Yet with the flow of the story and history that they both knew, they had very different ways to think about them. Zigmund himself knew what Sarey couldn't while Sarey was aware of some things as well, thanks to the words of her former teacher, Terg.

Of course, he was not willing to share or tell anything. There could be even something other than what he assumed to be true, yet there was no way he would imagine everything.

With a finished breakfast, Zigmund left the kitchen to his office. There, he could be free to think or frown as he wished. Outside of anyone who he cared about.

Sarey was equally worried, both for her and Allan's future. It wasn't only about the 36's path that he prepared for him. No. That would be the dangers of war in the fundamental aspect of the world. She still remembered the time when Allan told her that the war ended his home. It made her apprehensive and fearful that the talk of the war was even happening in this region. Although such talks have been a topic since she could remember. The whole history of the Tri-Cloud region was surrounded by wars and conflicts. Growing up in this environment was one thing, but she hadn't experienced the war conflicts in this Tri-cloud region, since she isn't that old.

With that being true, the case of war in the surrounding nations and kingdoms was happening almost every year. Their struggles for power, or whatever other reason they had, was a regular time at any age.

“Phew... I guess there is always a chance to lose one's life. The world is like this all the time.” Sarey sighed and finished her meal as well. She left out something to Allan too, but she still was yet to see him.

Wondering, she placed his meal aside. “Where is he? He is usually around at this time of the day.”

Figuring out something may go wrong, she walked to his door and knocked for a few times. There was no response, even when she asked out loud. He would answer, grunt, or anything. His hearing was good, so she even thought he would notice her steps beyond the door.

“So silent... I won't be polite.”

Twisting the handle, she opened the door since it had no locks and glanced inside. Allan was stretched on the ground in a hilarious position on a broken frame of the bed.

“What happened here?” Sarey wondered and walked to him to take a look.

Allan was still peacefully sleeping with no visible worry on his face, which made the situation that much more hilarious. A blanket was around his bottom body, but nothing was that strange apart from the bed itself. It was the kind that was heavy and made of solid wood made from the trees outside. It still got destroyed, which was unfortunate.

“Hey, Allan. It is time to wake up.” Sarey whispered close to his head. This wasn't a pleasant time to wake someone up, but she had already forgotten how she woke him up for the first time. Although in a different situation, it still counted.

She continued with it for a while and even poked Allan a little to his face until he began to move.

Awake, but still half asleep, he mumbled.

“W-what is it? Did something happen, Sarey?” Feeling dizzy and rather strange when he woke up, he figured nothing strange from the last night or the sleep. The stress over the weeks caused an involuntary relief inside of his body, but there was no way for him or others to assume this. It was also fair to say that this was nothing normal at all, considering the world of mortals, and the things that happened inside.

There would be no negatives about it even if 36 would make a sense of it after a long time of research and ponder.

“It is another day. How are you feeling? Since I performed the acupoint treatment, you have not talked at all. You fell asleep right away and remain the same for 10 hours.”

“What!? Did I sleep that long? Well...,” Allan sits from his weird position and stretched his head. “It has always been like this after your acupoints. I sleep so well, and this rest after a day of training, and everything is normal, in my opinion.” Allan reasoned and unnoticed the destruction of his bedframe, or anything wrong.

“Then why is your bed broken? You were smashing the rock in your sleep as well, or what?” she asked in amusement but figured she would be the one to fix it... That or father? Allan didn't seem like the kind who would fix stuff like this.

He didn't know what she mean, but he could tell he was rather close to the ground. This was a conscious feeling whenever one had a bed beyond the ground or was closer to it. He experience both, while now, it felt much more pronounced because of his senses. Falling asleep while laying on the ground was a completely different feeling than the warmth of the bed. Even children could tell that.

Getting up and stretching his arms, the sudden shock of his back still lingered on him, but he didn't pinpoint it to anything important. Numbness and a little bit of tingling sensation were all over his body.

“Huh, there is something different about my body than previously.” He guessed, without paying the destroyed bed any attention.

“What?”

Allan described the feelings he felt and tried some more stretches as he got up.

“Lay down. I will check your body.” Sarey argued. Not giving him other choices, since he was still shirtless, and his body seemed normal.

Though, she knew that looking normal and not being normal was a possibility, too.

