“Slaves! Go and wash him up. Give him the prepared meal and make him ready!” The orcen matron ordered from her comfortable seat. Two of the slave-goblinettes took him to the spa, where they gave him a soap, a towel and forced him into the tub.

Now, Vladimir realized how much he had to smell. In the past four days, he could not even rinse himself much less properly clean. So while he cleaned, the goblins took a dagger and shaved him, ridding of every hair on his body.

He felt so good he forgot to check the hearty meal before him. A juicy steak with some strange fruits and vegetables as a side dish and sweet water.

[Analysis complete: new substance detected: simple aphrodisiac. Unable to filtrate. Estimate time of effect: 6 hours. Encyclopaedia and Herbology updated.]

“Fuck!” Vladimir uttered as he jumped up. His body became flushed and he felt extreme heat. Fortunately, he was naked or the potential underwear would be ripped off.

The slave-goblinettes took him back to the room, now filled with other Orcettes of almost all sizes and shapes. Every single one of them was tall above 2.3 metres.

“Yep… You know what? Let’s enjoy it! Stop being such a pussy, finally. It won’t be so bad! Look, they are getting all naked… All twenty of them… Hmm... ” Loony contemplated. “Meh, don’t worry! It will be fine!” he concluded. Oh, how wrong he was.

⌬⌬⌬⌬⌬⌬⌬⌬⌬⌬

“Hey! Cut it out!” Sane yelled.

“NO! NO! NO! NOOOOoooo~! NOT ANYMORE!” The man screamed as he thrashed around on the granite slab while the goblin above him tried to hold his head down so he would not crack it as a freshly boiled egg.

“God! Dammit! Are you insane!? That is my job! So STOP or you hurt yourself!” the Sane Voice pleaded more.

“I cannot take it anymore! You don’t know what they forced me to do! Noooo… Bleeeeergh,” the trashing man emptied the rest of his stomach.

“Damn you, human! Again?!” The goblin swore as he smelled the fresh vomit once more.

“PLEASE! LET ME DIE! That… That… THAT ABOMINATION!! AAAAA!” He screamed some more.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN I DO NOT KNOW! I WAS THERE TOO! IT MADE ME SANE! SANE! DO YOU KNOW HOW FUCKED UP IT IS?!” The Sane Voice yelled back.

“For fucks sake, Vlad…” The goblin muttered, exasperated and stunned the man with an exactly calculated blow. Vladimir went limp like a kid who drank a bottle of Vodka.

Sou’Rek sighed and looked around if there was anything to clean the vomit.

⌬⌬⌬⌬⌬⌬⌬⌬⌬⌬

Three hours later, the wall opened and madame Lar’Ako’s nose was assaulted by a terrible smell. The man she was supposed to train was out cold, the goblin traitor on the other side of the room in a corner, woken up by her, jumped up and stood before the wall with hands up.

She massaged her nasal bridge and ordered the guard-slave who came with her to clean the place.

She took Vladimir’s limp leg and dragged him into a drilling roo, two times larger than a regular Earth gym, not too far away from the cell. There she took a water bucket and poured the content on his face.

“Wha… What?” Vladimir suddenly sat up, completely confused. He was still naked only with a metallic choker on his neck.

“Oh, the princess decided to finally wake up?” Lar’Ako sweetly asked.

“I… I… Where am I?” Vladimir asked, rapidly blinking.

“Seems like you did not learn yesterday,” she frowned. She pulled him up by grabbing his jaw and continued, “so, you need to be punished.”

A goblin ran to her and handed her a whip. A thick one, with a barbed tip. Vladimir paled even more than he already is. He could not remember yesterday at all. He quickly searched the Encyclopaedia, but nothing new and locked was there. He frowned as he remembered a meal. Then a heat. Then being brought to… And that's where his memories just blacked out.

His thoughts were interrupted by a loud crack. Next came a pain on his chest. He glanced down and saw a bleeding scar running from right shoulder to his last rib.

