Cal was sprinting through the woods as the sun slowly approached the horizon. Every step reverberated up his body, and his breathing was irregular. Ahead of him, he saw it, The Wall. He was currently running through an obstacle course that his grandpa had made for him. The wall was one of the last obstacles and one that had frequently caused him to fail.

According to his grandpa, he was running the course to train, but Cal had never seen any other kids training at all. Sometimes he doubted his grandpa’s words but usually decided that he trained like this because he was different. This wasn’t the beginning of Cal's training either, his grandpa had been training him for as long as he could remember.

the training had started when he was very young, it used to just be his grandpa telling Cal a long and often boring story. After the story was finished, Cal would be asked some questions about what had happened in the stories. Once he was older his grandpa told him that this helped his memory and attention span.

Once he turned eight, his grandpa had him start training with the sword, bow, and throwing daggers. When Cal turned nine, he was taught court manners, but his grandpa claimed to only teach him that because he was annoyed by Cal's eating habits. At the age of ten Cal started learning to hunt and track with his grandpa and after scaring off a dear one time when he cut his finger, grandpa said he would have to teach Cal to resist pain.

Resisting pain was not as drastic as it sounds. at first, all he had to do was get pinched without making a sound or squirming, once he could do that he would have to prick his finger on a needle until once again he would show no sign that he felt pain. he was gradually given more and more painful things to practice with and even now he was required to practice with even more painful things.

Once Cal was eleven, he had been required to start working on his body. It started with half-mile runs and workouts like planks and pushups, but now instead of running a half-mile, he would have to run three miles with his bow over his shoulder and sword in hand. And instead of planks or other bodyweight workouts, he now had to attempt to complete the obstacle course.

Even after spending so much of his time training, his grandpa made sure that he had an education. Cal could currently read and write in goblin and he could do long division and multiplication in his head. His grandpa told him that next year he would begin to learn common, the history of Greenwood, which was his hometown, as well as some of the basics of kilayen history, which was the country they lived in.

This may sound like a lot for a twelve-year-old to do, and it was. Every day Cal woke up before the sun and spent the next twelve hours doing little but training. Even when he was eating, his grandpa would have him study or work on his pain resistance. It was a very demanding life, but Cal didn’t hate it.

There were two reasons why Cal didn’t hate it. the first was that he had never known another type of life, So he didn’t even know what he may have wanted different. second, he didn’t have anything he would rather be doing, not even hanging out with friends or siblings. It's not that he was shy or didn’t like people but that he really didn’t have any friends.

Many would first assume that his training was why he didn’t have any friends but the truth is that he was different. The difference wasn’t something small that could be easily ignored, It was that he was of an entirely different race from the kids in his village. He lived in a village of goblins with the only person that wasn’t a goblin being him. He didn’t know what his race even was.

He looked the most similar to an elf, though his grandpa had assured him he wasn’t. Looking that different would have been reason enough for most kids to avoid him, and with him also always training he never had a chance to even try to make friends. He occasionally wondered what it would be like to have friends and not always train, but he would ignore those thoughts whenever he had them.

Cal shook his head as if throwing off those distracting thoughts, he had to focus. He was now only 50 meters from the wall. The wall didn’t look that special. It was about eight feet tall and made of wood. If a person were to go back along the obstacle course, they would see quite a few walls that looked nearly identical to this one.

However, the wall had a nasty trick for about 30 meters in front of it, the ground was completely made up of sticky, foul-smelling mud. The first time Cal had made it this far, he had gotten his foot stuck in the mud and tripped face-first into it. That had not been a pleasant day, and he had smelled like the mud for the rest of the week.

Cal was now about 75 meters away from the wall and he needed to decide how he wanted to get over it. He had tried various ways of getting over the wall, and a few of them had worked, but the most successful one had always been running through the mud with quick light steps and then trying to jump over the wall the same way he did with the other ones like it.

Upon reaching the mud he started using a trick his grandfather had taught him, that allowed him to spread his weight as evenly as possible over his foot when it hit the ground. This was supposed to be a way to leave as few and as shallow tracks as possible when running through a forest, but Cal easily used this trick while running and it helped his feet not sink too far into the mud.

Upon reaching The Wall he jumped and went up about three feet. After reaching the apex of his jump, he kicked off the wall and just barely managed to get his hand over the top of the wall. He pulled the rest of his body over and sat on the wall. He now had two obstacles left.

After jumping to the ground, Cal spotted his bow lying next to a single arrow. He picked up the bow and started to Calm his racing heart and trembling legs. He looked around until he saw his target, which was 80 yards away. He had to make the shot in one try. if he were to miss he could run and grab the arrow and then run back to shoot it again, but the last obstacle required at least five whole minutes, and the time it took him to run and get the arrow would eat away precious seconds.

