“Good morning!” Rabbit’s voice rang out in my mind, far too chipper for the time of day. I groaned internally, not yet ready to face the world. “You’ll want to get up. Jack’s already stirring, and you don’t want to be the last one awake,” he warned.

  That was all the prodding I needed. I wasn’t going to give Jack the satisfaction of me being the slow one here. I popped up in fear, but was half asleep and forgot I was sleeping under a tree. The result of that was me standing up directly into a tree branch.

  “Wow! I didn’t think you wanted wood so early in the morning.” Rabbit chuckled at my pain. “Although I guess you Humans... or I guess you are an Elf now, but either way, you flesh bags. That’s better. You flesh bags all have weird preferences. Some of you like your wood in the morning, and some of you like it in the evening.”

  “It’s way too early for this,” I grumbled back at him, still disoriented and not fully appreciating the extent of his mockery.

  “But I guess for you, you would be up for wood anytime I say ‘Jack is up.’ Yep, that must be it,” Rabbit surmised.

  “Your logic is, again, boundless,” I replied.

  Jack was laughing at me and spoke, “Well, I can see Carrick trained you. You are attacking a tree.” Oddly enough, that was Carrick’s preferred method of training.

  “And how were you trained?” I asked because I was interested in the topic.

  “I was trained in skills intensely while I was younger. When I grew older, I was leveled and built my body up for strength and endurance,” Jack answered.

  “Well, that doesn’t sound that bad,” I added.

  Sana, while still lying down as if she were asleep, replied, “Don’t let him fool you. They train intensely in the main family branches. They can afford to have healers there the whole time. He was probably beaten until he learned.”

  As sick as that sounded, it was similar to my experience, and I said as much. “Sounds a lot like my training.”

  Jack looked up from packing. “Really? Carrick is known to have a light touch with most of his pupils.”

  That shocked me, because Carrick was anything but light. He literally busted my skull one time. “Are you sure? Because I cannot recall a single day when he didn’t knock me out cold.”

  “He must have thought you were slow if he was beating you like a tree,” Jack replied with a chuckle.

  “That wasn’t it,” Sana, still lying there, chimed in again. “Alf can’t learn much of any skills, so trial by fire was his only real option. Training skills would have been a waste of Carrick’s time. I guess that once he saw you had a good ability to heal, he went with your strengths and taught you the fastest way. From what Sophia told me, you might have the ability to increase your endurance beyond the bounds.”

  Jack’s interest piqued. “Really? How? I want to learn that.”

  “Carrick said that Alf heals fast naturally. Thus, he let him build his hand strength by punching trees hard and letting them heal. Obviously, if you use a healer, they will reverse the damage. Still, he can heal naturally fast, which repairs the damage and allows strengthening,” Sana explained, finally starting to get up.

  “Unfortunately, she is right. I can’t do that myself, but I am interested in seeing it in action.” Jack walked over to me. He took off the armor on his forearms and said, “Take yours off.” I complied and removed them. “Now, if you concentrate on Strength only instead of Strength and Constitution, there is a high likelihood you can break your own bones when using that power. Since I am at a higher level than you are, I certainly have a higher Strength and Constitution. If I slammed my arms down on you, it would break your bones.”

  I took a step back, but Jack took a step forward.

  “I want to do a test,” he uttered, smiling. “You will shield yourself, and I will hit you as hard as I can in a downward motion.”

  He showed me how his arms were raised, and his forearms would hit my head if I didn’t either block with my hands or my forearms. It was like a ‘Hulk Smash’ move, but it didn’t have nearly as much power as a real straight-on strike. However, if Jack were that much stronger than I, it might really hurt.

  “We shall see how strong you are now. After you heal from this attack, you will strengthen yourself throughout the day, and we will see if you’re stronger at night,” Jack mentioned with a menacing smile on his face.

  This plan sounded horrible to me, and I didn’t want to do it at all. “And if I refuse?” I questioned.

  “Oh, that’s simple. I’ll just continue breaking your bones all day to see if you get stronger.”

  Speechless, I looked at the others in a desperate bid for help. Kaylie was sleeping like a pig, with a bit of snoring going on. Apparently, she was a heavy sleeper. Sana didn’t care at all and was getting her stuff in order.

