A young boy sweated profusely on the ground. He wasn’t sure that there wasn’t also blood in the mix. It felt like he had been at his for hours. What time was it? The artificially lit space made it hard to gauge the passage of time. Could it have been four hours, five? Surely not more than that, right? Breath came in ragged pants as he tried to stand and stumbled, almost pitching face-first into the sand at his feet, bent at the waist with elbows transferring all his upper body Weight to his thighs, back bent at ninety degrees. Am I so far gone that even straightening my back is too much? It seemed so, the young man was by no means mentally weak, but this just seemed like too much to ask of his already battered body.

After a few minutes of attempting to catch his elusive breath and slow his racing heart, he made another valiant try at standing. If he could stand, he could continue. If he failed here, no, he couldn’t think like that. He would not ruin this, but as if in counterpoint, the voice in his head screamed; The weak always stay weak! He had heard that voice a lot more of late. Ever since he had resolved to start this laborious process, he used that voice to persevere in the hardest of times, much like now.

‘Why don’t you use my power? You know you have it, and you could use it to stand tall and proud. And then you could show them all that you are not weak, that you are stronger than they know. You know the reservoirs of power you have hidden deep within you. I have seen them, and I can tap them!’

From the darker recesses of his mind, he had gained this voice on the day of his axe training. That day was the pivotal moment of his young life. It might have been an easy thing to brush off for anyone else, but those people did not understand what it was to be weak, to feel powerless within your own body and watch as it wasted away around you. And then the contrast when raw power flooded those very wasting muscles and allowed you to not only reach for but achieve what had been impossible. That feeling was irreplaceable, a necessity for one such as this boy.

“If you use that power again, I will stop training you! You have to do this under your power!” The words rang in the boy’s mind, and he knew them and had had them carved into his psyche on his first day of training.

Today was the fifth.

Each subsequent day had pushed him further and further beyond what he thought possible. Until his only hope to keep up was to use his latent power. They were his emotions were they now? Would he not be using his influence in that situation then? Something told him that the trainer would not be happy with that misdirection and twisting of the truth. She would call him out on it, but worse, she might follow up on her threat, and what he feared, she would stop his training. He could not let that happen. For now, he would allow the beast to sleep.

“Enough! The woman standing outside the training circle commanded. Her sharp voice used to control said she expected obedience. So, she did not repeat herself.

Two older people, one male and the other female, stepped away from the boy. No! I can’t let this much be all I can handle. I need to push myself! Otherwise, I will forever remain weak!

With the two-stepping away, it had given the boy a little more space to make his stand. In a herculean effort, he attempted to straighten and collapsed onto his knees in the dirt. It seemed he had indeed reached his absolute limit. It proved too much for him, it seemed. A snarl painted his otherwise delicate features. I am weak! The twisted facial expression changed to a grimace, then determination; it would not cripple him. If there was frailty now, that just meant there was room to grow, and power would follow.

Knees in the dirt and head bowed, he silently prayed to Ursa for strength. With his prayers and efforts, he would become as strong as the soil, the ground that propped him up and everything else on this planet, never showing weakness even for a moment. Only then could he look back on a life without regret.

“Boren, well done! You have done well!” the boy looked up, confused. But I collapsed? How can this be something to be celebrated? This weakness? The woman with the sharp voice applauded with genuine enthusiasm. He had never seen such an expression on his mother’s face, usually so severe. “I wanted you to push yourself, to show that you are capable of more than you thought possible. I pushed you on the first day and then further each day after that. You have surpassed my expectations. Even with your starting handicap, you have done well. Yes, your luck plays a role, but you can overcome that. What is the first law?”

“I…thank you, mother.” Boren, winded and beaten and exhausted beyond thinking, collapsed his entire body to the dust and grinned.

It was unbelievable. The Prince thought the improvement in Axe Wielding and Strength was impressive for one afternoon’s effort pushing to the brink. But, lying in the dirt and looking at his improved stats and Skills showed how short-sighted he had been.

The last few days under his mother’s careful eye had yielded a marked improvement of his physical stats through consistent effort. Strength, Vitality, Endurance and Resistance had all improved by anything from two to four points each. On top of that, his melee weapon Skills had all improved. Brawling, which he focused on, had risen to a whopping fifteen! And yet, none of them had been above three before. Both Knife Fighting and Brawling were already above level ten in a few short days. He had just needed to apply himself in the right way.

The way his mother described it was odd. It amounted to visualization, seeing yourself as the weapon's wielder and then taking the appropriate steps. The melee weapons Boren was using had anti-gravity spells on them to make them lighter than usual. And even though he had to endure the humiliation of using these types of lightened weapons, showing everyone he sparred with the extent of his weakness. The results were undeniable. When one has nothing to lose, humiliation is not a very high price to pay, though, is it? I just need to keep going for a short while longer. Then I can get mother to remove the spells.

The sweat, very often blood and tears of frustration that had followed each gruelling training session, had been worth it. Boren couldn’t help feeling that he was still weak, and each day that ended in him collapsing onto the training ground floor filled him with the fear that his mother would discover that he was indeed a failure and not worthy of training.

It had confused him when she had applauded his efforts instead of chastising him at the end of day five. The other four days, she had come in and watched a short part of his training, enough to see him collapse to the ground and then walk away. This time he had seen her come in and was determined to show what he could do….only to collapse again. Was that all I needed to do? Push beyond what I expect of myself? If I had known before. I would have done this long ago. I thought I would be hurting myself more than helping. I have never been afraid of hard work; bring it on!

All the training had been with Melee weapons and Ranged while he was encouraged to train Magic independently now that he had mastered the basics. He had not been slacking in that department either, though, staying up until the early hours to increase spell level and damage, making sure to completely drain his Mana pool each night then again with whatever he recovered in the morning. Soil Kinesis levelling up twice had been his reward.

It had not all been warm sunshine on a bed of wildflowers. Just as Boren’s mother had said, there had been a cost. I am willing to pay the price. On the third day, he had gained a new Skill, Pain Resistance. As he had continued to push himself and his trainers continued to push him in turn, he had felt a dull throbbing ache forming in his bones. Each day the weariness and pain had intensified. It finally culminated in this Skill at the threshold of his tolerance. But gaining the Skill, which might have been a warning to most that they were pushing too hard, only served as a spur to kick his training into a higher gear. He pushed harder, taking advantage of his ability to take on incredible pain and using it to work harder. The pain reduction did nothing to reduce the damage he endured during training, but it did help reduce the crippling effect.

Medics came to collect his prone form to take him to his bed. His mother was already gone.