Raymus had only come to Marigold but had managed to find a hotel to stay in. It was fairly lucky he thought. It was relatively clean and had a comfy bed. But he wasn't here just to sleep. He had come to the city mistaking it for Myras but now was planning to stay for a while to train with Jan Ren. For now though the werewolf was training by his lonesome. Until of course when night fell, which was when he got sloshed and subsequently blanked out.

He was sitting in his room, after being given instruction to rest a little while by the inn’s owner. Apparently last night he drank too much and had gotten into a fight. While having a vague recollection of the skirmish in his head, the fight had gotten his blood pumping, and he was eager to train again. His hands were after all, healed and ready to hit something else, preferably something a little more yielding. He staunched his adrenaline though, better to wait a few days and study before he began another bout of physical punishment. He flipped open another book and eased himself into the chair before the desk. He’d have to draft up a handful or runes in order to make his efforts more fruitful. Lately Raymus had been reading up on these sorts of magical researches and papers. Specifically runes regarding the sun.. There were a handful he’d marked in a few of his tomes, all he had to do now was copy them out on large sheets of paper, and heal up before the next push. Now he was moving, and it would take something more than a beating to slow him down. And of course to make sure everything would work he’d have to train during the day when the sun was out.

Raymus trudged through the dusty roads, heading out of the city while the sun beat down on him overhead. There was a kit bag slung across his back, which clanked a little as he walked, as the varying things inside it struck each other. True to his own word, Raymus had prepared tools, runes and methods by which he could train his abilities. He was leaning away from the methods he’d already used, so there wouldn’t be any repetitive punches on a bag (though repetitive punches still remained in the new regime, albeit in another form).

He needed to head out of the city for purposes of his magic, when within the halls of the fancy marigold hotel, there were people he could hurt with his actions, or potentially, he could even inadvertently damage the building. He wasn’t going to risk the wellbeing of others. So he’d plotted out a spot where he would most likely be alone and far from living things. Not all living things obviously, but he hoped the noises created by his training would scare them off, if not… survival of the fittest.

He reached the location with little to hold him up, and put down his bag. He removed his waistcoat and shirt and folded them neatly, placing them on top of a suitably clean rock. He also removed his shoes and socks, no sense in risking his clothing. Bare chested and bare footed, Raymus lifted up his hands and began to hit his face to psyche himself up. Now he just had to ready the countermeasures. He pulled a few rolled up sheets of paper and a tin of paint from the sack, and picked out another large rock in the clearing. With one hand, the rune stencil was pressed onto the stone surface, while the other hand dipped the brush into the paint pot.

The wet brush slapped against the paper, before tracing the lines in the cut-out, covering the exposed rock beneath. Peeling it away, the now finished rune glistened as the paint dried in the sun, glowing dimly in the sunlight, showing it was working. It was ripping slightly, and Raymus dabbed some of the rolling rips with a fingertip, erasing the line they created so that the rune was perfect, or about as perfect as it was going to be. The rune would both soften and strengthen the surface of the stone, making it slightly less capable of damaging his hand (at least not as quick as it would have done before hand) but at the same time, make it harder to break. Raymus crack of the knuckles acted as the starter’s pistol. His fists were hurled forwards with immense speed, though the blows to a certain degree lacked weight. It was a volley based exercise, fit a certain amount of blows in a certain amount of time. He counted in his head as each punch was thrown.

He counted from one to ten as he hit the rock, over and over to work himself to the bone!

He switched from jab to cross, putting a little more force and weight into the attacks. On each impact the rune briefly flashed. It was unlikely that unaltered, the stone would be cracking, these were after all, unaugmented punches, bones were one thing, boulders were another.

Cross switched to hook, these were by design much slower, and had the most weight out of these, and often his primary format. Hooks broke jaws, jabs tested the water, a combo of the two often made the former part easier. The flurry gained speed, until he switched to uppercuts. These took the longest and bore the most power, after each one he ducked down and rangled himself before firing upwards again for another punch. He grunted with each blow, and strained his leg muscles to keep up the motion. He needed to train his legs soon, so he couldn't let them go neglected. Six hits done again, and so the cycle restarted. This time with more force and speed.

Again he continued to count again. To 10 again despite the dull pain he was feeling, although the sun was helping somehow. Invigorating him, keeping his speed constant.

The rune was near flashing now, and he could feel his knuckles growing rawer he’d break the skin again soon if he kept up. Two more cycles, then he’d tape them up so he could do another few sets. This was only the start, no need to accidentally slow himself down now.

