Chapter 7: 7 Inner Force

When Conor was still an orphan on the streets, he was afraid of robbers and child traffickers. Now, he is afraid of his adopted mother.

It's been around seven months since Conor was adopted and he can truly say that it was the worst deal of his life.

After the depressing winter, his mind adjusted to the point where even the tortuous training became possible over time despite increasing in intensity.

Strange exercises like pulling a tree log up a hill or climbing across massive stone walls no longer bothered him. Not to mention, he didn't get injured as often as he used to.

That was when Victoria decided to include sparring with her in his schedule. It was mostly him trying to dodge or getting hit, though. He wasn't sure if it was because she noticed him becoming more relaxed or because she just liked to beat him up, but his days began to get worse once again.

Peng!

"Aua, my eye! It hurts, dammit!" Conor screamed as he rolled on the floor.

"Stop whining, it's not the first time anyway!"

"That doesn't make it any better, shit!" The boy sat up and gently touched the eyelid. The last bruised eye just healed nicely but it looks like he will have another one soon enough.

Despite the fact that he finally looked like a kid his age after receiving proper food on a consistent basis, his body was just as beaten, if not worse, than in the orphanage.

"Okay, I guess this is enough," Victoria said as she picked up the tablet laying on the side. Typing something on the touchscreen, a gigantic screen descended from the ceiling of the training room inside the mansion.

"Cool."

"I know. I had this modified just for you after buying the mansion."

Conor sneered under his breath.

'Vacation home, my ass! This woman was clearly trying to build her own boot camp for poor victims like him.'

As he had this thought, the screen illuminated, showing pictures of the human body with an overlay of its anatomy and a bunch of text beside it. Multiple arrows are pointed at particular pathways with small notes at the side. In short, it was all very confusing and Conor didn't understand any of it.

"What exactly am I looking at?" He looked at Victoria with curiosity, forgetting the beating she had given him moments ago.

"This is the Hawkes Family Training Method. Specifically, for building your Inner Force."

"Hmm.. is that how you destroyed that boulder and do those inhuman feats?" Conor finally felt like a light bulb lit up in his head. This explains everything!

"You're correct. By using inner force, humans can surpass their natural limits and do the unimaginable. Of course, you need specific methods and resources to step on this path which is something only the rich, influential and lucky individuals have access to."

"Well, okay but how does it work?"

Crossing her arms, Victoria smiled as she explained.

"It's fairly simple. The human body naturally produces latent energy which is stored temporarily but hardly used. It serves as a reserve to help the body when needed such as restoring fatigue or healing an injury. Moreover, you can control this energy to your will by using various aspects such as breathing, willpower, conscience, and your body. That's inner force"

It's not simple at all.

"The key is breathing. By inhaling and exhaling in specific patterns, you can move the energy through particular veins and arteries to the cells. Naturally, you need great control and understanding of your body and the right focus, as well as concentration. That is where the other aspects become important."

By the end of it, Conor was stumped. He felt like he understood something but also nothing at all. Though, he did wonder about the body part.

"Wait.. was all that heavy training for this. To be able to control and understand the limits of my body perfectly?"

"I see you're catching on. Not bad. The training helped you not only strengthen and control your body but also increase the amount of latent energy available. After all, a healthy, trained body has more energy to spare than the weak beansprout you were before."

"That's hurtful." The boy murmured.

"Anyway, we're going to stop the harsh exercises for now and make you focus on learning the inner force training method. For that, you need to study the cardiovascular system and other anatomical body parts to gain a clearer understanding."

You are reading story Deviant Genius at novel35.com

Hearing Victoria's words, Conor's eyes lit up as he saw hope for the first time in a long while. No harsh training meant no injuries or torment. It's like heaven sent an invitation to him after making him suffer for so long.

'Haha, just wait. I will show that madwoman how much of a genius I am.'

......

Three weeks later.

Conor made no progress. He spent twelve hours in meditation every day but he could still feel nothing. At this point, it was safe to say that his talent was not as great as he had believed.

"It's not working." Conor opened his eyes as he stopped meditating. He's been sitting in the same position for hours now and he was sure his legs fell asleep.

"You're lacking effort and persistence. It's like you're not even trying."

"We've been doing this every single day for weeks now. This is useless!"

"..."

"What's wrong?"

Her distorted expression scared him a little. However, when he heard her mumbling, he was speechless.

"This shouldn't be happening. How can this be? Did I get a defective product? But what to do?"

Did she just call him 'defective'? What is he, a product she picked up in the supermarket?

"Hey, I can hear you clearly, you know?"

"Oh yeah? Well, It's not like I said anything wrong."

"Tsk. Maybe it wouldn't be such a problem if your teaching was better! How can anyone understand if your explanations are simply nonsense?"

After being unable to feel inner force for three weeks, his bottled frustration finally erupted today.

Victoria was truly a terrible teacher. Due to her outstanding talent, every process felt rather easy to her. That's why she is horrible at explaining the process since she mostly relied on instinct.

"Oh, now you're saying it's my fault?"

"Not entirely, but you bear as much of the blame as I do!"

"I think you're tired of living, is that it?" Victoria balled her wrist as her eyebrow twitched uncontrollably. She really has been too lenient on the little bug for him to actually talk back at her.

Bang!!

"Aargh, my head!" Conor screamed with tears in his eyes. Victoria's fist struck him without warning, leaving him helpless on the ground. Looking at him from the corner of her eyes, Victoria thought of something.

"Feeling the existence and movement of the latent energy in your body is not something that happens because you want to. It requires to be needed more than desired. So, we're going to recreate that."

All of a sudden, Conor got a bad feeling. It's like a weird sense of deja vu rushed all over his skin, making him freeze down to the core.

"What you need is the right stimuli."

Victoria pondered until she snapped her fingers.

"Let's do some training for your body again. Just harder this time around."

You can find story with these keywords: Deviant Genius, Read Deviant Genius, Deviant Genius novel, Deviant Genius book, Deviant Genius story, Deviant Genius full, Deviant Genius Latest Chapter