The restricted building looked nothing like it had thirty days ago.
When Robert stepped inside on that first morning, he found the place empty and cold, wrapped in a kind of stillness that only comes from being shut away for far too long. The dark stone walls loomed around him, and the floor had not felt a footstep in years. The air was thick with the taste of ancient stone, and nothing else.
The floor was a testament to hard work, showing signs of wear in every direction from the overlapping patterns of five people sprinting, doing footwork drills, and practising techniques for thirty consecutive days. The walls, too, were marked at different heights, bearing the imprints of blade work and fist techniques from their focused training sessions.
