Ayan lay on the cold stone floor, hands folded beneath his head, gazing at the cave's dim ceiling. The chill of stone had long ceased to cause him discomfort—on the contrary, he now found a peculiar pleasure in the sensation. Coolness seemed to penetrate through his skin, soothing his body and allowing his thoughts to flow more freely.
This was his favourite time of day—that rare interval when night meditation had already concluded, yet morning training with Zhalgaztur hadn't yet begun. A whole free hour belonged to him alone, and the lad valued these moments of peace more than he could express in words.
Over the long weeks of training he'd developed one clever method of finding strength for each new day, for each exhausting session. The lad would open his game profile and observe with quiet satisfaction the visible, tangible development of Nullus. Numbers didn't lie. They showed real progress, every small improvement, every step forward.
So now, lying on stone and feeling pleasant vigour throughout his body, he summoned the familiar menu and began studying just how much he'd strengthened over the past day of continuous toil.
[PLAYER PROFILE]
[Basic Information:
— Name: Nullus
— Species: Orc
— Gender: Male
— Level: 0
General Information:
— Health: 335/335
— Mana: 148/148
— Vigour: 146/258
— Fury: 44/44
Primary Attributes:
— Strength: 21
— Stamina: 28
— Fortitude: 34
— Reaction: 16
— Agility: 19
— Perception: 20
— Intelligence: 11
— Spirit: 30
— Concentration: 21
— Luck: 17
Resistances:
— Elements: 20%
— Nature: 20%
— Ether Manifestations: 20%
— Forbidden Magic: 20%
— Frost: 20%
— Mental Magic: 20%
Skills:
— "Athletics"
Rank: F (Progress 22/100)
— "Acrobatics"
Rank: F (Progress 20/100)
— "Balance"
Rank: F (Progress 15/100)
— "Coordination"
Rank: F (Progress 21/100)
— "Accuracy"
Rank: F (Progress 12/100)
— "Parrying"
Rank: F (Progress 14/100)
— "Focus"
Rank: F (Progress 28/100)
— "Evasion"
Rank: F (Progress 21/100)
— "One-handed Polearm Proficiency"
Rank: F (Progress 14/100)
— "Two-handed Polearm Proficiency"
Rank: F (Progress 19/100)
— "One-handed Striking Polearm Proficiency"
Rank: F (Progress 11/100)
— "Two-handed Striking Polearm Proficiency"
Rank: F (Progress 8/100)
— "One-handed Blade Proficiency"
Rank: F (Progress 14/100)
— "Two-handed Blade Proficiency"
Rank: F (Progress 19/100)
— "One-handed Chopping Weapon Proficiency"
Rank: F (Progress 9/100)
— "Two-handed Chopping Weapon Proficiency"
Rank: F (Progress 7/100)
— "One-handed Crushing Weapon Proficiency"
Rank: F (Progress 9/100)
— "Two-handed Crushing Weapon Proficiency"
Rank: F (Progress 7/100)
— "Light Ranged Weapon Proficiency"
Rank: F (Progress 3/100)
— "Heavy Ranged Weapon Proficiency"
Rank: F (Progress 3/100)
— "Light Throwing Weapon Proficiency"
Rank: F (Progress 3/100)
— "Heavy Throwing Weapon Proficiency"
Rank: F (Progress 3/100)
— "Knife Fighting"
Rank: F (Progress 6/100)
— "Cooking"
Rank: F (Progress 2/100)]
"Nearly thirty levels..." Ayan murmured, unhurriedly running his gaze down the lines of attributes. "And the skills aren't lagging either."
He thoughtfully calculated mentally how many free points an ordinary player would have to spend to reach similar indicators. The figures proved impressive. An involuntary smile touched his lips—the irony of the situation was too obvious. Everything others accumulated through months of persistent grinding, distributing precious points piecemeal, he'd received thanks to his past. A past he didn't want to remember.
The smile quickly faded. The lad looked at the numbers again, this time more critically.
Only the pace of attribute accumulation was falling sharply with each passing day. Morning training, which initially provided noticeable gains, now barely budged the indicators. His organism was adapting to the loads, acclimating, demanding ever greater and greater exertion for the same result.
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And voluntarily subjecting himself to torture in order to accelerate Stamina and Fortitude through pain and suffering—he would never—never—decide to do that. Even the thought caused an unpleasant chill somewhere in his chest.
The lad reflected with regret that in all this time he still hadn't managed to discover another, less agonising method of accelerated attribute building. Rather, to be completely honest with himself, he couldn't imagine paths at all—even painful ones—for forced levelling of other attributes, save perhaps Fortitude and Stamina, which grew through overcoming physical suffering.
With the rest, everything was hazy. How exactly to achieve a sharp jump in Reaction or Concentration without resorting to extreme conditions? Unknown. What exercises could force the growth of Intelligence or Spirit beyond normal rates? Also a mystery. Meditation certainly helped, but yielded significantly to the speed of training with Zhalgaztur.
