The morning sun peeked over the horizon, casting its golden glow upon the rugged mountain landscape. Celestia, with her usual playful demeanour, roused Eclipse and Chael from their slumber with a cheerful call.

  "Wake up, sleepyheads!" she exclaimed right in the duo's ears, one at a time.

  Chael, still groggy from sleep, let out a yawn as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

  "What are we doing today, granny?" he mumbled, resulting in a swift slap on the head from Celestia.

  "It's big sister, not granny, you fool!" she scolded. "And what made you two think you were going to do anything different? You guys have to keep running up and down the mountain until I say no more."

  A tear welled up in Chael's eye as he whispered to Eclipse, who was just starting to awaken, "She's a demon, Eclipse. She's a demon."

  Weeks passed, each day marked by the gruelling routine of sprinting up and down the mountain under Celestia's watchful eye. With each passing day, Eclipse and Chael pushed themselves to their limits,

  As a month went by, the two boys showed an exponential amount of progress, completing the sprint in just three hours, which was a significant improvement from when they had first done it, which had taken them the entire day. Eclipse would always lead the way, his speed unmatched, while Chael displayed incredible stamina.

  With a determined gleam in her eyes, Celestia led Eclipse and Chael to a higher point on the mountain, where two boulders awaited them. One was significantly larger than the other, and they both cast a massive shadow in the early morning sun.

  "Whew." Chael whistled at the sight, "Does the next stage of our physical training have to do with these boulders?"

  Celestia nodded with crossed arms, "Correct. And by ‘next stage’ don't you brats think I'm going to make you stop running. You'll come and do this straight after running every day!"

  "I want to slee..." Eclipse's voice trailed off as he fell into a slumber while standing upright.

  "Chael, smack him in the head and go to the bigger boulder," Celestia said.

  "Yes, ma'am," Chael said with determination and gave Eclipse a powerful smack to the head, which popped a snot bubble and brought Eclipse back to the present moment.

  "Eclipse, you take the smaller boulder."

  As the duo positioned themselves next to their respective boulders, Celestia outlined their next training.

  "I want you both to lift these boulders and hold them on your shoulders," she commanded. "You can only drop them after completing twenty squats with the weight!"

  "That shouldn't be too hard." Chael grinned and cracked his knuckles. "Ahaha! Finally, our training becomes a bit more bearable."

  "And no dinner until you've amassed a total of five hundred squats today!" Celestia said sternly.

  "Ahahah, never mind!" Chael smiled politely, his lips twitching. His mind was unable to process that big a number.

  "Why does Chael get a bigger one?" Eclipse questioned as he considered the difference in size between the two boulders. Chael’s boulder was about two metres in height, whereas Eclipse’s boulder was half that size. This arrangement felt almost like an insult to Eclipse’s competitve spirit.

  "Obviously because I'm stronger." Chael chuckled, prompting a menacing glare from Eclipse.

  "Chael has a larger physique, and yes, he is stronger than you." Celestia chimed, "so if you want to be stronger, you'll have to work harder. KAHAHAHA. Now then off you go!"

  Celestia's laughter echoed through the mountains as she turned to leave. Chael and Eclipse exchanged weary glances, and with a shared nod, they approached the boulders, their hands trembling slightly as they reached out to grasp the rough, uneven surface. With a heave, they lifted their massive rocks off the ground, their lower backs popping out from their sweat-slicked tunics, and their forearms laced with veins from sheer strain.

  Their movements were slow and hesitant as they struggled to find their rhythm. The boulders felt impossibly heavy and bore down on them with an oppressive force that threatened to crush their spirits.

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  They painstakingly raised the boulders on their shoulder and began to squat.

  Chael’s face was a picture of stress and effort, as his eyes looked almost blank in frenzy, with veins all over his face. His leg muscles contracted under the humongous pressure of a two-metre-tall boulder. He managed to go down slowly, then his quadriceps bounced back up with the weight like they were a spring.

  Up, hot steam released from Chael’s mouth into the winter ambience. He went down slow, his bones creaking under the pressure of an unfathomable weight, then he shot straight up.

  Eclipse was following the same rhythm, but he prioritised form over brutalising himself like Chael. Eclipse rapidly squatted all the way down with his buttocks meeting his calves and then he would go up slowly.

  Before long, exhaustion forced both of them to drop the heavy stones and collapse to the ground, gasping for breath.

  "Eclipse! I only counted ten! And Chael, that shitty half-assed movement doesn't deserve to be called reps!" Celestia's voice rang from somewhere, "You two must really hate dinner, huh?!"

