When accepting Fang Zheng's invitation, Asuna firmly believed that she would be able to survive the other party's rigorous training. However, when she actually started training, Asuna discovered...how big the gap was between reality and ideal.
Fang Zheng completely controlled their daily lives. From the second day after joining the team, the three girls, including Asuna, never returned to the safe zone. Instead, they stayed with Fang Zheng and the others in the forest, leveling up and training!
The basic process is this.
They got up at six in the morning, and then did an hour of warm-up (leveling up). Then Fang Zheng, Restia and Esther taught and trained Asuna and the other three. Although they were already top players, they were all latecomers in cold weapons after all, and they were not up to standard in many aspects. Therefore, Fang Zheng first let them practice basic weapon attacks and counterattacks for three hours, and then continued to level up.
Then at one o'clock in the afternoon, they are given a two-hour break, during which they can take a breath, rest and relax their nerves. In the afternoon, they will continue to train their sword skills and then conduct actual combat exercises during leveling.
This would then continue until 8pm at night… However, this was not the end of the training.
During the training, Fang Zheng was in charge of all the food. So he gave Asuna and the other three a task - they had to pass a small path in the forest alone within a certain period of time. Various monsters would spawn there, and there would even be many stumbling blocks.
Fang Zheng will only give them food if they can reach the destination through the path on time. If they exceed the time... I'm sorry, you won't starve to death in the game anyway, so just starve!
After all this, they are given another two hours to study on their own, mainly to recall any omissions in today's battle, or anything they don't understand, and then they continue to study like this until twelve o'clock, and then they will find an open space in the forest to rest and sleep.
Spend the night in the wild!!
To be honest, when Fang Zheng mentioned this request for the first time, not only Asuna, but also Kuroneko and Aoba were shocked.
All along, even Asuna, who was the most frantic leveling person, would return to the town of origin at night, relax her mind in the warm inn, and have a good rest to face the battle of the next day.
After all, the living area is also a safe area. Here you don't have to worry about monster attacks or people causing trouble for you. Once the gate is closed, others can't get in. But in the wild? Not to mention the various monsters that may spawn at any time, what if a player with bad intentions comes to your door?
However, in response to the protests from Asuna and the others, Fang Zheng explained it to them like this.
"This is used to test the level of trust between us. In battle, we need to entrust our lives to each other, and what we need to do is to deepen this trust. If we don't even have this level of trust, then it will be even more difficult to fight together when facing the boss."
In the end, Asuna had no choice but to agree to stay.
Of course, this kind of high-intensity training should have easily caused dissatisfaction among the people, but whether it was Asuna, Kuroneko or Aoba, they hardly ever complained.
The reason is simple, that is, Fang Zheng and others are even more hardworking than them!
Not only would they train and level up with Asuna and the others, but when Asuna and the others were resting, Fang Zheng would also take Restia or Esther to look around to see if there were any refreshed elite monsters or the like that could be used as a "snack".
At night, Asuna and Kuroneko fell asleep almost immediately after a tiring day of training. Thanks to the soft ground in the game, which was like a carpet, they didn't have to worry about disgusting bugs or snakes crawling on them, so they slept very comfortably.
But every time, Asuna would watch them awake before going to sleep, and after waking up from a nap, they would still be awake!
It looked like he had never slept at all!
If it were just that it would be fine, but the biggest blow to Asuna was the changes in Aoba and Kuroneko!
Asuna has always believed that she is the craziest in leveling up. It can be seen from her level that when she first joined Fangzheng's team, she was level 15, Kuroneko was only level 13, and Aoba was only level 10. In Asuna's opinion, Aoba is a very well-behaved and obedient child, and Kuroneko... that speechless chuunibyou girl doesn't seem like someone who can endure hardships. Even she, a leveling madman, can't stand such training, so I'm afraid their performance will be bad.
However, the truth was completely opposite to what Asuna thought.
The first person to get familiar with Fang Zheng's training schedule was actually the black cat who was full of chuunibyou!
Not only her, even Aoba's upgrade speed has gradually caught up. After about five days of "hell training" by Fang Zheng and others, the levels of everyone in Fang Zheng's team are now: Fang Zheng, Restia, Ester at level 22, Black Cat at level 20, Asuna at level 19, and Aoba at level 18!
You have to know that at the beginning, Aoba and Asuna were five levels apart. Although this was also due to the fact that the experience gained decreased as the level increased, the fact that Aoba was able to catch up from a difference of five levels to only one level was enough to explain the problem.
"That's it, two hours of rest!"
As Fang Zheng finished speaking, Asuna let out a long breath, put down the rapier in her hand, and sat down against a tree. The black cat also stretched and sat next to her with Aoba.
"Esther, Restia, you two should take a break. I need to go back to the Town of Origin."
After giving simple instructions to his two sword elves, Fang Zheng turned and walked towards the teleportation crystal. Asuna looked at Fang Zheng's back and couldn't help but sigh.
"I never thought... that training would be so tiring..."
"But it's fun isn't it?"
The black cat chuckled.
"Sister Restia taught me a lot of interesting things, including how to use a scimitar... I think these things will be useful even if I return to the real world!"
"…Where are you going to use it? Doesn't this violate the Gun and Knife Control Law?"
Looking at the excited black cat, Asuna felt that she had to remind her, lest she finally leave the game world and then be thrown into prison again...
"Hmph! The threats from the mortal world are no match for me, the fallen angel Black Cat! My black fangs will cut off the shackles of those rules! Regain your freedom!"
"Ms. Black Cat, you are really energetic."
Asuna sighed as she watched the black cat stand up again, shouting and posing in a very second-year posture. Although Fang Zheng had told them that physical fatigue symptoms such as muscle aches would not occur in the game world, mental fatigue was also a headache...
“Because I’m used to it.”
"Get used to it?"
"yes."
The black cat nodded, then raised his head and looked at the sky.
"I have two younger sisters to take care of. I have to get up early every day to cook for them. After school in the afternoon, I have to play with them. At night, I have to sleep with them... In comparison, Mr. Fang Zheng's training seems to be easier in my opinion."
After all, it's not easy to appease two troublesome people.
"Ms. Black Cat, will you take care of it?"
"Yeah, my family doesn't have much money, and my parents both have to go to work. I'm the eldest sister, so naturally I have to take on the responsibility."
“But you bought this helmet?”
After hearing Black Cat's answer, Asuna immediately had doubts. Although she didn't know the real price of the helmet, she had heard something about it from her brother. If Asuna remembered correctly, the helmet was not cheap, at least it was not something that an ordinary family with a difficult life could afford.
“I didn’t buy it.”
However, the black cat shook his head.
"I won it in a lottery."
"……lottery?"
"Yes, wasn't there a store in Akihabara holding a lottery? I happened to be buying a new magazine that day, so I took the opportunity to draw a prize, and I won."
"Ms. Black Cat, you are so lucky..."
Hearing what Black Cat said, Aoba couldn't help but sigh, and then she let out a sigh.
"In comparison, my luck wasn't so good... I went to buy it with my friend, but when it was our turn, there was only one left. Since she was in line before me, I sold it to her. But my friend let me play first, but... I don't know how she is doing now."
“…”
Hearing this, everyone fell silent and stopped talking.
Although their fates are different, they all have a common goal, which is to leave this world as soon as possible and return to their relatives and friends who are worried about them.
However, so far, this is just a small wish.