Episode 5: Young Trials

  Chapter 014 - Trials of Training

  The journey pressed on. It had been two days since they had settled on this one spot. Wallan decided it was time to move. He strapped an old leather pack to his back that was paired with a bundle of straw tied against it. If that wasn’t enough, he carried a pouch at his side, rattling with tools for the weeks to come. Vynelor carried a similar pack, though smaller for his size. And then they were off.

  Much of the route was already planned. Wallan’s system had developed a Trailmind temperament (Lv. 21), and he used that knowledge to guide them through the wild. The forest itself seemed intentional with the confusion and misdirections. At one point, Vynelor glanced aside and saw a tree sagging like the bushy head was too heavy to carry. It groaned as it bent low. Then it plunged into the soil, ripping through its own roots. As the head dug deeper, the tree roots sprang upward. It lifted up and straightened like a new head. With the roots turning to branches, it sprouted green in seconds. It was like the tree inverted itself for no apparent reason.

  “That’s a first. What the…” Vynelor muttered.

  Of course, travel always meant training. Wallan found a steep hill predominantly made of jagged rocks—some roots managed to squeeze their way through and protrude on the sides. A wide cavity hollowed beneath it like the entrance to a den or some tunnel to a sleeping beast. Moss-backed mammals with four legs got startled by the two and darted deeper into the dark, leaving behind glowing sky-blue pawprints on the wet stone.

  From the ceiling, water dripped in a steady rhythm. Vynelor looked up. Pebbles hung just below the stone arch. They floated magically, being held by thin threads of magic barely visible. They didn’t touch the ceiling, yet each one brimmed with water inside that gathered until a drop fell. One landed squarely on his nose.

  “Akilostones,” Wallan said, pointing. “We’ll use them. Magic clings to those rocks. With the right conditions, they hover on the ceilings and draw out water from within. These are dropping at a good pace, which is perfect for training.” He faced the boy. “Quick Speed. Catch the drops before they fall. For every one you miss, you’ll spar with me that many matches.”

  Vynelor turned to him, wide-eyed. “Catch? By hand? Drops?!”

  He looked back up. The stones were evenly spaced, maybe a meter apart in perfect dispersion. Nature was clearly deliberate in its pattern. At first, it seemed doable, seeing one rock sending droplets every five seconds. But when he considered a dozen of them doing the exact same thing, it looked like a rainfall. His system overlay flickered into view:

  Adaptation Path — 1/5 Scanned

  Quick Speed ? Lv. 10 ? 202 / 330 EXP

  After a decade of growing his system, Vynelor had learned how things worked. Every experience in life was recorded, divided into two branches: the mental and the physical.

  Temperament Slate catalogued a person’s traits, such as their character, motives, and values. Traits were marked as Awakened or hidden. An Awakened temper was the dominant one, while others were simply in the background—not entirely “off.” These were voices most present in the mind, though every temper existed in some form.

  Adaptation Path tracked the physical changes a body underwent in response to its environment. Each path was situational, where every growth was tied to the demands of survival. They were the body’s way of manifesting enhancements that were modified in their muscles and system. A path was either activated or it wasn’t. Dormant paths remained hidden until the right provocation stirred them awake.

  Both branches grew with potential, which was measured in levels. Each level required experience to climb higher. For Vynelor’s case, his Quick Speed 10 needed 330 EXP.

  “And I’m guessing I have to do this until I level up?” Vynelor asked, already half-expecting the answer.

  “We’ll use other methods too,” Wallan replied. That surprised the boy. His father had never trained him this intensely before. Maybe the forbidden use of magic had poked at Wallan’s pride, he thought.

  “Begin.”

  And so began: the amusing battle between a child and waterdrops. At first, Vynelor’s Quick Speed carried him through, letting him keep pace with the steady drip. He fixed his gaze upward, keeping his hands splayed outward to catch a falling drop as quickly as possible. He used the sun’s light to his advantage when the translucent drops were nearly invisible.

  For a few minutes, he held strong. But then his stamina faltered. His eyes burned from staring too long, sometimes forgetting to blink. A drop smacked him square in the eye, blurring his vision. His head twitched from impact, eyes rapidly blinking to see again. But then… One slipped past.

  “One.”

  Vynelor’s heart sank at the calm tally in Wallan’s voice. One sparring match already?! He pushed harder, only to miss another. The second fell with a careless splatter on the puddle.

  “Two.”

  Then comes the third.

  “Three.”

  Even his system seemed to rebel, warning him that DEX and STR were dropping with each failure. Desperation set in. His mind was fueled with tension, making his focus dip significantly. Eventually, it was all too much, and he resorted to the last move to try: throwing himself flat on the ground, limbs stretched wide like a star. It was clumsy, pathetic even. But it worked for a moment. He felt many of the droplets landing on him. Yet still, the count kept climbing.

  “Four… Five– Six… Seven…”

  His voice broke as a tear slipped free. “I’m doomed… doomed everywhere. Dom dom…”

  Wallan’s final word: “Fifteen.”