  "This lady is crazy," Chael gasped between breaths, his voice strained with exhaustion.

  "She's the demon," Eclipse muttered, his words barely audible over the sound of their laboured breathing.

  A couple of minutes later, they decided to try again, motivated only by dinner. Eclipse and Chael strained against the weight of the boulders, their muscles trembling with exertion as they lifted them off the ground. With each movement, the strain intensified, sending waves of agony rippling through their bodies.

  As they raised the boulders overhead and began their squats, their legs screamed in protest, feeling as though they were being crushed under the immense pressure. All over their body, and particularly in their lower back and legs, ropes of veins were popping out. Their quadriceps and calves were also visibly looking a lot thicker from the blood rush.

  Sweat poured from their brows, stinging their eyes as it trickled down their faces.

  Five hours dragged by, the weight of the boulders feeling heavier with each passing minute. By their hundred-and-fiftieth total repetition, they were mere shells of their former selves, their movements sluggish and their breaths ragged.

  "Eclipse... are you still alive?" Chael asked, his eyes heavy with fatigue.

  "I'm... alright," Eclipse replied, his voice barely above a whisper, but his body, trembling from exhaustion, said otherwise.

  By dinner time, they both collapsed on the ground. Completely taken out both physically and mentally. Despite their efforts, they had only managed to complete two hundred and fifty repetitions out of the five hundred Celestia expected of them.

  "Well, well, you guys are finally done?" Celestia approached them with a mixture of satisfaction and disappointment. "Not bad for your first attempt. I'm still disappointed, though."

  They couldn't muster a response as she laid out a blanket, and within minutes, a feast appeared on it.

  "Eat up, you two. You must be starved." Celestia smiled, breaking her promise to them a second time.

  Despite being barely conscious, Eclipse reached out for a juicy chicken, struggling against the ache in his body that felt like hell. But before his hand could reach the drumstick, Eclipse’s consciousness blacked out for good, and his body went limp.

  "Huh... Eclipse is too tired to eat?" Chael forced himself to look over at his passed-out friend, "Well, more food for me, I guess..."

  Just as he had finished that sentence, his eyes too slowly closed, and he fell into a deep slumber.

  Celestia chuckled softly.

  "You both worked hard today," she remarked as she looked at the two snoring loudly in their sleep, then at the food. "Oh well, I'll save all this for when they wake up again."

  As the days turned into weeks, and then into months, Eclipse and Chael continued their gruelling training with the boulders. Every day ended the same way, their bodies collapsing onto the ground once the stones finally slipped from their shoulders.

  The pain never really went away. Their legs were constantly sore, swollen and burning, and even walking became difficult. Some mornings, standing up alone felt like another round of training.

  Their initial two hundred and fifty repetitions increased by a hundred within the first week. By the end of it, four hundred squats were expected of them daily, right after running the mountain. Their breathing grew heavier, their movements slower, but neither of them complained.

  By the second week, they reached a grand total of five hundred retitions.

  Their bodies began to change slowly but surely. Their muscles thickened and their veins became visible even at rest. Chael forced his way through each rep with raw strength, while Eclipse remained controlled, never letting his form break even as his legs trembled.

  Celestia raised the count again since five hundred was starting to get too easy. She had even given them slightly bigger boulders.

  By the end of the third month, a thousand repetitions before dinner became the norm. The moment the final squat was done, both of them would drop the boulders and collapse where they stood, too exhausted to even speak.

  As more time passed, Celestia would incorporate other kinds of strenuous workouts too, targeting a wide variety of muscle groups. These included, but were not limited to, doing push-ups, pull-ups and sit-ups, and many more with boulders of an unfathomable weight strapped on to their strengthening bodies.

  After one particular evening, they were in a pool of their own sweat after having completed a few hundred repetitions of pumping their respective boulders above their heads. Their shoulders were trembling from exhaustion.

  "Kahahaha," Celestia chuckled, observing their progress. "You both are a lot stronger than three months ago."

  Eclipse glanced at Celestia lazily, "Huh, Granny, there's another wrinkle on your face."

  Chael burst into laughter, but Celestia's sudden change in demeanour silenced them both.

  "So, you two think you're funny now, huh?" Celestia's voice took on a more serious tone, sending a shiver down their spines. Her eyes were dangerous slits, and her smile twitched, "I’m looking forward for the third stage of your physical training as much as you guys are..."