The first day was hell.
I held the stance until my legs trembled and gave out. Reset. Held it again until sweat poured down my face and my muscles screamed. Reset. Over and over, with Jack watching every micro-adjustment, every moment my form degraded, correcting with harsh efficiency.
"Your left shoulder just rose three degrees. Reset."
"Your weight shifted forward. That's death in combat. Reset."
"Your fingers tensed. I can see it from here. Reset."
There was no praise. No encouragement. Just constant identification of failure and the command to begin again.
After what felt like hours of pure stance work, Jack finally allowed me to progress to the drawing motion itself. But not the full technique. Just the draw. Just the act of pulling the blade from the sheath in a controlled manner, over and over until the path became natural.
"The blade exits at a fifteen-degree angle upward from horizontal. Not fourteen degrees. Not sixteen degrees. Fifteen. Again."
I drew. Reset. Drew. Reset.
My shoulder began to ache. Then burn. Then it felt like someone was driving hot needles into the joint with every repetition.
"Your draw speed is inconsistent. Every single repetition should be identical in timing and execution. If I can't predict exactly when the blade will clear the sheath, you're doing it wrong. Again."
Draw. Reset. Draw. Reset.
The sun crawled across the sky with agonizing slowness. Morning became afternoon. Afternoon became evening. And still Jack demanded repetition.
"Five hundred draws today," he announced when the light began to fade. "Tomorrow we'll aim for a thousand. Dismissed."
I staggered back to my room, collapsed on the bed still wearing my training clothes, and fell into unconsciousness more than sleep.
---
The second day began before dawn.
Jack was waiting in the courtyard when I arrived, having roused me from bed with a knock that sounded like he was trying to break down the door.
"You're three minutes late," he said flatly. "One hundred burpees. Now."
I didn't argue. Didn't complain. I just dropped and began the punishment exercise.
The warm-up was even more brutal than the previous day. My body was already sore from yesterday's training, and Jack showed no mercy for that fact.
"Soreness means your body is adapting. Push through it or quit now and save us both time."
After warm-ups came stance training again. Hours of it. My legs shook from the first minute, but Jack refused to accept degraded form.
"If you cannot maintain proper stance while fresh, you cannot maintain it when exhausted, when injured, when an enemy is trying to kill you. The foundation must be perfect before we build upon it. Hold it."
My legs gave out. Reset. Gave out again. Reset.
Sometime around midday, something shifted. The stance that had felt awkward and unnatural yesterday began to feel almost normal. My body was learning, adapting, finding efficiency in the position that reduced the strain.
"Better," Jack said, and the single word felt like the highest praise imaginable. "You're beginning to internalize it. Again."
The afternoon brought drawing practice. Another thousand repetitions of the same motion. Draw. Reset. Draw. Reset.
But today, Jack added a new element.
"Now we incorporate the first stage of mana circulation. As you draw, gather energy in your core. Don't release it yet. Just gather and hold. Feel the sensation of readiness."
I drew the blade and tried to simultaneously pull mana into my core. The dual focus was difficult, splitting my attention between physical motion and internal energy manipulation.
The blade wobbled as it cleared the sheath.
"Unacceptable. The physical motion cannot degrade when you add mana. They must work in harmony. Again."
Draw and gather. Reset. Draw and gather. Reset.
My mana pool felt strained by the hundredth repetition, like a muscle that had been worked to exhaustion. But slowly, painfully, the dual action began to feel more natural.
By evening, I could draw while gathering mana without the blade's path wavering. Jack nodded once, the closest thing to approval I'd received.
"Progress. Tomorrow we add the cutting motion. Dismissed."
I barely made it back to my room before collapsing again.