The morning after our discussions, I awoke in the dim light of the jungle pre-dawn, the sounds of life screeching and calling all around me. Slowly drawing in a deep breath, I stretched carefully so as to minimise how much noise I made; I felt my muscles bunch and pull as my back slowly arched and I almost let out a small grown of pleasure. It was good to be young!

Wearing a huge grin, I took my time extricating myself free of the massive nest, hoping not to wake my friends who were still sleeping, though I knew that would not last. It seemed like I needed slightly less sleep than they did, for which I thanked my ren physiology, even if it had made my first couple of weeks a little awkward.

Moving away from the nest cluster in which we were situated, I walked until I found a wide-open space and began to put my body through its paces. I had already fought with the increased capacity of my freshly completed Core, but I had not had chance to really internalise my increased strength or speed; there had been a couple of times during the fight with Url that I had jumped too far, or over extended a punch, and I knew I would need to get that under control. I also knew that it would probably make doing my sword forms at the appropriate speeds more difficult... When you are roughly fifty times as fast as a normal human, doing something at one-fiftieth of the speed of a normal human was a challenge. Who ever thought that being normal would be hard?

As these thoughts spun through me, I dashed to and fro, making sharp turns and leaps as I tried to grow used to my recent doubling of strength– while adding in far too many extraneous flips and spins, I will admit; they were just fun.

After half an hour or so, I felt like I had a better handle on my body, though true mastery would of course only come with time; being able to perform a one-hundred and forty-foot vertical leap was a trip, and only mildly terrifying. The first time I did it, I was convinced I was going to end up with my shins sticking out of my shoulders, but it seemed that my body had also grown somewhat tougher. It was a strange realisation; it was kind of obvious that our bodies grew stronger, because otherwise there was no way they could handle the kind of forces we placed upon them as we advanced. Hell, it was basically the first lesson Walker ever gave me, when he crushed that rock to powder the night of my arrival. It did make me think about how hard Url must have hit me though, to have done so much damage. For a moment, I felt regret that I had not defeated her and made that strength my own, by I quickly dismissed the feeling; I had lived enough with regret and I was no longer prepared to wallow in it. I was going to get a better Exemplar... even if I did not know what it would look like. Until then, I was kind of in a bottleneck.

After a couple more vertical jumps – with the Superman theme tune playing in my head, I may have hummed it – I settled down to move through my sword forms, and after that my chain practice; the former went well, though it was a little torturous to move at what, one twenty-five-hundredths of my normal speed? The latter did not go so well, as my new speed resulted in a marked increase in having to dodge my own weapon. Maybe I could just use it as a whip...?

Dawn had come and gone by the time I finished my practice, and I found my companions practising alongside me a little distance away, though they were sparring amongst themselves, rather than trying to learn weapons. Reff basically wore his weapon, Riffa fought mostly at a distance and Darina... well, you cannot heal a sword. Or, at least, Darina could not heal a sword. I was sure somebody out there had to have focused on mending weapons...

Slipping my chain back into a ring, I walked over to watch my friends spar, not wanting to interrupt and disrupt their flow. Darina seemed to be doing better; she was certainly getting kicked into the distance far less than when we had started. She had been super-aggressive when we fought, lacking any defence at all and rather relying on her regeneration, but now she seemed to be incorporating dodges into her fighting, perhaps realising that being knocked out of a fight could be just as harmful as being knocked unconscious. Riffa’s puppets seemed to be moving with much more fluidity, and I even saw the giant young woman re-positioning herself while they fought, which was a massive improvement from where she had been when the two of us first sparred.

As for Reff, he was pulling out moves I had not seen from the supposedly temperamental man before, with tendrils and blades of lava whipping out of his armour at varying places, though he always held back from actually injuring his opponents; as my back knew all too well, lava was dangerous.

“Are you not done yet? The sooner you all go and deliver the egg to the peacock, the faster I get more Thousand Year Pineapples.”

The colossal frame of Rainmaker lumbered into view as his voice boomed out over the village, cracking and rolling about us, an almost physical shock.

“Elder Rainmaker, hey. We were just getting in some practice before we left – every little bit helps us puny mortals.”

My friends had come to a stop at the blasting voice, and were now making their way over to us, clones and molten armour fading into sand and stone respectively before – I presumed – they were placed in storage.

“It is good to strive to be less puny, but the mistake you humans make is that you try. We skip the unnecessary steps and just become stronger. Smashing is fun, but optional.”

“Honoured Elder Rainmaker, please forgive our folly. Were we able to grow as you do, we would likely be less... puny.”

Darina stopped in front of the once-ape and bowed low from the waist, her words respectful, though there was a hint of hesitation at calling herself puny.

“Bah, you lot are okay, for humans. Most just run away, though some do leave small mounds of fruit for me, which is better than you, now I think about it.” There was a brief pause while he pondered his own words, before he went on again. “Why am I giving you fruit? Give me fruit!”

“Sorry, Elder, we’re all out of fruit. We can get out of your hair though... you said something about fire-repellent fruits, yesterday?”

“So not only are you not giving me fruit, now you want my Blazing Mangos? Why am I even an Elder? Borr, why did I become an Elder, if I have to give the puny-humans fruit?”

Turned to look behind Rainmaker, where Borr stood resting his weight on his knuckles, looking like he wanted to go back to sleep.

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“You didn’t have a choice, Boss. It just happened to you.”

"Well, from now on, we’re putting in a two-fruit minimum for guests. No more giving away fruit to every armless, puny human who turns up.”

“I don’t think you’ll have to worry about these specific circumstances much, Boss...”