Ayan simply methodically gave his all during meditation and training, carefully avoiding imbalances in development and not skewing towards one-sided enhancement of individual attributes. Such an approach brought slow but stable fruits—indicators grew evenly, without glaring gaps. Which meant he didn't intend to change his proven strategy, despite the slowing progress.
What remained was figuring out what to do about Intelligence. He'd tried many methods but arrived at nothing. Apparently dreams of becoming a mage would have to be postponed for now.
Ayan shook his head, driving away the flood of thoughts. Lying about and complaining about life wasn't in his nature. He rose sharply to his feet, feeling slight dizziness from the abrupt change of position, but immediately pulled himself together. His muscles tingled with pleasant fatigue—a sign of quality work the day before.
The lad stretched his entire body, throwing his head back and spreading his arms wide to the sides. His spine responded with a series of dull clicks rolling from his lower back to his very neck—a pleasant sensation, as though something had fallen into place after a long sleep. His shoulder joints also crunched when he drew his shoulder blades together, stretching his chest muscles that had stiffened overnight.
Ayan lowered his arms and set about a short warm-up. He started with his neck—slow rotations of his head in both directions to dispel the stagnation in his muscles. Then moved to his shoulders: circular swings forwards and backwards, warming the joints and ligaments. He leant left, right, stretching the lateral muscles of his torso. Several deep squats warmed his thighs and knees.
Finishing his warm-up and feeling how his body had finally recovered from six hours of immobility during meditation and filled with readiness for movement, he headed for the exit from the cave hall. His bare feet trod soundlessly on the cool stone floor, leaving barely noticeable wet traces.
The corridor met him with familiar coolness and semi-darkness that no longer frightened. Over the weeks spent in the cave, he'd learnt to move here almost without looking, orienting himself by hearing and memory.
The upper hall was located approximately two hundred metres from the main one. Ayan climbed the gentle slope, steadying himself with one hand against the rough wall. Somewhere ahead could be heard the familiar splash of water—a spring bursting straight from a crevice in the rock and collecting in a small natural pool.
When he entered the hall, he immediately felt the difference. Here it was fresher, the air moved more freely—somewhere high in the vault existed crevices leading outside. Weak morning light penetrated through them in thin beams, transforming the water vapour above the spring into a shimmering haze.
Ayan approached the pool and crouched at the very edge. The water was crystal clear, icy—straight from mountain depths. He scooped a handful and splashed it on his face.
The cold struck like a slap, instantly sweeping away the remnants of sleepiness. The lad snorted, shaking off the drops, and repeated the procedure once more. Then ran wet palms through his hair, brushing it from his forehead.
Having washed properly, he cupped his palms and scooped water. He drank slowly, savouring each gulp. The water had a special, slightly sweetish aftertaste impossible to describe in words. It quenched thirst from the very first gulp, filling his body with pleasant coolness from within.
Ayan drank another handful, then another, until he felt complete satiation. He rose, wiping his hands on his trousers, and surveyed the hall. Empty, quiet, filled only with the murmur of water and the echo of his own steps.
The return journey took less time. The lad descended faster, confidently placing his feet on familiar ledges and irregularities. When he returned to his chamber, he immediately headed for the corner where supplies were stored.
Breakfast was uncomplicated—slabs of dried meat, a flatbread, a handful of dried berries. Nothing special, but after night meditation his stomach demanded its due. Ayan settled on his bedding cross-legged, laid out food before him and set to chewing.
The meat was tough, salty, required jaw effort. The flatbread crumbled in his hands, leaving flour dust on his fingers. The berries were tart but pleasantly refreshing after the dried meat. He ate unhurriedly, concentratedly, deriving simple pleasure from the process of satiation.
Somewhere in the cave's depths footsteps sounded—heavy, measured, unmistakably recognisable. Zhalgaztur. The morning training would soon begin, and the new day would consume him entirely.
Ayan swallowed the last piece of flatbread, washed it down with water from the jug and rose. Shook the crumbs from his clothes. Loosened his shoulders.
The lad calmly awaited the coming training. In recent days it had ceased to cause him the former unbearable discomfort and had transformed rather into familiar routine—exhausting, wearing him to trembling muscles, but no longer unbearable.
Now he simply needed to endure sounds of incredible, deafening volume, not allowing them to break his concentration, and whilst doing so not catch that cursed deafness debuff which in the first days had knocked him off course for long minutes.
Instead of the tiny spark of light that had blinded him on the very first day when he'd awoken in this cave, Zhalgaztur now blinded him with an incredibly bright, almost unbearable cluster of pure, eye-cutting light. Yes, looking at this luminary was still just as painful—his eyes watered, his eyelids involuntarily compressed, his temples pulsed from the strain. But most importantly—he no longer received the blindness debuff. This was progress. Enormous, hard-won, undeniable and encouraging. And Ayan clung to it as proof that all this had meaning.
As for describing those smells he had to experience day after day, he would never dare. Firstly, because he simply didn't know many of them—in his former life, locked in an immobile body, the world of smells had been flat, sterile, almost non-existent. But here...
Here it seemed as though a terrible, thick, almost tangible clot of stench or sweetness was forced into his nostrils, which instantly pierced straight through like a blow to the solar plexus, squeezing hot tears from his eyes and causing bouts of nausea. However—and this too was progress—he no longer lost his sense of smell.
