Jaune starts his huntsman grindset.
Chapter 1
At a young age of thirteen, Jaune Arc wanted to be a huntsman.
But the details of how to do it eludes him.
"How the hell am I supposed to become a huntsman?" he asked. "Is there a school on how to do it or something?"
It was a question he had asked himself plenty of times. His family was unsupportive of his ambitions however, so even when he tried to ask them they didn't answer.
So he was left with himself so that he could achieve his dreams. But even as he asked around about how to become a huntsman, being in a place like Ansel which was a quasi-town in a rural area filled mostly with civilians, meant that not many people had any answers for him either.
That left him stumped but he wasn't a quitter. But he wasn't the smartest tool on the shed so he didn't know what to do either.
So he started with the most obvious thing to do.
"What if I start working out first? Strength is pretty much needed for a huntsman, right?"
And with that statement, he started to improve his body.
He woke up earlier than he would've had every morning, just before he was supposed to do his chores and help out in the house, and started to work out.
Jaune started with push-ups.
He had a hard time doing so at first. While he might be taller than his other peers, with his mother saying that he'd probably reach six feet in height just like his late father, his muscle mass left him like a noodle more than anything.
Still, even when it felt like shit, Jaune grit his teeth and continued to do the exercises. He was rewarded by getting a bit of definition as the weeks went by and getting used to the whole thing.
But… he had a feeling that "getting used" to it was a bad thing however, so when he started to get to a certain amount of push-ups at a comfortable pace, he continued and increased the number of repetitions until his arms felt like they were breaking.
Months went by just like that, with him absorbed in constant exercises as he woke up early in the morning. The number of his exercises increased, and so did his strength.
Thirty, fourty, fifty, until a hundred. Then after a hundred, a hundred and fifty. And after that he stopped counting and only focused on doing the exercise until he felt like his muscles were about to break..
He also added more exercises to do when it felt like it wasn't enough. After push-ups, he also started to do sit-ups, pull-ups, and squats. All those basic exercises that he saw on TV, all of which can be done in the forests a bit away from their home. The numbers of his repetitions everytime he did the exercises increased as time went by, and just like doing push-ups, it got to the point that he stopped counting anymore.
He also started jogging to improve his stamina, running every morning until his lungs started to burn and beyond it. Again, it had gotten easier after a while, and it got to the point that he needed to wake up more early just to spend enough time running to make himself tired.
…It got to the point that he realized that the exercises were turning into a time sink when he needed to spend hours on end just so that the exercises were hard enough. It took him a while to tackle that problem, and it had been with the help of anatomy books that he borrowed from the local library that he managed to solve it.
Jaune had the idea to mix the exercises all together, doing it in such a way that it was efficient in time and the effort it took to make his muscles feel like they were burning.
Simple push-ups turned into a variety of it, ranging from one-finger push-ups that attacked his joints to balancing push-ups that improved his stability. Pull-ups turned into complicated handstands that engaged important muscle groups, further turned difficult by moving around. The jog had turned into outright sprints to increase speed, agility, and stamina.
It was intense. It was hard. It was hell.
But he didn't stop.
Because that must be how people trained to be huntsmen, right? He'd heard of them doing superhuman things comparable to what you can see in comics.
He knew that huntsmen were strong enough to kill grimm in a single strike. Grimm, the monsters that prey on humanity that even the weakest variant are strong enough to dent steel and is covered in bony armor that could deflect bullets.
Jaune, even with working out a lot, can only break tree bark with his punch.
That was a let down for him when he realized that.
"Damn it, am I seriously that weak?" he said in frustration, leaning on the damaged tree as he clutched his aching fist. "I need to be stronger…!"
But how can he do it? Even though he tried to make himself stronger by working out so much, he still wasn't strong enough! How can he bridge the gap to become a huntsman!?
…The answer came to him as an epiphany.
Actually, he had come face-to-face with it, seeing as it was stored in their home; an antique from a more older time, dating even from the Great War. The sword that carried the legacy of the Arc family - Crocea Mors.
He realized that what he needed was a weapon.
While he might not be strong enough, a weapon could help him become more dangerous. Huntsmen always equip themselves with weapons, wasn't that right? That might be enough to bridge the gap and make him strong enough.
And so, he started to practice with the sword and shield too.
After running himself half-dead with the workout as a warm-up, he ran himself double dead as he went and trained himself on using Crocea Mors.
