The next few days passed in a blur.
...And it was a painful experience for me.
After I woke up and was deemed 'healthy enough,' I was promptly dragged into Alice's training routine—and calling it 'intense' would've been generous.
It was brutal.
She attacked relentlessly, leaving me barely any room to breathe, let alone counterattack. Her strikes were fast, calculated, and precise, as if she had something to prove.
Maybe she did.
She was strong, no doubt about it. Her movements carried the weight of experience and discipline honed over years of elite training. If I had used even half of the artifacts in my possession, things could've gone differently—no, they would've gone differently.
But I didn't.
Not because I couldn't.
But because I chose not to.
I needed this.
I needed the pain, the bruises, the frustration of trying and failing again and again. No amount of artifacts or enchanted tools would give me what I lacked: real combat experience.
