Dropping his bag to the ground, Orion stretched his body. Taking his shirt off, he looked at himself in the dim light. His arms were lean, his muscles more defined than before despite shrinking. There were bruises and scars all across his body, mostly light wounds but some heavy. Kora had treated him several times during the trip, but the wounds still showed.

He spent what little time he had laying on the bed, one with a frame made of wood and a mattress made of giant leaves. Just as he dozed off, he heard a bell ringing from outside. Pushing himself up, he dressed himself. Each of the Seekers had a separate hut, his around 5 metres in diameter with a thatched roof. It was furnished with a bed, a wooden table with a drawer, and a glubber’s wax lamp on top of the table.

He stepped out at the same time as Lilith, who gave him a tired smile. Cyae and Kora already stood by Leo who held the bell. They had both changed into cleaner, lighter clothes, as had Lilith, singling out Orion from the get-go.

“Hurry up!” Leo shouted, his earlier calmness morphed into a stern anger. At least his temper fit his role as an instructor, Orion thought.

“Follow me,” the ginger Seeker said when they grouped together, bringing them to a towering tree.

From a glance, the tree looked like its neighbours, just a little larger. But as Orion gave a closer look, he noticed scars along the tree’s bark and around the branches.

“You’re lucky Jowler gave you twenty minutes of rest. Now, I want to see how fast you can climb this tree,” Leo said. He pointed at Cyae, “You go first,”

The short-haired Seeker didn’t fluster, instead, she immediately circled the tree, searching for the best place to start from. Once she found a branch low enough, she began climbing, swinging and pulling her way up, reaching the top in twenty minutes.

“Well, are you going to come down?” Leo roared, seeing her resting at the top.

Once she was back on ground, Leo looked at the group with disgust. “Pathetically slow, I can’t believe how much the Seekers have deteriorated. Since we don’t have all day, you three go up at once. Remember, fast, not slow,”

Since they had watched Cyae’s attempt, the three of them found better routes, each going faster than she had. Lilith was the slowest, using the same technique as Cyae, while Kora was faster due to her pure strength, allowing her to swing off branches with greater force. Still, Orion was the fastest because he was light and nimble, allowing him to zip up and down in fifteen minutes. Leo nodded at him and waited for the other two, Kora touching ground in twenty minutes and Lilith in thirty.

“Better, but still lacking. Not one of you could last against a 5-star solo, let alone a 6-star in a group.” Leo said. Receiving incredulous and confused expressions in response, he continued, “Yes, I know you’ve all killed 5-star monsters but you must be able to do that by yourselves now, otherwise you’ll drag down any team hunting a higher ranked monster. Based on how fast you went, Cyae, do 4 laps of the tree, Lilith 4, Kora 6, Jax 8. You’ve got 2 hours to finish your laps; I will make sure anyone who fails in that time starves tonight!”

The instant he finished, the four Seekers began climbing up the tree. Orion cursed his luck as he pulled himself to the top – he had considered it a speed exercise and had wanted to impress. If he had known it to be an endurance activity, he would have gone as slow as Cyae.

By the time the first hour passed, Orion was on track for dinner having completed 5 laps. The following hour, however, was a downhill battle. His muscles ached, and he feared they had torn at one point; his chest heaved and he was constantly out of breath. But worse than these was his mind. During the sixth lap, his mind went off track, the 100m drop down suddenly seeming awfully attractive. It was a challenge to keep his body in one piece, one he almost failed on his last lap as he tripped on the way down, diving through 50 metres.

Even when Leo caught him, he didn’t faint from shock, much to his misfortune. He suffered the following minutes as his body felt broken, simply broken. They must have somehow walked back to the main camp without his awareness because the next time he came to, he was gorging on charred meat by a bonfire. The more he ate, the less his pain became. After enough mouthfuls, his body felt refreshed, but looking down, he saw his hands trembled in fear.

Glancing around, he saw around twenty Seekers enjoying meals around the bonfire. He spotted Cyae convulsing on the floor, he spotted people pointing at him and her and laughing, he spotted Leo walking up to him with Kora and Lilith behind.

“You should feel full after eating that much 6-star meat. You’ve got too much energy now, I bet you want to spend that somehow. Come on, after me,” Leo said. He said similar words to Cyae, soon bringing the four back to the giant tree. “You look a lot better now. I want 5 laps from Cyae and Lilith, 7 from Kora, and 9 from you, Jax,”

Seeing them standing dazed at the enemy they believed they had destroyed, his mood changed. “NOW!” he roared, the anger behind his voice driving them up the tree.

Orion managed to do 5 laps before the pain rapidly mounted up. He vividly remembered the sixth one, the searing pain and his pride at finishing it. The rest of his memories were fuzzy: some from his seventh lap, slipping from a branch; some from his eight lap, losing his grip and falling, and one from his ninth lap, him heaving under the lowest branch of the tree, headstrong on pulling himself up while his body denied him.

When he awoke the next day, somehow in his hut, he didn’t see the same nightmares as always, the ones of the fateful day his life had changed, the day his family’s lives had been reaped. Instead, he awoke to a lack of sense from his limbs, feeling alarmed as he desperately tried to move the limbs that had turned to stone overnight.

Eventually, Leo came in and piggybacked him to breakfast, where he met and fell in love with his limbs all over again, swearing to them he would never push his body so hard. It seemed Leo didn’t care for Orion’s promises as he forced the four to lift stones all day. Orion was the weakest, Lilith just above, followed by Cyae, and Kora who was far above. It turned out Leo didn’t give a shit about their strength either as he pushed them all to breaking point anyway.

Even when Orion tried to go against the man by plopping on the ground and swearing not to move, Leo would just take him to the food court where the temptation for food was too much for Orion to resist. The second he was full, he was lifting stones again, breaking his back along the way.

The day after that was dedicated to willpower building. Leo took them to a waterfall where torrents of water cascaded down to a ferocious river. There was a rope fastened just above the river which they were meant to hang from, taking the force of the water with their bodies and not letting go. When they did inevitably let go each time, they were fished out. Death was a close companion throughout the training, and while Orion never held hands with the bony man, there were times he swore he saw him while sinking, his breath depleting by the second.

Even when refreshed by the meat, Orion felt the impulse to run from Kajan to live as a hermit somewhere. But when seeing the others go through the same trials as him, seeing them endure, it pushed him past boundaries he had thought immovable. It was only much later he would learn Leo had an equal part in keeping him in the torturous training, after all, the man had gained peculiar skills from his awakening.

On the fourth day, Leo told them it was sense training, grinning after that. Along with their usual 6-star monster meat, they were fed a mix of leaves, stalks, and mushrooms. They then entered a simple obstacle course, told to complete it in a limited time. While Orion could swear he saw Death the day before, he knew for certain he met the Reaper during senses training, multiple times at that.

Their lives at Kajan carried on like this, their trainings repeating regularly for an immeasurable amount of time. Immeasurable because Orion gave up on counting after a bit, instead, solely using his energy to face his days. Leo spiced up the trainings as time passed as he added new sorts such as speed training, agility training, weapon training, and such.

The day when they would awaken neared, and soon enough, without any of them realising, they were thrust into the Seeker Guild’s greatest secret.