He gaped and collapsed.

“Daaamn, that was savage,” Loony came back like nothing happened.

“Stand up, gladiator!” She roared and cracked her whip again, this time tagging his back.

Vladimir gritted his teeth and stood up. He felt worse. He was sure of that, even though the memories were hazed or locked away.

“That’s better. Today I want to see what you are capable of. Hundred laps, thousand pushups and thousand squats! Move! Move! Move!” She cracked her whip again, this time in the air, only to emphasize her order.

And thus Vladimir’s first step to be gladiator began. After five laps he collapsed. The yesterday challenge, lack of sleep and empty stomach just overcame him.

“Hmpf! And you are supposed to be a gladiator? What in the bloody hell Ssirze is thinking?” She contemplated as she stood above the wheezing, bleeding whelp. “Well job is a job,” she sighed and pulled up a little sack, smelling after herbs. She tossed it to him, saying, “Put it on the wounds. In a few minutes you will be fine. After that, you will be given a light meal. Afterwards, I will teach you a breathing technique. Understood?”

“Yes, madam,” Vladimir heaved.

“Finally, you are learning, filth. Now, MOVE!” She yelled at him and went to sit on a small bench. Sitting there she was just closely examining him by her sharp steel-like eyes and with a neutral expression.

[Analysis complete: apprentice-grade healing salve. Added 10 micrograms of unnatuned crystal to enhance the effect. Recipe deciphered. Encyclopaedia and Herbology updated.]

Amazing, and even more astounding was that calming cold feeling as he spread the salve on his wounds.

A slave-goblin brought him a bowl with a salad. He grabbed it and as he smelled it, a flash of memory ran before his eyes. He frowned and forced it down, repressing the nauseating feeling.

He shook his head to clear it and devoured the rest. Meanwhile, the wound closed until only a thin scar remained.

After the meal, the drill instructor beckoned him to move before her.

“Lie down,” she ordered. Vladimir laid, not wanting another gashing wound anywhere on his already enough punished body.

She was stepping all around him, arranging his limbs into a swastika-like picture. “Start breathing deeply,” she ordered and put her naked feet on his chest.

After six breaths she stopped counting something and gave more complex instructions, “First a deep breath, then hold it for exactly 37 seconds. Then sharply exhale. Do it twenty seven times. This is one cycle.”

It took him five tries in which when he did wrong, she kicked him in the ribs, almost breaking them. Despite that, in the end he did it right. After she sat back on the bench, taking a swig from her canteen and ogled him.

[Analysis complete: orcen basic breathing technique.

This breathing technique refines Essence and converts it into attributes. As it is still in your body, mind and soul you do not lose it during refinement.

Increasing CAC, ISS and NSS by 0.01 per seven cycles.

One cycle can be repeated every 2.3 hours.

Works for attributes below 10.

[Do you wish to adjust it to human physiology?]

“Yes,” Vlad instantly answered.

[Estimated time: 1:00:34:11... 1:00:34:10... 1:00:34:09.]

Vladimir inwardly laughed. Then continued the technique.

After an hour or so, Lar’Ako ordered him to stop. He realized he was in a trance and sweating a blackened, smelly, sticky liquid. He marveled as on Earth it would be something incomprehensible. They would probably have forced him to go to hospital if they would have seen him like that. Physician and then mental ward.

“Good. You will repeat this every three hours. No matter when, except not in the presence of your masters. Your system is blocked, so you won’t be able to see the progress and I will certainly not teach you skills, or steam forbid give you access to a class,” she pointed at the choker. “Now, clean yourself, then we will start the drill,” she menacingly grinned and pulled out the whip.

Vladimir promptly emptied a bucket on himself and even took a few swigs.

“As I remember right, you have 95 laps, 1000 pushups and 1000 squats to be done. Until it’s done, you will not move from this place! So, MOVE YOUR PINK ASS!” She excitedly screamed and cracked the whip. As the man before her moved, she must have agreed he was not that bad looking. Still, she preferred a proper orc. The human was too scrawny and small, everywhere, for her.

