Chapter 16:

While I was still a bit stunned at the fact Alex was a girl, she started telling me about how the last month went for her. She was taught a new method of absorbing, she explained that since darkness elemental power is all around she learned to absorb it like a sponge. Take it all in and absorb as much as possible before it is squeezed out. Once she finished learning her new absorption technique Scarson made her continuously keep her gravity manipulation on herself. Sort of like training in higher gravity at all times, while practicing her elemental control.

Her quests sounded equally as hard as mine. Her first one was against an entire nest of harpies. She had to bait them in and once they got close enough use her gravity manipulation to force them to the ground. Even once they were on the ground they were not weak. She had to use every new ability she learned to fight them. Her second quest was fighting an orc, while not the most intelligent their strength is incredible. The one she fought was also a fire elemental orc which only increased its strength. Apparently she was almost killed on the initial attack because the orc’s axe went through her own sword and cut off one of her arms. But, she had a healer there with her that took care of her. She was able to kill the orc by shattering it’s knees, and slowly beheading it..

After she completed the second quest she started to feel a thirst for more elemental power, which meant that she was about to evolve. She decided to stay away from me for a bit because she wanted to surprise me with her new evolution. During her evolution period she constantly absorbed darkness element. At one point she lost focus and the element inside of her went wild, but luckily with the help of Scarson and the healer she was saved. I realized while Alex was telling her story that Jessica was not only helping me, but also Alex and I am guessing Robin to. I told Alex the healers name, and that she also helped me. Alex seemed to really like Jessica, especially because she was there to make sure I wouldn’t be in danger. Alex proceeded to tell me about her final quest.

She said that when she first heard what her quest would be she doubted it. She had to clear out a cave of hobgoblins. She thought it was a joke because compared to the two previous quest this one would be easier. She wasn’t tricked like I was on the first two, instead she was told flat out they would be hard. But with this quest she was. When she arrived at the cave she realized that it was not just a small cave of hobgoblins, but instead an entire village. They totalled around a hundred. Unlike my fight where there were a ton of spiders, but they were relatively weak, she had to fight a lot, but they were as strong as her.

Alex had to fight the entire village with no healer, and only was barely about to succeed. The initial fights were tough, but they her opponent's couldn’t fight well while under the extra gravity. Slowly the enemies got toughing while she was only getting more tired out. She had to limit her movements, but increase their proficiency. Each swing of her sword had to kill, and each dodge had to be by a smaller margin. Unfortunately hobgoblins that could control their element started fighting. Fire, earth, and air attacks started raining down on her. She had to dodge more and attack less which only caused her to become more tired out.

She started sending out waves of dark attacks to counter them, but they only caused shallow wounds on the stronger hobgoblins. So instead she had to undo her gravity on herself, the burst of speed and power was able to surprise the stronger hobgoblins and she was able to take out a good portion of them before they formed a strong enough counter attack. Alex then started to fluctuate the gravity around her. The varying speed caused the hobgoblins to be caught off again, but the control it took to do this was immense.

The constant changing of gravity unfortunately was not enough, Alex had to mix in range dark attack, traps, heavy blows, and shading her image. The exhaustion was quickly catching her, but she needed to complete this quest. She pushed herself further and further, and when she got to the last hobgoblin he was crushed by the gravity around Alex. Through the constant changing in gravity she was able to improve her ability, and in the end the pressure was twice as much as when she started.

When she completed the quest she passed out from exhaustion and over exerting her element. Then she woke up in the healing ward, and that leads up to now. “Oh ya, I was also able to increase the size of my shadow storage, but not as much as I would like. Apparently I have little talent in the shadow area of the darkness element, which didn’t help my training as Scarson being a shade meant that his main area of darkness is the shadow portion.” Alex finish her story telling with a shrug of the shoulders show that it can’t be helped.

“Sounds like you had it really rough, was the head a tough trainer?” She spent a lot of time with Scarson, so she should know what his personality is like. Alex thinks for a second, “He is a really tough trainer, he doesn’t hold back at all, and I am constantly covered in bruises. But, he is always giving me advice on how to improve. Which is really nice.” Seems like he isn’t too bad. Kind of reminds me of Brock, but I think that Brock is a bit more sadistic. I am sure he enjoyed watching me panic when I realized how hard my quests were.

