Chapter 13 (2/2)
Both Acid Resistance and Poison Resistance rose a level.
“I believe that is what it is. The want. The need. Do you want it? What did you call yourself? Ghosthound? Do you really want to get out enough to push through this? Do you crave that strength?”
Randidly was on fire, inside and out. It hurt and burned and deep down, he hated. Why the fuck was he doing this. Why did he need to go through this. Was was every moment longer than the previous one. What would be at the end of this road? Would he get a rest after this…?
“No, it never end.” Shal answered, as if he could read his thoughts. “If you start walking, you continue to accelerate, or you die. Do you have that strength?”
Randidly finished the potion. The result floated in front of him taunting. It would restore 71 health points after drinking it. He had gained a level in potion making too.
Randidly silently drank it, stoically choking down his screams as he was splashed with more acid, this dose seemingly more concentrated and vicious than the previous.
His pain resistance and acid resistance went up as he brought out more supplies, to make the next health potion.
Belatedly, his poison resistance went up.
Randidly wasn’t sure if he had that strength now…
He furrowed his brow, focusing.
But he would find it.
****
Randidly settled in a routine.
The morning was acid and agony, and potions. He would make and make, attempting to keep up with the veritable vats of acid that Shal would bring back, each a strange, painful variation. Some days he wouldn't be allowed to make potions, simply meditating. Focusing on that hair thin bonus it granted him.
Several times it was very close to killing him. But Shal somehow knew the edges of his willpower, his sanity and endurance, even as he pushed him.
His health would often drop down to something like 8, and then level off as Randidly trembled and tried his best to ignore the tears in the corners of his eyes.
His health would be plummeting below 20, crashing towards 0, and Randidly would finally manage to successfully finish a potion, healing 40 health, buying himself a brief respite. Half of those times, he could use that time to recover his mental state.
As days passed though, more and more, that would be when more acid was splashed on him, and he frantically would need to brew additional potions.
****
The afternoons were Randidly’s favorite. It was spell practice, with Shal as the target. A target who moved like a ghost, dodging Randidly’s Entangling Roots and mana bolts effortlessly, closing the distance and brutally knocking the wind out of Randidly, or throwing him into the forest, where Randidly would be forced to jump up with a yelp, and rush back out, fearful of the monsters there.
This would continue until Randidly had run out of mana and had meditated back to full too many times for Shal’s taste, and then would come the third and final training period of the day.
And the one that was the worst. Spear training.
“The Spear,” Shal had explained, giving Randidly a simple, light weapon, that he had been able to identify as being Lvl 10. “Is the greatest weapon. It is versatile. It can be quick, it can be powerful. It can stab, it can sweep. But most of all, it is wielded by a spearman, the most powerful warrior of all.”
“You are weak; you have no hope of being a spearman. But like my master still dutifully tried to drill the moves into me, I shall ravage your body until it knows the moves.”
“So… that is how you become a spearman…?” Randidly asked uncertainly. This day had largely numbed his fear of pain, but still the entrancing grace of Shal handling his spear gave him pause.
Shal chuckled. “No. But it is a way that non-spearman can slowly come to know the spear. Even I am not yet even close to being spearman. I am a man with a spear. But to you…”
His spear blurred, and Randidly felt his left arm, which was lightly holding onto the spear, shatter from the impact. “But to you… such concerns are too far in the future. For now, do you best to survive.”
And through mana shields and Iron Skin, Randidly did his best.