“Grahhh”, I screamed as I tried to wrestle free

“Thought yee was some funny guy with that sand hey? We would a let ya live but ye just had to push us”, He raised the metal rod

I heard the whistle of an arrow and directly after that screams

Vance had used his crossbow to send an arrow through his wrist, “How’s everyone doing this fine night, oh, how am I doing?, amazing, but if I do say so myself I am going to miss that arrow, I do take pride in taking care of my equipment”, he said walking out of the shadows, he’s trenchcoats hood on.

Damn, He looks cool!

“Get him”, one of the ruffians yelled, I like that word, ruffian…

The first one pulled a small dagger and went to slash for his throat

Vance dodged effortlessly, attatching a strange device to his wrist, “Now, that’s just mean, just lie down for a second here”

The band glew purple and he was sent to the ground immediately, “Me wrists stuck!”, the man yelled

The other ruffian tried to grab Vance from behind, that was bad idea since before he could even touch him Vance turned around and landed one straight punch to temple, the thud of that man hitting the ground hitting the ground was something harrowing.

In the same motion, he sent one of his knees to the ruffian head who still attached to the ground.

Now keep in mind this whole sequence happened in less than 5 seconds, the remaining robber stood there speechless, “Listen, sir, we mean no more trouble, just let us live” he pleaded

“No worries but If I ever see you again, I’ll turn you into monster meat”, Vance said not even sparring him a glace as he retrieved his gizmo from the now unconscious man

“Alex, we’re leaving”, Vance yelled

I Followed and hopped on the carriage as we took off

“That took some mighty fine guts to stand up to a group of men like that”, The bastard was watching the whole time.

“I’m used to it, so why didn’t you interfere earlier?”, I asked

“Wanted to see how you’d manage”

“And?”

“Short answer is you need training, in fact I don’t even know if training you like a ratfrog on sniffer will help but I’ll try”

“What’s a ratfrog?”

“Little demons that eat your crops, seemingly never-ending energy, and they always come in packs,” he said, tightening his grip on his rains.

The carriage came to a stop, “What’s wrong?”, I asked

“Get off, your training starts now”, he responded

“What do you mean now”

“Well, if you can’t even beat those 4 idiots in a fight you shouldn’t be walking so get up”, Vance grabbed the back of my shirt, lifted me with one hand, and tossed off the wagon

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“You better stick with the carriage, otherwise the wolve’s might get you”, his voice was becoming softer as the carriage left, he was serious.

Cue me running as hard as I could for the next hour, luckily the sadistic fecker stopped every now and then

“You mentioned you did some training in the castle, I expected you to be fitter. Prepare yourself, kid, we’ve only just begun”, he yelled out of the carriage as we approached the homestead

Agility increased by 1

My lungs feel like they're on fire!

“Good work kid, wash up, go read that book, I’ll be testing you on the next chapter tomorrow”, Vance grabbed some crates off the back of the carriage and went inside his house

I hate him sometimes, okay most of the time.

“Hey Grimmel, missed you too boy”, the little guy ran up to me and jumped into my arm.

I walked over to the well carrying grimmel\

Sniff sniff

“Damn, Grimmel, you stink! Well, guess that means it’s time for a wash for you too boy”, I brought up a bucket, picked up Grimmel, and dunked him in the tub.

He stared at me as I scrubbed him down, I could almost tell what he was thinking.

Probably something like, “I’m only putting up with this because I like you”, those were what his eyes were saying.

I washed myself off, the cold water stinging me as usual, “Nice and clean”

I sat down and opened the book, something felt off, I just could not relax.

I looked around the room and saw it, the helmet Vance bought for me sat there staring at me, I felt…exposed, is that the right word?

I picked it the helmet and put it on, my anxiety disappeared, I guess being hit in the alley did mess me up.

I cracked and began reading, “Now that we have covered the basics of gear and cogs we will now learn how to implement magic stones into our designs”, interesting.

The book went on to describe how synergists can link the two so that the gears are powered by the stones, “If a link is not performed correctly stone can abruptly erupt”, good to know.

There was a total of one page about the topic before it switched back to the usual formulas and theory, it is going to be a long night.

I looked down and saw Grimmel snuggled up in my lap, “lucky bastard, acts cute and receives food and attention.

----------------------------------------

“Rise and shine, ya little ratfrog!”, Vance was screaming at me

“I’m giving you 5 seconds….you know what you should be awake by now”, Vance grabbed my ankle and dragged me out of my haystacks, Grimmel was still sleeping on my lap peacefully.

“What’s going on!”, I screamed like a helpless ratfrog, I don’t even know what that is but it felt appropriate at the moment.

“You wanted me to train you, well, this is what you get, say hello to my Vance’s very own extraordinary training program!”, The bastard yelled out

Grimmel finally woke up and jumped off me, he simply just trodded behind as I wrestled for my freedom.

He brought me to a table with some gears on it and a blueprint.

“Create this machine”, he commanded me

I stood up wiping the dirt off me, “How?”, these blueprints might as well be gibberish, the technical jargon, was something, to say the least.

“You build it that’s how”, he was serious as usual, does he even what sarcasm is?

Probably not.

“What ar you waiting for get to work!”, he yelled

I hastily grabbed some gears and scanned the blueprints, this a a gear with ratio of 0.6 and it should be placed here

Connection attempted…fail

“Wrong, take a lap around the farm”

“What, how does that have anything to do with gears”, I retorted

“Did I stutter, okay, let me say that again, run or either I dump you back in the woods”, he have the nicest most gentlemanly smile you’ve ever seen but there was truth those words, and I didn’t want to find out how much there was.

“Let’s do this”, I said with a sigh as I started my first lap of probably many