Time flew and in a blink of an eye. Allan was able to finish his running time. Unfortunately, he was unable to make it in time for Sarey’s bet.

“Too bad, Allan. You were a little off.”

Swoosh!

Allan swiftly moved to a side by a tree. It was conveniently placed not so far away as he already expected this situation to begin with.

“Are you enjoying this? I don’t think this could help me very much.”

“It is more of a question. What do you need to do? Do you think this running and a little bit of exercise are something otherworldly?”

“You call this a little bit? It took me a whole day.”

“Because you are weak. I will tell you some things from these pages if you catch me this time.”

“You naughty girl, you know I won’t decline. Go on.” Allan said sarcastically.

Beng! Beng!

Rocks hit the moving Allan as he charged from the tree. This was not something he could do without one of the most important senses. In a few steps, he rolled on the ground because of unsteady footing.

“I need to keep my calm and keep my ears sharp. She won’t trick me? Right?” He wondered as he hid once again behind a tree.

“Come on! You are not so fast now.” Sarey shouted. She gave him her coordination with her voice, so it would be fair. It’s not like it would matter too much to her, but Allan did find it very helpful.

Allans slid to the side as another few rocks flew beyond his head within his next charge. He ended up in a small rotten trunk, which he rammed with his shoulder.

“How can I keep this up? I don’t know the surroundings at all. There could be so many obstacles before me and her. Does she think this is fair? Ridiculous.” Allan thought carefully about his next course of action.

“Hmmm. This is an old tree. I could use its branches to use it as a pole against her. Hmph! Let’s see.” He grabbed one of the old thick branches and kicked it off with his knee. He felt it with his hands as he removed smaller branches.

A relatively long-looking thick branch ended up in his hand.

“Good. Maybe I could have made some shield? That could work as well, but don’t have time for that.” Allan left his hidden spot. Across his chest was laid out a wooden pole. Its tip was in a direction of Sarey, like a sword.

He did have some experience with this, after all. Clayton made sure of it.

“Hey! Sarey! Keep it up! Let me see if I can see after all.”

Sarey looked at him in surprise. She did not know if she wanted to smile or curse at him. He made exactly what she wanted to try. This whole ordeal was not about body forging. It was an order to force the user’s body into a warrior and fighter.

“Thank you for being so easy to throw at. Catch this.” Sarey threw out a volley of rocks in his direction. The majority were going around him, with a few in his trajectory.

“Huh? So many?” Allan swung his wooden pole across the space. He did not feel any sort of impact. Only a little bit of pain after being hit by a few rocks.

He failed quite miserably.

“Again!”

Swoosh!

Bang!

Allan managed to deflect the full impact. He did not suffer anymore.

He kept his pole more to his body and not in front of him. This kept his core more protected and he could move this pole left and right at great speed.

This was one of the fundamental defensive techniques when it came to swords. It was also used for staffs, and other one-handed or two-handed weapons. It could be used even with bare hands, as its principle lies in the close feeling of one body and defense pose.

Precision and toughness were things that matter the most, using this technique.

“Wow! Did he manage to do it after a second attempt? Does he have talent? I wonder.” Sarey mumbled beneath her nose. Allan did not hear her as he focused his attention on a smaller radius around him. Focusing his ears as much as he could.

“What? Are you that scared that I will finally know what is on these pages? You must be rather desperate.” Allan said in a laughable tone. He was trying to taunt her.

“Hmph! You are just better than I thought. I will tell you if I lose. Why should I not?” Sarey said with a relative smugness on her face. She began to think that his expression became more out of her hand than usual. Maybe it was because she was not seen by him. Her face was unknown to him. She did not even wear her hood, hat, or bandana around her hair. She liked it this way more than she would like to admit.

Allan jumped up into the air. Like a panther that pounced at its prey. In a few moments of Sarey’s carelessness. He moved closer to her than ever before.

He did not stop with this, and before Sarey let go of her rocks. The wooden pole was already a few dozen of centimeters before her face.

“I win.”

“You are a freak,” Sarey said with a frown.

“Are you that shocked? It is not my first time doing something similar. My father’s teachings left me in a much worse state. Although, I must admit that my body feels a le bit different from before I woke up.”