Another sparring session would likely help him considerably, but the luxury of a training partner was one he couldn’t afford right now, he needed to strengthen himself on his own, no need to display a weaker self-image, he wanted a bulletproof reputation, inside and outside the Blue Pegasus. He wouldn’t be able to make criminals cower in fear if they’d heard rumours of his weakness. He wasn’t weak though, not by any stretch, he just wasn’t strong enough to protect people yet. That was the goal, to make sure that the people he cared about would be safe, he wouldn’t lose anyone again.

This was the more selfish goal at the core of his drive. Yes he wanted to protect people, but primarily he wished to be remembered first and foremost. He’d Seen his mother, a retired knight forgotten to those who did not see her feats and only saw her as a noble of Seven with a werewolf for a son. His father was in a similar situation, only ever using the family name to get what he wanted. Raymus did not want that for himself. He wanted to be known all throughout Fiore for years to come. He never wanted to end up like his family in that regard.

The allotted cycles completed, he walked back to his bag and pulled out a roll of tape, and began winding it around his hands. As he did Raymus could inadvertently feel as though his mana pool was indeed growing larger as the sun beat down on him. Although mainly physical activity he could still feel that this was making a real impact on his magical prowess.

Perhaps a change of exercise was in order, to give his hands time to heal. Shadow boxing was probably a good shout, albeit with some weights in hand. He’d brought a pair of barbells with him, each one weighing twenty-five pounds, enough to make it harder to punch. He lined up, with the sun behind him so that he could see his own shadow and use it to check his form. This was slightly more sporadic, there weren’t any cycles here and there was no straightforward pattern, it was a chance to cut loose and build up some adrenaline. The punches came slow and heavy, he strained to complete each punch, and his muscles were burning after a solid minute of punching.

This was his fighting style, no twirly martial arts or dancing hybrids, this was brutal, unyielding force, raw power, just like his father. He hated to admit it but despite his cowardly approach to life using his noble name, the man was a power house. Once he had enough magic to back up his unbridled force, then he’d be unstoppable, a juggernaut. Lightning magic could be funnelled into limbs to enhance their damaging power and just totally blow other spells away and even annihilate some with it’s pure power. He wanted to see the looks on the faces of his enemies when he destroyed incoming spell with nought more than a swing of his fist (from their perspective anyway) before electrocuting them with a single of his fingers, sending them straight to lala land with a fried brain. If this relationship between him and his magic meant that the magic became stronger, then so much the better. No-one would be able to retaliate if every bone, muscle and organ in their body had been hurt in a single fell swoop. That would be how he ensured his friends would stay safe and how he would be remembered. Only then would he allow himself to form bonds with other people, until he could protect them, friends were a risk, a knife poised above his heart, one he was not too comfortable to tempt.

His form was solid and his movements were sleeker as if the sun overhead was making each movement that much cleaner, like a ray of light, exact and percise. He couldn’t find any fault in the movements of his shadow, though the story may have been different if it was a mirror instead. After all, the perspective was slightly off, the shadow short and stunted by comparison to his own height and bulk, might have meant his form wasn’t as good as it looked.

The weights were beginning to take their toll on his muscles, which felt like they were made from hot lead. He went for a final push, throwing a hard flurry of jabs at the air in front of him. He grit his teeth so hard he bit through the end of his cigarette. He ceased after a thirty second spurt, dropping the weights and shaking out his arms. Hurt like hell, but it was progress. Onto the next step though. Before that he’d take a few deep breaths, facing the sun and absorbing the light from the sun and taking in the light to reinvigorate him both body and soul. Once he was ready it was time to go to the next step.

Using a foot, Raymus rolled the dumbells into the back of a small drag sled. He’d picked it up a few days back and modified it slightly so that it would meet his needs. In slow deliberate steps, he walked to where the tethers were laying, neatly untangled and ready to be wrapped around his arms. The ropes wound around a good three times, whilst leaving enough length for him to tug them with some force. Now it was just a matter of planting one foot in front of the other. With a grunt, Raymus started a slow run, building up speed. The sled followed, making a small trench behind him as the weights inside it pushed it into the ground. The purpose was to hold him back, strengthen his leg muscles by making it harder for him to run. It wasn’t particularly heavy to start off with, it wasn’t to stop him after all, it was merely meant as a start. Similar to the mentality behind the weights, this would make moving without weights attached considerably easier. He managed about a hundred metres away from his ear before he turned around and started heading back, it was a tricky manoeuvre but he managed it.

