The rest of that morning was every bit as brutal as Tilly imagined it would be. Erash had to stop by a couple more times to put him back together, but by the end of the morning, Tilly entered into meditation with a lot to process and even more understanding about the shortcomings and potential of his build. Ideas that had begun to form over the couple of sparring sessions with Ichiro, solidified as he smashed them against the massive brick house that was Gorock.

Against swarm and mob-type enemies, he ended up filling more of a DPS role, using his flames and especially his bonus against Corruption to devastating effect. However, the dynamic needed to completely change if he was facing a single, much stronger opponent. That was doubly true for his sparring partners, who were affected by his fire as if it was just normal flame, negating the bonus that he had come to take for granted.

That’s not to say that his flames had no effect. Over the course of the morning, Tilly started to see the power of the stacking aspect of his ability against an opponent who had more of a tendency to tank his hits than to dodge. By the end of their final session, Gorock was covered by smaller but still smoldering wounds that continued to damage him long after Tilly was incapacitated.

Of course, all of this was only possible against a weaponless Gorock. That was ok with Tilly though, he doubted he was expected to be able to beat the Wall Breaker especially this early in his training. Rather, this pairing was probably chosen to force him to adapt his style to the other end of the spectrum of opponents he might face.

Against an opponent like Gorock, he would have to move more into a Dodge/Tank role. He wasn’t nearly fast enough to fulfill the role yet, but leaning into his flame abilities to distract and wound rather than deal big hits seemed to be what would work best.

Eventually, as he grew, his Dexterity would begin to stand out, but until then, he would have to be extra tricky to stay alive. Along that line of thought, he had even started popping random flashes of flame on other parts of his body during combat to try and make his movements more confusing to follow. For his trouble he had eaten a couple of thick knuckle sandwiches, but not before causing Gorcock to flinch one or two times. Against such an experienced combatant, he would take that as a win.

Tilly returned to the field after meditation and lunch, which he made sure included a fresh stack of burning wood for the hungry Phoenix chick. She was definitely in her infant stage of development and seemed content to eat and sleep as much as possible. But when the next training patrol of Ranger trainees gathered, Kindle peeped excitedly and settled onto Tilly's shoulder for the next portion of the training.

Nyuk met the group and explained that Kuro had been out all morning patrolling, and Ichiro would lead another group out that night. The squad Tilly was standing with had all once owned a class that involved either a ranged weapon or spending a lot of time in the forest. When news came that new classes were available to those who had not been offered them initially, they all had made the journey to the temple.

This, however, meant that everyone, including Nyuk, was missing some key aspects of a Ranger tool set. Nyuk explained that he knew the forest well, but his ranged weapon skill was barely half of what Tilly had on his sheet. This meant that, instead of instructing, Nyuk simply participated as others from the group demonstrated essential skills for the Ranger build. He assigned a trapper to teach the basics of stealth and a hunter to instruct on ranged weapon basics.

The close combat however, he led himself, highlighting the differences between fighting a humanoid opponent with a weapon and facing down one of the denizens of the forest. He had numerous stories from his time in the logging camp, and Tilly began to realize that the two Hiro had selected to join him on his suicide mission had actually been the best suited in the village to see him to the Corrupted temple and back again.

After the basics, but before they left for the forest, they moved through the newly constructed obstacle course, made at the edges of the grounds for dexterity-focused builds. Some of the challenges in the course would have been impossible for any normal human without any additional variables. But Nyuk insisted they navigate the course while carrying their weapons at the ready. Even the ex-Hunter of the group had trouble scaling the wall and crawling through tunnels while keeping his bow in hand.

Once everyone made it through the course, Nyuk informed them that in a couple of days, they would advance to attempting the course while being fired upon by the other Ranger trainees. Then mid-course, they would have to pinpoint the threat and fire back while still navigating obstacles. This would increase several skills at once, and while it sounded like another way to gain puncture wounds, Tilly couldn’t help but look forward to it. At Level 16, his Axe Throwing skill was the third highest in the group, and he was the only one used to releasing projectiles on the move.

Tilly found himself enjoying this aspect of training much more than he expected as he pushed his new body and stats to the limits of speed and fluidity while keeping one of his hatchets in hand. In fact, the only one who seemed to enjoy the course more than Tilly was Kindle, who trilled in excitement, clinging to Tilly as he moved over, under, and through the obstacles at increasing speeds.

When Nyuk announced it was time to leave, she let out a peep of disappointment, before being hushed by Tilly. They picked up rations on the way out and moved off to the edge of the valley, entering the forest and hiking another mile to the boundary of their territory.

This was the first time Tilly got to see the edge of the Boon’s effect himself. Goosebumps ridged the skin on his forearms as he watched a breeze move through the trees around him, only to stop at an invisible line twenty feet farther up the mountain. Past that point, everything seemed frozen…

Well not frozen exactly, Tilly caught sight of a branch falling in the distance and watched in fascination as it descended to the ground as if slowly lowered on a rope. Looking up, Tilly caught sight of a tan-furred squirrel the size of a dog slowly arcing through the air away from where the branch had just fallen.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“To them, we are moving at 24 times our normal speed. Our voices sound like a high-pitched whine, and as long as we keep moving, our forms will be blurred with speed. But for our purposes, none of that matters. We will spread out in pairs, and follow this border toward the sunset. You are to stay completely hidden from the rest of the patrol as we move, and in the future, all patrols will move in pairs.