  He could’ve gone for more, and it was even a mocking thought knowing Wallan hadn’t counted all the drops that fell.

  Vynelor got up, looking all soaked, adding more to his gloomy face. When they finally made camp over the next hill, the training (sparring) continued day after day in the same fashion. By the end of four days, there was at least progress:

  ● System Update ●

  Four days of training, four days of sharpening.

  +18 EXP

  Quick Speed ? Lv. 10 ? 202 → 220 / 330 EXP

  Another week, another week of traveling. They packed up and left after feasting on a domaneer, a type of deer with a long, knotted tail, white antlers that pulsed like a heartbeat, and a spine with a blue glow.

  The hunger from the night before had been unbearable. Vynelor even rushed through two sparring matches, which were planned for the next day, just so he could eat a meal by evening. The trade-off was worth it.

  Traveling at night was out of the question. Without Nightglass or Nightsense—traits only gained through long practice in darkness—wandering after dusk was impossible. So they slept heavily and undisturbed. He told Wallan that if they could just acquire it, they’d be more flexible on traveling. Apparently, without a good light source, the wilderness would eat you up. Vynelor didn’t know if that was true or just the man’s excuse to sleep well on an empty stomach. Though more recent sayings revolved around the child’s troublesome attitude toward magic.

  “It’s not like we’d be hunted down,” Vynelor argued. “We didn’t do anything. Who’d even want to find us?”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “The world isn’t that simple,” Wallan countered. He jabbed the boy with a stick. “Back to training.”

  It was the next day afternoon. This time, training meant following the river upstream and catching fish along the way. But that was an understatement—the river’s current went sideways. The current appeared to flow from one end of the shore to the other, but the flow was moving downstream. He seemed to get full resistance from the side course, but he had felt no push from the upstream. Whatever the case, he had to go up the river. Wallan went ahead to prepare camp and sharpen tools, leaving the boy alone with his impatience—and his temptation to use magic.

  It would’ve been easy. One spell, a quick pull, and the fish would be his. But Wallan had warned him that if he so much as caught one fish with magic, it was back to fifteen rounds of sparring. Sparring did build Quick Speed just as much as this exercise, but he’d rather not get a thorough beating by rough fists the size of his face. Moreover, Wallan had a knack for appearing when least expected. Parents always had that talent of appearing at the most inconvenient time to catch you red-handed.

  “Give me a break,” Vynelor muttered, rolling his pants up to his knees. He hung his cloak around his neck as he faced the shimmering water, scanning the rippling surface for movement. “I wish we could go back to fishing again, not this! This is—”

  A flicker of motion caught his eye.

  He locked onto the shadow swiftly rushing past him. He whipped around just in time to spot it flowing downstream, the sideways current never bothering it. His Quick Speed surged to life, and he leapt with arms spread and head diving into the depths. A loud splash! When he surfaced, he had a thrashing fish the length of his arm clutched in his grip. “Yes!”

  He speared it cleanly through the skull with a stick and then wrapped it in his cloak. Hanging it around his shoulder, he continued his way, periodically getting sucker slapped on the head by its tail. Later down the road, he met another shadow, which he caught. This continued for a while.

  By the time Wallan had finished tending his tools, he found the boy trudging back with five fish in tow.

  They charred the catches over the fire and ate. Afterward were a few hours of resting. Vynelor would never argue here. This was usually a time when his system updates new changes. When he glanced at his system, the update glowed before him:

  ● System Update ●

  Two hours of hunting, two hours of sharpening.

  +3 EXP

  Quick Speed ? Lv. 10 ? 220 → 223 / 330 EXP

  Like all training, growth took time. Still, Vynelor found himself oddly pleased at earning even a single point. It was better than none at all. Maybe it was because the environment had changed, or the training varied weekly. Sparring was the usual way to toughen him, but fishing was something new. The system, he guessed, was more generous when faced with a diverse range of exposure.

  Once the hours breezed over, it was time to move again. Just as he readied himself to leave with Wallan, his system flickered to life once more, announcing another change.

  ● System Update ●

  Strain tempers steel. Pain builds power.

  Endurance Capacity Threshold — Fulfilled

  “Oooo~,” he whistled.

  Getting an imprint was something else entirely. Unlike Temperaments or Adaptation Paths, these stats weren’t quantifiable. Vynelor struggled most with understanding them. How they grew, how they shifted, why they even existed—these were all the unexplained questions. All that he knew was that it was also training-based, or just living life. Its function was ambiguous. But without delay, the two pressed on.

  Wallan raised a hand. “You see that mountain?” He pointed past the trees, toward a crooked peak in the distance.

  This prompted Vynelor to raise his head.

