A few days after his talk with Evans, Neal spent majority of his time resting. The moment his head connected to his bed, he began his sleeping streak. He was so exhausted that he was out cold for three days straight. This was something that the others expected to happen.
After waking up from his slumber, he proceeded to take the bath he so desperately needed. Being honest with himself, he missed the feel of the cold water on his body.
Even after this, the soreness in his body was something that needed more time to vanish. During this time though, he began his share of the harvesting work the others started earlier. Without avoiding any of them.
The conversation he had with them was nothing special; however, it was nice to talk to someone for a change.
"Hey Neal, how are you feeling?" Maya asked from the side.
That particular day, Luke, Maya, Marcus and himself were busy in the field. Evans and Xavier on the other hand went to do a check on the numbers of the monsters in the dungeon.
According to them, this was a usual thing for them to do. Usually they counted the monsters from afar, avoiding any form of conflict.
Neal from time to time felt like he didn't know much about the Forge tower itself. This turned out to just be one of those things he was ignorant about.
"I am fine. Just a little sore all over."
"Well that is good," she stated before changing her once cheerful face to an angry one. "Hope you have learnt your lesson. You better not try something like that ever again!"
"Understood ma'am," Neal responded with an awkward laugh. Naturally, he wouldn't dare. Plus this time they gave off a vibe that they would kick his butt if there was a next time.
The chastising did not end there as the others would go on to give warnings of their own.
'I wasn't alone after all,' The thought slid into Neal's head as he rubbed his hair in an awkward manner.
While he was still fighting in the dungeon on his own, the thought of why they did not try to stop him crossed his mind several times. Deep down, he felt it was probably due to the fact that they never cared about him in the first place. It was obvious now that he was wrong.
The rest of the time was spent talking about what they assumed their previous lives to be in the past. Xavier and Evans soon returned with stern faces on. This didn't stop Neal from approaching his friend though, when the two went their separate ways.
After their conversation some days ago, Evans proceeded to explain how he intended to help Neal in his journey to become stronger.
From his theory, he was concentrating on the wrong things, hence his inability to grow in strength properly. According to his explanation, he needed help from different members of the group instead.
Neal didn't really understand what he meant by all of this; however, he believed he would find out soon enough. Coming face to face with him, Evans stern appearance soon turned into a soft one.
"You are here. I guess we should start training, that is when your training partner gets here though."
Neal didn't mind this as he proceeded to warm up and stretch. It didn't take too long before his sparring partner arrived.
"Maya!?" He exclaimed in surprise.
"Yes, she is your training partner for today."
He did not have any problem with the idea of him training with her; but, he felt she wanted to use the opportunity as a means to punish him for what he did.
"Neal, why don't you try to punch Maya," Evans suggested out of nowhere.
"What!? But why would I even do that!?"
On observing that he said nothing more, Neal surveyed Maya. At the moment, she had no armor on her. Tying her long brown hair, she stared at him with her emerald green eyes, filled with excitement. Ready for him, she stood in stance, hopping from side to side.
This in turn drew his eyes to her chest which Neal believed was more prominent than the fight itself. Flustered, Neal shook his head, getting rid of the perverted thoughts in his mind.
From her behavior, it was clear that she had no objections against Evans suggestion. There was no reason why he should refuse.
"Okay, here I come," he alerted her.
Neal didn't know too much about the Combat class Monk; however, he was aware that their weapons were their fists. This was from the fact that she was
weaponless the previous time in the dungeon.
All things accounted for, he was sure of one thing. Her fists were nothing but lethal.
Dashing towards Maya at high speed, Neal swiftly got into her blindspot. Preparing to strike, he was caught off guard by a quick response on her part. In that brief moment, Maya's hand connected to the hands Neal used to defend.
This resulted in a drifting motion which he eventually broke with a flip backwards. Squatting, Neal's eyes darted towards his hands. They felt nothing but numb as they shook abnormally.
There was no denying it at this point. Maya had instinctive reflexes on par with his fast movements. Apart from that she had a massive amount of force behind her punches, something that only made things worse.
"Why are we doing this again?" Neal couldn't help but ask.
"You have to learn how to take hits from strong monsters. If you don't you will get knocked out anytime you get hit even once by them."
From that, he could actually understand what this fight was all about. Besides, in his previous battles, he had always lost from one strike from the enemy. Though this meant this training in particular would be painful.
"What's wrong!? Don't tell me you are scared! Come at me!" Maya attempted to rile him up.
With no objections from Evans this time, Neal decided to give it another shot. Wagging his hands all over the place, he attempted to restore feeling to them.
Charging once again, this time he moved around trying to avoid a direct confrontation with her. This in turn gave her a hand time landing a punch.
"Not bad Neal. That's some good footwork there," Maya complimented as she threw yet another punch at him.
Neal felt as if he was manipulating the fight, just as he wanted it. This on the other hand only annoyed his opponent. Maya taking a stance he had never seen before resulted in a cautious retreat from Neal.
This turned out to be for naught as she suddenly tugged his shirt with brute force, launching a punch to his face. Spittle fled his mouth as he collasped to the ground, wallowing in pain.
"Why did you hit him so hard! I told you to hold back!" Evans yelled, surprised at her actions.
"But I did.."
Neal on the other hand could not make sense of their conversation. His vision was blurry, his ears ringing and he was shaken mentally. It felt worse than any hit he had received so far.
One thing was clear to him, it would take sometime before he got used to this.