A distinct chill laced the morning air as Elijah hefted a large boulder above his head. Judging by its size, the mass of rock was at least two-hundred pounds, and Elijah let out a loud grunt as he locked his elbows out before dropping it to the loamy ground. The moment he was free of his burden, his shoulders sagged in exhaustion. He’d been working out with that boulder for almost an hour, and it had certainly taken its toll. So, he channeled Ethera through his soul and into Touch of Nature, sending a pulse of healing magic through his body.

It was only mildly effective in combating his fatigue, but as he’d learned since the very beginning of his time on the island, that strategy certainly helped to mitigate his recovery times. He spent the next few minutes stretching his tight muscles before taking off at a light jog that took him to the beach, where he didn’t hesitate to dive into the ocean.

Over the next couple of hours, he swam a circuit around the island. Once, he wouldn’t have dared do any such thing – the fear of mutated marine life had been enough to keep him from even considering it – but ever since his time in the tower, he’d moved past those fears. He was still wary, but with his Locus extending almost fifty yards from shore, he would know about any threat well before it posed any real danger.

Once he’d completed his circuit, Elijah climbed out of the ocean. His arms and legs were burning with exhaustion, but another pulse of Touch of Nature served to alleviate that, at least to some small degree. Still, he needed to rest a bit before he concluded his training regimen. With that in mind, he returned to his Grove, where he spent the next hour or so tending to his garden with Nature’s Bounty.

The process was meditative as well as restorative – not to mention necessary – so by the time he’d finished, he was more than ready for the more enjoyable, if frustrating portion of his training.

Once he’d finished up with the garden, he left the Grove behind and headed for his old cabin. When he reached it, he saw that the derelict building was in just as poor of shape as it had always been, though the simple repairs he’d made – like closing off the collapsed wall by leaning a mixture of branches and moss against the roof – had fallen by the wayside. Likely, one of the frequent storms that plagued the area had torn the makeshift wall down.

The sight brought with it a degree of nostalgia. At times, it felt as if only a few days had passed since he’d washed ashore and taken refuge in the ruined structure. At others, it felt even more distant than the two-plus years that had passed since then. Still, without that cabin, Elijah probably wouldn’t have survived, and if he had, it would have been significantly more difficult and a good deal less comfortable. So, if he ever met the original builder, he would shower that person with all the gratitude he could muster.

In any case, he wasn’t there to reminisce about days past. Instead, just like when he’d gotten his first attack spell, Elijah had taken to using the area for training. So, without further hesitation, he embraced Shape of the Guardian and shifted into the curious ape-bear-lizard hybrid to which he’d gained access at level thirty.

A couple of days after he’d dealt with the invaders, Elijah had finally taken the opportunity to truly inspect his new form. And he hadn’t been disappointed. With thick, red-and-black scales, the new shape was monstrous in size. If he decided to push himself fully upright, Elijah estimated that the form was at least nine feet tall and heavily muscled. There was a significant layer of fat, too – not unlike a grizzly bear, in that respect.

The face was a little harder to describe in Earthly terms, but if he forced himself to compare it to something familiar, he would have said that, with its spiny protrusions, it resembled a bearded dragon – which felt somewhat appropriate, given the nature of his Dragon Core.

By comparison, the scaled body was easier to categorize as distinctly simian in shape. With long arms, stumpy legs, and a powerful torso, the shape looked like it belonged to the world’s largest, scaliest ape.

It also came with a significant issue, as specified by the description:

Shape of the Guardian

Archetype: Druid

Class: Animist

Level: 30

Take on the form of a stalwart guardian, vastly increasing your Strength and Constitution attributes. Spellcasting is suspended while Shape of the Guardian is active.

Guardian’s Renewal

Instantly and completely regenerate. Cooldown affected by Regeneration attribute. Current: Once Per Week

On the surface, it all looked great. And it was, which was reflected in his status:

Name

Elijah Hart

Level

30

Archetype

Druid

Class

Animist

Specialization

N/A

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Alignment

N/A

Strength

62 (31)

Dexterity

40 (30)

Constitution

72 (31)

Ethera

39

Regeneration

53 (33)

Attunement

Nature

Cultivation Stage: Cultivator

Body

Core

Mind

Soul

Wood

Hatchling

Opal

Neophyte

After reaching level thirty, Elijah had been happy to find that his limit for augmentations had increased to three, not including One with Nature or Essence of the Wolf. So, he could keep Essence of the Monkey, Essence of the Boar, and Aura of Renewal active at all times – which he did. However, even with Essence of the Monkey increasing his Dexterity by ten points, there was a huge disparity between his power and coordination. So, while he was capable of incredibly rapid movement, he had difficulty controlling himself. The disparity was especially difficult to endure after spending so much time with his balance of attributes skewing more towards immense coordination.

The problem had presented itself during the fight with the gnomish leader of the invaders, and in hindsight, the only reason Elijah had managed to win that battle was because of a gross power disparity. He expected that he and Cabbot had been similar level, but Elijah had the benefit of his comparatively advanced cultivation, so he got far more out of his attributes than the gnome had. Couple that with the overpowered nature of Shape of the Guardian – especially with Guardian’s Renewal effectively bringing him back from the brink of death – and it wasn’t difficult to understand how he’d won.

But it definitely hadn’t been skill that saw him through to victory, because, as Elijah had discovered every time he tried to use Shape of the Guardian, he was incredibly clumsy in the new form.