The fruit-loving Elder just stared at his companion and the silence drew out for several seconds before Borr replied, with a heavy sigh.

“... Two-fruit minimum, you got it, Boss. Starting with the next armless human to visit.”

“There! I’m sure when you come back this way, you’ll have plenty of fruit, right, humans?”

The normally jovial, if smash-focused mien of the Elder fell away as he focused his storm-cloud gaze on me and my companions, turning to meet our eyes one by one. I shuddered a little at the sudden clear intelligence behind those grey orbs, and decided that when I did pass back this way, I would more than meet the new minimum.

The glimpse into Rainmaker’s true-self only lasted moments before he was back to his usual self, gesturing us to follow him as he walked back towards his own nest.

Following, my companions and I shared a glance and I could tell that they too would be putting some effort into collecting fruit before we returned to the territory of the thundering apes.

Once we all stood assembled in front of his home, Rainmaker once more began to root about, muttering to himself about smashing the greedy, fruit-hogging humans. Borr gave us an apologetic look and I grinned back at him; he seemed like a good guy and I wondered how close he was to becoming an Elder – Rainmaker has said they grew in intelligence as they grew in power, and Borr seemed pretty damn smart.

“Ah! Here they are... here, take them before I change my mind.”

Rainmaker emerged from his nest with a pile of deep red mangos, each the size of my head held in his arms, before dropping them in front of us.

“Thanks, Elder, this is very kind of you.” I picked up one of the large fruits and was about to cut into it when Reff spoke up, stopping me short.

“With respectful deference, Honoured Elder Rainmaker, is it best that we eat them now? How long do the effects last? I assume that they are not permanent?”

“I like you, Less Shorty, you seem respectful. And deferential. You should save them until you’re closer, each fruit will last for about an hour.”

“And the warning, Boss?”

“Warning?”

“Bursting into flames?”

“Oh, right. That. You shouldn’t eat more than one at a time, you’re puny enough that there’s a tiny, very significant chance you might burst into flame.”

I looked down at the manga cradled in the crook of my arm, and at the knife in my hand before slipping both into storage and turning to face Borr.

“Borr, I like you. Don’t ever change.”

“We don’t always have a choice, human.”

I nodded at his painfully loud words as my companions split the fruit up into piles and stored their own allotments. Bending down I stored the remainder of the mangos in my own rings before standing again, looking back and forth between the Elder and his right hand... ape.

“Well, you guys have been really helpful, I can’t thank you enough. But we should probably get going; the sooner we set off the sooner we can return the egg to the phoenix Elder.”

As I finished speaking, Rainmaker narrowed his eyes at me, hands on hips, letting out a low growl. I quickly continued speaking, almost taking a step backwards.

“... And get you some fruit, which is the more important aspect of our task.”

“Good! Remember, it’s two each, so that’s a minimum of eight fruits. And tell the peacock I said... something.”

With that, the white-furred behemoth turned away from us, clearly dismissing us to once more go rooting about his nest.

*

***

*

“Are we there yet?”

The jungle had grown hotter as the days progressed, the sweltering heat and humidity one-upping themselves over the course of another week in the Sha Forest, and even Darina - who had grown up there – was looking haggard and irritable. The only member of our group that did not seem to affected by the oppressive conditions was Reff, who was using his abilities to direct the heat away.

“With patient assurance, we have not yet reached our destination, Hunter.”

“He means stop asking! We have to make it to the other side of the mountain before we enter the phoenix territory; since we’re still on this side of the mountain, we’re not there yet!”

“In confirmation, Darina is correct, Hunter. We must reach the other side of the mountain.”

I shook my head, sending droplets of sweat scattering from my wet hair and beard. I of course knew we were not there yet, I was not an idiot, for the most part; I was more looking for my companions to share in my misery and vent some of their frustrations. It worked, sort of, but Darina certainly looked like she wanted to punch me so I chose the better part of valour and decided to keep quiet for a while.

We had been climbing for a couple of hours, which had not helped with the steadily rising heat; I had also not quite realised how fucking huge this mountain was. I had seen Everest back on Earth, as well as other mountains, but this thing put them all to shame, stretching for what I was sure it had to be at least a dozen miles tall at the peak, with dense green growth clinging to its sides for much of its height.

Luckily, we did not have to actually ascend the thing, merely go around it, which involved climbing through obnoxiously high foothills and passes, all choked with the omnipresent vegetation.

I slapped at a biting insect of some kind as it landed on my neck with a weird, organic tap sound; unlike the biting insects I had been used to back on Earth, the examples here were far sparser, which I attributed to the relative difficulty of biting through cultivation enhanced flesh. That did mean, however, that the insects that did prevail were, much like the mountain, fucking huge. I drew my hand away from my neck with a grimace, my entire palm covered in ichor, blood and chitin from something like a mosquito the size of a baseball. Gagging slightly, I did my best to wipe the disgusting mess off on the ground and a couple of leaves.

I had felt a little sorry for Darina before; she had been handed a pretty raw deal by life until she met Sonja, but now I felt really bad; nobody should have to grow up around insects that large. It was inhuman. Though, that did make me recall the giant plant-spider-thing from the other world; maybe the mosquitos were not so bad after all...

Finally, after several seconds, my hand was free of insect remains and I hurried to catch up to my companions, who had paused on a crest ahead of me. As I came up behind them, I tried to see why they had stopped, but the bulk of my risi friends proved an effective screen. With a shrug, I ducked through Reff’s legs, coming up beside Darina while turning to offer my friend an apologetic smile. He did not notice my smile however, as his gaze remained locked on the distance. With a frown, I turned to finally look at what had so captivated my companions.

“Holy shit.”