost his grip once again and slid straight down as his hands suffered a nasty burn due to the friction.
-40.
"Agh, that flippin burns" Leo complained, as all his falling and screaming woke Ben up who chuckled heartily watching Leo struggle.
If he wanted to, he could have helped Leo understand the technique behind the climb at this moment, but he did not.
Enjoying the view from afar, he allowed Leo to fall and fail as he wanted Leo to taste despair before achieving success.
Ben knew in his old age that rather than immediate success and feel good training, the quality that was most important to inculcate in a student was grit and tenacity.
By reinforcing the belief that even if things got hard, if they continued to try their best and not give up, they would eventually succeed, Ben wanted to teach Leo something that was more important than the climbing technique, which was to never give up.
Much to his joy, Leo never really gave up. Even though his palms burned, his body looked beat and he took some nasty falls, he kept trying his very best until the sun rose as that signaled to him that it was time to change his training.
After all the nasty beating that he took, Leo was desperate to eat a nice breakfast as he headed over to the creek and watched the local animals gather there to drink fresh water in peace.
His dagger skills were pretty shit, however, he did have poisoned daggers that he received from killing the PoisonSpider clan cadet, that Leo thought would come in handy for killing his target.
[ Male Antelope ] ( Level 45 )
Instead of going for the squirrels which Leo knew would be very hard to aim for, he decided to go after a bigger prey.
He selected the Antelope that was the nearest to his location and looked to be the smallest and weakest and decided to target it first.
Hiding behind a large tree trunk, he waited for the perfect opportunity to strike as he simulated a few mock throws in his mind and then decided to take the gamble.
His throwing technique was absolutely garbage and it was evident because he chose to make his dagger spin as he threw it, instead of going for a flat throw and as a result, the hilt of the dagger hit the antelope instead of the blade as it became startled and caused every other animal around it to become cautious.
The other antelopes of the herd turned towards Leo and his hiding spot was discovered easily.
"Murrooooooghhh"
The bigger alpha antelope roared as it put its head down, stuck it's big horns out and charged towards Leo.
"Oh fuck me-" Leo cursed, as he panicked and started to run away, swerving between trees and desperately dodging for his life.
For the first few seconds, it seemed like his plan was working, as the antelope chasing him seemed to stumble a couple of times, allowing Leo to pull ahead, but then his luck ran out as he tried to make his way through a thick looking bush vine, only to be stuck in its thorns as he could not go all the way through.
-7
-7
-7
-7
He suffered multiple cuts across his body, as a result of being stuck in the thorns and to make matters worse, he was stuck in that bush like a bullseye for the chasing antelope to come and ram straight into.
Closing his eyes, Leo resigned himself to the fate of being impaled to death, however, much to his surprise the dreaded horn bash never came as a gentle hand rather pulled him out of the bush.
As Leo turned, he saw Ben in tears as he pointed towards Leo and then the antelope as apparently he could not contain his laughter.
The antelope was unfortunately dead as Ben killed him with ease, however, Leo was left embarassed as on the very first day of his training he was going to achieve the record of being killed must humiliatingly by becoming the first assassin ever to be killed by a herbivore.
" I cant- hahahah, oh my god, I can't" Ben laughed maniacally as this was more entertainment than what he had received in years and he could just not stop laughing.
" Hey kid, let's assume, even if you did kill the deer, IF you killed it with poison, how were you planning to even eat it?
Were you planning to consume flesh infected with neuropoison?
How dumb are you?" Ben mocked, as Leo instantly felt his face flush with embarrassment.
He had completely forgot the fact that he could not consume poisoned flesh, as he was so focused on killing his prey that he forgot that he also had to do it the right way and ended up making a big fool of himself.
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/// A/N - We have also hit the PS target, bonus soon! ///