Shift ( Conti.)

Unsurprisingly, my mother chose to focus on training the skills she deemed most important, in addition to my more general training. Which was good, really; I had a fair number of skills I considered useful, but which were hard to train for whatever reason—Physically Endurance, for example, though undoubtedly usefully, was at once tedious to train and slow to improve, especially when I spent so much time training myself not to get hurt, if possible. Even with the training I'd underwent with Adam, and though I'd gotten a few extra levels in the stat during my fight with Penny, the stat was fairly low level in the mid-twenties.

However, my mom was pretty good at getting past a lot of those difficulties in her drive to help me improve.

Which is to say she'd started our training by lighting me on fire and it had steadily progressed downhill from there. Apparently content with the evidence I'd provided as to the effectiveness of the Gamer's Body, she'd shown no hesitation in hurting me badly and had quickly gotten creative.

I got hurt repeatedly. Incessantly, even, with only my healing ability letting me withstand it all. She'd experimented at first, asking me calm and probing questions even as she twisted the sometimes-literal knife. She was systematic about it, even drawing up a chart that took into account my MP regeneration, how much HP I had, and the cost of Soulforge Restoration to produce a very detailed chart of precisely when she could hurt me and how badly, periodically updating it as the skill's improved and almost absently testing if there was a relation between physical pain and the rate of improvement. After she'd had time to accurately test it, she quickly set a tightly controlled pace and forced me to abide by it.

I was cut, I healed, and was cut again—and it was almost frightening how tight of a grasp she obviously had over her own strength. Once she'd finished testing me, she hit me for exactly a thousand damage, with the next blow doing the exact same amount. Whenever I told her the skills had improved, she modified her blows accordingly without even needing to test it, probably keeping track of the trends in the skills mentally.

Over the course of twenty minutes, I had to heal myself over five hundred times, maintaining my Elementals all the while. When my MP was all but drained, she produced a blindfold, secured it tightly around my head, and sent me stumbling into the forest blindly with orders not to use my Elementals to see. She'd then proceeded to attack me more times than I could count, even as I was tripping over roots and walking into trees, all to improve my ability to Sense Danger and respond accurately too it.

When I failed to do so, I got stabbed. My reward for evading properly was not getting stabbed. She gave me more time to breath then when we'd trained, but I wasn't entirely sure whether it was to let me recover MP or to throw me off. There was no pattern to her attacks in timing, direction, or form, no rhythm to find and stick to—nothing to go off of but my remaining senses and my advanced warning of danger.

It wasn't much to go off of with no experience, especially with surroundings as confusing as a forest could be, but she made me adapt and keep going through literally thousands of attacks. They were just slow enough that if I reacted quickly, I could evade them, so I knew she was holding back tremendously, but if I messed up she wouldn't stop the attack. I couldn't improve my ability to sense bloodlust because she didn't want to hurt me—but she wouldn't keep from hurting me, either.

I knew what she was doing, of course. Physical Endurance and Sense Danger were two of my most useful skills, at least potentially, as well as the most likely to keep me alive if something happens. Reducing the amount of damage I took by a percentage…notifying me of threats…I knew exactly why she was helping me train them both. Before anything else, she trained me to survive and come back home, to endure the same things that had ended so many Huntsmen.

"We'll do this first thing, every day," She'd said when she removed my blindfold. "At least for the time being. Three hours of survival training before we get to work."

After that, we'd started training other things—focusing on my body, for now. It was basically what I'd been doing before, but more extreme. Mom led the way to one of the training rooms in the basement and set me to lifting weights and such, though that might have been underselling it.

"Since it's the first day, let's start with ten thousand reps." She said as she loaded more and more weight onto the bar—which had to be heavily reinforced to not bend under that much weight. Even so, she lifted it with one hand and passed it too me, an experience that nearly bowled me over. "That should be fine with a body like yours. I'll work on a more complete workout schedule in the coming days, but we'll focus on Strength for now."

I'd grunted an agreement as best I could beneath the massive load that had been set on the bar, getting to work without complaint. There were many times I thought I pulled things and even more where I felt things tear. Once, my arms pretty much gave out and I felt them break under the strain—but as she'd said, with my body this was nothing. The pain faded after a moment and left me unharmed, so I just healed the damage to my HP, and struggled my way back into position, continuing where I'd left off. She watched me silently for a while before moving over to a machine herself and we worked in silence but for my occasional grunts of effort and pain.

At least until dad interrupted.

"Hard at work, huh?" He said, a bag in one hand and a drink in the other. He sipped from it idly like an asshole as I struggled breathlessly with each rep. He must have seen the look I sent him because he smiled brilliantly and lifted it to brush condensation across his forehead, briefly closing his eyes in contentment. "I'd join you, but I'm already done for the day. Right, dear?"

