Rahz look at his dad and said, " Their speed is not bad but I think I can get to their Level very soon"
"That's the spirit!! For this training I am going to start with the speed of the level 9 and we will spar for 4 hours before I go to work and 4 hours in the evening. When I am not here your mother will take over your training and help you with your mobility and reaction time. Don't let her angel face fool you, she is actually a demon in disguise"
AHHH!!
"What did I say Honey?"
Rahz smiled at his parent's banter and got ready to receive the strike of a level 9 one more time.
Thud...
Time flew by and at the end of the first 2 hours Rahz started to anticipate where the hit was coming from and was able to use his Strengthen Defense to at least try to absorb part of the blow but no matter what he did he still receive the same amount of damage.
Rahz wanted to ask his dad if there was a trick to bypass his defense but every time he asked all he got was a smiled and nothing more. In truth there was really no trick at all, every time Rahz used his skill his father will regulate his power so that the hit always felt the same way.
Rhaen use this technique for 2 purposes, the first one was to confuse Rahz about the progress he was making. The rate at which Rahz's body was improving was too astonishing and he didn't want his son to get cocky and not try as hard. The second was to stimulate Rahz's body via the destruction and rebirth of the cells to stimulate growth with each cycle. Every strike hit a different part of the body and always with the same level of destruction so that Rahz's body always had to work extra hard to keep up.
Every cycle of regeneration left Rhaen speechless, the training had started with the force a regular level 9 warrior could exert into a punch and after only 2 hours of practice they had reached the force generated by a peak level 9 warrior.
When the 4 hours were up Rhaen got ready to go to work and left with Rahz's 2 handed Axe. There was a big difference between an Iron weapon and a regular copper Axe, if Rhaen wanted to set his son for success that meant creating a new Axe using the Iron from the mine. There was a big risk in making Rahz that kind of weapon as the world operated under the law of the jungle and Rahz did not have the strength to protect his weapon.
Rhaen was not a great blacksmith but he knew a thing or two about making weapons. Adventures and mercenaries, more often than not, could not afford weapons made entirely of iron so they used to commission blacksmiths to create weapons with only the cutting edge made of Iron and the rest out of the cheaper material, copper.
The weapon was more affordable to the client and it would also deter unwanted attention as the assailant could not easily tell the material of the weapon.
Rhaen Idea for the 2 handed Axe was to make the exoskeleton of the Axe in iron ore and then pour in Copper into the mold to cover the iron parts. After 4 years of development Rahz strength as well as his stature had increased so Mr. Choppy as a weapon had lost the "Humpff" a 2 Handed Axe should have. It had become a limiter in a sense to the maximum damage output his son could ditch out. It was a very similar concept to having an extremely fast computer and then using a very slow printer, no matter how fast the information is being delivered, the speed of the printer limits the amount of pages getting printed. If Rahz had a heavier Axe during his mine expedition his attacks would have penetrated through the Kobolds fur without much effort.
While Rhaen was busy making a better Axe for his son, Rahz was experiencing for the first time how powerful his sweet mother actually was. With a wave of her hand columns of holy power fell in an area around Rahz and every time they touched his skin it left a burning sensation. At the beginning Rahz was running around like a chicken with the head cut off and it was making his mother lose her cool.
"Stop!!! You call yourself a warrior, running around like you are about to shit your pants. The exercise is to evade the light columns and attack me. I am already suppressing the speed and power of the spell as much as I can, so use small movements and try to always move forward while using Strengthen Defense when you need to. Sometimes it is OK to exchange small damage for the opportunity to end the fight and besides Berserkers love small damage to boost their Rage. Let's start again, so concentrate"
Rahz never expected his mother to be tougher than his dad when it came to training but he was learning a lot. Rahz was really a frog at the bottom of the well, he had been complacent because he was the king of the hill in the training grounds but now that he experience his mom and dad power and control over their skills, he saw the limitation of the village training.
The door to a whole new world had been open and it could never be close again, Rahz felt that the time to leave the village was getting closer and he was excited. He crave for a challenge and the words of the God of War still resounding in his mind and all this geniuses his parents talk about, he wanted to defeat all of them and reach the apex.
The rest of the day went the same way as his morning practice, no matter what he did the intensity and the distance to his mother never decreased and he thought he hadn't make any progress. The only break Rahz took was to eat and a couple of hours in the afternoon when his mom went to make dinner and he waited for his father to get home for the third round of training.
Day by day Etta and Rhaen polished the fighting skills of their son which thought he had learn nothing all along. In Rahz's mind his parents were just punishing him for going alone inside the mind and " special training" was the perfect excuse. In the morning he got beat by his dad, during the day by his mother and then at night another course of fist porridge.
Even though Rahz did not notice any changes, the rest of the village did. They could feel the momentum generated by Rahz movements and just looking at his physique they could see that it was rock solid like a steel wall. This was the impression of the evolution fighters of the village, the level 9 trainees all felt an incredible oppression and no matter how many people Rahz tried to fight against nobody wanted to go up to the ring.
After the second week of training, a ray of light was waiting for him when he came back home from another day of disappointment at the arena.
A massive 2 Handed Axe was laying against the wall. In order to disguise the material there were no ornaments on it except for the grip that was made of leather. The Axe was 6 ft long, had a 2 sided head, and a spike at the top of the handle just like his previous Mr. Choppy. The edge on each side was 16 inches long which double the previous dimensions and all that material weighted about 220 lbs almost 2.5 as much as before.
The moment Rahz lifted the Axe he felt the massive weight of it and his mind was taken back to the first time he held a weapon. Rahz passed his thumb over the edge and just a small movement left a small cut in it.
WOAHH!!
"What do you think?" asked Rhaen while looking at his son holding his new best creation.
"It is awesome, I can't wait to swing it about"
"Good!! that is one of the presents, and your mother is bringing the other"
When his mother walk in she brought with her a fur coat that had no sleeves and was a lot taller than she was. The fur on the coat had a metallic sheen to it and it came with a hoodie made out of the Kobolds head.
Rahz immediately put it on and the moment he put the hoodie up he look exactly like the close combat elite that they fought over at the 16th room in the mine. The protection against slashing weapons was superb and if he was fighting a first evolution beast it would also reduce the damage of their claws.
"Alright, from now on I want you to practice your weapon skills for 2 hours a day in addition to your general training until we are ready to depart"
Rahz nodded his head and gave both of them a hug. He now felt that there might not be anything in that Willowdale town that could top his parents gifts.
The last week of training was extremely intense and the amount of stress place on Rahz body made him crawl to his bed every night. However, when the training was finished the speed and reaction time that Rahz could cope with was equivalent to a level 13 fighter and there were many other benefits that would be more apparent in the near future.
" Lets go Rahz I hate being late and don't forget the goods that we need to sell"
Rahz came out the door with a few bags full of copper and a very large stack of low level pelts over his shoulders and with a big smile on his face he made his way to the meeting location.