  After seeing that I would have no support, I asked, “How will I strengthen myself while we are traveling? It’s not like I can hit it against a tree all day.” I was hoping my argument would ease Jack off until I was stronger. At this point, he was much more skilled than I, and he could kill me easily if he wanted, unless I used some trickery.

  “Simple.” He formed an X with his two arms and slammed them together.

  Then he turned them opposite ways so the bones hit each other. It made a faint sound that wasn’t as loud as hitting a tree. I knew I wasn’t getting out of it at that moment.

  “See? Just hit yourself like this all day, and if you really can heal fast, you should have slightly stronger bones in no time.” Jack then raised his hands above his head, and when he saw that I wasn’t complying, he said, “You know I can just hit your head.”

  At his threat, I raised my arms in protection above my head.

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  “Ready?” he asked, and the last thing I remembered was nodding. After that, it was just pitch-black.

  I did not pass out like someone fainting at the sight of blood or something brutal. I passed out because Jack’s blow hit my arms and then my head.

  When I woke up, I was horribly confused. I was bouncing up and down and facing someone’s butt. I also noticed everything was upside down, and we weren’t where I remembered us to be. Weirder still, I was moving.

  “What?” I croaked out.

  “Oh, good, Alf’s finally awake,” Jack said, and then he threw me to the ground. I landed on my head and arms, but I didn’t feel any pain, so I guess he didn’t break anything. Jack had been carrying me over his shoulders this whole time while walking.

  I was on the floor, lying down, looking up into the tree canopy and the sunlight filtering through. Then Kaylie popped into my view. Kneeling, she put her face right into mine. She had a massive smile on her face. “Sorry about that. Jack gets angry when he is hungry.”

  “What?” I said, baffled, but Kaylie’s smile only grew.

  Oddly enough, she understood my confusion and answered, “Oh yeah. Well, we tried to get stuff out of your bag, but it wouldn’t let us because it is attached to you. We thought about hunting, but didn’t want to waste time and figured you would be up soon anyway.” She looked up at Jack. “However, it took longer than we first thought. Jack must have done more damage than we imagined.”

  Jack looked away. I grabbed my bag and summoned some cooked meat to give out. I handed the first piece to Kaylie, and she gave it to Jack as if she could read my thoughts about not giving any to him. After I handed out all the food, I pulled out the Flask of Everlasting Water because I couldn’t stand the thirst.

  When I got back, I asked the most important questions. “How long was I out?”

  “Umm…” Kaylie faltered.

  Sana jumped in, saying, “It’s the middle of the day.”

  “Wow, what happened? Did he miss my arms?” I asked, surprised.

  “Not exactly,” Kaylie started again.

  Sana interjected, as if Kaylie talked too slowly for her liking. “He broke your arms and your head.”

  “Wow.” Stunned, I thought about how I felt about it. Perhaps it was the best thing that could have happened. Knocking me out was a bad thing, but I didn’t remember feeling any pain. I woke up with my head and my arms healed. On top of that, karma had struck Jack back by making him starve for half of the day. At this thought, I smiled directly at Jack. “Well, I guess you got exactly what you wanted.”

  Jack was eating like he had never had food before. He wasn’t even tasting. He was devouring every portion. “Don’t worry. I still plan to do it again tonight,” he mumbled through a bite, and then he stopped eating and gave me a wolfish grin.

  That shut me up, so I ate in silence with the rest of the group. It was so leathery that it almost overwhelmed the taste.

  I also took my forearm strengthening seriously. I spent the rest of the day slamming one forearm into the other. I was not strong enough to break them, but it sure was painful. I was literally torturing myself all day. We moved at a considerably slower pace because the terrain was unfamiliar, and we often had to backtrack.

  Before dusk, we stopped at a ridge. There was a large crack in the land, as if earthquakes had caused it, but it looked odd.

  I had seen archaeologists observe soil levels before to determine what happened in the past, and often there would be a repeating pattern on the side of the cliff, but this looked different. The whole bottom half of the fissure wall was grey, while the top was a repeating pattern of light and darker brown. I didn’t know what that meant, so I asked Rabbit.