“The goal is to train stealth and get you as familiar with this forest and mountain range as possible, tomorrow we will have the night shift and set up camp.”

…

Tilly collapsed into bed that night, only to get up and do it all again the next day. His days were a blur of pain, exhaustion and slowly increasing Skills. Through it all, he squeezed his proportionally high Endurance for all it was worth, training under or against people two or three times his level and milking the skill-leveling bonus for all it was worth. His crazy proportioned Endurance stat showed its mettle the first time Tilly took an arrow from a distant patrolling Ranger trainee.

It felt like he had taken a moderate punch from a small fist… but the arrowhead didn't even break the skin. Compared to a swing from Gorock, or a blade strike from Ichiro, the attack seemed almost laughable. That was until Kuro chewed him out loudly, telling him the point of the exercise was to be unseen, not become a “smiling-idiot-target.” He punctuated his point with several bow shots, hitting Tilly’s back with considerably more force. The blows against his back felt much stronger, but still didn’t break his skin… The ex- Logger was considerably stronger than the other trainees, but until his Archery skill improved, he wouldn’t be able to leverage it very much.

Each morning they would pair him up with a sparring partner, or partners, and have him fight with different limitations. Sometimes, he was up against a group of twenty of the new soldiers, evading being cornered and taking as many out of the fight as possible before he was incapacitated. In these matches, it was more about anticipating group dynamics and causing maximum chaos than it was about avoiding hits, most of which could no longer hurt him from the lower-level combatants.

On other mornings, he would be paired against one or two much more skilled opponents. These sessions focused more on adapting to different combat styles and an overall sharpening of his combat senses than his ability to deal damage against a mob. When it came to the Bastion veterans or a few of the other elites of their force, Tilly was still taking grievous wounds after each sparring session.

Erash or Aurelia (the young priestess who had supernaturally been aged into her class) would inevitably have to stop by his sparring area three or four times before the morning was done. Each time they made sure Tilly's Health was topped off and he had plenty of Mana to keep going.

He couldn’t say it got any easier, but he did experience his mind slowly hardening to the pain and shock of what would have been debilitating injuries in his old life. In this world, a single broken extremity was barely an excuse to rest. Instead, he found that with his Endurance, even when his mind was screaming at him to stop, he could push his body far past what it should be capable of, especially in instances of injury or exhaustion.

The meditation helped with this immensely, and he found his Will intervening for him in times of immense duress more and more often. With it, he was able to leap forward to capitalize on an opening, even with a shattered femur, or turn away strikes that should have demolished his guard. His Strength was dismal, and he avoided a direct contest in the stat whenever possible, but having one more option to shore it up in combat was a welcome surprise.

He didn’t see the white flame again, but he could feel himself becoming a much more dangerous combatant as his hard limits became malleable through the combination of his emerging combat instinct and his disproportionate Endurance. He also found his skill levels advancing at an astonishing rate, even with the boon accounted for, and when he took Ichiro aside to ask him about it, the lapin had just winked. Clearly, there was more to this meditation style than just a “family technique”.

His patrols with the Rangers pushed his non-combat skills hard as well. They began moving in long lines along the border, separated by twenty or thirty feet and tried just as hard to spot each other as they did any threats to the Alliance. This was made even more harrowing by the live-fire policy the instructors had put in place. This boosted their distance combat skill and stealth gains immensely, but it also resulted in Tilly frequently putting his new First Aid skill to use. Most unempowered distance attacks did little against his Endurance, but for other trainees they were devastating. Tilly found himself carrying an entire extra bag of bandages and supplies when they went out to compensate.

Not that he could heal anyone, but he was slowly coming to terms with the fact that it didn’t really matter on Nephesh. His skill level was high enough to cancel any normal active debuff besides Internal Bleeding, and once the ongoing damage was taken care of, he found his patients recovering enough to walk in an hour at most.

Not that injury changed the exercise. Nyuk, Kuro, and Ichiro insisted on continuing even while carrying the injured. In fact, they would frequently elect the best at stealth, or distance attacks to carry the wounded, further handicapping them and pushing their skill gains even higher.

After twenty grueling days of almost non-stop training Tilly’s Skills had skyrocketed.

-Forestcraft level 12 > 18

-Identify level 17 > 19

-Cooking level 12

-Beginner Hatchet level 14 > 28

-Animal Processing level 9

-Stealth level 7 > 18

-Herb Lore Level 2 > 5

-Ax Throwing Level 16 > 30

-Dual-Wielding (Hatchets) Level 11 > 24

-Spirit Walk Level 14

-Meditation Level 7 > 12

-First Aid, Level 35 > 38