It was an issue he was determined to remedy.

Thus, he’d quickly incorporated it into his training regimen. He’d made some progress, but he knew he had a long way to go. So, he quickly got to it.

In his experience, nothing built hand-eye coordination quite like juggling, so Elijah had gathered a multitude of rocks for just that purpose. They weren’t identical or anything – not like juggling balls usually were – but that worked in his favor. Or rather, it made things much more difficult, which in turn, made the exercise that much more effective. Still, it was a frustrating experience, and more than once, he’d used his incredible strength to chuck rocks off into the distance.

But he persisted, as much out of a stubborn refusal to give in to the limitations of the form as it was due to a desire to improve. Either way worked, but it definitely made for a very different mindset.

For almost two hours, Elijah kept at it until he’d finally had enough. Then, he moved on to engaging in various agility drills he’d learned over the years playing sports. These were slightly easier, because he could ride a wave of momentum until completion. However, he tried to vary things just enough to throw off his own rhythm so that he forced himself to learn to control his body better.

Once he was finished with that, Elijah shadowboxed. He’d engaged in the drill often enough in the past that it should have come easily to him, but due to the disparity between his Strength and Dexterity, as well as the odd anatomy of the form, it was much more difficult than it should have been. However, just like with the juggling, he persisted through the frustration, hoping that so long as he kept at it, he would learn to deal with the imbalanced attributes.

By its very nature, the form would never be particularly coordinated. That was an inescapable fact. And yet, Elijah hoped that repetitive practice would help him to work around the lack of coordination at least enough that he could control his bulky body. Because, as it was, he had trouble even running in anything but a straight line, which meant that he would be a sitting duck for any agile foe.

After a little more than an hour of shadowboxing, Elijah finally arrived at the most hated part of his workout. At one point, he’d enjoyed yoga. There was something meditative about it that had always given him a sense of peace. But in his Guardian form, the practice was far too frustrating to allow for anything even approaching that lofty state.

If anyone else would have been there, they would have probably gotten a good giggle out of watching a nine-foot-tall ape-lizard trying to contort itself into various yoga poses. Elijah could acknowledge that it probably looked incredibly silly. However, as he tried to wrangle his body into each position, his frustration continued to mount until, at last, he’d had enough. With a bestial roar, he launched himself from the warrior pose and into a nearby tree. His foreclaw swept out, destroying the trunk of the tree in an explosion of splinters.

He watched as the tree tipped over, then fell. Slowly, his anger faded until, at last, his mind stilled to the point that he could make sense of what he’d just done. Ever since he’d gained Shape of the Predator, Elijah had known that his forms came with appropriate instincts. As a mist panther, it had manifested almost immediately when he’d lost himself in hunting a hare. Later, he’d nearly lost his humanity altogether in the Primordial Forest. And presumably, the scaled panther form that the shape had become when he’d attained his Dragon Core would show similar tendencies.

It was the form of a hunter, and once he assumed that shape, his instincts followed suit.

Now, the Guardian Shape had shown its own colors. It was a stalwart, powerful beast, but he could easily envision a scenario where he lost himself to its ferocity. He’d have to keep that in mind, lest he do something he’d regret.

Like knocking down a perfectly innocent tree.

Or killing an annoying person.

With a bestial sigh, Elijah let the form drop. He’d had enough training with the scaled ape form. Instead, he needed to work on something he’d put off for far too long.

In the Sea of Sorrows, he had been deprived of his predator form. As a result, he’d been forced to fight as a human, which had put him at a distinct disadvantage – not least because his attributes were distinctly inferior in his natural shape. However, it was also because, until that point, he’d relied on his mist panther form in almost every physical confrontation. So, he just wasn’t used to fighting as a human.

And certainly, he’d gotten by, but during those long days, he’d made a vow to himself to remedy his situation through training. Thus, he’d decided to practice with his staff. He knew that, if he ever had to fight someone like Cabbot in his human form, he’d never come out on top. He just didn’t have the attributes or abilities to do that. But he hoped to develop his technique to the point where he could at least hold his own long enough to bring his various spells to bear.

The problem with that was that he had almost no experience fighting with a staff, and as a result, when he decided to train, he felt like a little kid swinging a stick around. Which wasn’t so far from the truth, really. The only difference was that, with at least some fighting experience, he had some notion of what might work. So, over the past week, he’d developed a few drills so he could practice strikes and blocks while incorporating some boxing footwork.

Was it perfect?

Far from it.

But it was the best he could do with the resources he had. So, as the sun dipped toward the horizon, Elijah occupied himself with flailing his staff around. He tried to maintain some semblance of discipline and technique, but the results were, at best, mixed. Still, he kept at it until night finally fell.

As darkness enveloped the forest, Elijah returned to the Grove, where he made another circuit of his garden – and the trees that constituted his Ancestral Circle – while flaring Nature’s Bounty. Finally, he ended his day with a meal of berries and fish-and-mushroom stew. All in all, it was a good day, but he suspected that it would take many more before he saw any real results.

In the meantime, though, he intended to take Ramik and Carissa up on their offer. He’d already bound the weapons together with some of his homemade cordage – he wasn’t going to waste the looted rope on something like that – and he planned to head to Ironshore at first light.

With that in mind, he took a long, cold shower – he certainly missed hot water something fierce – then went to bed.