Training Regime

After Doctor Shu's quick leave, the Tang family prepared to return home as well. Everyone had happy and relieved expressions on their faces and Tang Guo and Fang as the strongest started to carry their father home.

Only much later this evening Tang Rong woke up and he too was very joyous after hearing he would be able to work in a couple of weeks again but after remembering the broken pump his mood seemed to dampen.

At dinner Tang He found out what had occurred on the fields today:

His sister Tang Ah fell into the river when her father was standing on top of the water wheel. As she couldn't swim she was thrown against the water wheel which made it first bend a bit and when Tang Rong tried to jump off to save his daughter it collapsed under him. Then Tang He's sister was washed away from the wooden construct again. Tang Fang had seen everything and was able to jump after his sister and safe her. She got away with a couple of bruises but her father wasn't as lucky he got buried underneath the waterwheel.

When he fell one of the wooden shafts even impaled his leg and as the rest came down, it finally broke. Only with much effort where his brothers able to drag him out of the debris.

Luckily Tang Mei and son had already returned so help was able to arrive as fast as it did.

But there were still consequences to all of that. Their pump was broken and they would need a new one to replace it which would cost them a lot. Tang Mei was pretty sure they would be able to afford it but the question was how much money would be left after everything.

Tang He listened to all of this and was very glad he was able to reach Doctor Shu when he did and that the doctor wasn't too late.

Nobody really questioned Doctors Shu's sudden disappearance. It was rather usual for the doctor to go somewhere and he did it almost all the time after his treatments so nobody was too suspicious about that. Who would be after that guy saved your life?

The rest of the meal was spent in quiet and after everyone finished, Tang He was tasked to get another bucket of water as always. Even though Tang Mei wanted to let her son rest, he himself didn't mind and seemed totally fit for it.

Frank had been silent for the whole time. Still shocked about the things he saw just now he needed to revaluate the information he had heard today.

Those needles were actually effective somehow, they and the ointment Doctor Shu prepared closed of the blood flow to the injured area fully. To repair that damage modern medicine would have needed a complex operation where an experienced surgeon would reconnect and repair the damaged arteries. This guy just stuck in some needles and closed the injury manually. How much training does one need to do that? Will there actually be no sequela after everything is healed?

He could have understood it, had he seen some kind of high-tech equipment being used. Maybe a syringe full of nanobots which would repair all damage automatically but what he saw today was totally different – It was absolutely out of his scope of experience.

< This either isn't earth or the universe I resided in for that matter or things sure have changed in my absence. > he concluded.

For Frank who had died and reawakened it wasn't too farfetched to consider things like alternate universes. Even though he didn't really like the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics and the multiverse idea from string-theory as they didn't have any explanatory capability he did accept its possibility. Why should there be only one universe? It's the same general idea as thinking our earth was the centre of the universe.

Other universes would probably have different sets of rules and he did indeed need other sets of rules because what he had seen today didn't confirm with anything he knew about biology or physics.

Maybe a needle at the correct position would slow the heartbeat down a bit or maybe slightly reduce blood pressure but it would never be able to stop it completely. For that matter he had never heard of medical plants which could induce such calming effects just by standing around them and breathing in.

But the usual laws of physics seemed to be pretty much the same: …

He saw a more or less yellow sun a blue sky and working biological machines, that meant either everything was different and miraculously it still seemed the same or everything was indeed the same but some specific things worked differently or were added to the framework. For Frank the later was obviously more likely. He was still hoping to be on his home planet though…

Maybe those plants are just some kind of extreme case of genetic modification? Maybe even the anatomy of humans has changed considerably.

He needed to find out more about this world he was in!

When Frank awoke from his stupor Tang He was already on the way to the well with a bucket in hand.

< Hey boy, wanna train? >

< If you get stronger you would be able help out in many more situations in the future. >

Tang He stood still for a moment and after remembering how he had almost collapsed on his way to Doctor Shu he steeled his will and nodded firmly.

< Alright then… >

Because Frank was inside Tang He, he could feel every little detail of the boy's body.

< Okay then, run as I had told you before… >

For the next 20 minutes Tang He was trying his best to follow Franks instructions on how to run properly. He had more or less done it before on the way to Doctor Shu, but from all the adrenaline in his body he didn't get any feeling for it himself. He had just run before, but now he tried to remember how each and every step felt.

< Nice! Try to push more when make your step instead of pulling when you land. … >

< Feel that muscle? That is exactly where all the force comes from. Now try to use the muscles in your lower leg as well. … >

Sometimes they would sprint, sometimes they would do more of a hopping motion but either way anyone meeting Tang He on the road would have had their mouth wide open from watching all of that.

