Thick thighs and horns plagued his dreams. When he awoke, he noted that his pants were slightly wet. He grumbled to himself, quickly finding off, before then turning his hand to flame to dry himself off.

He then stepped out to see many of the tribe up, and then when he was about to head out to train, he recalled what he had wanted to talk about the night before. He shook his head, it would be awkward to start today, but he gathered everyone around.

"Starting from the evening tonight, every able bodied person will join me in training their body. If you wish to start now, you can join me. It's time that we took things seriously, and I want to be sure that you can defend yourselves properly. This will be mandatory, though I'll be making it so you only have to join me in the mornings starting from tomorrow, but I recommend you also training in the evening." He hoped that everyone understood.

A few joined with him to jog and then do some calisthenics, though most were unable to do more than a few of each exercise. The guards had a better time of it, but only by a little. Ares instructed them how to complete each exercise, and instead of going to their limit, to do two less than their limit, then increase that number the next day by two if they can. He taught them a few stretches before they went to the nearby river to bathe.

Rori had joined him, and he had almost forced himself to the point of collapsing,

“It won’t look good if my right hand man keeps falling on his ass, you know? You shouldn’t tire yourself out, right now we need to build up your strength, and then eventually you can start tiring yourself out to near death.” Ares reached down with a hand and Rori took his forearm and they were pulled up.

"Have you memorised the exercises I've shown everyone?" Ares asked. Rori nodded in response. "Good. You'll be leading them from now on. I'm heading away to go and train, and with that, I'll leave the tribe in your care. I've been relying on you a lot, and I'm sorry for putting so much on your shoulders. However, I promise to you, once things have all settled, it will definitely be worth it." Ares bowed his head and then held onto their forearm, squeezing it. "I trust you, Rori."

"And I, you, Ares." Rori replied back and he nodded. It was then that Ares turned and left, making his way away towards the nearby mountains. He was going to miss everyone, but he needed to understand his powers.

He had ran the entire way, sprinting for hours. When he arrived at the mountain, where the forest met it at its base, he paused to rest. It was then that he struck himself in the legs, and then slashed at his left arm. He waited to see how long it took for him to heal, all the while going around and practising martial arts, or what he thought was martial arts. He punched at the trees, missing them by millimetres, and then focused on kicking at the bark, against trying to strike without actually kicking the trees.

After a little while he noticed the smaller cuts on his body had disappeared, and the larger wounds had healed. He cut at himself again, a number amount on his arm starting from small and each subsequent cut getting larger.

He continued punching and kicking, before finally uprooting a pair of trees and then carrying them around. They were far too light, so instead he grabbed a large rock nearby and then carried that around. He noted that his healing was about the same, but he tried to train his healing too. He continued to cut at himself as he carried the rock around for hours, sometimes dragging it, sometimes pushing it, but mostly carrying it as he measured his healing.

Once he had healed up, he stabbed himself through his hand, then shifted into flame before returning back to his hand. His wound had healed instantly. He continued to do this, even cutting into his leg, then shifting to flame and then back.

Each cut caused him to wince, a grunt escaping his lips. The sharp pain filled him quickly before it slowly died away. When he shifted to flame, the pain disappeared as it was replaced with heat, before then returning back to human, he cooled slightly.

Eventually he cut himself all over, and then shifted completely into a phoenix, then returning back to human. All of his wounds had disappeared.

'Hmm…' He fell into thought about his abilities. He wondered if he could heal more than just piercing or slashing wounds. This time he struck his leg, left his blade inside, and tried to shift. His mithril sword clung to him, and though he tried to shift, he was unable to. "Fuck…" He grunted aloud.

He then stabbed his arm with one of the other blades he had, shifting his arm to flame, watching the sword fall. "Oh…" He said, pulling the mithril blade out of his leg, shifting to heal, before returning it back to normal. He looked at his mithril sword. "You're a scary little thing…"

It was then he cut himself slowly along his arm with the other sword, which took a little effort in comparison to the mithril sword. He transported it to his ring before then concentrating on his arm. Slowly, but surely, he healed his wound. He tried once more with the mithril sword, and again, it healed.

So he had a slow passive heal that healed him over time. A quicker heal if he thought about consciously healing himself. Then a near instant heal with his shifting into phoenix form.

'Whoa…'

He kept practising all these techniques, even remarking to himself. "Man, I might be a masochist…" He thought about Lana hurting him a little, and he nodded. "Yeah, I am…" He continued this training for some time, still carrying the rock.

Eventually his body grew heavier and heavier with each heal, until he finally rinsed himself, switched clothes and then let out his others to dry. He leaned against a tree and yawned.

"Man, at times like this I wish I had a beast companion… something cool like a wolf, or a dragon, or a tiger, or a hybrid creature or something…" He smiled at the thought. He closed his eyes and sleep took him.

He continued his training, noting that his healing had improved by quite a bit. His concentration on striking and focusing on healing together had improved too, so had his strength. He needed to find a bigger rock to carry around.

After about half the day had gone, he switched his training to his phoenix form. He shifted into it and then began to fly around, scratching and striking trees, trying to see how his flames would affect the world. It seemed to work as normal flames, and he could spread them a fair way away. He decided to keep this training to a minimum since he didn't want to show off his trump card so quickly.

Then he went to find some food, finding some oranges fairly quickly, before he hunted down a deer. He cooked it using his flames and then stored most of it away. He had slipped breakfast so he ate quite heartily at dinner.

He repeated this training schedule of running, carrying the rock, and healing for the next few days until he was finally ready to return. On the morning he was about to depart, he felt a new sensation wash over him. Someone was watching him. He turned and looked around.

"Hello?" He called out. There was no response. He was about to go explore, when his thoughts went to his tribe. He dropped to a knee and then summoned a bit of snake skin and some meat, before then leaving.

He could always come back later.