Rogue Villain-Chapter 195: Lightweight

Ackster woke with a start as he sensed Bo right in front of him. Surprisingly enough, what shocked him the most was the fact that he sensed Bo’s presence. But he quickly realized it was intentional.

"Mm."

Bo hummed with a thoughtful expression before gesturing for Ackster to get up and follow him.

"Don’t waste time and effort asking stupid questions such as why you have to do certain things."

"...Okay."

Bo led Ackster out of the house to the lawn, where he had prepared an array of what looked like an array of magic crystals.

Ackster could feel, even with his low-ranked Mana Sense, how much mana was in the crystals. They had to be worth a fortune. But Ackster stayed silent as he followed Bo’s command and lay down in the middle of the circular array while Bo picked up a nearby bucket filled with a viscous, greyish liquid.

"Be silent and don’t resist. I’m going to seal your skills. It will be uncomfortable, but it shouldn’t be painful."

"Wha—?"

Bo pushed down on Ackster’s forehead with a thumb, covered in the mysterious liquid, before Ackster could fully react. Ackster’s words and thoughts were cut off as the liquid seeped into him.

Bo continued applying it to various places all over his body, eventually covering him in lines and symbols of grey paint. But Ackster didn’t notice. All he could feel was a simultaneously hot and cold sensation spread throughout his entire body and pierce deep into his very being, deeper than his bones.

Ackster felt like a million tiny worms small enough to crawl through his cells burrowed to the core of his body. It was unpleasant but not painful.

And before he knew it, it was over.

Ackster opened his eyes and jerked upright as he touched his body all over. The strange liquid was gone, at least from his skin. But something was different with him. He couldn’t pinpoint it, but something had changed.

"Your skills and all that are completely sealed, and you’re now an entirely physical being. It will make it easier to target the areas you need to improve first."

Bo gave Ackster a brief explanation to calm him down and inform him of what was happening so he didn’t get distracted by his confusion. Now, Ackster at least had an explanation as to why he felt strange and out of touch with himself while also closer to the world than before.

When the skill-sealing was done, Bo brought Ackster to another area of the lawn where flat slabs of stone had replaced the grass. Ackster felt through the soles of his feet the solidity and resilience of the stone beneath him. For some reason, he had a hunch he wouldn’t be able to destroy the slabs even if he went all out.

Bo instructed Ackster to do a set of stretching and mobility exercises. At first, he had no trouble keeping up and completing the exercises to satisfaction.

’This isn’t so bad.’

It was far from the horrors Ackster had imagined when he thought of Bo’s demand for absolute control over Ackster’s actions.

However, as time went on, the intensity and difficulty of the exercises quickly ramped up. It didn’t take long before Ackster started getting irritated. He was irritated both at himself and Bo, who corrected him when he was sure he was doing right.

But he didn’t vent that irritation since he could eventually feel the difference. If he had continued without Bo’s corrections, he would have injured himself. With Bo’s corrections, on the other hand, Ackster felt his muscles, joints, ligaments, and entire body loosen up in ways he could never have imagined.

Bo wasn’t satisfied with that and continued giving Ackster new instructions and exercises. Even when Ackster pushed his body’s flexibility beyond its limits and turned into a pretzel, Bo continued with more demanding and challenging poses.

"One more time. Memorize it."

After that command, Bo started over.

Ackster felt the difference in mobility at once. He went from barely touching his fingertips behind his back to almost clasping his elbows. But he didn’t let himself get distracted as he used his body’s muscle memory to remember the stretching routine.

When Ackster finished the routine, Bo nodded.

"Good."

He pointed at a nearby rack of weights ranging from the size of a needle to the size of a branch.

"Pinch a weight between your fingers and repeat the routine."

Bo showed Ackster how to hold the weights between his thumb and index finger, index finger and middle finger, middle finger and ring finger, and ring finger and pinky finger.

"Cycle between every grip and repeat the routine until failure. Do it one cycle after that."

"Okay."

Bo left his order behind as he started walking away to prepare something else.

Ackster went up to the weight rack and picked one at random.

’Huh. They’re lighter than I expected.’

The weights weighed more than their sizes could lead one to believe. But not even the heaviest one weighed more than the saber Ackster had used in the Sea God Temple. He could wave it around for an entire day without even breaking a sweat.

"Begin with the lightest ones."

However, Bo stopped Ackster from doing anything foolish as he spoke from the other side of the lawn before disappearing from view.

Ackster was doubtful. But he had agreed to listen to Bo’s orders. And he didn’t want to jeopardize the training by not listening.

So, he grabbed the lightest pair of weights, the needles, and pinched them between his thumb and index finger. Like that, he began another set of mobility exercises.

He didn’t feel it at first. But when he got to the end, Ackster was dripping with sweat.

’What the fuck?’

The tiny sliver of extra weight had added an unreasonable degree of difficulty to the exercises. Ackster couldn’t understand it.

Thankfully, he didn’t need to understand it to do it with the next pair of fingers.