  The sight was staggering. The mountain reached into the sky, towering past the clouds. It had a tent shape, all narrowing into a sharp point. Its jagged summit hooked so far to one side it seemed impossible that it still held together. One could say it was fishhook-curved. The tip was hung upside down. Trees managed to stay alive on that—their trunks had to bend at sharp angles. And with them swayed the mountain itself. Impossibly. The whole peak rocked as if alive, yet not a single stone fell loose. The shifting light caught and changed along its contours with every motion.

  Clouds brushed against the hooked tip, leaving silver condensation to drip down in shining threads. Sunlight scattered across it, making the summit glitter. And still the mountain moved.

  Vynelor sighed, caught in its rhythm, drawn as helplessly as a fish to bait.

  “According to the sages,” Wallan said, “that mountain was once half its size. Now the peak climbs higher than the clouds. Magic itself has bent reality. For centuries, it’s only grown more influential on the environment. It is a wonder to imagine that the wilderness was habitable by humans. Now, everyone confined themselves behind walls. How can you say magic is harmless when even a mountain of stones can’t outweigh it?”

  He crouched beside the boy, his voice low and steady. “Listen carefully, son. I’m glad you’re having fun with magic, but you don’t know what you’re doing. None of us does. Magic has no limits, and if you keep reaching for it, it will hurt you. Not might. It will.” His gaze sharpened. “And worse, it draws attention. There are people who can sense it when you use it. And you don’t want those people finding you. Trust me.”

  Wallan left shortly after, boots crunching on the moss. He walked far into the distance, leaving the boy in his thoughts.

  Vynelor remained still, letting the man’s words circle in his head. To him, magic had always seemed nothing but wondrous. Travelers whom they’ve occasionally met used it freely. Even books borrowed had stories that praised them. The people loved magic. So why should it be feared? Why should it be hidden? Wallan’s warnings sounded less like wisdom and more like smothering caution. He’d never been caught before, after all. Why start worrying now?

  A low chirp broke the silence.

  From behind a fallen branch, a small, round creature peeked out—four wings folded tight, copper eyes glinting in the dusk. A runabu. Vynelor leaned forward and stretched his hand out. Curiosity pulled him closer. The creature blinked once, then darted back into the brush on its spindly legs.

  He grinned at the brief encounter. Truthfully, every creature he’d seen bore the mark of magic in very unique ways. No animal appeared the same as their kin. Skins glowing in shifting colors, wings as long as a man was tall, eyes that burned with neon light—and the taste of their meat… Mmm… Richer than anything ordinary.

  All of it tied to the very force Wallan warned against.

  Vynelor’s fists tightened at the thought. He stared into his palm, focusing on pouring energy onto it. Slowly, a shimmer surfaced. His skin flickered with flashes of gold. The color brimmed with such captivity that he could only chuckle and sigh in disbelief.

  “Old man’s too old,” he muttered. “I’ll show him what magic really is.”

  He stood still, watching Wallan’s back as the man walked down the narrow path ahead. Vynelor’s mind was quiet—very quiet—but the silence was heavy with thought.

  …

  The sun had passed its peak by the time they reached camp.

  Wallan knelt near the edge of the clearing to work on a half-built snare. Cord coiled around his wrist as he focused on setting the trap up with his fat fingers—looping, twisting, tightening. Every so often, he paused, tugged the line, and adjusted the angle of a bent branch while muttering something under his breath.

  Vynelor sat on a log, legs swinging idly as he watched.

  He waited while Wallan rewound a loop. To his surprise, the man tied it wrong. He swore softly and untangled it to try again. And as if things weren’t bad enough, the second snare got caught in the first, causing the first to fully dismantle and lock itself. The whole trap had to be reset. Wallan was quiet this time, which was arguably worse than when he cursed. At least the bark had turned into two rough bowls—all he could think about was food.

  “What’s for dinner?” Vynelor asked, eyeing the empty trap.

  “Whatever we catch,” Wallan replied. “Same routine, bud.”

  Vynelor fell quiet again. He stared at the half-finished snare too long, thoughts wandering. He remembered the time he almost caught a walking beast his own size, with two limbs, blue eyes, and a bushy green tail. Fish the size of him was one thing, and this was the other. It was a prize… If only the cord hadn’t slipped loose. Their feast was lost, skipping away like it had not just been one mistake away from being eaten. Wallan had been in an especially foul mood that day. Vynelor still partly blamed the creature… and mostly blamed the man. If only he’d used magic, he thought, they might have had it.

  He clicked his tongue and sat up straighter, whispering so Wallan wouldn’t hear, “All because you don’t use magic…” He shook his head, eyes drifting around the clearing. Then he eyed back at Wallan, and he rose to his feet.

  The man didn’t stir or look back. Vynelor had utmost vigilance to keep him from turning around. His hands stayed busy with cord and wood, the occasional clinks and grinding hiding the noise behind him.

  Vynelor pressed his lips tightly together and stepped forward. The ground was clear, no branches to snap beneath his boots. He glanced once at Wallan again. Still no response.

  He took another step. Nothing.

  One more.

  And he was gone.