"If you got what I asked for, leave it and go," She said without looking away from the ceiling. "Don't antagonize him."

"Just watching my lovely family trying their best, my love," He said, setting the bag down beside my bench and patting my head. He held the car above my face, little drops of water occasionally falling to my face, brushing little streaks of moisture across it with a thumb. "This was nothing compared to what I had to go through when you were gone, just so you know; I didn't get off with just a work out. That's why you're getting off so light—she vented all her rage at me."

"Jack," Mom said serenely, still not looking at him.

"It's really not that bad," I said, half to him and half to mom. "It's just hard, but for me…it's not a problem, as long as I don't die. What'd you get?"

"Swung out to pick up some stuff from a friend at the University," He said, reaching into the bag to draw out a book as he took a seat on the edge of the bench. "He said he'd ship most of them later, but these should keep you entertained for a few days."

His fingers covered a word—a name?—but I read the rest of the front cover upside-down.

"Theory of Games?" I spoke the incomplete title aloud. "Is that a textbook?"

"Yeah," He chuckled, thumbing through it. "I saw it and I knew I had to get you this one. It's not as fun as it sounds, though."

"Shocking," I said, tilting my head for a minute. "My Intelligence?"

"There's no point in just training your body if we can train your mind as well. You said you could increase it by studying, right?" My mom asked. "Then we'll make sure you have plenty to study. I'll set aside specific times for it later, but for now, you can just do so through the night."

I nodded in acceptance.

"What about school?" I asked. "I usually studied there, before…you know."

"Canceled, still," Dad said, closing the book and squinting at the back cover. "Because of Ziz. City's on alert in case it needs to evac, so school's closed until the situation drops a class or two. Probably have a week or two before Ozpin gets everything fixed."

I mulled over that for a bit before wondering aloud.

"Should I even bother going back?" I asked after a moment's hesitation. "It's kind of a waste of time now, isn't it? And I don't need to finish to get into Beacon, do I?"

"Not much point now," Dad agreed absently. "You'll be done with the material and then some soon, anyway."

"I already finished reading all my school books, actually," I said.

He snorted.

"Nerd," He drew the word out for several seconds, ruffling my hair. "I'll handle it and I rather doubt it'll matter once we get you some street cred."

"Please stop," I asked, smiling at him. "Another step closer, huh?"

"Mm," He replied nodding as he put the book away. "Keep taking steps like you have been and it won't be long now. How long do you plan on training him, dear?"

I followed his gaze to my mother, curious myself. She was silent for a minute before putting up the bar and looking our way.

"However long it takes until he needs to fight Grimm to advance further," She said. "What level do your stats need to be to learn Bai Hu's final technique?"

"Physicals at seventy, mentals at ninety," I answered promptly. "I can probably get the physical stuff up that high in a month or two. Should be able to raise my Intelligence to seventy or so in that time, as well, if I have enough books. Beyond that, though…I don't know how long it'll take to keep improving. I'll stick at it, but improving them gets harder and harder. Raising them to a hundred naturally could take most of a year."

"Then until his physical abilities and Intelligence are at seventy," She said calmly. "It'll take some time to get everything in order, but we'll train his physical abilities and important skills by day and he can study and practice on his own at night, until they reach that point. Improving Wisdom and raising Intelligence beyond that is likely better done through leveling up, so after that we'll start taking him hunting; he has thirty points already so he'd just need four levels."

"Sounds good," I said, starting to pant a little again. "I think I'll get something good once I raise my skills past a hundred, too, though."

"Eight levels, then" She corrected. "After that…we'll see."

Dad nodded.

"Two months or so for the basic stuff though, huh?" He mused and chuckled, ruffling my hair again just because he could. "Pretty lucky timing. If you get done on time…"

"What?" I asked, pausing for a moment as I brought the bar down. My dad smirked and opened his mouth to say something—probably not an answer but something—when my mom spoke again.

"Jack, don't distract him," She said. "Jaune, keep working."

"You heard her," Dad said cheerfully, already at the door. "Goodbye, my nerdy son and beautiful wife. Don't train too long or I'll order your favorite foods and come down here to eat them in front of you."

"You'd probably die doing that," I informed him though quick breaths, giving him a nod as he went. "I would have neither the ability nor desire to prevent your murder."

He chuckled and closed the door. I made a note to ask him about his words again later and went back to work. I did another hundred thirty reps before Mom spoke up.

"Jaune," She said. "You're father's right; the timing is good. If we get done in time…Ozpin asked me to look into something, as somewhat of an expert. If we get done in time and it's safe, would you like come with me back to my homeland?"

"To Mistral?" I asked and saw her nod out of the corner of my eye.

"It'd be just in time for the festivals," She said. "It's…I think you would like it. Do you…?"

"Of course," I said. "I'll make sure to work hard."

XxXXxX