The following days everyone that arrived with the multiple wagons in Rouk were placed in squads of four. In the end, there was 11 squads, every squad had a squad name that they were to be known by on the camp.

“Isak of Aaron’s Split! You are a member of the Windwakers!” Arturo yelled as he pointed towards a group of people far to the right, “Listen up! The people in your squad will be your friends for a year! You will treat each other with respect; your squad is your family, got it!?”

“Yes, sir!”

The squads greeted each other with a short introduction of themselves. First there was Kalus; a blonde-haired, green-eyed human: “I’m Kalus, I’m 16 and I like chicken!”

Second was Yakken; a black-haired, brown-eyed dwarf: “Yo, I’m Yakken, I’m 18 and I like making armor.”

Third was Jonah; a red-haired, red-eyed bear demi-human: “Hello. I’m Jonah, I’m 19 and I hate high-elves.”

Last one was Isak: “Uhhh I’m Isak, I’m 18 and... I guess I like steak.”

“So, what no–”

“It is time!” Everyone payed attention to Arturo from their group of squads as he once again yelled “It is already time for Stormshakers, Galegrowlers, Breezebreakers and Hurricanehowlers to begin the physical exercises, and the rest of us; we’ll start with the mental exercises! You’ll follow Genkka to the big tent behind me!”

A braided brown-haired dwarf looked at us with sincere brown eyes before he waved and beckoned the rest of the squads to follow him in the big tent. The inside of the tent sent chills down the spine to many of them; the inside was decorated with animal hide, animal heads, and on the ground, there was pits filled with diverse content, everything from; water, sand, mud, rocks and animal cadaver.

“It reeks...” said one of the guys in the other squads as they entered the tent.

“This’ll be your mental exercise. You’ll be placed in one of the pits and lie there for as long as you possibly can. This will improve your mental toughness, so the harder you push yourself, the more will you gain from the experience.”

“This is immoral! We can’t do this!”

“Yeah!”

“Hey! The world outside is not for the faint of heart! You may have the physical brawn to tolerate physical damage, but your mental tolerance will be tested every day, and if you’re weak, then you’ll succumb to the strong and be left to something worse than death. When your mind is broken down, you can’t do anything else but to blame yourself for your ignorance! Succumb to the strong and consider yourself dead!”

Everyone went quiet. Genkka’s speech gave everyone a new insight on the unknown world to the potential Crows, leaving them all in thought.

“I can do it.” Kalus stood out from the squad as he said it.

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“Hop into the sand pit, Kalus.” Genkka pointed down in the sand pit.

Kalus hopped in the sand, lying down in it. Genkka took a big bucket, filled with sand and poured it over Kalus, covering his body except his face with sand. The uncomfortable expression on Kalus was easily seen as everyone else backed back a step after looking at him. Genkka stared everyone down before he approaches Isak.

“You. Which one of the pits would you not want to be in?”

Isak gulps as he points down at the pit with animal cadaver. Genkka gestures with his open hand, telling Isak to jump in and he proceeds to go towards it as if he was mute.

He thought to himself “I saw those old people when Freya died... I don’t know who you two are, but they made me feel even more emotional than what I was back then. They feel important to me, but I don't remember them at all.”

He sits down by the corner of the pit and falls into the cadaver. The lump pieces made disgusting noises as Isak moved in the pile of flesh, even as his chest rose up when he was breathing. The cadaver was still warm, which almost made him puke in disgust. When he finally found the least uncomfortable spot in the pit, someone threw in a bucket of animal content over his face. He panicked for a short moment as he tried to remove the lumps of soft organs from suffocating him. His eyes were shaking as he brushed of the pieces of meat from his eyes, but the blood kept dropping into his eyes.

As Isak was still panicking in his pit, Kalus was freezing in his pit as Genkka poured ice-cold water over him. The cold water got even colder beneath him and the only way to keep his warmth intact was to constantly move. The situation was horrid.

Both Kalus and Isak left their pit shortly after one another, both were a little traumatized after the pit experience so they left the tent to clean themselves up.

“A-Are you okay, Isak?” Kalus still froze after he left the pit and the sand left his skin all itchy.

“It was disgusting. I’d rather not talk about the chicken brain that got inside my pants.”

“B-But... you just said it.”

“Oh... damn, I actually did” Isak chuckled as the blood was still dripping from his eyelashes.

They asked one of the men that were in charge of them if they were any water source they could use. One of the men escorted them both to a river close to the camp, the river was bluer than any other river they’ve seen. The amount of copper gave the river a blue tone like no other river in Aldimir. The man that escorted them had clothes with them for change and left them shortly after they arrived at the river.

“Let’s jump in, Kalus!” Isak pulled of his clothes in one motion and hopped right in.

“O-Okay...” Kalus carefully dipped his foot into the water and jumped back from the coldness.

“C’mon, pussy!” Isak flailed with his arms in an idiotic matter, making Kalus laugh.

“Okay, I’m going in!”

They left the river after getting rid of the sand and blood on them, changing to the camp attire before they got back to camp again before the rest of them came to the river. As they entered the camp again, Genkka and Arturo concluded the first day to be over.