“So Boss how did your month go? I am guessing you also had some really tough quests.” Alex moves closer to me, and I catch a glimpse down her shirt. She is currently wearing a white gown that is used for healing ward patients and it seems to be a bit too big on her. While she did grow when she evolved, she is still only around five feet three inches. “Huh? Ah do you like what you see Boss?” Alex pulls on the neck of her gown, and it reveals even more of her breast, but I stop her. “Alex while you are very cute, you should save that for a more appropriate time.” I point over at the female attendant who is giving us a very annoyed look because Alex refuses to leave my bed.

Alex goes back to a sitting position, but is quite a bit closer to me than before. Ignoring that, I tell her all about my month of training. All about the quests, the healing, and how I don’t remember the final quest. “Your trainer sounds like a dick, that is just cruel. I bet he know about the poisonous spiders, and just let you go anyways!” Alex started getting angry when I told her about the final quest, but we were scolded harshly for making a lot of noise in the healing ward. “It’s ok Alex I am sure there was some reason that he let me fight them. Anyways your quests sound just as tough.”

Me and Alex talked for a bit longer, but the female attendant forced Alex to sleep since she had only just recovered from exhaustion. Since I am still stuck here, I decide that i should figure out what we will do once we are all recovered. With training done we don’t have any specific goals, and our only obligation is the guild’s quests. Money is no problem currently since the family takes care of most expenses, I guess my only want is to stay together with Robin and Alex and hike some mountains. Though, hiking mountains might be a lot harder goal to accomplish then I thought. I initially thought that the forest only had rabbits, goblins, and some other easy to kill stuff, but the wolves proved me naive. Not to mention harpies and hobgoblins, and the things we have fought are probably only the tip of the iceberg. If I truly want to go mountain hiking then I will have to keep getting stronger.

We should definitely take a couple of days off, relax and just do what we want. Maybe me and Alex can try a spar again, from the sounds of it she has gotten a lot stronger. Hmm? I wonder if my control got any better? “What!?” “Shh!” “sorry” Since I can’t test my control out, I decided to check my elemental sensing and the results were crazy. It shocked me so much I questioned it out loud, getting me shh’ed at. The last time I checked, my elemental sensing was able to reach about fifty yards, but now I can sense about one hundred yards. It has doubled since I last checked, what happened while I was unconscious? It took me a month to increase my sensing almost fifty yards, and now I gain that much in a couple days, was it because of the poison?

With no way to answer my question I decide to leave it aside for now, and instead to test out my new sensing. From the distance of the earth, I can tell this room is on the second floor. I can also notice some pressure in certain spots, similar to when I was tracking the spiders, but I believe it is people walking this time. Getting a bright idea I decide to try and notice all of the people walking in my sensing area. “Gah!” “Shhhhh” “sorry.” Fuck, that was dumb, and now my head feels like someone hit me in the head with a baseball bat. The amount of information must have been too much for me. I could do it with the spiders, why can’t I do it now?

Well now that my head is throbbing, and I can’t answer any of the questions running through my head, I guess I will head back to sleep. Unfortunately because of the pain it took a lot longer for me to fall asleep.

When I woke up I was greeted by the face of Alex, “Alex, what are you doing? I thought we already said not to stand over me when I am sleeping.” “Sorry Boss, but I was just watching for a bit.” She doesn’t look sorry at all, and what does she mean watching. “Anyways I have something for you, that I am sure you have been missing.” Alex reaches down, and comes back up with a large plate of food, and from the smell and look of it, meat! “Good job Alex! You are forgiven. Now let’s dig in!” We finished off the whole plate within minutes, and my god was it delicious. We do get food in the healing ward, but it’s mostly fruits and vegetables, because apparently those are more “healthy”. Meat is the god’s food, nothing is better for the body then it!

After the glorious meal, I hop out of the bed and stretch to get all the stiffness out of my body. I haven’t moved much in the past couple of days, and I can feel it in my joints. After a good couple of cracks, I feel that my body is completely healed. “Seems like I completely healed, how are you feeling Alex?” I look over at Alex who is now sitting on my bed. “Still a bit sore, but nothing I can’t handle. I want to get out of here, let’s go do something!” “Sit down missy, you are still recovering and I will not have my patients hurting themselves under my watch.” The same female attendant as yesterday yells at Alex. Just as Alex was heading back to her bed the door opened. In walks Scarson with quite the serious look on his face.