So, Allan took the blanket and got to the ground. Giving Allan small massages to feel his body, she noticed nothing strange with him. Visibly at least. In truth, most of his back muscles were strengthened and very tense. As if they were in a constant state of compression by some steep exercises. Who knows if these were simple effects of training or mysterious effects of other things?

“I see nothing strange, but your back feels tighter and firmer. Is there some pain or discomfort around your spine, shoulder blades, or neck?”

“No much. There are some who feel as if I am being pulled by something, but those are just tense muscles, I suppose. With some warm-up exercises, these feelings will disappear as they appeared.” Allan replied.

“Make sure you tell me if anything is wrong. With some problematic things, we can always summon 36. No amount of worries or mistakes is worth seeing them.” Sarey argued while giving him a nice spank to his back.

Allan barely felt that which surprised him, as if he didn't feel his muscles that well.

“I can't help this. Whatever... I don't know what happened, but my back is... Strange. Yeah, what is this? Something about body forging thing?” Allan wondered and pinched his shoulders. Turning his shoulders and arms around, he was trying to feel them better, but it was the same, but also a little different from the past. He was feeling the movement of the bones, muscles, and power between them much better.

“I won't repeat myself, so if there is some pain or discomfort, do what I have told you. Now, I have some meal ready, so eat and train or whatever you want.” Sarey told and left the room.

This left Allan alone in his room, which went through a rather harsh night, but not him. At least it seemed that way, and his body structure changed in some ways. Finding some shirt and trousers aside, he wore them upside down, grabs his staff, and went to the kitchen.

What remained of this day would become prevailed later, while the fundamental reason for this... not so much.

With another day around the corner, new deals, situations, and wonders would come. They spent days and nights in a constant state of many dreams and experiences, and training went on for a long time. Allan was already long used to the new training, and his upgrades were tremendous.

As if he was born new.

18 days after the start of this climb, the rock smashing and river training stage started

A lot happened in this period, but also not much changed in this small part of the continent. Hell... calling it a continent was a stretch, since this was a tiny little vermin planet in the grand scheme of the universe. Allan continued with his training as he seemed fit, and no amount of problems that came to him stopped him. Progressing with the climb, smashing more rocks, and undergoing the exercises while submerged in the water were pretty much his daily routine.

Every 2nd day was 36's summoning when he rearranged some things and made comments, praises, or bad-mouthed the pair of mortals silently in his mind. Little did what they knew made so much sense, and any revelation from him made Sarey and Allan more excited than in the past. 36's way of training and teaching changed, while he seemed much more welcoming. All things considered, of course, since his personality sometimes changed for the worst.

One thing silenced the peaceful time that Sarey feared the most. It happened 7 days ago when the Timeless kingdom attacked the outskirts of the Tricloud region. Making only small skirmishes here and there, but it wasn't still at the full-blown war. It was still hundreds of kilometers away, but news such as this always traveled fast and steady. Everyone in the Tricloud region knew about it, and many preparations for war happened long before those 7 days.

It was currently midday when the sun shined with all its might. Allan felt no discomfort and steadied his breath and back while breaking past the 150th meter of the cliff. He felt like he could pass this test within the next 5 days, but he wasn't sure about a few things. In all this time that passed, the weight below him never ceased to bother him.

Sarey watched in silence from below, but couldn't see him as clearly as she wished. She mumbled, commented, and argued for nothing more than occasional worry. Her voice can't reach him, and he was all alone far away.

“I swear... I swear this sort of training is more nerve-racking for me than him,” she mumbled, and never ceased to stop worrying, even if 36 told her to not worry about it. He knew nothing of her worries about war, while this training was anything but dangerous at this point. Not like 36 would be bothered about either, even if he became aware of the war. Sarey knew he was a person like that, and she never told him much about the world she live in.

It would take a long period before the Timeless kingdom will break into the middle parts of this region. Fortunately, they were quite far away from those outskirts where the invasion focused the most attention for whatever military reason they had. There, they were still outside of the potential reach towards the city of Griontesse, but the atmosphere of the city was still grim.

Sarey made some short trips to the town to get some information. The kind which was different from Zigmund's simple words. She always knew the more sources of news, the clearer the picture could be. Terg was the one that taught her that, while it was a bit of very useful advice. However, to her disappointment, most of what her father talked about were basically the town's information.

