Miko:

I might be in for more than I bargained. Standing underneath this tree was dizzying. The branches started at the sixty percent mark of the tree’s height, and focusing on them from this distance almost made me lose my balance. The roots of the tree were each like small hills. Everything about a regular tree was exponentially larger with Arbor Majikae. This tree didn’t have any low branches, nor did they arc downward. All the first branches stretched out straight, with the following branches and sub-branches curving and arching upwards, creating a visual effect like looking into an opened ant bed. I moved up the tree-bark-covered hill, using my palm and legs to climb the parts that weren’t walkable when the incline was too steep. The bottom trunk of the tree was so large that the wood chips made of the outside layer of the bark were as big as I was. This would make climbing easier because the rising nature of the bark created an alternating position of each chip with space to move in between and stand on. This was like having thousands of tiny cliffs all along the tree. In my weakened form, every advantage given would be critical to success.

Grabbing above me several feet, the first piece of bark was like a rough brown shield embedded into the tree. Testing it with my weight, I jumped, pushing hard like a spring against the ground. This was enough to bring me to the separating joint between the bark pieces, but with only one arm, I had to awkwardly hold myself up by pinning my shoulder against the small platform. The position was impractical at best and wouldn’t be effective for climbing. I let the position go, landing off balance on my feet. This won’t work. My body had gained back mobility, but all that was earned was a practical form. Something capable of simple movements like walking.

I was going from a coma to a high-level athlete in one step. That was too much to handle all at once. I required a more suitable body for extraneous activities for this climb, but it wouldn’t pop out of thin air. Like my current form, this next one had to be earned. If you want to run, you have to walk first. Baby steps. Well, I can walk, so let’s start running.

Every waking hour in this place, I spent exercising. I felt silly, embarrassed even. No one was here to watch me except for Khronos, maybe, so I let those thoughts fade and continued in my exercise. Rudimentary motions would be perfect for what I was planning to attempt. They worked out the muscle groups uniformly and without prejudice. If I did them wrong, they worked the supporting muscles, which only served me more. In my current shape, any muscle was a positive. I had a long way to go, but even working out was more than I bargained for. Sure, I didn’t get tired, nor did I need to eat or drink, but with only one arm, I couldn’t even work out properly. Something as simple as push-ups became too difficult to perform. Push-ups with one arm were possible, but I was trying to get strong enough to even attempt those. The trees were low enough to do hangs and pull-ups, but the same issues arose with only having one arm to do all the work. Figuring out a way to get both my arms working has to be my next endeavor, but today, while both my legs are working, I’ll do squats and raise my heels repeatedly to work out my calves. Focusing on my body for all those tiresome months gave me a newfound comprehension of the body’s muscle groups and general anatomy. Weeks of just isolating one area in my legs and arms showed me exactly how every part works in tandem. This made working out the muscles easier because I could more accurately identify what was being used and not used. This workout repeated for hours until my calves and thighs screamed for mercy. Of course, they would receive it quickly as the “healing factor” this place offered didn’t let you work yourself tired. If I wanted to get stronger, I had to work hard in bursts and rest frequently.

Day in and day out, I practiced basic motions, increasing my leg strength and supplementing my malfunctioning arm. The moons and suns cycled out overhead while my workouts continued. After two weeks of intense workouts, the number of repetitions needed to feel improvement became too high. A stone half buried in the ground on the lower side of the root hill was loose enough for me to dislodge and just light enough for me to pick up with one arm. Then again, it was still cumbersome. My entire body had to position under it with my shoulder to keep the stone in place. The added weight of the rock removed the diminishing returns I saw with my body weight alone. Almost another two weeks of rigorous workouts and a couple of nights of sleep passed, and the stone was already not enough to satiate the burn my muscles desired.

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There has to be a way to get both my arms working! It was but a brief moment, but when I first tried to stand, both my arms and legs were working together. That was immediately followed up with me passing out, but let’s ignore that. I found the most progress when I slept, unlike the trials where I seemed to worsen with each passing night. Perhaps sleep was the answer here. If I go to sleep focusing on my currently immobile arm, could it work in the morning? With exactly that notion, I laid into the soft grass-padded fields, devoid of pain and sensing only the tingling of the muscle fibers in my legs.

A new place slipped beneath my eyes as sleep swept me away. Around me was ice and rock that dragged out into the distance unfathomably. My surroundings were icy teeth, jagged at the base but forged into a point by the freezing temperatures. Maleki was in the distance, but every footstep I made towards him was futile; his body shifted forward into the desolate icy wasteland. The eyes — the ones that watch me when I get too far in or sleep too long, found me, and I awoke again sweating with my left hand grabbing my temple while I breathed into relaxation.

Well, that’s odd. The plan had worked, and my left arm was working, but that was at the cost of my right arm being immobile. Was it impossible for me to have two working arms again? This wouldn’t stop me, not now that I’ve gotten this far. If I had to strengthen my legs until they were all I needed to climb, I would make it work. However, this development interested me. I felt like I was at the tip of figuring it out or unlocking some component to this curse that I had yet to realize. When I stood tall for the first time in The Garden, I awoke with both my legs and my right arm working. My right hand was the dominant one, so that would explain why that arm worked, but why weren’t my legs affected? What was my goal? The limbs that worked must have been subconscious to some degree, so hypothetically, if I could control what worked, the problem would be eliminated or rather solved with an intricate workaround. My mind desired to walk at that time. Anywhere, but primarily to my brother and to the tree. What if the curse is meant to limit me, weaken me by only a fraction? If that’s true, one limb must always be immobile, but it doesn’t matter which one.

This was a plan. I could work with that. I couldn’t sleep right away, so I got back to work. During a run, I found a fallen branch of one of The Garden’s normal-sized trees that were heavier than the stone, so I brought it with me. The branch equalized over my shoulders and made balancing while doing squats much easier. The burn that arrived before my legs could be turned to jelly came quicker with this new method, so I worked out for four straight days until my body allowed me to sleep. Focusing on my mind, I targeted my arms and my right leg in my mind until both of my eyes were enveloped in the pitch-black darkness of sleep. When I woke, my theory had been proven. With the catalyst of sleep, I could adjust at a whim what I was capable of.

Now, it was time to start working out my arms. They needed to be able to carry all of my weight often and without strain. The end goal was for this to be possible with only a single arm, but that would take some time. My body type and age wouldn’t allow me to get bulky anyway, but that certainly wasn’t the goal. For this climb up the leviathan tree, I had to be limber, flexible, and strong all around. I employed new mechanisms of movement to isolate the muscle groups in my arms, shoulders, chest, and back. Raises, push-ups, planks, hangs, pull-ups, and curls. My starting point was noodle-shaped arms connected to a flat, wimpy chest, so the process of converting my body into an energy-efficient machine was going to be difficult, very difficult. That didn’t stop me, though. I worked through the weight and the pain and let my body heal so the process could be done again. Every day, when even my mind was exhausted from the dull plight, I pushed on and did the work because it had to be done so that I was prepared to make it up this stupidly tall tree.