He continued Calming his breathing for a few seconds until he felt like he was ready. He turned his body diagonal towards the target and drew his bow. he steadied his aim for a few seconds, then released his arrow. he held his breath as his arrow shot towards the target, then let out a sigh of relief and carefully put his bow down. He had made the shot. He quickly turned towards the last obstacle, then started running.

Upon reaching the final obstacle, Cal saw his grandpa standing there with two practice swords in his hands. Upon noticing cal, his grandpa threw a practice sword at him, he caught it deftly by the hilt. The final challenge was to “survive” a sparring match against his grandpa for five minutes. To survive he had to last the entire match without getting hit anywhere on his body. however, there was a twist His grandpa seemed to have a set of rules that only he knew, and when they sparred the extra rules made it almost impossible for Cal to win.

Cal took one final breath in preparation. his grandpa wouldn’t start until he gave the signal. He was already exhausted. the course was nearly two and a half miles of relentless crawling, running, jumping, and swimming, with a large number of pushups and pullups sprinkled in. His personal least favorite part was a series of 5-150-yard dashes. Each one was followed by 20 push-ups and pull-ups.

On top of all that, he had 45 minutes to complete the entire course, though if he thought about it, he really had 40 minutes considering the nature of the last obstacle. All this thinking was just wasting time, so Cal nodded to his grandpa to begin and took a defensive stance. His grandpa smiled with a self-satisfied air as he also took his stance.

“with 5 minutes and 26 seconds left you have started the last obstacle.” his grandpa proclaimed in a cheery voice.

Without further ado, he ran at Cal and swung his sword horizontally at Cal's torso. Cal dodged the attack instead of blocking And he quickly struck back and landed a blow on his grandpa's head. His sword bounced off his grandpa’s head who, despite being fully capable of doing so, didn’t even try to dodge or block it. He didn’t need to, as the blow didn’t even affect him, and he just continued attacking.

That was one of those extra rules his grandpa liked to add. His grandpa, who was at least level 25, which was considered a milestone for the awakened, was hardly affected by his blows and claimed that because it wouldn’t kill him in real combat, it wouldn’t be counted as lethal when they sparred.

They continued fighting with Cal mostly on the defensive, though he was able to get in a few strikes here and there. They reached the 4-minute mark, and his grandpa increased his speed and strength by a small amount. This happened every time Cal almost won and was usually the reason he failed the obstacle course.

Grandpa lunged at Cal, who parried the blow, and dodged back, ready for the follow-up swing, but instead of swinging his sword grandpa ran in close with another lunge. Cal was barely able to twist his body around the strike and stumbled back But he kept his sword up to block another swing. Cal wasn’t disappointed. a resounding crack sounded as the two swords struck.

The two stood there for half a second, each pushing against the other, and Cal had an idea. Cal had seen his grandpa perform this move only a handful of times and had never tried it himself. but if it worked, he might be able to win.

With all his remaining strength he swung the two interlocked swords up and around in a full circle until he was able to press the tips of both swords into the ground. he then stepped on the cross created by the blades and pulled his sword out. Despite how much he had to do to make this move happen, it took less than a handful of seconds to complete.

Upon losing the support of Cal's sword, his grandfather’s sword was pressed into the ground and his grandpa, who was still holding the hilt, was forced onto one knee. Cal was ready for anything when suddenly his grandpa shouted “Time.” Then, his grandpa easily pulled his sword up, causing Cal to fall over.

“I know if you were going full strength you could have easily beat me,” Cal said while giving his grandpa a suspicious look. “But did you let me make that last move”?

Grandpa’s face took on a thoughtful look as he replied. “Yes and no, you did catch me by surprise with that last move. though I suppose I’ve done it in front of you a couple of times, but it didn’t cross my mind that you would try and be able to recreate it. if I wasn’t holding back my speed and strength I could have pulled my sword out first leaving you standing with your sword pointing at the ground, but I didn’t so it’s your win, good job”

grandpa let out a laugh and clapped Cal on the shoulder. “Go wash up and head to bed now, tomorrow we won't train as a reward for beating the obstacle course”

Cal smiled and eagerly headed off towards their home He had rarely had days where he didn’t train even when he was injured his grandfather would have him out, running the obstacle course. The last time he had a day off was when he hit the 100-yard target with his bow three times in a row, which was about three months ago. Cal smiled as he walked back to the house he was looking forward to not training tomorrow.