Bo woke up in a soft bed, he looked to his side and saw Sera still asleep in another bed beside him.

“You're awake.” He heard Dr. Thorn say and sat up to see he was in her room.

That didn't take long.”

“Huh? What happened?” Bo asked.

He felt a sudden weight on as Iris hugged him. “We did it!”

“We did what? Can someone explain?”

Iris backed off and said, “Do you remember we asked the Keeper to train us and she brought us into a room where she fought all of us?”

“... I do.” Bo squinted his eyes trying to piece together his memoires before it all clicked back together. “I took the Fury Powder and lost my mind right? I remember it happening, I just couldn't control myself.”

“So when you say we did it, you mean?” Bo could guess what the answer was but he wanted confirmation.

“Yep! She agreed to teach us!” Iris smiled.

“Whew, we did it!” Bo got excited and stood up. “When do we start!?”

“Calm down metal boy, I just used my ember to heal you up which in turn used your stamina so you should be a little low on energy.”

“Really? I feel amazing though.” Bo flexed his muscles and did a little hop, feeling all the more fine.

“Fascinating.” Dr. Thorn started scribbling in a notebook of hers. “Unfortunately I don't think the same thing can be said for your friends Sera or Iris here.”

“She told us we can start tomorrow first thing in the morning.” Iris said. “I got beat up pretty bad so I'm still recovering and Sera overused her ember. We need a little rest before we start.”

Bo nodded in understanding and came over to Sera’s bed and whispered, “Did you hear that? The keeper said she’ll train us.”

Sera’s eyes snapped open. “Really?”

Not even surprised at her sudden awakening, Bo smiled and replied with, “Yep, we start tomorrow!”

“Sweet! Let's celebrate then!” Sera slowly got out of bed and stretched her stiff muscles.

“Don't push yourselves okay, but ya you guys deserve it.” Dr. Thorn warned them before they left to the main room.

Iris cooked them up a lavish dinner which they all thoroughly enjoyed. Jorron didn’t join them like last time as Iris told them he went back to his work exploring the Lost Forest.

After eating, they went back to their rooms and hung out for a bit before they all felt the weight of the entire day and went to bed early. It was a long day with one major defeat and one major victory.

They had lost all their wild artifacts, money and pre-made potions, but they had gained a way to become stronger. In the grand scheme of things, it was totally worth it.

Hopefully after training they were strong enough to never let that happen again, and maybe if the chance presented itself, they could take their things back.

***

Day 5

Morning came and the three quickly prepared themselves. The Keeper said to come meet her in her room whenever they were ready the next day, and then their training would start.

They wanted to start as soon as possible since they were excited and desired to learn and grow stronger.

They ate a hefty breakfast, rested for a bit to digest the food, and then wore their combat gear and mentally readied themselves for what was to come.

Sera knocked on the Keeper’s door once again.

“Welcome back.” Graylock opened the door for them. “Lady Weist is in the training room.”

They thanked him then walked through the open door to the Keepers training room and saw her sitting crossed legged in the middle of the room.

“Good morning Keeper, thank you for agreeing to train us!” Sera said in a loud voice.

“Just as loud as your mother.” The Keeper sighed.

“So you do know I'm my mother’s— Madeline Might's daughter.” Sera said.

“Of course, it's hard not to see the resemblance.” The Keeper replied. “That's beside the point, come sit down in front of me.”

They sat down cross legged a few feet in front of her.

“We need to discuss how I should go about teaching you. There's really two main options; You either become disciples of mine, meaning we get into a full formal student-teacher relationship, or I become a temporary teacher.”

She went on to explain. “If I become a temporary teacher, you don't have to share information you don't want to and I'll teach you the best I can for a short while, likely a few weeks. If you become a disciple, I'll want everything about your skills and abilities, and I'll train you until I think you're ready to leave.”

“I must warn you, if you choose to become a disciple, it is a serious commitment and if you abandon my teachings, you will have forsaken me as a person and I too will forsake you.”

“Nonetheless, either option you choose, I'll teach you to the best of my abilities as that's what i have agreed to.”

They didn't need long to know which option they wanted.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

There were no plans to stay in one place for so long, so choosing to become a disciple of hers was a little too lengthy for them. Even though that option would probably insure them that they had the strength to take on most future challenges, it had downsides they didn't want to take on.

So their only option was to become temporary students of the Keepers.

After getting confirmation from Bo and Iris, Sera said, “We’d like you to become a temporary teacher for us. Thank you for the option of becoming your disciples, but it has a few drawbacks we aren't looking to take on.”

“Makes sense, becoming a disciple is a serious, almost lifelong commitment. I respect your choice and will do my best to train you three.”

“From now on you can call me; Keeper, Lady Weist, or Teacher, okay?”

“Yes Teacher!” “Yes Teacher!” “Yes Teacher!” They said at once.

“Good, now let's begin with getting to know your skills and abilities…”

***

Day 8

It was another foggy afternoon in the Lost Forest for Bo and Sera. They prowled the forest with weapons at the ready, looking for creatures to hunt.

Three days ago they started training under the guidance of the Keeper and the first thing they did was to explain their abilities. They didn't feel a need to be secretive with her, if she was willing to teach them then they were willing to share their abilities.

