Slowly a week passes, and I've been learning many things. On the evenings Goba teaches me how monsters evolve, and honestly, the evolve under an unlimited amount of circumstances. But the most important thing for a Monster Trainer is to guess what he needs to make his partners evolve in a way he wants, and what I understand from Goba, that depends on a lot of gut feeling and luck.
Goba ate a fruit that smelled like blood, and his bloodline awakened. But that his demon bloodline awakened was just luck, he could also have awakened the Ogre bloodline and became huge and physically strong. But his Demon bloodline awakened, so his awareness became way stronger and he can even sense the energy that flows in the air.
But the main lesson is to use your imagination to use those things that you think are best for a monster to become what you want. And those things can be many things, like bathing in a special mud or blood, eating flesh, fruit or herbs, or even getting great stress in a really hot or cold environment.
About the scythe training, from three days ago till this morning we didn't just train with the scythe. After warming up and sparring for about an hour or two, Goba made me juggle. At first I thought it was fun, and under Goba's teaching it didn't take long to learn how to juggle with three stones. When I got the hang of that he thought me how to juggle with big sticks.
The next day he learned me how to juggle them both at the same time. I could juggle with three stones and three sticks at the same time whem we stopped yesterday. This morning however I needed to juggle stones with my right and sticks with my left. If I hadn't done my meditation practices properly until now, this would have been impossible the technique to catch and throw stones and sticks is completely different and so I made mistakes. Many mistakes. I hurt my fingers and arms by letting stones and sticks fall on them when I mix it up, I completely miss them, I sometimes even forget to move a hand. I thought I was the hang of thinking about two things at the same time, but I was wrong, so wrong. When things move it gets so much harder.
And I think Goba feels pity for me cause he makes me stop earlier than I expected.
"Stop and come, we'll go wash ourselves. After that we'll go into the forest, you don't have to meditate today."
Into the forest! I haven't been anywhere else besides the shed, the clearing in front of it, and the creek. Maybe I get to put my practice to use! I'm excited.
"What will we do in the forest? Will I get to try out my practice!?"
I was tired, but now I'm excited and jumping around. I've always been scared of the forest, but what's there to be afraid of with Goba by my side?
"Yes, you'll get to practice your scythe skills against monsters. And who knows, maybe you'll find a monster that you really like, we could try to win it over."
Yes, we need to win over monsters, all of them have their own will, so you can't just take them with you and hope that one day they'll just accept you. You'll need to make them respect you, or help them out with their problems. Sometimes it's enough to just give them the feeling that they'll become strong by following you.
"Yess, let's go!"
I'm excited, these days I'm more excited about anything really, I feel like everything I do brings me closer to my goal.
And so we walk towards the creek, and the forest beyond it. On the way Goba asks me things about things like what to do when I encounter an unknown monster, things he taught me during this last week. I think it's great to have a monster teach you to be a monster trainer, he knows a lot about monsters in general.
After washing up I look at Goba, waiting for him to let me run into the forest, looking for my first monster to form a contract with.
He scowls at me mockingly, it's not that strange that I'm excited to see something new, right?
"First, we need to hide our smell, we do that by making ourselves smell the same as the earth."
Without further ado he just drops on the forest side of the creek and rolls around. We just washed up, but he's making himself dirty again, do I need to make myself dirty too? I'd prefer not to, I discovered that I like being clean.
"Roll around, or I'll make you smell like the earth."
This feels like a threat, and his disinterested tone makes it feel even more scary. So, roll around too, at least my clothes can't get any more beat up then they are already.
When I'm all dirty again I stand up, taking away a branch that's sticking to my face. Ugh, there has to be another way to get rid of my smell.
"Now we can go into the forest, remember how I taught you to walk. Whenever I hear a twig break, or just too much noise in general you'll know it."
Goba really is less nice when he's teaching, and when he says that I'll know it, he'll flick my ear. And even though it doesn't sound too bad, it hurts a lot. On some days I feel like my ears are on fire and more puffy then my cheeks.
I stretch all my muscles and joints, one pops, I'm glad I did it now. This saves me one ear flick. I close my eyes and steady my breathing, slow breaths through my nose. I crouch slightly to stay lower to the ground. And I hold my scythe with the blade diagonal behind my body so it isn't wider then my body, this prevents it from being caught in bushes. Then I set my first step, my feet rolling from heel to toe.
*Snap*
"Ouch!"
My ear got flicked, just under my toe there was a small branch buried under wet leaves, I didn't see it. Damnit!
I focus again and start walking, this time I focus slightly more on the ground, but I still look around for tracks and other signs of life.
After walking for about five minutes I notice something strange, small cuts that go through leaves and bark. The leaves just aren't severed and you need to look really carefully to notice the little damage it did on the bark.
At first I thought it was a special kind of insect, but as its just in certain areas a few meters from each other, and the direction of the cuts are always the same, it would be weird for it to be bugs.
I try to determine in what direction it's going and I pick a way, I can't really put my finger on it, but it really seems to be going that way.
After about half an hour following the path of tiny cuts I notice that the cuts get really fresh, so I get excited. I move as fast as I can without making a sound, and Goba is behind me, silently following me. If I didn't look around at times, and I didn't get my ear flicked every time I made a mistake I wouldn't have known he was there.
After a few more minutes I slow down, all the tiny cuts are really recent now. After I walked another 100 meters I see a clearing, and in this clearing is the most special monster I've ever seen.
It's just sitting there with his shiny gray fur, sitting in the middle of the clearing with his back towards me, small rays of sunlight shining through the trees all around it.
And honestly, it doesn't look that special, but the air around it seems to be sparkling! What could that be? At the very least I know that it's nice to look at.