Victor floated on his back in the center of a small lake behind the mansion, leaving only his face and part of his chest above the water. The sky was clear, with a few clouds slowly crossing his vision, and for the first time since Yu Jin Cheon had begun the training, no one was yelling that his foot was wrong, breaking his bones, or explaining that even the way he breathed revealed his intentions.
His entire body hurt.
It was not an intense pain concentrated in a single place. It was that deep exhaustion that began in the muscles and reached all the way into the bones, accompanied by dozens of small injuries his regeneration still had not managed to eliminate. Yu Jin Cheon had spent hours interrupting the healing with some kind of internal energy that remained trapped inside the wounds, forcing Victor to feel every consequence of his mistakes instead of simply rebuilding his body and moving on.
He did not even know how he had not passed out yet.
But there he was.
Floating.
