THUD!
THUD~!
Over two days passed, and Gunnar was now able to punch the wall twice in a row. The sound of his fists moving through the air also slightly increased.
He was also able to feel the little progress, and this motivated him to keep trying.
As hours passed and added into days, there was no way to tell how much time was passing in this chamber, but Gunnar wasn't worried about time at all.
He was fully focused on striking the fist imprints on the walls and nothing else.
There were times when days would pass without him feeling any improvement, and then he would feel slight improvement in the noise made by his fists.
Gunnar's routine didn't stay the same every day. He did what he pleased and what he felt his body required.
After a long, tiring workout, he would go for a swim in the big pool.
He didn't explore deep in the pool as it seemed to be going deeper into the earth.
But about fifty feet deep, he found mushrooms growing on the walls, and he plucked them hard.
To his pleasant surprise, they weren't that sturdy.
So he was able to bring them up and then eat them.
He was able to eat the mushroom because he didn't smell anything strange about the mushroom.
Poisonous mushrooms generally carried a strange smell around them, but these mushrooms didn't smell bad.
After eating them, he found his muscles recovering faster and were becoming sturdier. This helped him train for longer hours.
One day, he got greedy and ate too many mushrooms, and he fell sick.
The fever didn't subside for an entire week. He felt quite weak, but then he eventually recovered.
After that, he punched the wall again. This time, the sound came out differently.
THWACK!
It sounded more like a strike than ever before.
"What changed?" he wondered. "My technique didn't change. Did resting for a few days improve my body overall?"
Since then, Gunnar didn't blindly practice every day.
He would practice for nearly four days straight and then take rest for three days straight, just sleeping and not even thinking about anything else.
This different routine helped his body to become more resilient.
Before he knew it, his muscles were growing, and his abdominal muscles were forming.
He didn't grow bulky.
His muscles were lean, but they packed power inside, thanks to the excellent amounts of vitality in the fruits and the mushrooms.
As weeks turned into months, Gunnar's movements also got faster and more precise.
He wasn't able to properly transition from one foot imprint on the floor to another for months, but after failing for thousands of times, his body was getting used to these movements and patterns all around him.
He was able to repeatedly punch with both hands without breaking.
He kept getting faster, stronger, and sharper every working day.
Even when he was resting, his body was improving because he would eat a lot of food just before sleeping.
His stamina had significantly improved more than anything else.
After almost eight months since he started training, the sound of his punch finally came out loud.
BAM~!
It made an explosive noise, and one of the glowing crystals in the chamber stopped exuding light.
The crystal was the nearest to the spot where Gunnar punched. He naturally noticed that.
"Huh? Why did it stop shining?" he wondered.
He went to another crystal and punched it, but it didn't stop glowing.
Gunnar didn't think too much about it and continued his training. His punches could be heard even amidst the noise the water jet was making.
As Gunnar continued to train, more and more lights kept stopping to glow.
He wondered if they were the signs left to show his progress.
"Do I have to leave after all the lights stop glowing?"
With this line of thinking, he resumed his training with a new routine. He returned to his regular lifestyle of working out for almost sixteen hours and then sleeping for eight hours.
Many more months later.
Gunnar was in the food room, peeling the banana-like fruits with relative ease and casually ate them.
He climbed the coconut-esque trees and broke their shells with bare hands, albeit with effort, and drank from them. He also nourished his hair and his body with that same coconut water as it cooled his body and helped him sleep better. His hair grew thicker and darker, and his skin became more radiant with lustre.
He walked out into the main chamber, which was dark now.
All the glowing lights were no longer glowing.
But his eyes were long used to this darkness.
"It's been so many days since the last light stopped glowing. I've been hitting the walls with all I've got, hoping they might glow again, but they're not glowing."
Gunnar wanted to make the lights glow so that they'd be useful to someone in the future just like they were useful to him now.
He sat down and wondered about it.
"Why are the lights not glowing?"
As he sat down and looked around, he soon realized something.
"Wait, till now, I've hit the walls so many times that I lost count, but I still was not able to put a new imprint on the wall. Not even a dent. Does that mean I'm still not even close to a master level?" he couldn't help but feel frustrated.
Gunnar then went over to the wall and clenched his fist tightly as he remembered all of his past and the mocking he endured and the effort he put to strengthen himself.
"I'll give it my all this time," he threw his fist as fast and hard as he could.
POW~!
A slightly reddish aura leaked out of his hand as it struck the wall, and the nearest crystal flickered just a little.
Gunnar's eyes widened. "D-Did I just release aura? And it has some color, too."
Tangible aura was the manifestation of one's will.
When one's body caught up with their mind, their aura would transform and release out of the body in a visible form.
It would generally take years of training to release it.
Normally, children who would practice every day would be able to release aura when they were around twelve to fourteen years of age.
So, Gunnar was not expecting to be able to release aura like he did.
After all, he was already thirteen years old when he ended up in this chamber. He never thought he'd be able to release aura in this fashion.
Tears welled up in his eyes as he felt goosebumps all over. So many of his clansmen mocked him, saying he had no chance of ever awakening aura because he couldn't even train like regular people due to the frail body he was born with.
But now, after spending many months punching the walls in this chamber, he was able to manifest aura.
"I can grow strong like everyone else…" Gunnar clenched his fists with resolve.
He looked at the wall before him.
"The nearby crystal slightly glowed just when I struck the wall just now. Was it because it sucked my aura through the wall?" He grinned. "Alright. I was planning on leaving, but I'll stay here until I make all the crystals glow again."