Moreover, he'd learnt to endure this smell, however repulsive or cloying it might be, holding it in consciousness, analysing it, breaking it into components. The pain remained. But control had also appeared.
His main problem he still considered the hypersensitivity of his body to external influences—tactile, temperature, any physical contact. Three weeks ago, when he'd first, with difficulty overcoming panic, immersed himself in the water basin that always stood filled with icy spring water, it had seemed he was literally boiling alive in scalding oil. Then every drop of water had scorched his skin as though piercing it with thousands of red-hot needles, and he'd barely restrained himself from screaming at the top of his lungs, gripping the stone edge of the bath with both hands.
But yesterday's procedure—the same icy water, the same torture for his nerves—caused only intense, pulsating burning throughout his body. Yes, it was unpleasant. Yes, it still made him clench his teeth and squeeze his fists until it hurt. But he no longer wanted to tear off his skin just to make it finally stop. He no longer struggled with the desire to flee—he simply endured. And this too was progress.
In any case, when this morning from the cave's depths appeared the familiar bulky figure of the old orc with a braid to his waist and eyes glowing blue in the semi-darkness, Ayan didn't feel the familiar trembling in his fingers and that viscous, cold fear that twisted his stomach into a knot. Zhalgaztur was now perceived by him merely as the beginning of something routine that simply needed to be survived—endured, ground through inside himself, not forcing himself through pain but calmly accepting it as a given.
And anticipation of training with Orgatai only strengthened his spirit and made his inner fire blaze brighter. He very much enjoyed weapon training—in these moments he completely dissolved in movement, giving himself entirely to the exercises, forgetting about all the rest of the world.
Each swing, each lunge, each movement of arms and legs transformed into a meditation of a special kind—one that didn't require silence and peace but, on the contrary, fed on action and tension.
If with the baksy he endured pain, through willpower forced himself to think positively during that time, drove away dark thoughts and kept his mind in balance, then during training with Orgatai everything was completely different. He rejoiced in pain and fatigue, met them like old acquaintances, because precisely in these moments he felt most alive—genuine, whole, real.
He felt every millimetre of his muscles, sensed how they tensed and relaxed, how pain from fatigue grew in them, and this pain was pleasant to him—it proved his body was working, that it responded to every effort.
He felt how his joints moved, heard their barely distinguishable clicks and creaks like the music of a living organism. His quickened heartbeat created a rhythm for him, powerful and ceaseless, and he liked this rhythm more than anything in the world—he was ready to dance to this music again and again, knowing no fatigue, desiring no pause.
For observing Rotis's movements all this time, for years watching how he trained at school, he'd dreamt of standing on equal footing with him and repeating after him every movement, every technique, every strike. But being confined to a wheelchair, he couldn't allow himself this—his body had been a cage, and dreams had remained merely dreams. Now though, here, in Seratis, with strong legs and powerful arms, he seemed to stand beside that Rotis from memory and his mentor helped the lad, moving with him in one rhythm.
Zhalgaztur stopped several paces from the lad, surveying him with an attentive gaze. His weathered face remained impassive, but in the depths of his blue eyes flickered something like approval.
"Ready?"
Ayan nodded, straightening his back and squaring his shoulders. Words weren't required—over the training period, the baksy had studied his habits thoroughly. So he simply headed into the cave's depths, where their training took place. The lad followed him, treading soundlessly on cold stone.
Zhalgaztur stopped in the centre, turned to face Ayan and raised his right hand palm upward. His fingers slowly clenched into a fist.
The silence broke with a blow.
The crash descended on the lad from all sides at once—not gradually building but instantaneous, absolute, as though someone had struck a giant gong right by his ear. The sound wave struck his eardrums with such force that Ayan involuntarily clenched his teeth but remained standing.
His breathing faltered. His heart began pounding faster.
The crash didn't subside—it vibrated in his bones, penetrated his chest cavity, made his innards resonate in time with an unknown source. The lad squeezed his eyes shut, concentrating on breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
Don't panic. Just endure.
He unclenched his fists, which he'd clenched automatically, and slowly lowered his shoulders. The sound remained deafening but no longer seemed unbearable. The lad opened his eyes and met Zhalgaztur's gaze.
The orc observed him with an inscrutable expression. Then raised his second hand—and before Ayan flared a blinding cluster of light.
White. Pure. Cutting.
His eyes instantly filled with tears, his eyelids twitched, wanting to close. Ayan forced himself to look, squinting and wincing but not averting his gaze. The light pulsed as though alive, dancing before his face and illuminating every dust mote in the air.
His temples pulsed with dull, pressing pain, as though someone was squeezing his skull slowly and methodically. His breathing, which he'd just steadied, faltered again—became uneven, intermittent, like that of a person on the edge of breaking.
Inhale. Exhale.
He stood, jaws clenched and fingers gripping his thighs, and looked into that unbearable light whilst tears flowed down his cheeks and endless thunder roared in his ears.
Another day. Another training session.
Another step towards becoming stronger.
