When they arrived at the sunning rocks they found her with Ash Fur laying next to her. Ryan walked towards the two and gave his greetings "Hey Ash Fur how are you doing".
The blue scaled wolf looked at him and said, "I'm doing alright I was just talking to Wave Whip here, we get to patrol later in the day and I was wondering who we were going to take with us."
Ryan looked at the female wolf, she had a green pelt with vines and leaves surrounding her body. "Miss Wave Whip I was wondering if you could help us with our training."
She looked at him "Aren't you a little too small to be training, at your age you should be playing around and having fun".
Ash Fur began nuzzling her "Dear this is Viper Pup, he's the one that Flame Claw was talking about".
Wave Whip looked at him with interest "Oh so you're him, what can I do to help you".
Ryan looked at her and his tail began wagging "I was wondering if you could come with us for about 4 minutes".
She nodded and followed him. He led them to where there was a rock that was about a little bigger than him and pointed at it with his snout."Do you think that you can wrap a few vines around the rock and tie it around River Paw?"
They looked at him as if he were crazy but she nodded and once she was done River Paw had his stomach wrapped in vines that connected him to a heavy rock.
Ryan nodded "River Paw you keep running around it's going to feel harder but that's good you're going to get stronger. Tomorrow your legs will most likely hurt but that's because your body is changing."
The apprentice nodded and began running around the clearing. Ryan turned back to Wave Whip "Miss this might sound bad but do you think that you could make 40 strings of vines".
She looked at him and rested her snout on his head "How can I not when you are being so polite."
She made one vine that was 5 feet long "Is this size good she asked".
Ryan nodded and began to separate them in groups of three. In reality, he just needed 18 strands but he figured that he might as well ask for more as spares. After he had 6 groups of 3 strands he paired each pup.
He asked Fang Pup to bite into one end of the 3 vines and sit, then he went to the other end and began to walk forward. It took him a lot of effort to be able to drag Fang Pup forward, in the end, he was happy that the vine was able to hold on without ripping apart. That meant that they would be able to do the exercises without having to bother Wave Whip again.
After he gave his demonstrations the pups began to do the same. He lined them up and made them start at the same time turning the exercise to a race.
In the end, he was the first one to reach the finish point, the reasons were that he was in much better shape and because Fang Pup was the smallest out of all of them. When they had all reached the finish point he had them stop.
He pointed at one tree and looked at them "This time when one of us drags the other to that tree the other pup is then going to be dragging us back here."
When they raced again Ryan was able to reach the tree first but then Fang Pup had to drag him. They were the last ones to return to the point, the small pup looked at Ryan with his head, ears, and tail dropping.
Ryan walked to him "Hey Fang Pup don't be sad I'm one of the biggest and heaviest pups here so it's only natural for you to struggle when you carry me".
The Pup lowered his head even further and talked so softly that it sounded like a whisper "But we lost because of me."
Ryan raised the pup's head with his paw "Fang Pup the only thing that we should care about while playing this game is that we improve. As long as you drag me here faster than the time before that's the thing that matters. This will take time but if you are persistent and committed then you can end as one of the strongest.
After hearing him the small pup looked up with his tail wagging ferociously "Do you really mean it Viper Paw can I really become stronger than you."
Ryan couldn't help but smile and nuzzle the pup "If you stick committed and work harder than yes, but don't forget that it won't be that easy since I will also be doing the same. Also, you have to keep everything balanced. You need to rest your body some days as well doing light workouts or it can hurt your body".
The pup nodded and got ready to try again after they had repeated the process around 20 times the pups were about to fall from how tired they were. After he gave them break they laid down and began panting.
Ryan walked towards River Paw who was also taking a break. He was sitting and panting hard, while they were racing he had given the apprentice a few glances and saw that he was running the whole time.
"You should stop now, your body still isn't used to it yet. If you do more than you might not be able to walk tomorrow."
The apprentice nodded and tried to take the vines of but couldn't. Ryan asked him to follow him and then he began to walk towards the pups. "I need you to chew the vines from River Paw," he told them.
The pups stood back up with some difficulty and began to start chewing apart the vines. By the time they had finished the hunting party came back, they had caught a boar and a goblin.
His mother brought them a goblin and laid it in front of them all the other wolves began to gather. "This is your first time that you will be able to eat meat so make sure you eat up," she told them.
Ryan looked at the green creature "I'm supposed to eat that" he thought.
The pups began to start to wag their tails and they were about to charge and begin eating but Ryan stopped them. "Wait before we eat, we should put away the things that we used for our training," he said as he turned around and began dragging 4 vines back to the cave.
The pups looked at him and did the same. Ryan knew that after they ate they would get even more sleepy and they would have trouble putting all the vines away so he asked them to put them away before.
What Ryan didn't know was that he had just shocked his pack with the amount of obedience he had received from the pups. Even his father was looking at him with his jaw open, at their age, it was normal for no one to be able to order them around.
After they were done all the pups ran back to the goblin and started eating, everyone except Ryan who walked as slow as possible looking at the bloody green creature in front of him. Once he had gotten closer he closed his eyes and took a bite, he almost threw up when he felt the chewy and gooey texture.
After they had finished eating the only thing that was left was the bones and a ball where the heart was. Ryan looked closer at it and realized that it was the core. He grabbed it with his jaw and went towards Star Light.
"Mother what is this," he asked her.
She looked at the core and then back at Ryan "That's the stone that is found in all creatures of the forest, make sure you don't try to eat it though since it isn't edible."
Ryan began wagging his tail "Mother do you know if there might me be any more."
Star Light nodded "There should be quite a few if you look at the bone pile over there".
She pointed at a direction that was away from the sunning rock. He nodded and thanked her and began running back to the pups with the core in his mouth.
He looked at them and dropped the core "Let's put the bones over there in that pile after we are done with that I want you to help me find more things like this in the bone pile."
The pups nodded and began grabbing the bones and taking them to the pile.
After a few minutes of looking through the bones, they were able to find 37 crystal cores. He gave them two and told them to take them to the den and then take a bath so that they could clean up.
After they had left Ryan stared at the 36 cores "Hey old man you there."
Ping*: "Sorry there is no one present named Old man."
Ryan pounded his head on the ground "Sorry God now that I have the cores what do I do with them."
Ping*: "Lucky you, being able to get all those cores for free. The way that you can convert them for currency for your store is by consuming them hehe."
He froze "Are you serious."
Ping*: "Of course I am what you expect, it's not like you have pockets do you."
Ryan looked at all the cores "Oh what the hell consuming a few pills is nothing compared to eating raw meat or drinking milk from a wolf."
After he ate all 37 cores with difficulty he began to feel tired.
Ping*: "Go back to the den and take a break. Your body had a hard time converting so many cores at once. You will be able to see how much currency you got tomorrow morning."
Ryan nodded and began walking awkwardly the pups began to follow him to the den and they went directly to sleep.