In all this time, the folks that Zigmund talked about from the Tricloud alliance would soon come into the town. Even though it went on for some time, and travel wasn't that far, they still took their time for some reason. This followed something else that Sarey noticed. A rather strange demeanor of her father changed for the worse.

She noticed it on some occasions since he acted in particular ways that were outside of his usual routine and ways. His ways of meals, forgetfulness as if he was thinking about something else, and so on are a few things she found. He was rather mindless, but that was outside of the spars. There, he did them every day where he acted like usual, but also somewhat different. Fierce would be the right description. Maybe even a bit more heartless, too.

Allan felt like he was getting better, but he was overdone by Zigmund's method to deal with him in one sweep of motion or two. It took a toll on his confidence if there was any. Sarey wasn't all that different too, which was the opposite of the first spars she did with her father. Since that one time when she won against him, he was harsher on her, but this went 4fold above the norm in recent times.

Time would sooner make another chance, but they all knew nothing of this.

Allan gripped his teeth and pushed himself more and more. In the past days, he noticed tremendous, yet rather mild things which he noticed about his body. It was a strange thing to say or assume, but it was what he believed in. Every little change left almost no difference in what he could tell right away, but his body could tell him that.

His grip was firm and felt no pain after getting up to 150 meters in one push. In the past, he always had problems, since certain rocky sections made him trouble with certain movements. His wrist, forearm, biceps, and shoulders were popping off with strength and power. Forming muscles that he never thought he would have, he would lie if he wouldn't notice them.

This could all be the results of the training, and even something else, but that was only noticed and kept in 36's mind.

Sarey noticed it much early than either of them, but 36 thought nothing of it from her perspective. It was perhaps a normal reaction one would have in the world of immortals, where a strike of a palm can move rivers, and a fist can shatter mountains. Only he, himself had a hunch about the part of the truth, but the full cause of the reasons wasn't even something he could assume. He wasn't willing to please those kids with more praise than necessary. Such cases as the abnormal progress of Allan could all wait for the time with The Wisher very soon.

159th meter in the cliff. Allan chose to forfeit, as he had the water-bending to do. He decided to name it like this to make some funny sense of the training he couldn't even read about.

Pulling the rope from his back the same way he did for like 16th time, he secured it in some crevice with a piece of metal and let it fall down. Sarey mentioned to always move the ropes further he went. They would become small checkpoints, which somewhat worked out in the end when Allan got used to that.

At this point, many layers of them almost resembled a staircase of ropes. Getting up was usually the easiest part, but the journey down could be fatal as well for the untrained folks. This was a truth that any mortal understood. Getting up was still hard, but the most cases of death would be the descent, where the dangers were all so unknown. With this kind of rope solution, Allan was able to get down in about 10 minutes, which was a surprising number. There were also some dangers involved here, since it wasn't as straight as William couldn't do so.

Some hanging ropes remained in the air, and even the wind made them difficult to reach. Though, with how steady the wall is, it wasn't that hard, even if some ropes were a few meters from each other. William figured out how to make them work, and being afraid wouldn't work on him. For example, some sections had to be adjusted with his grip and then swung towards another checkpoint.

Kneeling on the ground, he was glad that the mother dirt was there to ease his mind as always. These days, he was more and more glad to have a firm ground below his feet.

“Well, you are doing quite good, aren't you?” Sarey's voice woke him up from praising the earth.

“Leave me alone. This is my little ritual after every time. If you think this is all that good, you should try it yourself.” Allan sarcastically said.

“Whatever you say. Do you want to do the river part now?” she replied with a smile. No longer bothered to cover this conversation, she changed her question. Although she wanted to admit her tries at climbing, she barely reached the 59th meter in her spare time. That was quite a lot to take for her confidence, but considering Allan as a whole, she was feeling more apart than ever. She could tell her improvements weren't bad at all but lacked any fundamental power as he did.

She was in constant wonder about where that power came from. It shouldn't be part of the immortal training since there was no energy involved and 36's preferred it this way. Only with that, she could acknowledge such a difference, but nothing indicated otherwise. Her selected attempts and exercises were done behind anyone's back. This was for her own good, so no one needed to know about it. Not her father, nor Allan, who she wished to follow.

Moving to the next location, the pair awaited the next stage, which was the easiest out of the 3rd training method 36 had chosen.