At first, like when he started to train his strength, it was hard because the weapon was heavy and clunky to work with. Not as heavy as it would've been if he hadn't started to work out, but it was still a sword made of steel that was larger than his torso because of his pubescent body.
But he didn't stop, swinging the sword with his burning muscles so that he could get better with it. The time he spent not doing his chores, helping out the family, studying, or working out - it was all spent on honing his skill with the sword.
It took him a while to deal with, but after a while or so, he finally was able to have some degree of proficiency with it. Well, if proficiency is described as being able to use the sword without tiring after a few or so swings and slipping it off his grip accidentally.
Still, it showed just how much far he had to go to become a huntsman.
And he just needed to persevere just to get there.
With that, he intensified his training more and more. His workout continued, and he added practicing sword forms along with it. He swung his sword until his arms felt like they were falling off, blisters forming on his hands, and him drowning in sweat.
Even when it felt like hell, even when it felt like everyday was suffering, even when it felt like he was killing himself…
…Jaune continued to train.
Bring up the sword.
Exhale.
Bring it down.
His mind can only be described as a sharpened haze - being in a sort of zone where a person is unaware of everything except on a singular task. He was aware of how he felt his muscles shift underneath his skin, and he focused on making the movements efficient to produce the greatest force in this simple action.
A slight twisting of the shoulder. An adjustment to the legs to lower his stance. The correct joint rotation. Contorting the appropriate muscles in his back to cascade the power to the adjacent muscles and improve the torque of the slash.
Bring up the sword.
Exhale.
Bring it down.
The slash audibly cut the air, displacing it and making the grass surrounding him to rustle slightly. He stood still in that pose for a moment, before standing straight up once more, leaving his sword stance for a more relaxed one.
Jaune took a moment to ponder that last action, mentally reviewing it and comparing it to previous results, before he deemed it as an improvement.
He took a deep breath and opened his eyes, and he was met with his reflection on Crocea Mors' blade.
Three years.
It had been three years ever since he had started training. Three years of complete hell, of nothing but pain and suffering.
And he had become better because of it.
The pain was no longer something he focused on, and instead turned into something that had barely even paid any attention to. You could only feel something so much before you got used to it, and now, it felt like a comforting blanket that had marked his continual growth in strength.
The sword was also much more natural to use now. After three years and going through puberty, he managed to grow into a respectable height that made the arming sword wieldy enough. Not only that, he also trained extensively with the sheath shield as well.
He's confident to say that Crocea Mors was an extension of himself.
Suffice to say, Jaune had become strong.
But despite it all…
"...It's not enough." he muttered.
So what if he can manage to do a lot of push-ups, sit-ups, and the rest of his workouts? So what if he can wield his sword that it felt like the weapon's weight was memorized by his being, and he could wield it in his sleep?
Jaune might have gotten stronger… but he still wasn't strong enough to be a huntsman.
Or at least, he didn't know if he was strong enough to be one.
And there was only one way to prove such a thing.
He looked into the distance, into the forest and beyond into the outskirts of Ansel. The one where there were no guards stationed around in and where no people had dared to live nor set foot on without any huntsman or enough firepower to keep them safe.
The place where Grimm prowled.
Before he did anything more however, a voice called out to him in the distance.
"Jaune! Jaune, where are you!?" the voice of his sister shouted, making him stiffen. "I know you're here! Mom's been looking for you, you know!?"
"Ah crap." he muttered. "I'm here, sis! Just a sec!"
With that, Jaune gathered all of his stuff but not Crocea Mors - he's going to get it back later, when he was alone so that his sister wouldn't be able to see it. For now, it was going to be left here, hidden in a little alcove of a tree in a place that he had come to call as his personal training spot.
He was about to leave, but stopped and looked back for a moment, looking back at the outskirts of the forest with a distant gaze.
"...Tomorrow, I'll do it." he declared.
And so, Jaune turned around and left.
Leaving behind a desolate clearing filled with uprooted trees that were bisected in half and smashed into pieces.
So Jaune has no idea what Aura is when he applied to Beacon, and obviously had no idea about it even before that. So what happens if he actually tries and works hard to become a huntsman, holds himself to unrealistic standards, a tinge of shounen unrealism, and doesn't quit despite all that?
He becomes a monster, that's what. And that's what this story is all about.
This particular story will probably have about 1-2K words per chapter. For the followers of my other stories, I'd probably give more focus on this story because it takes less effort to write because I'd be busy from the start of the new semester.
As always if there are any criticisms, please leave a review. I hope you enjoyed reading!