Very soon they reached the well where Tang He drew a full bucket of water and afterwards lied down to rest a bit. It would only be a short rest because they would do strength training next.

< All the eggs you ate before are wasting away stored in your body as reserves. We need to make muscle out of them! >

And so started a rigorous training regime. Sit-ups, push-ups, squats – if there was a muscle Frank knew about, they would do training to facilitate it. Some of it was static training as well: Standing on one leg with arms stretched out, holding a bench position or doing a horse stance. Static training was especially good for skeletal muscle and with it one could train those parts of the body one would normally not use too much.

Normally the bigger a muscle grows the more inefficient it becomes. Disproportionate amounts of energy will be used to make it contract. Even though they could look very pretty, such muscles were only good for short strong movements. Over long periods of time they would very quickly start becoming sore and lose much of their function. That is where static training shined: Holding specific positions one could train the small muscles underneath and closer to the core of the body. These were responsible for making you stand upright for the whole day without feeling tired they would help balance your stance. They were evolved to work for long amounts of time without rest and that is exactly what Frank was trying to improve.

After each exercise they would do a small break and stretch those parts of the body which would be trained next.

An hour later, Frank told him to rest and wash up. They would need to walk back so not to come too late back and worry his family. Frank had planned to have him run back but after seeing Tang He's pale face he decided against and chose to walk. With the bucket on his head running would have been too difficult anyway.

Frank had overexerted the boy a bit. Partly he wanted to know where his limits where and the other reason was that he simply didn't have any experience as a trainer before. He would need to learn and understand how to train that boy in the future and when the best moments would be to stop.

Even though Tang He's face was pale his will was as sturdy as it could get. He had gritted his teeth through the exercises and was glad to have finished them successfully. With wobbly steps he walked to the well where he had drawn another bucket of water before. Because he knew he would get extremely sweaty soon, he had taken of his shirt and laid it out to dry after washing it for a while.

Washing himself and removing most of the sweat on him he put the bucket back and lied down in the grass for a couple of minutes. Looking up into the already darker but still very blue sky he was dreaming of becoming extremely strong one day and lifting whole trees out of the ground.

Frank was savouring those moments of peace as well. He had felt all the torture the boy had too but he was able to easily endure the pain and was stubborn enough to still demand for more. He looked into the sky and tried to imagine how glorious the space-elevator must have looked like when it descended the last meters to the ground to connect with the ground station.

After this moment of rest, they returned home. Even though Tang He's legs still felt really wobbly he was able to get the bucket on top of his head and walk back. Nobody really asked him when they saw his pale face, especially Tang Mei knew how much walking he had done today so without any more tasks he was sent to bed, where he collapsed and fell into deep sleep almost immediately.

Strangely Frank's mind too got really tired suddenly and fell into slumber.

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Tonight, both of them dreamt of the same thing: Cars travelling on roads, large buildings everywhere, labware, blackboards.

This time Tang He understood the things he saw - it was as if he himself had lived in the midst of them.

The dream ended with the same bright-multicoloured light he had seen the day before and together with a feeling of strong warmth from his navel region he woke up.

After sensing the warmth of sun on his face, he started feeling something else:

PAIN

His whole body ached like never before. Every part of it was screaming for attention, so much so that Tang He needed to grit his teeth not to cry out.

'AAARRRRHHHHHGGGGG'

This shout made Frank wake up as well. He immediately felt very glad being conscious again as he fell into sleep to suddenly.

The day before could have been some kind of strange dream or maybe he would have never woken up again. He started enjoying the feeling the sunrays brought on Tang He's face until he too felt a more extreme sensation: PAIN

< TSSSS >

Only after some time had passed was he able to get himself back together and he concluded:

< Ehh… I did say it would be painful, but I did not think it would this bad!... >

Slightly amused he asked:

< He'er are you alright? >

'Ahhh, yeah…'

< You know? In the future you will feel this kind of pain more often. But each time you do it means you will get stronger. >

Hearing this, Tang He's face first grimaced even more but got a little better as determination set in. He wanted to become stronger and help out his family.

< Furthermore, you will need to ask Chief Su to give you two eggs instead of one in the future so that you won't starve. >

< Today we will not do any of the more taxing exercises. After you run to the well we will do a lot of stretching and some relaxing movements and then return. For now, the things we did yesterday we will do only twice a week. >

Then Frank added with one of his imaginary evil grins:

< In the future we will increase the load as you grow but don't worry everything will be fine! >

As Tang He listened to this and imagined even harder training a shiver suddenly went through his spine.