*Groan*
"Ah man my head," said Drak who had a massive migraine
"shit, how long have I been asleep?"
"About 2 weeks," responded Grak
"Oh, hello father, and 2 weeks huh... WHAT?!" yelled Drak in surprise
"Yup, ever since we had to knoc- subdue you, you have been asleep, to the point that your body didn't even twitch, for a second there we thought you had died, thankfully not," said Grak in a solemn voice
"So, w-what happened?" asked Drak
"Last I remember, I had achieved aura in the middle of my fight with Larek."
"Well, your aura was out of control, it was like you were a bottomless pit that kept pulling in more and more aura."
"And that poor child Larek, although might is right with us orcs as a species, it is different with children, especially when aura comes in to play, the poor guy was subjected to a massive pressure from your aura, even some of the adult warriors wouldn't have been able to withstand it."
"Haha, but still, I am unimaginably proud of you right now, not only are you able to use magic arts hence making you an Elementalist, but you have achieved the use of aura before your first evolution, on top of that you are only one year old!" boomed Grak in laughter
"haha..." Drak could only laugh awkwardly due to the fact that he was only able to bring out both of those abilities involuntarily.
...
Another week passed by and Drak had made a full recovery, body, mana, and aura-wise, he was back to the top of his ability.
Although he already had extensive practice with different weapons, Drak decided to go to his father and have Grak "teach" him the fighting style of orcs and more specifically, the fighting style his father employs
"Father, I want you to teach me how to properly wield a weapon." asked a determined Drak
"Haha, of course, but first, stop calling me father, it's too uptight for my liking, plus it doesn't suit the orc way, call me old man or just dad," said Grak while laughing
'Why would he want me to call him old man, he is only 20.' thought Drak
Considering orcs mature way quicker than humans and are fully grown at 5 years old, it would seem pretty weird that Grak had his first child at 19, same with Atika, Drak's mother.
Hell, Grak's older brother Tarnuk is 23 and only just had his first kid a year ago like Grak.
Well you see, the reason for their "late" procreation is due to the fighting that went on with Grak and Tarnuk's older brothers, this tribal succession war set them back a few years when it came to copulating.
normally, most orcs would have their first children around 15-16 years old, while Grak and Tarnuk aren't too much older than that, for orcs who are constantly fighting, every second counts.
A perfect example would be Grak and Tarnuk's younger and final brother, just two years ago during a human raid, Rak had been killed by a squad(10 men) of human soldiers, and he was only 13!
Considering that the average life expectancy of 32 (out of 200 plus years) within the tribe, which is lowering every year, it would make sense that Grak sees himself as an old man, back to the story.
"Alright old man, when will we start?" asked an impatient Drak
"Come meet me down in the training area in an hour, and don't worry, you didn't destroy it too much during your fight," said Grak, making sure to get a dig at Drak
'Tch, not my fault we live in a damn cave' thought Drak
...
As Drak walked through the training area, many of the young orcs, male and female, who were being trained by adult warriors, kept staring and pointing at Drak, at first he found it quite annoying but he eventually started tuning out their existence.
Drak reached the end of the open training area for group training and made his way to the sub-cave where his father was waiting for him.
After a little more walking, Drak reached the place where his father would teach him, it was a room that was about 10 x 10 meters in size, in the middle of the room stood Grak with a huge smile on his face.
"Finally! now we can begin!" boomed Grak heartily
"So what are you going to teach me, old man?" asked a skeptical Drak
Don't get him wrong, Drak knows that his father is one of, if not, the most powerful warrior out of all of the current clan heads, including the tribe chief.
Drak just wasn't sure what an orc of all people was going to teach a seasoned hunter like him, however, he was willing to open his mind to the ways of orcs due to some of the more devastating fighting styles he has seen from them.
The reason for adding current in there is due all of the former clan heads who are still living like Yongrik, have reached a point that only those who have hundreds of battles could see, and that is the 3rd evolution (I'm doing away with the tier system as to avoid confusion).
Take Yongrik for example, he is a 3rd Evo orc, like every other orc, after his first evolution he became an Orc Fighter, of course, the orcs do not know the name of the evolutions due to them not having status screens, they just know that they gained more power and crossed a threshold of sorts.
