I looked up at him through sweat-stung eyes, trying to process what he’d just said.

Warm-up.

Eleven rounds of increasingly brutal bodyweight exercises that had reduced me to a quivering mass of overworked muscle tissue, and he was calling it a warm-up. The actual training hadn’t even started yet.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" The words came out between gasps for air. "That was just the warm-up?"

"Elementary level warm-up, actually. Elite Ten members usually do this routine as a cool-down after their real workouts." Vale stood up and walked over to another section of equipment that looked even more intimidating than what we’d been using. "But don’t worry, we’ll build up to their level gradually. Maybe in a few months you’ll be able to handle intermediate training."

A few months.

To handle intermediate training.

After what I’d just experienced was apparently elementary level preparation for the actual workout.

I was starting to understand why Vale had a reputation for making students cry. This wasn’t training, it was systematic torture disguised as physical education. The kind of program designed by someone who viewed human suffering as a necessary ingredient for improvement.

"Get up, Monroe." Vale’s voice carried the kind of authority that made questioning orders feel like a bad idea. "Time for some real exercises. These resistance bands are calibrated for Bronze-tier strength levels, which should be perfect for someone at your development stage."

He held up what looked like elastic cables attached to some kind of frame system. The bands were thick enough to suggest serious tension, and the frame looked sturdy enough to anchor a small building. Definitely not the kind of equipment you’d find in a normal gym.

I struggled to my feet, using the wall for support while my legs remembered how to function properly. My body was a collection of protests. Every muscle group from my shoulders down to my calves was screaming. Parts of me I hadn’t thought about since high school anatomy were making themselves known through very specific types of discomfort.

And this was just the warm-up.

Vale was either a genius training instructor who understood exactly how to push human limits, or he was a sadistic monster who enjoyed watching students suffer for his personal entertainment. Hell, he could be both. The two categories weren’t mutually exclusive.

Looking at his expression right now, I was leaning toward the latter explanation with strong supporting evidence for the former. He had that look teachers got when they saw a student finally starting to understand something important.

Except in this case, the lesson was apparently "your body is capable of far more pain than you previously imagined."

"Good," Vale said, watching me wobble on unsteady legs. "You’re still standing. That puts you ahead of about thirty percent of first-years who try this program." He walked over to inspect my form, circling like a predator examining wounded prey. "Most of them tap out during the plank variations. The fact that you finished all six sets means you’ve got more willpower than physical conditioning. Which is actually the correct order for what we’re building here."

I wanted to feel proud of that assessment. Really, I did. But right now I was too busy trying to figure out if sitting down would be a strategic mistake or a necessary survival measure. Standing hurt. Moving hurt. Breathing hurt more than it should. But Vale’s tone suggested that showing weakness would be interpreted as failure, and I’d already decided this morning that I wasn’t going to fail at anything I could control.

"How much worse does it get?" I asked, immediately regretting the question because I already knew I wouldn’t like the answer.

"Depends on your perspective." Vale’s smile was the kind that made students nervous in elevators. "If you think what you just did was difficult, then yes, it gets significantly worse. But if you understand that pain is just your body complaining about change, then it gets easier. Not physically easier. Mentally easier. You’ll learn to tune out the noise and focus on the work."

Philosophy from a man who could probably deadlift a car. Fantastic. Just what I needed while my abs were trying to stage a mutiny.

"The beautiful thing about resistance training," he said while adjusting the band settings, "is that it scales with your effort. Pull harder, get more resistance. Give up, get nothing. It’s honest feedback in a way that most of life isn’t."

I watched him calibrate the equipment with practiced movements that suggested he’d done this hundreds of times before. Every adjustment was deliberate, purposeful, designed to create exactly the right amount of challenge for whatever torture he had planned next.

"How many Elite Ten members have you trained personally?" I asked, partly out of curiosity and partly to buy myself a few more seconds of recovery time.

"All of them, at various points. Katt was the most stubborn. Kept insisting she could handle Diamond-tier resistance bands during her first session." Vale’s expression suggested fond memories of watching the current Rank #1 student get her ass kicked by exercise equipment. "She learned better after spending twenty minutes trying to complete a single bicep curl."

Great. If the academy’s strongest student had struggled with this program, what hope did I have of surviving it intact?

Vale finished his setup and stepped back to admire his work. The resistance band system looked like something designed by engineers who’d never met a human being but had read detailed specifications about how much punishment the human body could theoretically endure.

"Alright Monroe, let’s see what that strength can actually do under proper resistance. Fifty bicep curls to start, then we’ll move on to chest presses, rows, and squats. Keep proper form throughout, and don’t even think about stopping until you’ve completed every rep."

Fifty bicep curls using Bronze-tier resistance bands after eleven rounds of bodyweight exercises that had already pushed my muscles past their comfort zone.

This was going to hurt in ways that would make the warm-up look like a relaxing massage.

I grabbed the handles and felt the immediate tension pull against my grip. The resistance was substantial even at rest position, requiring genuine effort just to maintain the starting stance.

Vale settled into a chair where he could observe my technique, looking like a spectator who’d paid good money to watch someone get systematically destroyed by elastic cables.

"Begin whenever you’re ready," he said. "But remember, this is still part of the basic conditioning phase. We haven’t even started working on ability integration yet."

Ability integration.

There was more.

Of course there was more.

I took a deep breath, tightened my grip on the handles, and began the first rep.

The resistance fought me every inch of the way, turning what should have been a simple arm movement into a battle against physics itself. By rep ten, my biceps were screaming. By rep twenty, I was making involuntary grunting noises that probably echoed through the entire building.

Vale watched with the same amused expression he’d worn during the warm-up, occasionally making notes on a tablet like he was documenting my progressive breakdown for scientific purposes.

"Looking good, Monroe," he said around rep thirty, when my form had deteriorated into something that barely resembled proper bicep curls. "Only twenty more to go. Try to keep those elbows stationary."

Twenty more.

My arms felt like they were going to fall off, but I had twenty more reps to complete before we moved on to whatever fresh hell awaited in the chest press station.

This was elite training. This was what separated the people who succeeded from the people who complained.

I was starting to understand why most people chose to complain.