Chapter 143: Testing The Limits

Following the long-range rifle practice, Miller and Ralph gathered the men near the edge of the timber line to transition into close-quarters combat. Miller carried a heavy wooden crate filled with blunted pine training daggers.

​"Alright, gather round!" Miller shouted, tipping his cap back on his head. "Rifles back on the racks! Up close in a tight alley or a crowded room, you won’t always have time to lever a fresh cartridge or draw a firearm. You need to know how to handle steel."

​He handed out the wooden practice daggers to the men, who paired up across the grass.

​"The U.S. Army standard knife drill is about straight thrusts, stepping off the attack line, and securing the opponent’s weapon arm," Miller explained, demonstrating a rigid downward plunge against Ralph, who blocked it with a stiff forearm parry. "Steep downward thrust, lock the wrist, drive your knee into the solar plexus."

​The tenement boys began running through the step-by-step drills, wooden daggers clacking together in stiff, mechanical repetitions.

​Ricky stood off to the side, watching the pairs move. While the Army’s linear thrusts and blocks were functional, they were rigid and predictable. In his mind, Ricky was already reviewing a far more lethal system—Kali, an ancient martial art from the Philippines. It was an exceptionally fluid, dual-handed combat system designed around continuous motion, rapid counter-strikes, and seamless transitions between open-hand strikes and short blades.

​Expecting Miller or Ralph to grasp the mechanics of Kali and teach it to sixty men on short notice is pure fantasy, Ricky thought to himself, watching Floyd awkwardly misjudge a straight thrust from Elmer. They’re steeped in traditional military boxing and bayonet drills. If I want this crew trained in high-speed blade work, I’ll have to master the forms and instruct them myself.

​Ricky pulled a small leather-bound notebook—his handwritten reference manual on basic Kali movement patterns—from his coat pocket. He flipped through the diagrams of triangular footwork and deflection angles.

​With his Intelligence stat sitting at an extraordinary 31, his mind absorbed the technical concepts and structural breakdowns with terrifying speed.

​Give it about a week of personal practice to refine my physical form and muscle memory, Ricky calculated, quietly analyzing the motion paths, and another three weeks to fully master the fluid transitions. That’s assuming my physical body keeps pace with my brain.

​Down in the grass, Miller called out the next phase. "Alright! Trade those daggers for the Springfield training stocks with the wood bayonet caps! Bayonet fighting!"

​The men picked up rifles fitted with blunted wooden bayonet extensions. Miller and Ralph walked down the rows, showing them how to parry an incoming blade with the rifle barrel, drive the buttstock into a target’s chest, and follow up with a forward thrust. Wooden stocks clattered against each other as the boys practiced lunging and parrying in pairs.

​As four-thirty approached, Arthur walked out onto the field carrying a heavy brass stopwatch, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

​"That’s enough with the sticks and steel!" Arthur’s booming voice cut across the range. "Time for the afternoon finisher! Two hours of obstacle runs and farm laps!"

​The men groaned in unison, dropping their wooden bayonet trainers onto the grass.

​"Ten laps around the full farm perimeter track and straight through the wooden obstacle wall!" Arthur commanded, blowing a sharp whistle. "Move it!"

​The sixty men formed a double column and took off at a jog. The perimeter track circled the outer pasture, cutting through mud, low ridges, and thick dirt patches before looping back through the timber obstacle course.

​On the third lap, two younger runners near the rear—Clarence and a kid named Joey—began to lag behind, their legs rubbery from the day’s heavy drills. The three men running directly ahead of them picked up their pace, leaving Clarence and Joey straggling fifty yards back in the dirt.

​Arthur, standing atop a low dirt embankment, spotted the gap immediately. He blew his whistle with three furious blasts.

​"Halt!" Arthur roared. "Entire line, halt!"

​The runners came to a sliding stop, panting heavily as Arthur marched down the hill, his eyes flashing with irritation.

​"Who told you bums in the rear to leave your men behind?!" Arthur barked, glaring at the front runners. "You think this is a solitary stroll in Central Park?! If one man falls behind on a job, he gets captured or killed, and the whole outfit gets compromised! Nobody gets left behind in this crew!"

​Floyd wiped sweat from his eyes, looking down at his boots. "They were dropping back, Arthur..."

​"Then you grab ’em by their collars and haul ’em along with you!" Arthur yelled. "For leaving your brothers in the mud, the whole company gets an extra ten laps added right now! Twenty laps total!"

​"Twenty laps?!" Elmer gasped, his eyes wide. "Arthur, my boots are full of sweat as it is!"

​"Make it twenty-five if I hear another word out of you, Elmer!" Arthur snapped. "Pick up those stragglers and get moving!"

