A Will Sovereign Chapter 24: Chapter 24— Training with Radahn.

Read chapter 24 of A Will Sovereign by Sloche on NovelPedia.

------- Soldret woke to scorching heat. Not warmth — *heat*. The kind that made his skin feel ready to blister. His eyes snapped open. The first thing he saw was the sky. The second was the nightmare reality: he was hanging upside down, legs tied together and suspended from a thick bamboo pole. Directly beneath him, a massive iron cauldron bubbled violently, steam curling upward in thick clouds heavy with medicinal herbs. *Plop.* Another bundle of herbs dropped into the water. The bubbling intensified. Soldret twisted his head. The old Peak Master stood beside the cauldron, casually tossing in more ingredients like he was seasoning soup. "..." Soldret stared. The old man stared back. "Master." "Hm?" "Why am I being roasted alive?" The Peak Master glanced down at the cauldron, then at Soldret, then back at the cauldron. "Huh. When you put it that way, it does sound strange." Soldret's eye twitched. The old man ignored him and kept adding herbs. "This is for your foundation," the Peak Master said. "Your body." *Plop.* "The medicinal herbs." *Plop.* "The supplements." *Plop.* "The treasures and pathway resources you've been stuffing into yourself since you were a kid." Soldret blinked, still trying to process being a human tea bag. "What about them?" The Peak Master snorted. "Most of it is still inside you, living rent-free. Stuck in your flesh, blood, bones, organs — everywhere. Wasteful." Soldret remembered the endless body-tempering medicines and expensive concoctions he had consumed back in Astravale. He had thought they were helping. The old man continued, his single eye narrowing. "For ordinary practitioners, unused effects just fade. But for someone walking the Martial Pathway? It's slow poison. You won't feel it now, but advancing later will become nearly impossible. Forging your body properly at that stage would be far more dangerous than doing it now." Soldret stared at the boiling cauldron beneath him. "Is there another way? Besides being boiled alive, I mean." The Peak Master grinned. "There is." Soldret brightened for half a second. Then the grin widened. "But it isn't really another way. Same result — you just skip the boiling part." A very bad feeling settled in Soldret's gut. --- A few moments later, his feet finally touched the ground. Soldret scrambled several steps away from the cauldron, heart still pounding. The Peak Master rolled his shoulders with a series of loud cracks that echoed across the training field. Layer by layer, the crushing pressure radiating from him faded until only raw physical presence remained. He stretched lazily. "I've reduced myself to the first step of the Martial Pathway — Body Forging. Right now, I'm only as strong as I was back then." Soldret's eyes widened. The old monster actually looked… manageable? The Peak Master beckoned with one finger. "Come." "That's the other method?" Soldret asked, already regretting it. "Fight me. Your body is clogged with unused medicine. The fastest way to force it deeper is by breaking it. Muscles, bones, flesh — the medicinal effects will rush to the damaged areas. And when they heal…" The Peak Master's grin returned. "You'll see." Soldret stepped forward anyway. *If he really weakened himself this much… maybe I actually have a chance.* He shot forward with a straight punch — no tricks, no hesitation. At this level, only body, strength, and speed mattered. The Peak Master punched first. **THUD.** The fist crashed into Soldret's nose with a sickening crunch. Pain exploded across his face. Blood sprayed. His vision blurred as the world tilted. Before he could recover, the old man was already there. A kick slammed into his ribs. **CRACK.** Several ribs shattered. Air exploded from his lungs. Soldret folded, unable to breathe, think, or move. Pain swallowed everything. The Peak Master frowned. "One punch and you lost your footing. One kick and your body collapsed. And this is after all those resources?" Soldret gritted his teeth, blood dripping from his