After a few hours of weapons training that drained Leo's stamina to a near all-time low, it was finally time for lunch as Ben cooked Leo a nourishing meal.
With nothing but the wilderness surrounding him, Leo had a meat stew mixed with herbs in an old iron bowl which tasted fairly delicious.
With birds chirping in the background and the blue sky over his head, Leo felt like he was back to the good old days of humanity, enjoying a nice warm picnic in the embrace of nature.
He ate voraciously and helped himself to three helpings of food as Ben smiled and encouraged him to eat even more.
From here onwards, Leo had to train even harder and he needed energy to sustain himself and for that he needed to feed himself well.
" I'm stuffed, this is the best food I've eaten in a month. Thank You so much" Leo thanked Ben who placed a hand over his shoulder with an evil grin and said "Filling yourself to the brim before stretching? Rookie mistake"
It was at that moment that Leo realized that there was something seriously wrong and that he had been set up by Ben.
As the training shifted to the stretching regimen, Leo braced himself for discomfort, but what followed was an ordeal that tested the very limits of his endurance.
From the very first stretch itself, which was a deep lunge, designed to target the hip flexors—a group of muscles critical for the high kicks and sudden sprints that an assassin might need to execute, Leo felt his mind go numb with pain as while he could perform a deep lunge himself, he could not do it with his second leg laying flat on the ground like Ben wanted him to.
Ben instructed Leo to push his front knee over his toes, extending the stretch until Leo's breath hitched and then he physically applied additional pressure himself once Leo could push no more.
"These muscles," Ben explained, "are your foundation for agility. You need them as flexible as the strings of a bow."
Leo grunted in response, the sensation teetering on the edge of unbearable.
" It feels like you're ripping my muscles apart. Fuckkkkk…. I've not even felt this kind of pain when being beaten black and blue" Leo cursed as Ben grinned.
Muscle stretching was the most painful process that a man could go through and it was going to be especially hard for Leo in his starting days.
"How much longer are you going to hold? It's already been four hours!" Leo complained eventually, as Ben told him that it had only been two minutes and forced him to endure for three more minutes before changing the leg and repeating the 5 minutes long stretch.
Next, they moved onto a hamstring stretch, with Leo lying on his back while Ben pushed his raised leg towards his head. "The hamstrings," Ben said, pressing Leo's leg closer to his torso, "they're what give you the speed. Tight hamstrings are a liability." Leo's response was a choked curse, his hands clawing at the dirt below as he fought the instinct to pull away.
The pain was a hot wire, searing through the back of his thigh.
They held this stretch for five minutes as well, before moving onto the next one.
Next, Ben forced Leo into a split which led to Leo's inner thighs screaming under the stretch.
"Your adductors," Ben intoned, as if lecturing in a classroom rather than pushing his pupil to the brink of tolerance, "give you the lateral movement. Essential for dodging, for weaving through your environment as seamlessly as shadow." Leo's vision blurred, his teeth ground together so hard he feared they might crack.
"I know it hurts," Ben acknowledged, "but think of this pain as the currency for your survival."
Ben was slightly surprised as to how pathetic Leo's body was. It was almost like he had never stretched much in his life before as his muscles had absolutely no flexibility to them.
However, he did not let Leo's starting point deter him as the fact that Leo was holding his screams in and not complaining was a big positive and hence Ben only focused on his improvement.
Next came the stretching of the shoulders and back—muscles crucial for the quick, powerful strikes of an assassin.
Ben had Leo extend his arms in a T-position and then pushed them gently but firmly upwards. "Tension here," he said, indicating the stretch that ran all the way down Leo's spine to his fingertips, "can mean the difference between a strike that neutralizes, and one that merely warns."
Leo's internal monologue was a litany of disbelief and agony. Each new position introduced a fresh hell that tore gasps and groans from his lips. He cursed under his breath, at Ben, at himself, at the unforgiving nature of his body which felt like it was being dismantled and remade.
Yet, with each curse, there was an undercurrent of awe as despite the pain, his body was also releasing a hell lot of dopamine which felt really good.
By the end of the session, Leo was more than just sore; he felt remolded, reshaped. Lying on the dirt, every breath was a testament to the day's trials with Ben's hand on his shoulder being both a comfort and a reminder of the ordeal. "The pain," Ben said, echoing Leo's own thoughts, "is just the body's way of resisting change. But change is exactly what we're after."
"That's right old man, I'm sure tomorrow will be better-" Leo said optimistically as he thought that the stretching session was over, but actually it was not.
"Tomorrow? What are you 7 years old? It's only been half an hour and only bodyweight stretching, you still have a long way to go boy" Ben said as he then introduced Leo to the forced stretches which made the first 30 minutes feel like child's play.
Handcuffing him from a high rod, Ben attacked two 20kg weighted ankle balls to Leo's feet forcing his spine to decompress under duress.
Leo physically felt his arms and legs being ripped apart, applying stretch to muscle areas that Leo would never be able to by himself, throwing him into a world of pain, however, Ben showed him no mercy.
He was hung from rods, he had his wrists forcibly taped to his arms at an extreme stretch with his toes suffering the same fate.
He had weights attached to his individual fingers and stretched, his neck hung from a complex device and stretched, and as if all this wasn't enough, he was even forced to stretch his glutes by being tied at odd angles.
In the two hours of stretching, Leo felt like blacking out twice and puked three times in total as he realized as to why Ben said that stuffing himself up was a rookie mistake.
A heavy stomach before such an intense exercise was a mistake Leo would never make again, however, just thinking about going through this hell every single day, made Leo fear for his life.
Even more unfortunately, just going through this hell was not enough either as immediately after stretching was reflex training as Leo's day was far from over yet.