Jien sat in a hot bath, resting his back against the cold stone of the tub attached to his room in the Losler manor. It had been four and a half years since they had first taken a step into the Warping Forest, and he had just arrived back to his home for the first time in a half year. Runa was gingerly washing his hair, like she always would when he came back from these long training adventures. She was always dedicated to watching over him each time he returned until he had settled back in, though these past few years he hadn't had the time to do so properly.

The only reason that the latest training in those gods forsaken forest was because in half a year they would need to attend the academy. Though their parents wanted their children shaped up so that they could survive what was to come they didn't want them to be so rough around the edges that they wouldn't be able to get along with other groups. They had spent four and a half years living in the wilderness with only short breaks in civilization.

Their parents were able to clearly see their manners degrade with time and their expressions firm. They had truly become rough around the edges, but their growth had been what their tutors could only call monstrous. Under Jien's leadership and the pressure of supplied by their teachers the now teenage cohort had shored up a large number of their shortcomings in record time.

Even now, as Jien was secure in the manor with Runa washing his hair and Anuva sitting in the other room reading, he was still on full alert. The last half a year had been the most brutal of all of them, the mentors only informing them once they had actually entered their training ground that they would be acting with the supposed prowess of a recent academy graduates. It had been a nightmare that none of them could ever wipe from their mind.

Each year the task was getting harder as the mentors would pull more and more tricks and strategies out of their hats. They never even repeated a strategy from one day to the next, showing their students how little they knew by burning it into their eyes and carving it into their bones. There was no rest and there was no mercy, the entire bootcamp was a raw struggle for survival, whether it was the environment, the inhabiting flora and fauna, or their teachers' perilous ambushes they all pushed the cohort to their very limits.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Currently just physically each of them had changed rather drastically from their first meetings. Jien's originally thin frame had filled out into a truly athletic build, muscles formed from hard work prominent but not to the point of bulkiness. His facial features had sharpened some, losing what baby fat he had managed to retain during his early years. His eyes held a hint of a far colder, calculative light then before yet he still seemed to retain a warm expression.

In terms of control of mana and the arcane he and his whole cohort had taken large steps forward. Their training forced them to always walk the dangerous edge of burning out their entire store of mana every day, just for the sake of survival. This was dangerous yet crucial training that their mentors had driven into them. The mana core was muscle, but it was one that would not be worked unless it was near emptied and then left to refill. If you didn't have the will to push yourself to the edge you would never truly grow. To ensure that their charges would be ready for the extensive mana control training and arcane training they would receive they pushed their students in this aspect even more than they did physically.

The body could be refined in a much shorter time span that it would take to do so with the mana core. Still, they did not slack on working their students' bodies to the utmost they could without endangering them. The end result spoke for itself, Jien and his team had survived for six months against an estimation of those that had already graduated from the academy and were serving in the Elitrix military force.

Still, this venture was not without suffering. They had not been able to keep a stable camp for even a single day despite four years' worth of experience. They spent six months on the run from their mentors after their first attempt at a camp was demolished by Johnathan with a single swing of his fist amplified by a spell that nobody overheard and likely an advanced use of mana manipulation to strengthen the blow. He had caved the ground under their entire camp, collapsing it in a single blow before the other mentors used the chaos to clean them out.

Now it was all in the past though, they were home for their last six months to prepare for their trip to the academy for the first year. None of them knew what to expect other than an oath that would seal their lips on the topic for the rest of their lives. Their parents all had the same and as such couldn't give them anything other than a basic outline that the academy provided to all parents. It was a single page pamphlet that listed a few of the mandatory courses, a few short rules such as the limitation of only bringing one other person, suggested to be a mentor or housekeeper, whether male or female.

The fact that the academy was such a mystery was of interest to Jien. He wondered what he could learn there that was unavailable to him in the status of son of a lord. He also was interested to meet others of his generation, as long as they would let him have his time to read of course.