The first day she devised the plans she had for them.

Firstly, as the weakest member of the group, Iris would be getting a full course of fighting training from the Keeper personally. Sera was fine when it came to combat but for a few hours a day, the Keeper would right her wrongs and teach her more refined techniques.

Reinforcing the foundations of combat was necessary if you wanted to be a master of combat.

Later the Keeper would introduce her to more advanced training, most likely sparring with the Keeper herself but for now, Sera was sent out into the forest with Bo to fight against the creatures.

Bo’s training was an in-between of the ways Sera and Iris were being trained. He had the strength but no skill or experience for fighting so the Keeper would start teaching him more of the basics and get him to spar with Sera, but the Keeper really wanted him to learn how to incorporate his ember into his fighting.

She told them she would train them for roughly a month or two, so in this time it would be better for Bo to learn and refine what he already has instead of learning new things.

The reason he was sent to kill creatures with Sera was to get them more used to fighting together, get experience fighting wild creatures, and for Bo to farm Soul Power so he could use his ember in times of need.

Sera was to get some more experience fighting and for her to more efficiently use her ember. The Keeper had told her that her usage of her ember was inefficient, she would activate and leave it on until the fight was over. If she learned to turn it on and off on the fly, she would be able to keep her stamina and energy reserves up.

It wasn't as easy as it sounded since during a battle she didn't have the time to spare for her mind to continuously turn it on and off.

They didn't know what Iris was up to but supposedly the Keeper would build her up from the ground level so hopefully by the end of their training, she would be able to keep up with them.

Luckily during their hunt, they wouldn't run into the Rookie Hunters because where they were hunting was considered the sanctuary's territory.

A sudden rustling of leaves sounded out from the side and they turned to see what it was and saw one of the creatures they had seen in a guide book.

It was a short, furry four legged creature with a thick body and limbs and on its back was glowing moss that shone a vivid magenta color. It was unusual for a creature to have that much color in the Lost Forest, but the crawling mossback used the color to draw in its prey. The mossback’s face was flat but it had a large mouth filled with powerful teeth that could eat through the durable bark of the foggy trees.

As they got too close, the mossback felt threatened and dove at them, but as its speed wasn't its strongest suit, they easily dodged its attack.

Sera took the front and activated her ember to a small degree for a boost in strength, her battle ax cut into one of the mossback’s limbs but it couldn't fully slice through the thick muscles of the mossback.

While the mossback’s attention was drawn, Bo came barreling at the side of it and lodged his machete deep into the creature's neck.

“ARGH!“ The mossback moaned in pain and violently shook, throwing Bo off it.

Sera pulled her ax back and came swinging down again with more power than before and managed to slice the mossback’s limb off.

It whined and fell to the ground no longer able to keep itself standing.

“All yours.” Sera pointed at Bo.

Bo stood over top of the mossback which looked up to him in pain, its eyes watery and filled with life. He couldn't afford to hesitate, this was the Bridge, life and death was common here.

He raised his machete up high and cleaved through the mossback’s neck with one fluid motion.

[ Soul Power: 20 → 28 ]

A whole eight points. The creatures here on average gave him much more soul power than the creatures of the Beast Glades.

He was going to use lots of soul power during training to learn more about his ember, but hopefully even then, by the end of the training he would have lots saved up.

Bo and Sera left searching for more beasts.

***

Three hunters watched as their prey for the day aimlessly walked along the winding foggy paths of the Lost Forest.

He was all by himself and they could see his skinny body from afar— this was going to be easy pickings for them.

Their green eyes glowed as they surrounded the young looking man with weapons at the ready.

Their prey had short cyan blue hair with matching bright cyan eyes that gave color to his lifeless appearance. His cheeks were hollow, he had bags under his eyes and he walked without a care in the world.

“Hey man, fine day in the foggy forest.”

The hollow man didn’t respond but instead stared at them with his eyes that looked like a dead fish's eyes.

“No reaction, what a pity. Well let's get on with it, if you give us all your precious things we won't have to hurt you.”

The man grinned. “Hurt me? You three? What a joke.”

“A tough act, I've seen many like you before but they all end up the same way; beaten, bruised and without a useful belonging to their name.” The three laughed at the man.

Thunk!

It was a sudden thud that came with a gurgling and splattering sound afterwards. An intricate ax with glowing cyan lines running along its body was currently resting inside one of the three rookie hunters necks.

Blood gushed out of his neck, and as sudden as the first attack came, the follow up attacks followed shortly.

The hollow man dashed at the surprised rookie hunters, his ax came flying back to his hand and with another quick slice, another rookie hunter lost his head.

The last rookie hunter freaked out and activated his ember, flames burst from his body dancing along his skin.

He shot forth streams of flames but he missed the hollow man as he was too nimble to hit. An ax came flying at his face but with adrenaline pumping through his body, he managed to dodge the hollow man's attack.

Unfortunately, he didn't know the hollow man had two axes.

Too distracted by successfully dodging the first attack, he missed the chance to sidestep the second ax which sunk right into his chest.

The rookie hunter collapsed into a pile of blood as his heart was pierced and spewing forth blood uncontrollably.

With blood covering his face and body, the hollow man's smile faded and he walked away from the fight continuing on his way without a care for what just happened.