Whilst moving he took to throwing a few punches, rocking from side to side as he threw each one. His punch speed seemed to have increased following the weighted shadow boxing as well as the power he was getting from the sun. He grinned. It was already working, soon he’d be strong enough to stretch out on his own completely, a high leveled member in Blue Pegasus, with enough power at his back to push him up through the ranks even further till he was as strong as Alisa! He didn’t know how far he wanted to go yet, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to stay a page. Gritting his teeth he increased his pace until he was sprinting it hurt and the sled was tilting slightly, causing the back to dig into the ground a little more and try and hold him back, though with less contact on the ground, it couldn’t achieve this as well as it did before.

He did a few laps of the clearing, after realising that he was wasting time and energy doing lengths. After al wasn’t the aim to work smarter not harder, taking that into account he could get considerably stronger, as he’d be doing both. Twelve laps down, with the sled in tow and his legs were burning, but he wasn’t done, though he slowed to a halt to alter the sled a little. Once he’d bunged a few additional weights into the back of it, Raymus also deployed a small claw-like implement that dug into the ground. These two factors would make the job quite a bit harder. He wound the straps around his arms again and broke out into a run. As expected there was a lot more of a strain, and his running altered into periods of short burst of speed, followed by a few steps of slow plodding. Training his speed was much tougher than training his punches, though he was probably making headway, even though it wasn’t immediately clear whether that was the case or not.

Raymus twisted in his loping run, angling himself towards the rock he had been ‘sparring’ with earlier, and diverted a small portion of lightning magic energy into his fists. Like a muscle, magic needed to be used in order to grow more powerful. With a flick of his wrists, the ropes wound around his arms unwound and his balance altered, forcing him forward, he ran with it, and used it to build up speed. The ground beneath his feet froze somewhat with each step, as in his excitement he lost a portion of his control. With a final leap he punched forwards, landing a blow in the centre of the painted spell circle, the rune of the sun glowing and reacting strongly to the attack as was Raymus. He felt the sun giving him so much power, even the light from the rune wasn’t hurting his eyes. The rock eventually cracked under the force. Hairline splits spider-webbed out from the larger trenches. It wasn’t a huge impact, but it was simply the opening affair. By funnelling his energy into a punch, he was coupling his growing physical strength with the power of his magic, making the impact that much stronger. He drew back his right arm, leaving behind an indent in the surface, before planting his left a few inches away from it. There was less force in this one, as there hadn’t been as much momentum behind it. There were still cracks though. Even with the rune strengthening the stone structure, he was still damaging it. Raymus could only guess what these blows would do to flesh and bone. No doubt he’d find out soon. He was eager to get out into the field and test his limits. True he had been less than successful in his spar against Garret a few days previously, but he had grown since then, in terms of strength at the very least. His drive had also received a boost, though perhaps that was not as essential. The hammer blows landed with greater speed and frequency, Raymus leaned forwards into the attacks, his arms blurring slightly as more lightning magic energy was channelled through them. Chips of stone spiralled through the air under. The cracks were working their way around the stone though, snaking around the back of the boulder, while the ‘face’ grew progressively more smashed.

Focusing his mind, Raymus pushed more power into his limbs. He thought about his goal, and the things he’d lost along the way. The rage culminated in an explosion of lightningforce, that split the boulder in two. Fragments pinwheeled towards his face, lifting his guard, the fragments were blown away back into the distance. He’d succeeded in destroying the boulder then splitting the boulder in two, but he could do better, he could do more. He needed to sharpen his abilities. The more time he spent honing his magic, the less concentration he’d need in order to make full use of his arsenal. That or the concentration would be easier, and he wouldn’t have to spend time focussing on clearing his mind. Similar to muscle memory, he’d soon have magic memory. When he had the field experience to back it up, he’d be even stronger. He’d not even applied his strengthening runes yet, or his additional tattoos, he only had the basics. He paused mid punch, he hadn’t applied his tattoos yet and most to the others he had made were already faded.

His curiosity satisfied for now, Raymus retrieved the roll of bandages from his bag and applied a proper dressing to his hands. The knuckles were bleeding at this point, the skin once again split, though it was more of a slight trickle as opposed to a steady flow as it had been previously. Once his hands were dressed, he dressed himself, slipping back into his shirt and buttoning it up half way, he hooked his coat over his shoulders and tucked his bag under his arm. This had been a part of his first step into true power. He'd buried his head in books for years, trying to figure out what magic complemented his style and form, and now that it was decided, and learned, he could make his entrance on the world stage. Now to climb the ladder! Looking up to the sun he couldn’t help but feel as though it was why he had managed to pass so many of his barriers. Maybe that tarot roll was right?