"Ah-chuu," Iyvre sneezed as she wiped her nose in her kneeling posture. It'd been days—she'd been trying to use her warrior's manuscript to break through to the next rank but found it extremely difficult. She couldn't help but fear that the peak of the Iron Fighter rank might be where her potential ends even though she doubted that.
Turning to look at her two sleeping companions by the campfire, she sighed. She couldn't give up—at least not for them. They were the closest thing she had to family, and she'd sworn to protect them.
Getting up from her posture, she picked up a scroll from a tiny pouch. Opening the scroll, she couldn't help but frown at the complexity of the drawings.
Turning to Ayobe, who was asleep with a happy expression, she muttered,
"Well, she's the only one that has a knack for arrays. I'll probably give her this tomorrow."
Moving closer to the fire, she stared at its glowing flames in order not to fall asleep. Crouching closer to it, she stretched forth her hands toward the flames as if hypnotized.
"You don't want to get burnt, do you?" a voice to her side awoke her from her trance. Turning to the voice, she saw Yasmin awake, looking at the burning flames too.
"You should be asleep. It's still my watch for tonight," Iyvre said.
Ignoring her, Yasmin replied,
"Sometimes I choose not to look at the flames… they remind me of home and the flames that consumed it."
Iyvre sighed. "There's nothing that could've been done, Yasmin."
"Hmph, keep telling yourself that." Sitting up, Yasmin continued, "It was never our fault or anyone's fault that we were born lowly. Or you, from both sides. And what do they do? They treat us like some scum of the earth far worse than they even view humans."
Seeing the rage filling Yasmin's eyes, Iyvre chose to speak.
"It's fate, Yasmin, and we've chosen to accept that. Besides, there's Miss Valerie—she gave us a purpose."
"Tsk, we both know Miss Valerie is no different. You may be able to fool Ayobe because she's young, but I know you found out that the egotistic whore is in cahoots with the Dark Acolytes," she said, glaring at Iyvre.
Seeing that she'd been found out, Iyvre sighed and looked back at the fire once more.
"I honestly don't know what to do from here on. I've reached a bottleneck I fear I can't cross anytime soon, and we have nowhere to go, because Eldoria is no different."
"I've reached the end of my spellcaster's manuscript as well, so I'm stuck too. Maybe we could find the territories of the Nomads…"
"That'll be nearly impossible without a map—and at our rank, we'll be torn to shreds by the Aether beasts along the way."
"At least it's something to hope for," Yasmin replied. Then they both stared at Ayobe, still asleep.
"Maybe you're right. I still have things we could trade after all,probably make a living off them," Iyvre replied. "How many days more till the Withered Nights?"
Yasmin sighed. "Twenty-five days more."
"Well then, we move north tomorrow," she replied with determination.
---
A few days later, deep in the forest, in an oddly tattered campsite, a young man could be seen carrying two big logs of wood on his shoulders, with a rope tied to his waist strapped around a huge boulder. His slim, muscular physique strained with every step, his fists bruised and his skin marked with red and purple spots from beating himself to a stupor.
"Almost… t…here," Rael groaned as he kept pulling the huge boulder and the two heavy wooden logs with all his strength, edging closer to a line he'd marked on the ground. Finally crossing it, Rael dropped the logs with heavy thuds. Not bothering to loosen the rope tied around his waist, he dropped to his knees, breathing heavily.
He'd been trying different training routines through the days—from hitting his fists, ankles, and knees hard against trees and rocks, to cutting down and carrying heavy logs, and performing different exercises from his past life. Then using a pressure-point technique he'd learnt from a friend in Grandveil who was a prison's torturer that caused nerve-racking pain from within.
He had thought he could really bear inflicting pain on himself, but the damn body-tempering percentage rose so slowly he had to push himself harder.
He loosened the ropes before heading to a wooden barrel full of water he'd almost died fetching from the stream. He dipped his face into it, gulping down water before finally quenching his thirst.
He sighed as he loosened his tied-up hair and started itching at it like a madman. He couldn't help but curse, as the itching had started nights before ever since he slept in one of the tents. He suspected whoever had slept there before was definitely a hive nest for lice.
Moving into a tent nearby, he pulled out a bottle filled with blakish liquid—grece oil. Opening the lid, he poured it all on his head, rubbing it into his long hair. After a few minutes, the itching stopped, but Rael knew it would come back. So he'd made up his mind to cut his hair off or suffer eternal torment at the hands of lice.
But first, he summoned the system panel in his mind.
---
[Host Interface]
[Name: Rael Drakul]
[Age: 22]
[Gender: Male]
[Race: Human]
[Rank: Non-existent]
[Strength: 9]
[Agility: 6.5]
[Endurance: 12]
[Will: 16]
[Intelligence: 8]
[Aether Reserves:0%]
[Aether Manuscript: Warmaster Scripture I — Phase 1 (Iron Path)]
[Aether Techniques: Non-existent]
[Aether Spells: Non-existent]
[Quest Logs]
[Warmaster Scripture I]
Phase 1
[Iron Path Initiated]
[Progress in Body Tempering — 27%]
---
Looking at the percentage he'd achieved in six days, Rael didn't know if he should feel happy that he'd kept on being a masochist for that long—or disappointed at how slow it felt. He couldn't help but feel he was missing something.
Any Aether manuscript wasn't just about the physical process, but also the spiritual understanding of Aether. Yet this manuscript he'd been given didn't state such.
"Did it even state a thing?" Rael mocked. But thinking carefully, it seemed he'd have to see the self-infliction of pain from another perspective. He refused to believe it was only a physical process.
Heading to the largest tent—one he'd made sure was clear of those blood-sucking insects—he knew he had to dive deeper into this warrior's manuscript rather than just doing as instructed.
But first… he was getting a haircut.