Chapter 6

It took an hour to reach the elven village.He suspected that without Bloom, he would have had trouble finding it even with the map. It was even more difficult to find than the ranger outpust, which surprised him at first.

It seemed that elves deliberately kept the ranger outpost more visible, creating a target for any troublemaker.

The abandoned village was also larger than he had expected. Not just practical tree houses, but nicely constructed homes that nonetheless blended with the forest, less practical and more beautiful.

No wonder elves were reluctant to leave their homes. Arvis had visited many noble houses that looked worse … though it usually had something to do with their owner believing gold as a construction material.

The structures were in good condition, which wasn’t a surprise considering it had been emptied just earlier today. However, a quick check was enough to show that all the personal items were gone.

The other difference was the trees. Unlike the forest on the other side of the gate, the trees here lacked that spark of awareness. To him, it worked as an advantage. Meaning, if push came to shove, he could use them as weapons.

Considering the enemy he was facing, every bit helped.

Arvis dismounted and led Thunder to what had clearly been a stable, though the elven version looked more like a sheltered grove than a building. Fresh water trickled from a stone fountain shaped like a leaf, and the feeding trough was carved from a single piece of pale wood.

Thunder investigated both with the suspicious thoroughness of an animal that had learned not to trust good fortune.

“Stay,” Arvis said, removing the saddle and the saddlebags, but he didn’t tie him down. “Rest. Eat. Be as miserable as you like, but don’t wander off.”

Thunder’s response was to snort dismissively before he walked to the fountain. Their relationship might have improved by shared survival, but Thunder clearly believed that it didn’t necessitate respect.

Arvis couldn’t help but smile.

He dropped his small personal bag in one of the ground-level rooms and removed his shield and arming sword as well. He kept his armor on, the Sword of Vengeance still at his waist.

He studied the map some more, glad that the map not only showed the elven villages but also most human settlements nearby, as well as some of the likelier spots people might retreat in panic, like large caves, concealed valleys, and other spots.

Sylvanas was more thoughtful than he realized. He owed her a big one.

South of the village, according to the map’s notations, there were at least four human villages within a day’s walk, as well as several smaller hamlets serving as logging camps and farming villages.

Those were his targets. But first, he had something more immediate to address.

He needed to train. Not the careful, measured practice he’d done in the elven settlement, but real training, truly pushing his Water Breathing training techniques to the limit.

He walked toward the edge of the village, where a small spring was bubbling. The perfect place. He crossed his legs and took a deep breath, intense enough to stretch his lungs in a way he had never experienced before.

The technique was deceptively simple in concept: break the body’s natural instinct to breathe shallowly, conserving energy. Water Breathing demanded the opposite: deep, controlled breaths that maximized air intake, turning his body into a furnace.

It also meant that he had to eat several times more, which would have been a big trouble … if it wasn’t for Bloom.

He repeated it several times, finally with enough awareness to measure the difference between the mana density, almost twenty times. That was with him still close to the gates. No wonder elves disliked traveling outside.

However, even as he thought that, he stayed in his place for an hour, immobile as his body started to brim with energy. Not at once. The breathing state was more difficult to maintain as he truly pushed it to its limits.

The first try, he wasn’t even able to maintain it for a minute; a great contrast that came with the skill telling him that true masters maintained that state unconsciously, their bodies adapting so thoroughly that the enhanced breathing became their default state.

He had to try six times before he was able to pass the minute mark … barely.

Luckily, he could sense that the physical improvement and recovery aspects didn’t come from mana, but from the air itself. It was a good change, as while he ultimately wanted to improve his magic skills, the focus was on the martial aspects.

He was facing an emergency.

It was also why, instead of exploring the benefits of Total Concentration Breathing for weeks like he would have preferred, he stood up, pulled the Sword of Vengeance, and slashed.

He stuck mostly to the first form, but unlike his practice back in the ranger encampment, he truly pushed himself to the limit. He barely managed to pull six moves before he had to sit down and use the unique breathing to recover.

The second whirlwind move, one was all he was able to pull before his muscles started to burn. Still, it was a valuable tool.

It would be enough for any reasonable engagement against the ghouls, but the problem was that he might not have the initiative. He needed to get better, and get better quickly.

He sat on a rock, breathing normally, and considered the problem. The issue wasn’t understanding. He knew exactly how the breath should flow, which muscles to engage, and how to regulate the rhythm.

The issue was his lung capacity. His lungs simply weren’t strong enough to sustain the pattern, and his diaphragm burned after a minute of sustained effort.

Luckily, the answer was included in the skill as well. Training gourd, which was a specialized tool designed to provide resistance during breathing exercises, forcing the lungs to work harder with every inhale and building capacity over time.

He didn’t have a training gourd. But he had Bloom, and a minute of focus was all he needed to create the perfect branch for it. It was amusing that he was using the Sword of Vengeance to carve the wood, hallowing the interior.

The result was crude. A wooden cylinder, roughly the length of his forearm, hollow, with a narrow opening at the breathing end that restricted airflow.

He put it to his lips and exhaled, pushing his lungs to the limit. The resistance was immediate and brutal. Pushing his breath into a sealed container created pressure that made his diaphragm work, just as lifting heavy weights would make his arms work. Ten seconds, and his chest was burning. Fifteen, and spots danced in his vision.

He lowered the gourd, gasping, every strained breath leaving a burning aftermath. Yet, after resting for a minute, he repeated. And again.

Talented trait helped.

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It was not a dramatic difference, not in any single moment he could point out. But the adjustments came faster, his mind making connections faster than he was used to, making some intuitive connections that he was not capable of.

Curious, he stopped his gourd training for a moment to cast several arcane bolts. The first attempt barely went two feet, as he had first. However, all he needed was to a dozen times for it to actually form correctly, hitting the target.

Arcane bolt was merely a cantrip, only fitting to hunt small birds, but improving that much was potentially fascinating. Not enough to turn him into a mage, not in a timeframe that mattered, but it did give him hope about actually integrating mana into his attacks.

He returned to his physical conditioning acts, running through the regimen the skill had provided, practicing the steps of the third form, which, even without adding the attacks, left his body aching.

The combination of power and flexibility it demanded was too much for a form named Flowing Dance.

Between sets, he practiced with the gourd, leaving him soaked with sweat. Yet, he moved, his muscles getting stronger, the difference small but noticeable. In merely a few hours, he had improved more than he would have otherwise experienced.

He stopped, but only because it was dawn. He had delayed until then, not only because he wanted to practice, but because he needed to operate during the day.

Not because the undead was somehow weaker during the night. He wished it were the truth, but other than the fact that they could ambush the unsuspecting easier, undead had no inherent preference toward the night. Bloom meant that he didn’t worry about ambushes.

It was simply easier to persuade people to follow a stranger during the day.

He didn’t take Thunder with him, as Water Breathing meant he could recover faster, which was more dependable, especially for a scouting trip. Unfortunately, he didn’t have to spend a lot of time finding what he was looking for.