“So you must become strong, become someone whom no one will be able to take down, stand tall at the pinnacle among the strongest, controlling it all with ease. Only then, will you be able to protect what you desire. Do you understand?”
Seemingly taken aback by the serious expression on the old man’s face, the little girl’s gaze was a little evasive and unsure. All those words that she did not yet understand, made her subconsciously want to hide away, her heart feeling somewhat resistant.
Because she seemed to understand that that would be a most arduous path to take, a path that she would not be able to turn back from the moment she stepped onto it.
“Do not cry! Only a weakling would shed tears!”
The old man’s berating tone immediately caused the mistiness slowly rising up in the little girl’s beautiful eyes to cease.
The lips on her tiny mouth were pressed tightly together, her big round eyes looking straight at the old man’s stem countenance, seemingly frozen in shock.
However, the old man’s demeanour did not soften in the slightest, as his hands went on to hold the little girl by her shoulders and he said in a clear voice, pausing in between each and every word. “Is that clear?”
The little girl blinked her eyes before nodding her head, seemingly only half understanding what she was told..
The scene then changed and several years seemed to have passed very quickly. The little girl looked like she was about six or seven years old and had grown a little taller, while her facial features had become more exquisite and defined.
On that small face, one could no longer see that same timid and apprehensive look that was there before, but just a sense of maturity and steely resolve.
On the training grounds, every single one of them full grown adult men that towered over her, they were all executing attacks on the young girl one after another. Her agile little figure dodged past them easily, like a slippery little fish.
But though she was quick and intelligent, before these men who possessed real capabilities, the holes in her defense became clear to see when that small figure got struck a good number of times. However, she did not fall, standing firmly and resolutely in place and holding her own.
Till a wizened and authoritative voice declared with a shout: “Time’s up!”
Everything winded down came to a stop as the men stopped their attacks, standing respectfully in their spots.
It then seemed like the young girl could finally not hold out any longer, her body swaying unsteadily for a moment before she collapsed onto the platform floor.
Her black training robes were completely soaked through with sweat, plastered right against her body, dripping wet like she had just been hauled out from a lake.
When the old man saw how completely exhausted and drained she was, the tight and stern expression on his face did not soften in the slightest but just looked at her completely unmoved as he called out in a deep booming voice: “Stand up on your feet!”
The young girl moved her body, trying to climb onto her feet. But she was really just too tired and it was just too painful to move.
Moreover, all of them had not held back at all with the good number of hits she took earlier, never once considering her to be just a young little girl.
