3 boys were silently waited for the master assassin to start his lesson. Birds were chirping and Sarchi was walking forwards and backward. One of the kids go for a handshake, he was a smiling jolly-looking fellow.
He said, "I am..." Sarchi said "No mingling. No, you are not going to know each other. You are not here to be friends, you are here to be trained.
Kid shut up, his face showed sadness. Sarchi quickly gathered some stones. he turned to them. "All of you born with stealth skill, I will teach you how to use it. If your enemy sees you coming then you are a shit assassin. "
"So I want you to move to that tree over there." he showed a tall tree about a km away. And I want you to sneak all the way up to me. The moment I see or hear you I will throw a stone. So be sneaky.
Kids started to walk to the tree Sarchi shouted, "Run, the last one to reach will be punished after the training.
Shad didn't like where this is going. So he started to run with all his might. Other kids follow suit. While running he noticed the tree branches were a possible danger to his speed so he slowed down a little and tried to not slip up and fall.
The other two didn't they just continued to run. as fast as they can, but soon one of them hit a branch and fall down. Shad kept his phase. He didn't need to be the first. What he needed not to be last.
Soon the kid who runs with all his speed and does not fall down reached the mark. A half-minute later Shad was near the tree too. Rested a little and started to slowly walk to the Sarchi's location.
Shad did the same. The first kid made a mistake and a dry branch cracked under his feet. A stone came with immense speed and made him fall to the ground. He cried in pain. The moment he did that another stone come to him. Shad get to him closed his mount with his hand. Signed him to be quiet. Kid nodded.
The jolly kid from before was the last one. He was determined to prove himself. So he runs, but with a fast stone thrown at him, he fell like the other kid. He was away from the other two. Because he didn't stop groning another stone came this time he screamed more but then another stone came.
He didn't understand what to do while in pain. So Shad felt he needed to do something. He turned at the guy at the back and shouted "Shut up or he will..." He felt a terrible pain in his back. He falls with the strength of the stone.
But the other kid finally able to understand and shut up. Shad closed his own mouth with his two hands. There was no time limit to sneak back so he decided to take his time until his pain numbed. Or his attention would have been lesser when in pain and that would be resulted in another mistake and more pain.
After 15 minutes he stands up. And started to walk slowly and carefully. He didn't see the other two anymore but there were no screams so they must be doing good.
When he reached the starting position the other two were there. Sarchi said, "You, the last one, you stay silent because you are a failure." Sarchi asked them "I want you to say, who was the last person to reach the tree. The winner speak." The winner was the jolly fellow who was the last one reach to the tree. He was heavily bruised from all the stones that hit him but he somehow managed to reach the Sarchi first."
He knew he was going to be punished if he said the truth. He first looked at the ground then raise his head "I was." First time in Sarchi's life he was seeing something like this. In his past life, he only knew humans, which in his eyes just a bunch of cockroaches who would lie, steal and hurt people just for a little gain.
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Although this was about where he had been grown, but anyway this was his experience. All his life he saw his kindness paid with betrayal which in the end made him a cynical and cruel person from inside while he tried his best to seem to other people reasonable and nice.
But this orc did not do that. He did not lie to save his skin. He knew well from training the punishment going to be painful yet he didn't.
This time Sarchi turned to the other kid and asked "Who shouted this guy to shut up." while pointing the jolly guy with his finger. The kid said, "I am not going to tell you unless you say what for." Sarchi just slapped him "Tell me who he was" He just started to Sarchi defiantly. "Ok, I will punish him, so tell me. Is he did this?" While pointing to Shad, Kid shakes his head "No, I did it, but If you told me from start not to help others I would not have.
Shad was surprised, even more, he asked himself "Why he was risking his skin, just because I tried to help him?" Sarchi said "You two run ten times from here to the tree, if you do not finish it by noon you will be punished.
Kids started to run. Sarchi smiled at him, "You kiddo, you actually won, in the middle somewhere I actually couldn't track you. He was surprised "You could see us all that way away?" He said "No, but I can track with animal behavior and various noises. Heaving high perception has many advantages.
While the other kids running Sarchi started to teach him how animals reacted while someone run near them.
They made three days of painful stealth and perception training then the fighting training began.
The fighting training consisted of Sarchi showing them base stances and attack moves on their respective weapons, which unlike Shad, one had a short spear and throwing spears while the other kid used curved daggers and throwing knives.
Then all three of them attacked Sarchi with real weapons while he beating them with a stick and saying when they are down what they did wrong.
Three days go down like this. Every day Sarchi giving them lots of meat and warm bone broth as food. Whatever was in the food made them heal fast.
On the final day, the jolly one gets hit hard by Sarchi when he rises up from the ground he said "I know one of your children train with my father, would you like it if my father beat your kid like this. Why you are so cruel?" Sarchi said, "I hope your father be as harsh as me being to you to my kid." The kid looked at him confused "Why?" The first time from the start of training Sarchi looked sad and said "I want him to live."
The other two looked at each other understanding nothing, but Shad knew, how can the orc camp have a few hundred members while they had 50 new orcs joining them every year. Even if five times more than the camp of the orcs were distributed through the endless forest the numbers would still be minuscule.
The seventh day of the training was the last one, Sarchi taught them about survival in the forest.
After a week of training Shad's stats were like this.
Shadik Orc Assasin Tier: 0
Stats:
Strenght: 0.9 Agility: 0.9 Toughness: 0.6 Vitalty: 0.6 Vitalty Reg: 0.6
Stamina: 1.0 Stamina Reg: 1.0 Mana: 0.2 Mana Reg: 0.2 Perception: 1.0
Dexterity: 0.9 Calculation: 1.9
Skills:
Stealth: 1.0 Tracking: 0.7
Melee combat: 1.0, Dual Blades: 1,0 Hand to hand: 0.3
Ranged combat: 1.9 Crossbows: 1.9
Stats got a relatively easy rise up due to training plus being a growing young orc up to 0.9 but the 1.0 mark was hard to achieve.
After their one week of training, all orc younglings are gathered on the town square. Warriors, shamans, archers, etc. All training under their respective masters.
The orc chef an old but strong-looking orc named Tarhas spoke to younglings "Younglings this is your time to prove your worth to clan and your mother dryad. Every single one of you will be given a parcel of land as a hunting ground. Your mission is to stay alone in there for a month. Never intruding each other's parcel."
"In this month we expect you to not just survive also kill any intruding adventurers and hostile monsters you came across. According to your success, you will be rewarded."
Masters showed the boys their hunting grounds and the grounds rough limits. Shad has given a piece of land around 25 square km. In this land, there was a tribe of goblins which according to Sarchi they were not hostile. There was a tier 4 ogre cave that he was supposed to never go near. A few tier 2 bears, a pack of wolves, a pack of harpies, many aggressive boars. Also, the hunting grounds they were given were far away from the mother tree and the tier 1 adventurers frequented those zones.
While they were going the mother dryad said in their minds "Kids, don't take unnecessary risks, if you are in mortal danger just retreat. I love you no matter what."
Shad knew what was happening, this was the test to separate the wheat from the chaff. The weak were either going to die or run. Either way, they were eliminated. The strong going to survive even thrive.