Before long, the day of departure had come. It was time Richard moved on to the next part of the training. Initially, he had no idea where Kael was taking him or why he wouldn't let Richard bring his own horse, but deep down he understood--wherever this was, it would not be friendly.
The morning air was crisp, carrying the faint scent of frost and wet soil. Richard adjusted the straps on his small pack, feeling the weight of the essentials Kael had allowed him to take: a waterskin, a few hard loaves of preserved bread, a dagger, and a small whetstone. Kael rode silently beside him, his horse moving with deliberate, unhurried steps. Richard had never felt such quiet tension, nor the feeling that the world beyond the Valley could be watching him already.
They reached the mouth of a wide ravine just as the sun lifted above the distant cliffs. Shadows stretched across the rocks, pooling like ink along the edges. Kael dismounted, his cloak brushing the stones.
"This is the Ravine of Ebonreach" he said, voice flat, measured. "This is where you begin. The path ahead is yours alone. I will wait at the other end. Do not expect it to be easy, and do not expect mercy."
Richard nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat.
Kael's gaze lingered on him, sharp, assessing. "Survival is not a test of skill alone. It is patience, perception, and restraint. Every step you take here can be your last if you falter. Keep your senses open. Trust nothing at first glance. Move carefully."
Richard clenched his hands, steadying himself. Kael continued, softer this time, almost imperceptibly: "You will learn more about yourself in the next few weeks than you have in your entire life. And when you reach the other side, I will be waiting--but I do not guarantee that you will come out the same."
With that, Kael swung back onto his horse, leaving Richard at the edge of the ravine. The sound of hooves echoing along the narrow ridge faded, and then there was only the wind and the deep, gaping shadows below.
Richard took a deep breath and stepped forward. The walls of the ravine rose high, the jagged rocks cutting into the gray sky. Each footfall on the loose stone sent small pebbles tumbling downward, like whispers of warning.Every instinct in his body screamed caution.
But he paid no heed to his fear, that's what all these months of training was for. Without fretting, Richard started his descent to the bottom of the Ravine.
The descent took hours, but Richard kept his patience throughout because one small mistake could lead to his death, moreover, on their way to the Ravine, kael had warned Richard about using mana. He had told him that monsters in this place were wildly attracted to mana, so even a little usage of magic would lead to Richard getting swarmed by thousands of mana-hungry beasts instantly. Kael telling this to Richard clearly indicated that he was not that unkind man, he did care about Richard even though he was unwilling to show it. This fact gave Richard all the courage he needed.
--
By the second day, hunger had begun to gnaw at him. But there were lessons even in this scarcity: every creek, every small cluster of moss or roots, became a potential source of sustenance. He remembered Kael's words about patience and observation, and he learned to extract water from frozen soil, to hunt small animals quietly and to move without drawing attention.
The creatures of the ravine were unlike anything he had faced in the Valley. On the third day, he encountered the first predator--a squat, armored lizard with a tail tipped in bone spikes. Its scales glimmered faintly in the pale sun. It lunged without warning. Richard barely had time to dodge, feeling the rush of wind as the tail swept past. He jabbed with his dagger, piercing a joint between its plates. The lizard hissed, thrashing, but Richard struck again, aiming for the vulnerable underside. When it finally collapsed, he felt satisfaction and it increased his awareness: every fight here would require all of his all of his senses.
On the fifth day, a shadow moved across the cliff wall above him—a flying creature, skeletal wings stretched wide, eyes glowing faintly green. Its screech echoed through the ravine. Richard realized this was a hunter that struck from above. He rolled to the side as it dived, and then striked it in one strike after sharpening his dagger with mana and enchancing his speed.
Each encounter taught him something: patience, timing, reading movement, sensing energy in living beings, even understanding subtle signs in the terrain--shifts in wind, faint echoes, disturbed dust.
Every night, he patched wounds, and allowed himself short periods of meditation to regulate his mana and regenerate from the fatigue. The physical exhaustion was constant, but his control over energy and regenerative ability grew and increased day by day as well.
Weeks passed. The ravine seemed endless. Food was hunted, caught, sometimes scavenged. Monsters appeared frequently--each unique: a six-legged predator with mandibles that could crush bone; a serpent-like creature that burrowed beneath loose soil and exploded upward; a faintly translucent shadow that mimicked movement before striking. Each challenge pushed Richard further than he had ever been, physically and mentally.
By the time he reached what appeared to be the heart of the ravine, his body was lean, scarred, and calloused. His hands were cut, his legs streaked with bruises, and his clothes torn. Yet his eyes held clarity, a steadiness that had never existed before.
And then he felt it--a tremor through the stone beneath him, the air itself pressing down.
The Ebon Fiend. It was the strongest monster of the ravine as Kael had described. He had never seen it, but instinctively, every nerve screamed in its presence.
It was massive, far larger than any creature he had faced, with jagged claws and a hide black as shadow. Its eyes burned faintly with the deep, unnatural energy that pulsed in the ravine.
The fight was brutal but precise. Richard dodged its first swipe, feeling the raw power of its strike ripple through the ground. He used every lesson Kael had imparted: balanced stance and controlled usage of mana so that the smell of the mana doesn't reach other monsters. He had every concept of fighting that kael had taught him in his grasp .
The Fiend roared, a sound that shook loose stones and rattled his bones, but Richard held his ground, striking the joints and exposed gaps in its hide occasionally, when he got the chance.
