Chapter 31: Training Room

After a couple seconds of awkwardness, the father and son pair left and Eric was alone with Blake again. They walked forwards and entered Blake's office.

The office was rounded from behind and was shaped similar to a semicircle. In the middle of the room, there was a desk with a lot of paperwork complemented by a large seat for Blake behind it and some chairs for any guests in front of the desk. There was a bathroom, some other couches and basic necessary items around the room as well.

There were quite a few windows which were at the moment covered by crimson, velvet curtains and some exquisite looking paintings along with a chandelier to make the room look posh and add an aura of grandeur to it.

There weren't many decorations in Blake's office, except for some finely crafted weapons on display mostly for aesthetic. There were a couple bookshelves on each side of the room and lampstands with desks as well. The place had on overall balance in aesthetic and usefulness.

Finally, the last noticeable part of the room was the large symbol of a dragon roaring with its mouth wide open in a bright red color on the wall behind Blake, up and center, visible and highlighted to everyone who entered the office.

This crest was the symbol of the Roaring Dragon Mercenary Group, which was also present at the main gate, the entrance of the large building of the headquarters and some other places.

Blake waited for about a minute, calmly sitting on his seat while waiting for Eric to analyze all the parts of the room. It was the first time he had come here and it was natural that he was curious.

Once he had observed the office thoroughly, Eric looked at his dad in anticipation; he still didn't know why his father had brought him to the Roaring Dragon Mercenary Group's headquarters.

"Eric, I have some work right now, so you can take some rest or cultivate till I am done with it." Blake said, looking at the pile of paperwork on his desk in frustration.

As the leader of the Mercenary Group, he decided what requests became official and made their way to the mission board, which missions required changes and which requests were outright horrendous.

The pile of paperwork was normally sorted into three piles which stood for: confirmed, rejected and awaiting decision. The mission requests in the awaiting decision category would then be discussed in the meeting room with the other high ranking members of the Mercenary Group, such as the Vice Leader.

Since Blake would be busy doing this for about an hour, Eric had some free time where he decided to sit on one of the couches and cultivate. It was a bit unfortunate that he was in front of his father and therefore he couldn't use the Qi Gathering Herbs, but he still decided to make use of this time and cultivate his body.

After roughly an hour, Blake was done with his paperwork and was ready to show Eric what he had brought him here for.

Eric followed his dad, who walked out of the main building through its rear exit and kept on walking forwards past the headquarters for about a couple hundred meters until he stopped after reaching another structure.

This one wasn't nearly as large as the main building and had only a single floor, but it looked particularly long from the outside. Eric walked towards his side for about a dozen meters but even from there he couldn't see the end of this peculiar structure.

The gate to this building was closed and with the turn of a key, Blake unlocked the door, revealing its insides to Eric.

The first thing Eric noticed after entering were two sections to each of his sides. These areas were both roughly 30 meters in length and 10 in width with a 10 meter gap in between then acting as a pathway to walk past them.

These two sections were both very beneficial for physical training. To one side he had an area dedicated to all sorts of weights for lifting and wearing along with heavy weapons to try and swing; while the other side was full of punching bags ranging from sacks filled with sand to humanoid dummies on sticks of various sizes and materials.

After these two initial sections, there was a large obstacle course like formation full of various semi dangerous looking objects.

The first section of this obstacle course was full of one meter large sacks filled with sand being swung around at full speed. Even though they wouldn't hurt him severely, if Eric were to get hit by any of them, he would be knocked a couple meters across the room. Both the weight and the speed of these flying sacks were quite formidable and it would definitely not be easy for Eric to run past them at his current level of strength.

The next section was made of a large pit, from which platforms to stand on would rise and fall every second all around it and if Eric was even a little bit slow, he would fall into the deep pit instantly. Along with the fast speed requirement to pass this part of the obstacle course, the person attempting it must also boast a decent perception and situational awareness of his surroundings as the platforms appear and retract randomly throughout the area of the pit.

These two sections stretched for about a hundred meters each in length and covered the entire building in terms of width. After these two was the final section of the obstacle course.

There was a square platform about twenty five by twenty five meters in size and in the middle of it was a tall, vertical cylindrical structure with large rod like extensions protruding from it all around it. This structure spun at a medium pace, but the large and sturdy looking rods were plenty in number and it would still be very hard to get through it for Eric at his current stage.

After this, there was an empty platform about ten meters in length, followed by the wall which signified the end of the obstacle course.

This obstacle course would definitely be very helpful for Eric in training his body; and as he was obsessed with getting stronger, attempting this was definitely something he was looking forward to.

Blake looked at his son who looked at the different parts of this obstacle course and training room. His gaze inadvertently fell on Eric's eyes and he smiled, lightly stroking his beard.

Eric's eyes glowed with a fiery passion while most kids his age would be afraid of what he was looking at.

Seeing how his son reminded Blake of his own past self, he smiled and started reminiscing about his life as a youth for a couple seconds before he snapped out of it.

Blake looked at Eric, who was still examining the training area and hadn't noticed his father's gaze yet.

'Ahem,' he cleared his throat as he started explaining Eric why he brought him here.