After telling his father of his idea, his father told him more about the other aspects of himself he could train. Although his father didn’t know much, it was still very helpful.
The things he could train were his body and his soul. A dragons body normally grew stronger with time, but could potentially be sped up through extreme physical training. The soul would grow with age, but should also grow with experiences.
Using this, Ithil made up a growth plan. Since he couldn’t experience a lot at the time, he decided to focus completely on training his body. How he would do this, he didn’t know. Or at least until his father offered to spar with him.
Dragons would generally start sparring when they entered the child stage, so it was definitely early for him. But Ithil didn’t care. He also came up with the idea to start training to fly early, since he didn’t have magic to help him stay in the air like other dragons.
Training was difficult. Especially for Ithil’s father, who had to be extremely gentle. Even though he tried his best to not hurt Ithil, there was still multiple broken bones each week. If dragons didn’t have their exceptional healing abilities, Ithil would be long dead.
Each day was filled with sparring, followed by resting and healing, followed by flight training. Dragons normally started flying when they reached the juvenile stage, but Ithil of course couldn’t use magic to fly and had to train extra early.
The flight training started with just flapping his wings while standing until he fell over from exhaustion. Then when he woke up again he would repeat. In the beginning he would succumb to the exhaustion after just a few seconds. But the time steadily increased, and he soon managed to float slightly if he tried his hardest.
But it still wasn’t enough. His siblings quickly grew used to magic and would go around shooting offensive spells everywhere to train. Just the shock waves was enough for Ithil to fall over. But he stubbornly continued.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
When he reached the age of five, however, things changed. Ithil started growing, he started to catch up with his siblings. His father noticed this and increased the training. Instead of just sparring with his father, he also sometimes got to spar with his siblings. They would shoot spells at him that he needed to avoid. That training was significantly harder since his siblings had a hard time holding back.
--------------------
During this time, his mother still hadn’t visited. His father was getting worried, but he couldn’t leave the children alone. However, one day a messenger came. It was a huge dragon as well, but black and slightly smaller than Ithil’s father. Ithil recognized the species from his given knowledge, it was an ebony dragon.
Ebony dragons were known for being very proficient at magic, even more so than other dragons. The ebony dragon, whose name was Ythik, came to tell Ithil’s father that Ithil’s mother had been dragged into some conflict in a nearby dragon city and couldn’t come until some years later. Everyone was of course sad to hear this, especially Ithil’s father. But soon after Ythik left, the mood lightened a little as they started training again.
--------------------
During most of the time, his siblings were asleep so they could grow. But Ithil didn’t want to do that. He saw it as more important to train. His siblings would get stronger naturally as they grew, but Ithil’s natural growth was to slow due to having no magic. So instead he trained day and night, and didn’t sleep unless he fell apart.
It was very stressing for Ithil’s soul, but he surprisingly managed to pull through. Unbeknownst to him, this caused his soul to grow at an extreme pace. But it not show up until later.
At the age of six, he managed to fly around his home. Four years earlier than most dragons even started training. This surprised his father a lot. All of the flying at a very young age also stimulated Ithil’s wings to develop more, and he ended up with wings slightly bigger than his siblings who were still stuck on the ground.
At the age of seven, he could dodge most of his siblings attacks with ease. But he was still no match for his father, who had decide to make things even harder for him in order to stimulate more growth.
At the age of nine he could fly with ease and didn’t grow tired unless he sped up. He could beat both his sibling just by dodging and sweeping their feet from under them. He could even almost avoid his fathers attacks. Unless he used magic, then Ithil stood no chance.
Both Ithil and his father were very surprised at the growth rate. Ithil was as powerful as a dragon double his age. But little did they know, this was only the beginning.