Ibraim sat calmly within his family's physician suite waiting for the physician to finish his check up. As for the physician, Sylla, who despite being a woman in these old times had worked herself up to the point of being the royal family's medical expert. As Sylla continued her work, Ibraim thought about this world, trying to decipher if this world was similar to his past life or if there were any differences. Immediately, he found the biggest difference between this world and his past. Islam and Christianity held much more power within Sub-Sarahen and Northern African nations, though it had been decades since the last Jihad or Crusade as the two religions had found a common place for peace. Albeit the peace was exceptionally delicate. Before Ibraim could think more he was quickly snapped out of his thoughts as Sylla spoke up.
"Sir Ibraim, you appear to be in fine health, despite the small stint of unconsciousness you found yourself under. Though I do recommend some water to help reorient yourself for the time."
As Sylla finished explaining her finding of the boy's health, Ibraim stood up and promptly thanked her before turning to his little brother.
"Fodé, little brother, do me a favor and get the servants to start a bath for myself, I don't particularly the cleanest right now…"
As the child obliged with his older brother's request, Sylla had decided to bid the young heir farewell as she went to report her observations to his father, the king of the small but growing city-state.
With a moment of peace around Ibraim, he decided to dig into both sets of his memories, trying to understand the differences between the timelines. Other than the stronger and more peaceful states of Christianity and Islam, the region's history is slightly altered. The Mali empire, despite being much, much bigger than the one from Ibraim's old life, its crash was even more severe than that of the old timeline's. Though it had been about 70 years since the beginning of the downfall of the rather large empire, it had surprisingly remained intact and had even expanded. Instead of the city his family currently inhabits being independent, it was an equivalent of a viscounty within the empire. Roughly having a staggering population of 168,000, they were still mostly within the iron era, with some isolated areas still in the copper era as there simply wasn't any iron to be transported to them. Once again, his thoughts were interrupted by someone, though it was his little brother again.
"Big Brother, the bath is ready!"
Ibraim chuckled at the decision of the child to come tell him personally instead of a servant.
"Thank you for telling me little brother, I will go take it immediately!"
And with that, he went to take a bath in the rather crude bath. It wasn't really a bath, more like an expanded barrel that could accommodate a rather large fellow.
After that largely unsatisfying bath, he had decided to finally look at himself in the mirror. Trying to get an understanding of his new body. He looks rather different compared to his past body, though his hair was just as if not more curly as it was before with a small fade on the sides of his head. His skin was much, much darker than before, of course, he was born from a mixed-race couple in his old life so it was not unexpected. Though he was thoroughly annoyed that his body was that of, in kind terms, a twink. While not skin and bones from an ailment, he had practically no muscles or defining features of himself. And unfortunately, he had no comb or product, so he had to pat his hair into place and use water to get his hair to naturally curl, which did not look attractive in the slightest.
As he got redressed he remained dissatisfied with his look and immediately took to the dining hall to eat something to begin his journey of physical revival.
When he entered the dining hall, he was surprised to see his dad still there, enjoying a mid-day beer due to deciding to take a break from his work.
"Father? I did not expect you to be here at such a time. Have you finished your work?"
His father, Mohamed Lamineko, gazed up at his eldest son with equal surprise etched on his face.
"Ibraim, I did not expect you to arrive here. No, I have not finished my work, I am just enjoying a light beer before returning to my study and finishing. Why are you here?"
"I am here to get something to eat, I have taken a good look at myself and realized my folly of not working on my physical wellbeing. I intend to begin my journey of revitalization with some much needed food."
His father was even more shocked, he was always quite worried about his son, that an invading army may see him as a female and take his purity, despite being male. Or worse, being discovered as a male and killed for appearing as a homosexual individual. As such, when he heard this he felt pride rising as his son realised that he should not look like his current appearance. As his shock wore off he immediately called for the cooks to prepare a meal for his son, and not to go light on the meat.
After he had eaten his fill of the recently prepared beef and goat mutton stew he dressed himself in loose fitting clothes and prepared to do what was considered the average ROTC exercise in his past life, as many push up as possible in one minute, as many pull ups as possible in a minute, a one mile run in under 10 minutes, and as many sit ups within a minute. Though he did not have much hope for his body to last the entire duration as Ibraim pushed his body to the every limit in every aspect. When he finished, he had found himself rather surprised at the body's endurance, while tired, he was not as tired as he thought he would be. But it did not last long as he recounted what he got on each of the exercises, if put on a point scale, even if they were combined they would not have even reached the bare minimum to be considered eligible for promotion.
If he had to work as hard as a knight to get healthy he would work twice as hard, no. Three times as hard to get past his current weakness.
(Story is available here and on Wattpad! Go check it out if you want.)