Richard fought for hours, he didn't rush, he waited and waited, patiently for the right moment, until finally, he found an opening. Without wasting much time, he drove the dagger deep into a vulnerable spot, channeling a surge of mana to burn through the creature's defenses. The Ebon Fiend collapsed, letting out a final, shuddering growl before falling to the ground with a loud thud.
Richard fell to his knees, exhausted, every muscle screaming. His breaths were uncontrollable and his arms trembled. Yet in that moment, something subtle shifted inside him--a faint glow behind his vision, a pulse he had never felt before. It was small, almost imperceptible, but it hummed with raw potential.
He didn't understand it yet, and he couldn't name it. But he knew that this was only the beginning.
The Ravine of Ebonreach had tested him, and he had survived.
But how was kael gonna test him after this? He thought to himself before collapsing to the ground.
--
When Richard opened his eyes, the first thing he felt was the cold. It seeped into his skin, making even his breath sting. The ground beneath him was rough and uneven, scattered with shards of blackened rock. For a long moment, he didn't move, only listened--to the faint whistle of wind through the ravine, and the slow, steady beat of his heart.
The Fiend's carcass was gone. Only dark stains on the nearby stones remained, and the air still carried that strange metallic scent. Richard pushed himself upright, his limbs heavy, his vision blurred from fatigue. His body felt like it had been torn apart and stitched back together again.
He stared up at the ridges high above, tracing the line of sunlight cutting through the mist. The Ravine of Ebonreach was silent now, stripped of all its movement. For the first time since he had entered, Richard could hear nothing hunting, nothing waiting.
He stood, wavering for a second before steadying himself. His clothes were completely torn, skin bruised, and his dagger was nearly broken, but he was alive. That alone felt almost relieving.
The only thought that anchored him was Kael's promise. I'll be waiting at the other end.
So he started walking.
Each step was slow, dragged out by exhaustion. His stomach ached with hunger, but there was nothing left to eat, even the monsters werent appearing anymore. His waterskin was empty. He could barely feel his hands. The ravine floor stretched on endlessly, its terrain swallowing him in silence.
Sometimes he thought he heard footsteps behind him. Sometimes the shadows moved just enough to make him turn. But each time he found nothing. The mind played tricks when pushed too far. He knew that now.
Hours blurred into days. The air grew drier, thinner. The once-dark stones turned pale, dust replacing mud. He climbed where the path allowed, resting when his legs could no longer bear his weight. At one point, he stumbled upon a narrow stream trickling between rocks. He dropped to his knees and drank greedily, the cold water burning his throat.
When he rose again, he felt clearer. Lighter. The fatigue didn't fade, but it stopped controlling him. Something within him--discipline, instinct, survival--kept pushing him onward.
Eventually, the ravine began to open. It felt wider, less suffocating. The echo of his steps no longer bounced back from both sides. He climbed one final slope, his fingers digging into loose stone. The moment his hand reached the top, he pulled himself up--and sunlight flooded his eyes.
He squinted against it, blinking hard. The world before him was open and vast. The cliffs fell away into rolling plains, dark green stretching to the horizon. For a few seconds, he just stood there, letting the warmth of the sun sink into his skin.
And then he saw him.
Kael stood a little further ahead, cloak rippling in the breeze, his horse grazing nearby. He turned as Richard approached, expression unreadable. His eyes moved over Richard from head to toe, taking in the dirt, the blood, the exhaustion.
"You made it," Kael said simply.
Richard stopped a few steps away, panting. "Barely."
Kael's gaze lingered on him for a long moment before he replied, "That's enough." He glanced past Richard at the ravine, its mouth now just a black scar in the distance. "You lasted longer than most would have."
There was no praise in his tone, but there was something else--a quiet acknowledgment that needed no words.
Richard lowered his head slightly. "It wasn't easy."
"It wasn't meant to be," Kael said. "Ease doesn't teach. Hunger, fear, exhaustion--those do." He turned his eyes back toward the plains. "You've learned to listen to yourself. To move when it matters and to wait when it doesn't. That is what survival truly is."
Richard said nothing. He didn't trust his voice to stay steady. He was a veteran who had lived for decades experiencing different kinds of scenarios in his previous life but he never had a feeling like this. He was flabbergasted, to put it simply. He thought he knew everything but today he had realized that the world contained much more mysteries than his puny brain could ever hold.
Kael mounted his horse again and looked down at him. "Rest. We start moving tommorow"
"Where?"
Kael didn't answer immediately. He stared toward the faint line of the horizon, his expression calm and distant. "You'll see when we get there. It's not as bad a place as the ravine so don't worry too much, for now, you've earned a night without looking over your shoulder, so rest easy."
Richard exhaled, the tension in his body finally easing. He dropped his pack and sat down on the grass. The air outside the ravine felt strange--light, unrestrained, almost unreal after weeks of stale stone and darkness.
As Kael tended to the horse, Richard lay back, eyes tracing the evening sky. The sun dipped lower, painting the clouds in deep red and orange.
He had survived Ebonreach.
It didn't feel like triumph. It felt like endurance. Like he'd stepped across something he couldn't return from.
Kael's voice cut through the wind. "Get some sleep, Richard. You'll need your strength."
Richard nodded faintly, his eyes already heavy.
And as the night fell over the plains, the faint sound of the wind through the ravine faded, leaving only the calm rhythm of his breathing--the sound of someone who had fought, endured, and lived to see another dawn.
--