From Moving Crates to Killing Gods-Chapter 44: Training

Phinyx had positioned himself near the elevator at the far end of the training room.

There he used his vibes every time I reached him.

Run the length of the training grounds, survive on instinct alone, find Phinyx, breathe. Repeat.

"Fifty one laps, Allaran." Phinyx’s voice came out thin, strained. "I’m getting real close to that ’losing consciousness’ vibe. Like, actually. I don’t know how to control the backlash yet, so I’m gonna..." he gestured vaguely at his own head "Figure that out now."

"Don’t worry Phinyx, I think the Citadel Master is just crazy, there’s no way he thought I could complete this task on the first day." I said while my whole being fumed with a sweaty smell.

Phinyx nodded weakly and shuffled toward the elevator, probably to find water... or a different thing to try and deal with his backlash.

I decided, with what little cognitive function remained, that my next move was obvious. Room. Bed. Sleep. Twelve hours had passed, or at least it felt like twelve hours. I just need to hold it together long enough to reach the shower before I collapsed. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

My legs had other plans.

They buckled without warning. My head hit the floor, and the ground felt so comfortable that I decided, right there, that sleep was happening. Floor sleep. Dream sleep. Right now sleep.

"Allaran... Allaran, are you okay?"

"Uhm... hi?" My throat felt like I’d swallowed rocks. Sharp rocks. My stomach announced its emptiness with a violent growl. My head spun. My skin was coated in a layer of dried sweat.

"You’re extremely pale." Kira’s face hovered above me, her expression caught somewhere between amusement and genuine concern. "Did you sleep here? Come on, this is the second time you act like a homeless person."

"Sleep?" I blinked. Processed. "Oh. Yeah. I guess this is the second time I’ve slept like this in my life. I trained way too much yesterday."

"And how much did your stats increase? Do you feel stronger now?" Kira asked while giving me a hand to stand up.

"Actually I haven’t checked." I stood up, flexed my back and continued. "Stats!"

A blue window appeared in front of me, in the past each stat was at 5, but now it was different.

"Alright, strength is six, agility seven and constitution is six." I said while analyzing. "I thought running would only increase agility, it seems that forcing my legs past their limit and being extremely fatigued helped me also increase strength and constitution."

"Well, that’s amazing Allaran, you’ll be at the stats limit in no time." Kira said now happy, maybe she forgot that I was half dead and drenched in grime on the flor a moment ago.

"I got 4 new points in a day, but I don’t think I can do the same today." I said while checking how painful it was to just stand up. "Also, this will probably get harder and harder each time, but today my body rests."

"That’s okay, there’s more training you can still do." Said a voice from behind me, a cold, calm tone. "Today go to the library and try learning basic spells, since we don’t have any books to help you with wisdom currently."

I turned and saw a tall man with white hair, Damian.

"That’s fine, I’ll take a shower and then I’ll go to the library." I said with slivers of hope in my tone. Somehow reading felt like something much, much easier to do.

"The library is in my chamber, get there once you’re ready." Damian said with a commanding tone.

As I fully opened my eyes, I saw a couple of figures also standing up close to the entrance. They were my friends. All of them wore the same expression, exhaustion layered over determination, the kind of resolve that came from watching people die and swearing it wouldn’t happen again.

Thirty minutes later, showered and marginally human, I stood in the Citadel Master’s chamber. He had said spells, but I didn’t know something like that existed... and I thought that you raised your intelligence stat by solving puzzles, that’s what Damian had said.

There, against the left wall of the room stood a tall bookshelf filled with books. They were written in the same script we’d learned in school, the same language carved into the ruins of forgotten Argent. I ran my fingers along their spines until one caught my attention.

Foundations of Field Magic.

’Foundations of Field Magic’ I think I can start with that, sounds interesting and basic.

I started reading the first page. With this book, you will learn the five most essential spells for survival. Pulse, Aegis, Quickstep, Mend, and Sense.

The names sparked something in my chest. How would that even work? I turned the page.

And found chaos.

There were multiple scrabbles, lines, circles and dots around the page. The only letters that could be read said ’Pulse’ in the center of the page.

I was about to close the page, but then my imagination went a little wild.

The way those lines are drawn, they look like they’re moving. Each and everyone of them is following a pattern, some simple figures, others more complex, some were just dots standing still. And all of them were anchored to the word in the center ’Pulse’.

I tried to focus, so I started looking at the center of the book while repeating the word in my head. Trying to imagine what all of those lines would look like if they moved.

I was first trying to focus on many different movements inside my mind at the same time, but it wasn’t as easy as I thought. If I lost focus on a single line that’s supposed to be moving, it started feeling wrong.

Also memorizing every scribble, line and dot was difficult, they held irregular shapes and sizes that were unusual to say the least.

A sphere of random scribbles where nothing touched.

A three dimensional puzzle I had to solve with my mind alone.