​Floyd and Elmer immediately dropped back, each grabbing one of Clarence’s arms. "Come on, Clarence, lift your feet, palooka! I ain’t running thirty laps on your account!"

​The column started moving again, running as a single, tight unit. By the fifth lap, as the company passed the farmhouse perimeter, Ricky stepped onto the track and joined the back of the formation, running alongside the men in steady stride. Whenever a man stumbled, the runners beside him threw an arm around his shoulder, pulling him along through the dirt.

​By five o’clock, the afternoon sun had dipped low over the horizon, casting deep purple shadows across the valley. The temperature dropped sharply, and delicate, floating white snowflakes began to dust the cold grass.

​The men finally completed their twentieth lap, collapsing en masse onto the lawn near the main barn. Men lay flat on their backs, chests heaving violently, heavy clouds of white steam rising into the freezing air with every breath.

​"I can’t feel... my legs..." Joey wheezed from the grass, staring up at the darkening sky.

​"Don’t die yet, Joey," Floyd groaned, slumped against a wooden fence post. "Otis hasn’t served supper yet."

​As the exhausted men rested on the damp grass, a steady rhythm of footsteps thudded along the dirt track.

​Ricky swept past them without stopping. Having joined on their fifth lap, he was just finishing his fifteenth lap, his stride completely smooth, his pace as effortless as when he first stepped onto the dirt.

​Sixteen-year-old Rico Johnson, sitting on an overturned crate while rubbing his sore calves, watched Ricky pass by with wide eyes.

​"Hey... look," Rico said quietly, pointing toward the track. "The boss isn’t stopping."

​Floyd, Elmer, and Raymond squinted through the dimming twilight.

​"Wait a minute..." Elmer muttered, sitting up with a grunt. "He joined us on the fifth lap, didn’t he? He’s on fifteen now... why ain’t he pulling up with the rest of us?"

​"Look at him," Raymond said, watching in utter disbelief. "He ain’t even breathing hard."

​While most of the tired runners gradually pushed themselves off the ground and limped inside to get warm as the air grew colder, a small group stayed behind on the barn porch. Floyd, Elmer, Rico, and John Caldwell stood under the wooden overhang, wrapping their coats tight against the falling snow, simply watching Ricky run.

​Lap after lap, Ricky circled the outer pasture. He passed twenty laps, thirty laps, then forty laps, moving through the gathering darkness with unnerving consistency.

​Out on the track, Ricky was actively monitoring his own body, using the grueling run to calculate the exact functional limits of his elevated Vitality stat.

​During his first ten laps, his lungs had barely registered the effort; his breathing remained as calm as if he were taking a casual stroll down Fifth Avenue. By the twentieth lap, he had felt the initial signs of deep physical exertion—a mild heat in his chest and a slight elevation in his pulse—but within a few minutes of steady pacing, his body had fully adapted, stabilizing his stamina output.

​By lap thirty, his breathing settled into a deep, regular rhythm, completely manageable. By lap fifty, the true nature of his Vitality stat became clear. There was an internal energy recovery mechanism at work: as long as he kept moving, dynamic energy distributed itself across his muscular system, but the continuous drain steadily depleted his body’s caloric reserves.

​He didn’t feel muscle fatigue or cramping, but he felt an intense, overwhelming hunger settling into his stomach.

​As the farm was swallowed by night, Ricky finally completed his fiftieth lap, slowing his pace to a cool walk as he approached the barn porch.

​The handful of men who had waited out in the cold stared at him in stunned silence.

​"Evening, boys," Ricky said casually, wiping a stray snowflake from his hair.

​Floyd shook his head, looking at Ricky as if he were looking at a ghost. "Sweet mother of God, boss... you just ran fifty laps without so much as bending your knees."

​"It’s about pacing and breathing, Floyd," Ricky said with a modest grin, resting a hand on Floyd’s shoulder. "Why are you boys still out here in the cold? Head inside before you catch your death."

​"We just... wanted to see when you’d stop, boss," Rico admitted, a look of genuine admiration in his eyes.

​"Well, I’m done," Ricky chuckled. "Go get some warm food."

​"Yes, sir!" Rico and the remaining boys said, scrambling inside with renewed spirit.

​Ricky walked up the porch steps, where John Caldwell held a lantern to light the doorway.

​"Fifty laps, boss." John said, shaking his head with a quiet smirk. "If I hadn’t stood here and counted every single turn myself, I wouldn’t have believed it."

​"I was just testing my limits, John," Ricky smiled, pushing open the heavy wooden door into the warm living room. "More importantly... is there anything left to eat in that kitchen? I feel like I could eat a whole cow."

​John laughed, following him inside. "Otis made a double batch of beef stew and corn biscuit loaves. Come on, let me get you a plate before the boys clean out the pots."