“Your father? What was he like? You never told me.” Sarey finally had her opportunity to ask him some questions that lingered in her mind.

“Nothing much, is there to say, think. He is very similar to your father. He made and bought his smiting shop and made it into the upper-level businesses in a few years. Hard work and passion went hand to hand with his work.”

“Sounds nothing like my father,” Sarey bluntly said.

“I think you don’t need to know more... My mom passed away from birth, or shortly afterward. My father was never willing to tell me more. It’s not as if I blame him. She would not come back after all. ”

“I see. Are you also a blacksmith? You said that you made some flying knife from before.”

“Yes. It is something more... to me than what we are doing with mister 36. One reason is that I want to make my father proud. I want to go back into that world. I loved it much more than some fighting.”

“I trust you will retrieve your world soon,” Sarey said in a comforting tone. She let out her rocks in unwillingness, but there was nothing else she could do. Maybe she overestimated her influence on what she was supposed to do for Allan. 36 never stated much more than a small dose of help on her part. Sarey was always the kind of girl who wanted to do things in her own way.

She was here to assist him, not to be some guarding teacher who would test him when he least expected it.

“Thank you.” Allan nodded and let go of his thick pole.

“Well then, what is within those papers?”

“Oh... Like 36 said. Introduction. Numbers and other things about the start of the journey towards body forging.”

“Body forging? I find that wording rather offensive.” Allan said.

“I think it could be a mistranslation. 36 said that he would give us this material so I can read it. That diary is made up of some language that I have never seen before. There is nothing much to that apart from what I've gotten so far from 36.”

“Actually... There is more harsh training coming up, but it all depends on what you want from it. There is a saying here that you can’t forge everything at the same time. The body is not a metal. It is a complicated mechanism, what would crumble apart from wrong things.”

“So I had to choose what I will do to my body? That doesn’t sound that pleasing.” Allan frowned upon hearing that.

“I was shocked upon seeing it. It is not something normal at all.” Sare said with worry.

“When was the world of immortals normal? I watched in my last moments a people of that power. It is a completely different world from ours.”

“Then why force yourself into it?”

“I want to. I had to... There is no point back from this. Or are you saying that you are afraid of it, Sarey?”

“Hmph! Who said so?”

Allan just heard the silent thud.

“Sorry to question you that much, and this rock throwing can go out of the window as well. I wanted to sort my thoughts as well.”

“It is fine. Is there more to this than choosing what you said earlier?”

“Yes. There are pathways within pathways in the human body. I guess it is related to the acupoint teachings that I learned about from 36. It could help up with an accumulation of power. Not something that a normal mortal would do. It is hard to explain. There are more sub-methods to this that I found hard to understand. What you will have to start first is the basic start of the technique. After that, you move up within weeks, or months, depending on the progress.”

“Good. That will do.” Allan agreed with her opinion while going through it in his mind. Training that and that, he knew the temple of the body as he leaned about it a few things in the past. Not overly much, since his father had a different opinion about being a fighter. It was more a quest about understanding oneself through the training and the body itself. A blacksmith had to have a firm heart and an even steadier body.

“But! You will have to remain in your training for the first 10 days. After these, we will summon 36 and get in touch with the correct way to do this. I think he will prepare something more for you since you are much better at this than I thought myself. 36 will think so as well. Probably.”

“No problems. I feel more confident with knowing more about this.” Allan said as he stretched his arm towards Sarey.

“I trust you, Sarey.”

“H-how nice of you.” She hesitated to say, but in the end, she grabbed his hand and let him out of the forest. There were still a lot of things that both of them left out. In the end, they both left satisfied while ending at earlier hours than yesterday.

Sarey was on point with her explanation, since she promised it. There was no easy way around the training of the body. Rushing in any pathway would lead to trouble with stabilizing oneself. It was widely accepted that time to waste was a normal thing to do. But, there are techniques and schools for each other. Some are wild, like a beast. Their beliefs and methods are brute and honest. Others are patient with time and peaceful to themselves and harsh to their enemies.

Picturing the scenes from the pages. Allan found the sudden excitement surging within his core. He did not know how to explain it, yet felt both glad and fearful for what was about to come. He could only endure and try to become someone who will not feel hopeless ever again.