The six days passed like one long, exhausting nightmare. Every morning, Finn opened his eyes, and his first thought was—today it will all start again. The Tree seemed to take particular pleasure in devising new ways to test the limits of his capabilities.
On the first day after the conversation with Eva, the arena greeted him with hunchbacked creatures—they grew right out of the wooden floor, like living branches taking the form of those beings that had pursued him in the caves. Their claws scraped against the stone, leaving deep grooves, and their guttural growls echoed off the walls. But something had changed. Finn was no longer that frightened boy who could do nothing but run. Now, every one of his movements had a purpose.
He learned to use their clumsiness against them. When the first creature lunged at him, Finn didn't jump aside as he used to. Instead, he slid under its paws, spun around, and struck its unprotected flank. The creature howled and crumbled into dust, returning to its wooden nature.
On the second day, the Tree decided to test his reflexes. Massive roots, as thick as a human body, burst through the arena floor without any warning. They writhed like snakes, trying to grab, crush, knock him off his feet. The first few hours were especially hard—bruises covered his entire body, his breath came in gasps, his muscles burned with strain. But gradually, Finn began to notice patterns. Every movement of the roots had its own tell, a barely noticeable tension in the ground before a strike. He learned to read these signs.
By the end of the third day, his body moved as if in a dance. Where before he would simply leap aside, he now performed complex sequences of movements. A roll under an attacking root flowed into a somersault over a second, followed by a sharp jump above a third. Each movement smoothly transitioned into the next without a single pause, without an extra step.
The fourth day brought a new trial—the Tree combined the two previous ones. Now Finn had to simultaneously dodge roots and fend off creatures that continuously formed from its trunk. But instead of panicking, he began to use one threat against the other. He learned to direct the blows of the roots so they hit the monsters, forced the creatures to collide with each other when they rushed him from different sides.
By the fifth day, the number of his wounds had noticeably decreased. Where he used to get dozens of bruises and scratches, now one could barely find a couple of bruises. His body had learned to move with incredible precision. Every step, every turn was calculated to the millimeter. He no longer wasted energy on unnecessary movements, didn't make overly wide swings or overly long jumps.
The sixth day was a real breakthrough. Finn began to experiment, to devise his own techniques. When a root tried to grab him, he didn't just dodge—he used its momentum to soar higher than he could jump on his own. When the creatures surrounded him, he didn't look for a path to retreat; he created it himself, forcing his opponents to get in each other's way.
His movements became unpredictable. Where logic suggested jumping back, he might suddenly step forward. When it seemed he was cornered, he found a path where there couldn't be one. Every swing, every dodge contained an element of improvisation that made his actions impossible to predict.
But the main change happened in his mind. The fear didn't disappear completely—it transformed into a sharp, crystal-clear awareness. Every muscle, every breath, every heartbeat became part of a single whole. He learned to feel his body as never before, to understand its capabilities and its limits.
By the end of the sixth day, when the last wooden creature had crumbled to dust and the roots had slowly retracted back into the ground, Finn stood in the middle of the arena, breathing heavily but with his back straight. His clothes were covered in dust and wood pulp, but there was almost no blood on them. A new glint had appeared in his eyes—the confidence of a man who was beginning to understand his true strength.
By the end of the sixth day, the arena was no longer the deserted place that had greeted Finn in the mornings. The elves, previously indifferent to his presence, now gathered in groups on the stone ledges, watching his training sessions. They put aside their tasks, interrupted their conversations, froze with weapons in hand—all to see the human boy confront the Tree.
Even the experienced warriors, usually completely absorbed in their own training, stopped more and more often when Finn appeared in the arena. Their polished movements would halt mid-swing, and their eyes followed his every step, every dodge, every improvisation in the fight against the wooden creatures.
Finn himself seemed not to notice the growing attention to his training. His world had narrowed to the space of the arena, to the next strike, the next jump, the next decision in an endless series of trials. Perhaps it was this focus that attracted their gazes—there was no showy bravery or desire to impress in his movements, only a pure, unadulterated drive to survive and become stronger.
When on the seventh day Finn habitually headed towards the arena, ready for new trials, he froze halfway there. There, in the center of the stone circle, stood that very elf—the tall warrior with silver hair who had defeated him with minimal effort on his first day in the underground city. His presence seemed to electrify the air, and Finn felt a chill run down his spine—not from fear, but from excitement.