The iron rings felt wrong the moment Kael fastened them.

It was not just their weight. Twenty kilos on each limb was something the body could, in theory, adapt to. But this was different. The rings dragged at him in a way that made every movement feel delayed, as if the world itself resisted him.

When he stood, his balance shifted. His center of gravity no longer belonged to him.

When he took a step, the ground felt uncertain.

"This is ridiculous," Kael muttered, testing his footing. "Can’t we just do some dumbbells? Weight lifting?"

Behind him, the old man said nothing.

Kael stepped toward the edge of the cliff, the familiar drop now seeming far more hostile than before. The path he had learned over weeks of struggle no longer felt reliable. Every hold, every ledge, had to be reconsidered under the burden of the added weight.

"You said two hours," Kael called over his shoulder.

"That’s right."

Kael clenched his jaw. Four hours had barely been enough when he was unweighted. Now he had half that time, with more than eighty kilos dragging him down.

He glanced once at the cave, then at the forest far below.

Hunger twisted inside him again.

"Fine," he muttered.

He began his descent.

The first few meters went poorly.

His foot slipped almost immediately, the added weight pulling him downward faster than expected. His fingers scrambled for purchase, nails scraping against stone before finding a hold strong enough to stop his fall.

His heart hammered in his chest.

"Damn," he whispered to himself.

He adjusted. Slower movements. Tighter control. He tested each hold twice before committing his weight. His arms burned far sooner than before, the strain immediate and unforgiving.

Minutes stretched.

Sweat dripped from his chin, falling into the abyss below. His breathing grew heavier, more labored. Every shift in position required deliberate effort, every mistake punished more harshly.

He descended.

Not gracefully. Not efficiently. But he moved.

By the time he reached a third of the way down, his arms trembled uncontrollably. His fingers felt numb, grip slipping despite his best efforts to maintain control.

He glanced upward.

"You’re not going to make it," came the voice.

Kael’s head snapped to the side.

The old man stood on the cliff face again, perfectly still, body parallel to the ground as though anchored by something unseen.

Kael’s eye twitched.

"Can you not do that?" he snapped, irritation bleeding through exhaustion.

"Do what?"

"That!"

The old man tilted his head slightly, as if considering the request. Then he took a step, casually defying gravity, and stood beside Kael.

"You’re wasting time," he said.

Kael gritted his teeth.

"Then stop talking."

The old man smiled faintly.

Kael pushed himself downward again.

Time slipped away faster than he expected. The two-hour limit pressed on him like an invisible force, urging him to move faster even as his body screamed for him to slow down.

He did not reach the bottom.

Not even close.

"You’re late," the old man said.

Kael closed his eyes briefly.

"Of course I am."

He was pulled back up, the ascent a blur of pain and frustration. The beating- Sparring- that followed was as brutal as ever, yet something in Kael’s body responded differently now. The pain was sharp, immediate, but it did not linger in the same way.

When it ended, he lay there, chest rising and falling heavily.

"Again," the old man said.

Kael laughed weakly.

"You’re serious."

"Always."

Kael pushed himself up, limbs trembling under the weight of the rings.

He stepped toward the cliff once more.

Something had changed.

The fear was still there. The exhaustion, the frustration. But beneath it, something else had taken root. A quiet understanding that this was not meant to be fair. Not meant to be reasonable.

It was meant to break him.

Kael tightened his grip on the rock as he began his descent again.

"Then I won’t break," he muttered.

And this time, he moved with just a little more certainty than before.

***

The first time Kael made it to the bottom of the cliff with the rings, he did not celebrate. There was no moment of triumph, no pause to acknowledge what he had done. He simply stood there, at the base of the cliff, chest rising and falling in controlled breaths, staring at the forest in front of him with a blank expression that masked how close he had come to failure.

The descent had not been clean. His arms had trembled halfway down, his grip slipping more than once, the weight of the iron rings dragging him into mistakes he would not have made weeks prior. His shoulders burned, his fingers felt half numb, and more than once he had thought about letting go just to end it.

But he had adjusted. Not by forcing himself harder, but by doing less. His movements had grown smaller, more deliberate. He had stopped overreaching, stopped gripping with unnecessary force, stopped wasting effort on movements that did not matter.

He had reached the bottom.

And now he had to go back up.

Kael tilted his head back, looking at the cliff that rose above him like a wall that had no intention of letting him pass. For a brief moment, something close to anger flared in his chest.

"This is stupid," he muttered under his breath. "This is actually stupid."

He could still feel the weight on his limbs, dragging at him even when he stood still. His body had not recovered from the descent. It had barely survived it. And yet, he pushed off the ground and began climbing again.

The ascent was worse.

Every muscle that had been strained on the way down now protested twice as hard on the way up. His fingers slipped more often, his arms shook earlier, and the weight of the rings pulled him downward with every mistake. He could feel time pressing against him, an invisible force that did not slow, did not wait, did not care how tired he was.

At some point, he stopped thinking about the top.

He stopped thinking about time.

He stopped thinking at all.

His body moved.

Hand. Hold. Pull. Step. Adjust.

Again.

Again.

Again.