Vincent was woken up by mud getting thrown in his face. He sat up and got ready to fight but saw it was Horton. He lowered his weapon and glared at him.
"Don't give me that look. Your awakening will worsen since you will not be in the Regorian Empire's sphere of influence. The stuff I will put you through might save your life."
"The awakening. What is it exactly? Jekel hasn't even told me what it was. I even have tried looking it up myself and haven't learned anything about it." Horton rubbed his chin.
"The short answer is the awakening will grant you access to the energy you are destined to use. I can't go into details because the system blocks all information. Not even people in the God Realm can bypass the system's rules. The awakening will expose you to the truth."
"The truth of what? What is so essential that the system will not let ordinary people know?"
Horton did not answer his question but gave him a look. Vincent dropped the subject and stared at Horton with a blank face. Horton grabbed Vincent by his shoulder and teleported him to the middle of the forest.
Vincent saw trees that seemed to reach the bottom of the clouds and saw animal markings bigger than him.
"This is where you will stay for the rest of your training. The awakening will take place in the Genormea solar system. There are ruins, war grounds, and everything there is at least ten times bigger than here in that place. That does not even include the increase in gravity." Horton took out a new training suit.
"This is the training suit you will wear with me. It is set to the amount of weight you will experience there."
Vincent looked at the training suit and saw the cracks it left on the ground. He looked up at Horton, and then, without a second thought, he took off running. "I love it when they run away."
He smiled, and with one step, he was in front of Vincent with his arm stretched out. Vincent ran into his arm.
*Thud*
Horton grabbed Vincent and dragged him back to the starting point. Vincent got dressed and had trouble standing up with the training suit. Horton tossed out a spear with some books. He also threw out a twin pair of short axes.
"Your next teacher will be Vera. Vera will officially start teaching you after your awakening, but you can at least practice the basics. The short axes are from me. I will teach how to wield them in this month."
"You expect me to learn how to survive in this forest, practice the spear and axes while sparring against you?" "I love it when a student picks up the knowledge quickly."
"Impossible. I will die first." Horton smiled a dark smile. Vincent caught chills. Horton whistled. "If I were you, I would be running. You do not want to be in front of a stampeding herd of goji."
Horton nimbly climbed the tree and sat on the branch. Vincent stumbled as he tried to run away. Every step was more demanding than swimming through a combination of syrup and glue.
Vincent reached the tree but had almost no strength to climb. He grabbed the twin axes and started chopping at a branch.
The axes were heavier than he expected, and his arms turned jelly. The only thing that kept him swinging was the sound of hooves and the trembling forest floor.
Vincent cut down the branch and lay behind it. The goji looked similar to buffalos but were ten times bigger and were green with brown tails.
Horton watched as the goji jumped over the branch Vincent cut down and didn't crush him. "Yo, good thinking, kid." Vincent sprawled his arms out on the ground. 'How the hell am I supposed to survive?' Horton ignored the question, picked him up, and put him on his feet.
"The first thing you will do is walk. Walking, running, and climbing will be your main focus for now. Once you complete those actions, you will practice tracking, gathering, and scavenging. The next week will be spent learning the basics of the spear and the axes. The last week will be you getting your ass kicked by me."
Vincent felt like crying, but no tears formed. "Do you hate me?" Horton laughed at his question. "I was one of the four people who voted yes. You are weak, but you have great potential. Besides, I can respect your goal of gaining strength." Vincent started walking around in circles.
"Woah. What do you think you are doing? I already mapped out the path for you to walk on." Vincent saw the route Horton wanted him to walk. His eye twitched at the length.
"Let me guess, you put traps all over it."
Horton patted him on his back. "If I were you, I would get walking. If you want to eat, you must be here before the sun goes to sleep." Vincent groaned and lugged his body in the direction of the path.