Days passed in the blink of an eye, and the normally optimistic and joyful boy had finally cracked.
His whole world was collapsing.
He had been sitting in the same spot, the only thing he had been doing was either eating the mana crystals when he was hungry or balling his eyes out.
At the end of the day, he was still a 15-year-old boy.
Throughout his sulking, certain thoughts went through his mind.
[What's the point of living.]
[It should've been me, why did they have to die.]
[I just want to die!]
He slammed his head hard into the cave wall, blood starting to drip from his head. Scratching away at the cave wall with his fingers, ripping off the skin from his fingertips.
He kept banging his head on the wall, constantly. Harming himself more and more until a certain piece of paper fell out of his pocket.
The boy quickly stopped what he was doing, picking up the paper. It was Edward's will.
The boy with teary eyes sat down and read the letter, the paper slowly being stained by the blood from his fingers. Reading the will slowly calmed the boy down, allowing him to clearly think again.
He couldn't give up now, he did have something he wanted to do in life.
To avenge those who had died, and to protect others who were just like him. He mustn't give up now. Aura began erupting from him as he made the conclusion.
He took a deep breath before doing some pushups, if he wanted to get out of this cave somehow, he needed to defeat that golem.
He couldn't rely on suddenly learning how to use a new element like he did with his wind magic, he had to work with what he had.
Ryan immediately began doing handstand pushups, planning to work on his physical power some more. He had as much time as he wanted to train.
And he planned on using it.
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2 months had passed since the boy started training. For the past 2 months, Ryan had solely focused on physical training. Granted, he was already super strong physically, but he wasn't satisfied with his current strength.
He wanted to become strong enough to toss the golem around like it was a toy, but to do that he would need to become a whole lot stronger.
He began punching on the cave wall like a punching bag, planning to now increase his punching power.
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6 months had passed since the boy started training, by this point the boy didn't even notice the passage of time. He knew he was 16 years old now, but he wasn't sure when he turned 16.
During this time, he had gotten an interesting idea. If he could coat his weapon in magic, why couldn't he coat his fists with it too?
That's how he came up with a new attack. One where he could condense wind around his fists, creating a sort of explosion effect. He tried doing the same with light but ended up burning his hand. He even tried coating other things with light to the same effect, it burned his hand.
He concluded that his light magic had gotten too strong for him to just touch right now, so he had to stick with the wind fists for now.
He planned on fighting the golem today, trying to test out his strength. As soon as he entered the room with the altar, the golem immediately fired its laser, which the boy promptly dodged using wind.
The golem begins running towards the boy, who runs to it as well. Ryan coats his fists with condensed wind, jumping up to clash fists with the monster, who ends up overpowering the boy, sending him flying.
Ryan uses wind to soften his landing, concluding that he currently isn't strong enough to deal with the golem.
He quickly escaped from the altar, planning to continue training some more.
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A year had passed since the boy had started training. His daily routine included training, a duel against the golem, and then a nice mana-crystal "meal" to end the day.
After a whole year of eating the mana stones, the boy had gotten used to the taste.
Overall, not much had changed, except for the boy's personality. He was a lot more levelheaded and serious now, but still carefree.
He was currently working on increasing his pain tolerance, doing so by harming himself in the most uncomfortable of ways.
I'll spare you the details.
It was working, but the process was slow, and would take him a few more months to see results.
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A year and a half had passed since the boy had started training, and progress had been made.
His duels against the golem had been a lot closer, he was able to damage it a little. He still didn't have enough firepower though.
Currently, he was working on his long-range attacks while fighting the golem.
The golem stomped on the ground, breaking parts of the floor under it. It began using earth magic to shoot stones at Ryan.
However, instead of using wind magic to deflect the stones, Ryan opted to use light magic instead, shooting many light beams at the rocks, managing to destroy most of them before they could reach him.
The blond-haired teen immediately leaps toward the golem, coating his fists with compressed wind before punching the golem in the face.
BOOOOOM!
The attack sent the golem back a few meters.
Satisfied with the punch, the boy walked away, planning to train some more.
He knew that he could defeat the golem pretty easily now, but there was still one thing that he wanted to learn how to do.
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BOOOOOOM!
That was the sound of Ryan's light-coated fist hitting the cave wall. The punch created a huge dent in the cave wall, satisfying the boy. He could finally coat his hand with light energy, after around 2 years of constant training.
The now 17-year-old boy was currently eating his final mana-crystal "meal" before his final duel with the golem. He could now eat a whole mana crystal like it was nothing.
How was he able to eat mana crystals in the first place?
We may never know.
Once the boy had finished eating the mana-crystal, he took out Edward's will one more time.
He clutched his chest tightly, and images of Rowan began flashing through the boy's head.
He was going to kill that white-haired bastard soon, but first, he had to get out of here.
It took him a few minutes to reach the room. Once he entered, the golem once again shot lasers at him. Instead of dodging, however, the boy shoots light beams back, countering the golem's lasers.
The teen used wind magic to fly up to a higher position, shooting many more light beams down at the golem who tried to swat them away. The light beams explode when they make contact with the golem, damaging it.
Ryan doesn't let up the assault, accelerating towards the giant using a strong gust of wind. The golem tries to use its laser eyes to damage the boy, but the boy maneuvers out of the way midair, coating his fists with compressed wind.
BOOOOOM!!!
Ryan's punch cracks the head of the golem slightly and launches it back many meters.
The boy begins charging a light laser midair while the golem stands back up and starts charging a light laser from its eyes.
The two launch their lasers, and the two beams of destructive light collide forming an explosion of blinding light.
BANG!!!
The two continue their beam struggle, with Ryan slowly but surely pushing the golem's laser beam back until,
BOOOOOM!
The laser beam collides with the golem's face, blowing its head clean off.
Ryan slowly flew back down onto the ground, a bit disappointed. He didn't get to try out his new laser fist.
The teen walk up to the altar, looking at the green gem that he tried to touch earlier. He took a deep breath and reached out his hand, quickly pulling the gem from its spot expecting something bad to happen.
But nothing happened.
Ryan sighed a breath of relief, putting the gem into his pocket.
As soon as he did that, the ground began violently shaking, knocking the teen off his feet.
"Oh fuck off!" He cursed.
Green light erupted from the altar, slowly expanding to cover the room. Ryan tried to escape but noticed that there were no longer any exits around.
The boy tries to use his light laser to push the green light back to no avail. The whole room was covered in a blinding green light which made Ryan sleepy.
Ryan tried to stay awake, but in the end couldn't contain his drowsiness, falling unconscious.
[End of Labyrinth Training Arc]