  He replied, “Wow, I’m surprised you noticed it, and I didn’t.” Just because Rabbit could think at the speed of light didn’t mean he knew what to think. “My best guess is the mountain we started on was a volcano that exploded a long time in the past.”

  “Do you know how long ago?” I asked.

  “Nope. It all depends on the cycles. We can count the number of cycles, but we have no clue how long they are,” he replied.

  While all of this information was interesting, it wasn’t helpful at all since it didn’t tell us much.

  “We are getting into the Dwarf and Goblin territory,” Sana informed. “We need to move around it and be on the lookout for either camp.”

  I chimed in with, “What are we looking for?”

  “Well, you see that wide crack there? There are many of those. Some of them lead to caves, and some of them don’t,” Sana said while pointing at the fissure. “A long time ago, the Dwarves took some of them, and the Goblins have taken the others. They wage war against each other for total dominance of the caves, but no side has won. It is odd that the two camps would be so close to each other, but no other race has been down there, so we don’t know what they have been holding on to so dearly. Our intelligence suggests that there may have once been a significant vein of metals or gems below, which is why they originally fought over it. Now, we suppose that it is just an old rivalry that they haven’t let go of, but, strangely, neither side would have given up or been killed after all these centuries.”

  After looking more closely, I could see dark spots that may have been caves or mere holes. Of course, a crack wasn’t a straight line, so they could be nothing at all.

  “I think we should go back a little bit. We don’t want to camp near their territory at all,” Jack suggested. “They both can see in the dark, and we would be at a serious disadvantage even above ground.”

  “I agree,” Kaylie said.

  “I may have an idea of where to camp,” Rabbit said. He pulled up the map, showed it to me, and explained his reasons for choosing the spot.

  Taking credit for his idea again, I chimed in, “I think we have passed the perfect spot to camp. There was a place a little farther back with a cliff on one side and a river that flowed toward this position. It will be difficult for us to get there as rocks are all around it, but it can make sure that no enemies flood us all at once, and they would have to fight us one by one.”

  Everyone was surprised by my comment. They looked at each other before looking back at me, and Kaylie spoke up, “Let’s give him a chance.”

  “Fine, but if he is wrong, then I’m going to laugh when I get to crush his arms tonight,” Jack said with a smile.

  They all followed me while I led the way back, and Rabbit gave me a better route than what we took the first time. It wasn’t a significant distance from our initial path, but it was slightly better since he remembered everything we passed, and we made it to the spot in no time. It was precisely as Rabbit described, but I didn’t remember it, so I was taking his word.

  Crossing the river had been a challenge, but we managed to find a shallow spot and make it across. We had to backtrack to the alcove, which was hard to get into. We climbed rocks, and I almost slipped into the river. When we reached the alcove, it felt safe and secure.

  The area was well-hidden, and no one was going to intrude without giving us plenty of warning. The space was more than big enough to accommodate the four of us. The alcove itself was surrounded by lush greenery, creating a natural enclave. The towering cliff on one side and the river flowing toward this location provided an ideal shelter for security, seclusion, and survival.

  Shadows cast by the cliff’s overhang provided a welcome respite from the sun, creating a cool atmosphere within the alcove. A few moss-covered boulders were scattered throughout the alcove, providing natural seating options.

  “I have to admit that you have sharp eyes. This place is as safe as we could hope for.” Jack seemed pleased. He then put down his pack, removed his bracers, and asked, “Are you ready?”

  “Really? Do we have to do this? I have been training all day. Isn’t that enough?” I complained, not taking off my bracers.

  “Look. I need to test to see how well it worked,” Jack said. When I didn’t take off my bracers, he continued, “Fine, let’s make a deal. If you can do better than earlier today, then I will train you all day tomorrow.” He looked over at the girls to make sure it was cool with them. When no one objected, he said, “And I won’t complain about you all day.”

  “I’ll take the hit if it means you keep your mouth shut for a whole day,” Kaylie said with a grin.

  I thought about it, and just the fact that he wouldn’t bother me was better than the training could ever be. Taking off my bracers, I put my arms over my head and prepared myself for the blow with all my might. “Okay, I am ready.”

  At my words, Jack smashed down on my arms, and once again, I passed out.