“Good morning Bernet, John, Alex, I hope you two are feeling better. Bernet is one of our best staff, and I am sure she is taking great care of you two. Now on to the reason that I am here, I need you to come with me John. We have some things to discuss about your last quest.” Deciding that it is just best to follow and ask questions later I start heading for the door, “Can I come with?” Alex jumps in front of me, and looks excited at the chance to get out of here. “No Miss Alex, I already said that you need to rest.” Bernet quickly shuts down Alex. “Lets the girl come Bernet, she has the personality of a wind user, and will just cause a ruckus if she is kept in here.” Seems like Alex has got a reputation for being a little to energetic.

Me and Alex follow behind the family head as he enters a room. Inside we find Brock and Lala waiting, “Now that everyone is here we can get started. First I would like to ask you John, want do you remember of the mines?” Scarson took a seat behind a large desk and took a piece of paper and a pen. I told them how I fought the spiders, made my way through each tunnel, got scratched and bitten, and finally beat the boss in the open cavern. I also added that I lived a month after the quest, but that part is quite blurry in my mind. “Hmm, seems like one of the spiders you encountered was a meric spider. It shouldn’t have been there, but you made it out alive. Now have you noticed anything different about your element since you awoke?”

Does he know that my sensing went up? “Yes, my sensing range used to be around fifty yards, but has jumped to one hundred yards. I have not tested my control or absorption yet.” Scarson writes some stuff down, then looks at me for a good minute, “Inside the mine we found evidence of earth manipulation that frankly you should not be able to do at all. The manipulation is close to someone of a first evolution. I want you to let us observe you when you try out your control and absorption. Truthfully I don’t know what to think about this situation, you should not have survived the mines. Three days is how long you were in the mine, from your story most of that time was spent inside a cocoon without food or water. Add that to the effects of the poison, and that spells death for most anyone. Yet, you survived and instead you seemed to have gotten stronger.”

The room remained silent for some time, until Lala stepped forward, “Scarson let’s not dwell on it, instead let us see his improvement. If it truly is what we saw in the mines then it will only mean the family has gotten stronger.” Scarson looks up at Lala and gives her a small smile, “You're right Lala, well then why don’t we head outside and see about your control.” Standing up Scarson leads us outside to a training area. Once there everyone watches me as if they are expecting me to do something amazing.

I stand in the open area and feel the elemental power around me, I take control of the earth and start to move it. I start with a small and easy wall first, it forms as easily as it should. Next I put more force into my control, I create a wall that should be around ten feet tall. But, something happens, the wall keeps growing, and stops only when twice the intended height. A twenty foot wall made in seconds, something I wasn’t even close to before, but I did it easily just now. Testing more I decided to try something more intricate I form two tall pillars a couple of feet away from each other. Then I create bridge connecting them, but I add more and more detail to the parts. When I am done it looks closer to a bridge back from ‘Earth’ then one I just made.

My testing continued and I found that I could create a wave of earth spikes now, form a small hole in the ground instantly, form countless earth bullets, and swallow a six foot tall pole in earth in mere seconds. When I finished I turned to look at everyone and found they were as stunned as me. The first one to come back to their senses was Alex, “Boss that was so cool, why didn’t you tell me you could use your control so well now!” Alex runs and jumps at me in excitement. Catching her before we collide, “I said in the other room I didn’t know I could use my control that well. I really am baffled by how much it has improved. Something must have happened in the mine.” “It seems that is the case, but what caused this is still a mystery. Now that I have seen it for myself, I am quite pleased to know that you are part of my family. I expect great things from your group, even great than before.” The family head stated as he was admiring the bridge that I had made.

While Scarson and Lala are admiring the bridge, Brock walks up to me, “John, I am sorry, I had failed my job as a trainer. I thought that the mines we at your level, and I was wrong. You were almost killed because of my negligence, and for that I must ask that you forgive me.” He looks me directly in the eye and I can see the sadness in his face. He felt pride in his job, but he almost killed the one he was looking after. “Brock, you know you are one sadistic teacher. The amount of pain you have put me through, but I know that it has always been for my sake. I forgive you complete for this accident, and I only hope that you will continue to help me in my element.” Giving him a big smile I put out my hand, he responds with an equally joyful smile and we shake hands. “Don’t think that anything I teach you will be easier just because of this accident. With your improved control I can make things twice as tough now!” Oh god did I just sentence myself to death?