It's been six days, seven hours and nineteen minutes walking this rocky plains with nothing but darkness in sight.
At first I had to drag myself along but I eventually, I began feeling my leg and soon after, I could walk, though at first, I was slow and limping a bit, but on the second day I was back to normal, and soon resumed my exercises.
I doubled my physical training, from my chest, to back, abs, biceps, triceps, glutes and quads, for four hours each day.
Kaldareth once gave me a complement on how fit I was,
"For a scholar, your body is well built"
He said, his eyes wandering around my exposed upper body, as he adds,
"If not for your slim build, you would have been easily mistaken for a warrior"
"Thanks"
I replied with a small chuckle and continued my exercise.
At night I would try accumulating as much pure shadow energy I could into my core.
We occasionally saw a few losts, don't worry it got handled, quickly.
Luckily for us, we haven't encountered any abominations since we left the hole, I have a theory, I think all this area is the Hydra's territory, that will be the only logical reason why we haven't encountered abominations yet, not like I'm eager to meet one.
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It's day seven, I don't really know how long have been here before I started counting, 2, 3 weeks?.... A month?.
Let's forget about that, I started practicing my dagger techniques, today, again, so I wouldn't get rusty, and this seems to have attracted Morvain's attention, as he keeps staring at me, practicing.
"Scholar!"
Morvain finally spoke, getting up from the small rock he was sitting on, as he procedures to add.
"What dagger technique are you practicing?, I haven't seen it before"
"Yeah, it's not from around here"
I replied, paying him a small glance before continuing my practice.
"Hmm I see... That's a very nice dagger you have there... Is that Dark Fang?
Morvain asked, his voice having a hint of curiosity.
"Yeah it is, how do you know?
"Well from it's design... It's unusual design... Did you know that it's a duel dagger?
'unusual design?... Looks like a normal KABAR dagger with fantasy designs to me'
I thought before speaking.
"Really?"
"Yeah!, it was made around the 19th generation by a well known weapon maker, as a reward to a renowned warrior, velgoth"
Morvain's reply had a bit of passion and enthusiasm.
"Sooo, what happened to the other dagger?"
"Yeah, got lost after his death"
Morvain's voice returned to it's usually nonchalant and chill tone.
"Alright everyone let's get going!!!"
Kaldareth spoke loudly, and soon after we began today's journey
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We've walked four hours now and just up ahead there seems to be a forest of dead trees.
We got closer to the forest, and I instinctively knew not to go in, like who walks into a forest with dead trees and mist reducing visibility.
"We shouldn't enter!"
I spoke, my voice calm and serious.
"Why?"
Kaldareth asked, his looks, serious, his voice, confused.
"I wasn't able to say it during the test but this is the territory of the watcher tree"
My voice now completely serious.
"Really!... What do we do now?"
Kaldareth asked, confusion settling in on his face.
"We could go around it"
Shadeva suggested.
"Yeah that will be better"
I replied Shadeva
"Alright let's do that"
Kaldareth replied, his mood seeming suddenly down.
And so we continued west.
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After walking for almost five hours, we could see a ruined structure in the distance.
'ruins of a lost civilization!!!, this my first time seeing one, I wander what treasure we could find in there!'
I thought, a small smirk slowly creeping on my face.
We got closer and could see it was a Colosseum.
It's structure, dome like, though some parts of the roof were destroyed, it still looked like a dome, a mediaeval looking dome.
Inside seemed larger than it did on the outside, and seemed paused in time, as the air here were still and lifeless, but everything else seemed preserved.
'space manipulation trait might be at work here'
The thought chimed in.
A large billboard containing ten names was hanging on one side of the dome.
We didn't realised that we were slowly moving separately to look at things that were of interest to us.
On till.
A sudden vibration shook the dome, touches flickered to life, something slowly rising from the top platform, the Billboard began displaying it's content brightly, as the distance between each of us slowly began to stretch, and our calls for each other becoming muffled.
Then everything went dark, and still.
As suddenly a voice came in, sounding almost mechanical.
"Welcome to my arena, challengers, as you already know, whoever manages to break the record, wins. Escape is futile and will be punishable by death, let us begin."
As soon as the voice ended the billboard became visible and was shining above me displaying it's contents.
Top Ten warriors
Adevid: total losts and abominations slain, 1067.
Erebos: total losts and abominations slain, 921 .
Nereza: total losts and abominations slain, 890.
Haddon: total losts and abominations slain, 710.
Mallory: total losts and abominations slain, 502.
Tenebris: total losts and abominations slain,400.
Doyle: total losts and abominations slain, 390.
Esmeray: total losts and abominations slain, 321.
Velgoth: total losts and abominations slain, 293.
Kieran: total losts and abominations slain, 252.
The billboard's light was the only thing one could see in this dark place, as suddenly multiple low growls could be heard from the darkness around me.
The voice came again
"First wave, fifty losts, begin!!!"
As those words came out, multiple losts came sprinting at me from all sides.
I took action immediately, brought out my dagger, threw my bag to the ground, and took my stance.
My eyes burning with resolve, as fear will only get me killed.