Vladimir’s toned body moved as he wished. He did not feel this good for quite some time, especially after he got diagnosed with the cancer. He was able to run well and soon he paced himself well. He made a lap, made 35 pushups, 35 squats, and repeated the cycle.

He got tired in the half so he slowed down. He did not hear nor felt a whip, so he guessed it was allowed. After another five laps, he completely stopped, but before Lar’Ako could react he dropped to the ground and started to flex. He used the power yoga practices he went through on his former Tai-chi master urging.

That was something that caught the interest of the orcette. She observed him to make different poses. For a moment she thought it was some strange dance, but then realized it’s some kind of training, enhancing flexibility of the body.

After five minutes she had enough and cracked the whip. Vladimir sighed in the middle of downward-Facing dog position and started to run laps again.

⌬⌬⌬⌬⌬⌬⌬⌬⌬⌬

Vladimir collapsed on the cleaned granite slab in his cell. His whole body was aching, but he was smiling. The breathing technique. The potential of it… And there must be better things too. Magic, ki, lifeforce. Skills, techniques…

“Heh. Is that an ambition I see? Do you realize you can be destroyed anytime here, right?” Loony said with a glee.

“You just can’t let me have it, right?” Vladimir sighed.

“Nope!” Was the only reply that came.

“Who are you talking to?” The forgotten goblin asked.

“Myself… Hmm, sorry about earlier,” Vladimir apologized.

“Whatever,” the goblin grimaced. Luckily, they allowed him to clean too. Well, allowed. He took a bucket in a moment of distraction and emptied it on himself. They didn’t beat him afterwards, so…

An awkward silence filled the atmosphere.

“Oh, yeah. Strange thing happened. A goblin came to me, saying that Sou’Rek still has friends,” Vladimir remember the strange encounter when he was led back to the cell by a guard-goblin.

“Reaaally?” He stretched the reply with an interest.

“Yeah, I think he bumped into me on purpose. After he got beaten, but I think he survived,” Vladimir shrugged.

“Interesting, human. They will bring a meal in a while. I see you have started to practice the basic breathing technique,” the former inquisitor recognized the glistening skin. “Unless it’s normal for humans to suddenly gain new skin.”

“Nah, Lar’Ako taught it to me. She said that today was a little greeting. From tomorrow we will start for real.”

“Ah, yes. The gladiator training. It’s strange, isn’t it?” The goblin asked pensively.

“What?” Vladimir blinked, confused.

“That we are able to train, even though we do not have access to the Net,” Sou’Rek answered.

“To what now?” Vlad used the opportunity to gain more knowledge.

“Oh, you should not ha… Oh wait, you told him you are from another world…” Loony corrected himself. That did not happen too often. Almost never. Well, this was actually for the first time. Huh…

“The Net. The system that gives us strength and controls us. You do not know? Your world is without a system?”

“Well… Our world is actually without magic or ki. At least, it’s not general knowledge. And there are only humans and then animals,” he said spookily.

The goblin paled. “Only humans? Everywhere? What is this insanity?” He mumbled.

“Yeah, around 5 billions. It dropped quite a bit after World War 3.”

“What a hellhole…” Sou’Rek shivered. “And no system nor energy cultivation, you say? So your civilization is technology-based, I guess,” Sou’Rek surmised.

“Yeah. Frankly, it was quite a shock when I got here. So, what is Net? Can you explain it to me?”

“Sure… It’s a system made by gods. Every sapient race has access to it. Through it we can acquire blessings, perks, titles and most importantly classes and levels. Classes are forcing us to move on a certain path. A warrior cannot suddenly become a wizard. And vice versa. On the other hand, it directs the energy you absorb from battles in a certain way that benefits you most. I do not know details much. This is just common knowledge,” he shrugged.

“Oh… So, when you gain Essence it won’t go into somewhere stupid like an intelligence attribute, right?” Vladimir fished for more information.