Anyway, after Yongrik's second evolution, he became an Orc Warrior, this is where the first split happens among orcs who evolve, Orc Warrior is the stage all warrior orcs go into first before more specialization happens.
Besides that, some of the more basic evolutions are Orc Worker, Orc Healer, Orc Apprentice Potioneer, and Orc Apprentice Mage.
Don't ask how these evolutions got their names.
There are also instances where orcs have skipped this "beginner" stage and jumped directly into a specialized evolution, or they got a secret, more powerful, evolution.
...
"Well, first I am going to assess how good you are at hand-to-hand combat, now, come at me with everything you've got, except for magic arts and aura of course." chuckled Grak as he got into a fighting position
"Don't blame me if I break a few of your bones old man." declared Drak who immediately planted and launched towards Grak
Seeing that Drak was going to make the first move, Grak got into position to intercept the blow that was to come, only for it to be for naught due to Drak throwing a feint punch towards Grak's lower left knee in an attempt to induce a stomach ache (it's real, look it up).
Registering where Drak was aiming for, Grak immediately shifted his stance to where his leg spun around in an attempt to catch Drak off guard, however, Drak was anticipating this.
The second Grak shifted his weight from his left left leg to his right so he could spin, Drak took the opportunity to launch a fast kick towards the back of the right calf of Grak.
Drak's kick connected due to Grak underestimating the speed at which Drak could move his legs, a now unbalanced Grak threw his momentum to the side in a bid to spin around and land on all fours.
And what do you know, it worked, Drak who witnessed the move was left in shock, who knew the large and bulky orcs could be this nimble, he sure as hell did not.
Drak launched back a few meters to create some space between him and his father and observed Grak to try and gauge his next move, however, much to Drak's surprise, Grak stayed on all fours and launched at him with an insane speed that was supplemented by the fact he launched off of all four limbs.
Watching Grak as he flew towards Drak, he almost taught he was fighting a tiger, the way that Grak had landed and now pounced was very reminiscent of a tiger in the way they jump on prey.
Deciding to take the cautious route, Drak quickly lunged out of the way of Grak's landing.
With a loud crash, Grak landed on the cave floor, once again on all fours, however, once he got his bearings, Grak stood back up and assumed a fighting position, with both of his arms out and his hands open in the form of claws, seeing this Drak now had a decent idea of what kind of style of fighting Grak employs.
It would be safe to assume that Grak's fighting style was derived from that of a tiger, it was almost reminiscent of the Shaolin tiger style, but in a more crude and fatal sense.
Wanting to try and dive deeper into the style Drak foolhardily charged at his father in an attempt to study the style while fighting against it.
This went on for another hour, Drak would send out a punch or kick and his father would redirect it away and launch a strike towards Drak's chest, he wasn't worried at all about flesh wounds or minor injuries due to the fact that orcs have a powerful healing factor.
...
In the blink of an eye, about a year had passed, and Drak had been learning under this father for the remainder of the time he had left before the tournament started, he was also trying to learn how to bring out his lightning manipulation again, but to no avail.
He did however learn how to better wield his aura to a point that he could now reinforce some of his attacks with a light amount of aura, however, he is still unable to use it to drastically enhance his body, only small enhancements to certain limbs for now.
Currently, Drak was sitting with his friend group that was formed a month after the battle with Larek had happened.
Instead of being scared of Drak, Larek was more so a fanboy now, he followed Drak everywhere to the point that he had to give up on shooing the boy away.
And where Larek went, so came his brother and their friends the Stone Spear Clan sisters.
So, for the past 8 months now they had been relatively stuck at the hip with Drak, all the way to the point that he decided to train them alongside himself.
It first started with them joining him for his exercises and building more endurance and muscle and later became them joining him in spars and mock battles to help each other grow more.
Now that they had been doing this for quite some time, Drak was more than confident in wining the whole tournament, in fact, he expected to breeze right through it.
And with much anticipation, the day finally came, it was the night before the tournament and Drak couldn't sleep, so he decided to do some las minute shadow boxing and he tried out some moves that he didn't want to use for his friends.
And with that, he finished up and fell asleep.