Isabela officially joined Elias in his training with Vivian, marking the first day of her own physical conditioning.
She was already in decent shape, thanks to a combination of naturally high attributes and years of combat training with Peter—but it wasn’t enough. She was still nowhere near manifesting the full potential of the attributes she’d been born with. Reaching that point required years of dedicated effort or a small fortune spent on training supplements and potions.
Usually, it took both.
Given Isabela’s natural aptitude and the time she had ahead of her, Elias honestly doubted their mom would push her as hard as she’d pushed him when he was younger. The truth was, there wasn’t much to gain from increasing her attributes through training the way he had.
All she really needed was to bring her effective attributes as close as possible to her real ones before she turned eighteen. So long as she trained hard, that was a goal she should be able to reach within six years, even without relying on recovery potions or similar aids.
And she would train hard—Elias was sure of it. Vivian would make sure of that.
He watched as Isabela stretched, a confident smile on her face, and felt a flicker of pity.
She really had no idea what was coming.
Although she should be able to achieve the results she wanted in time, Elias doubted that would be good enough for Vivian. Their mother seemed to believe that people should always push themselves to their absolute limit, whether it was strictly necessary or not.
She treated the very concept of ‘taking it easy’ as a personal affront.
While Isabela’s training probably wouldn’t be as brutal as his had been back then, it would still be tougher than anything she’d ever experienced before.
Their training session started off easily enough, with Vivian flicking a handful of tiny rubber balls at them to train their reflexes and agility. The balls stung a bit when they hit, but not enough to really hurt.
Throughout the exercise, Isabela managed to impress them all with an exceptionally poor performance. Even Kitty looked incredulous from the sidelines, staring at her human as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.
Somehow, Isabela had failed to dodge nearly every single projectile their mother threw, including one that Elias was pretty sure had been aimed at him.
For endurance training, they were once again made to run a series of sprints along a hundred-meter stretch. This time, however, Isabela wasn’t allowed to quit after the tenth sprint like she had when she’d tried copying his training before. No—Vivian had her sprint at full speed, over and over again, until she collapsed to the ground wheezing, struggling to catch her breath.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
All things considered, Elias still thought their mom was going easy on her. Isabela had only been pushed to exhaustion once. Then again, he supposed the leniency made sense—it was her first day, after all.
This kind of training was all about pushing past one’s limits again and again, and that required a level of willpower his little sister simply didn’t have yet.
Isabela reaching her limits seemed to be Vivian’s cue to ramp up his training even further. It was as if she wanted to use Elias as a living example, a demonstration of the kind of effort Isabela would be expected to put in during her own sessions.
As a result, Elias soon found himself gasping for breath right alongside his sister, his entire body burning with exertion. At least Vivian had given him a recovery potion afterward. He was fairly certain he was suffering from heat stroke, judging by how unbearably hot he felt.
“Why are you the only one who gets a recovery potion?” Isabela asked, a hint of resentment in her voice.
Elias didn’t answer. He simply looked at her, eyes filled with compassion and pity. She really had no idea what was coming, or the kind of performance it would take to satisfy their mother.
The answer to her question was simple: she hadn’t earned a recovery potion because she hadn’t pushed herself far enough to make good use of one.
Unfortunately, Isabela misread the look in his eyes. Mistaking his compassion for mockery, she puffed her cheeks in indignation.
It probably didn’t help that he’d made his trademark ‘this is delicious’ face while drinking the potion.
Still, that didn’t explain how she came to the brilliant conclusion that it would be a good idea to complain to their mother about “how unfair it was that he got a recovery potion and she didn’t,” even though they were now doing the same training.
Vivian tolerated no complaining, defiance, hesitation, or anything else that could even remotely be mistaken for disobedience—but only during training.
Under normal circumstances, she was the most doting of their parents—bubbly, affectionate, and energetic at any given moment. Unfortunately for Isabela, she failed to realize that their mother responded very differently once training began.
Elias watched, mouth agape, as his sister enthusiastically poured all her effort into digging her own grave.
It was tragic, really.
He could only shake his head when Vivian calmly decided that if Isabela had the energy to complain, then she clearly had the energy to sprint “a few more times.”
By the end of training, Isabela ended up getting her very own recovery potion after all. She lay flat on her back, eyes blank and face pale. She looked like she wanted to cry, but clearly didn’t have the energy for it. Elias couldn’t tell whether it was the result of Vivian’s particular brand of encouragement or just sheer physical exhaustion.
Kitty comforted her by kneading gently on her belly, somehow managing to look genuinely worried for a cat. Even Elias offered a few words of consolation. He knew exactly what his sister was feeling right now, and a bit of encouragement would probably go a long way.
He didn’t offer a hug, though—that would’ve risked getting her vomit on his shirt.