The Mountain Sage of Dirty Talk

The old man's hands were rough, calloused and hard. He had spent his life in the fields, he said.

He rested a hand on her shoulder, smiling at her with wrinkled eyes. "Hold that tree for as long as you can," he encouraged. "You'll get used to it."

She did so, gritting her teeth at the pain. Her arms felt like they were about to be ripped off of their bones. She could barely see straight from the tears in her eyes. Her palms burned from the scrapes she'd received from gripping the tree bark tightly.

"What do you feel?" The old man asked.

She took a few seconds to collect herself before answering. "Pain," she replied through gritted teeth. "But only a little bit."

He nodded, checking her hands for wounds before examining her palms again. "Good!" He looked up with a smile on his face and a glint in his eye, which gave him the look of an excited child ready to play with his new toy. "Now imagine that you're talking to someone you love very much," he continued. "Imagine that you're telling them how much you love them." She winced at the words and released the pressure on the tree slowly, taking a deep breath before digging her nails into the bark again.

"That's good, but you can push yourself further," he encouraged her on after letting her take a break when she let go of the tree bark entirely this time around; she had been able to hold on for ten seconds this time around after only two attempts last time she was here.

After five more minutes of this torture, he let her rest against another tree, one that wasn't as rough against her skin as the first one had been and rubbed some oil into her hands and arms, making sure not to miss any parts of her skin that might be sore from all of this training when he was done rubbing the oil into her arms; all while praising her effort in between doing so and telling her how proud he was of how far she'd come since they started training together last week. His praise made her blush and feel more confident than what she normally would have considering their situation wasn't exactly normal given where they were located: The top of Mt Fuji where one could only find one shrine dedicated to Kaihime, Goddess of Love and Fertility, who had supposedly lived among mortals in Japan many centuries ago according to legend; then again, there weren't any other shrines dedicated to deities in general except for Lord Tennouji's shrine located at the base of Mt Fuji itself. She didn't know much about Lord Tennouji despite him being rather famous by reputation alone since no mortal had seen him since before recorded history began; though if rumors were true even then he preferred to remain hidden most of the time... Or perhaps he was just too busy to be bothered by matters such as these despite what people thought about him? It didn't matter for now anyways, as all that mattered was that she got better at channeling this power inside of herself soon enough!