The cubs jostle me until I'm surrounded on all sides and we begin to move at a steady pace toward the outskirts of the valley. I place one hand each on the cubs to my left and right and use their presence to steady myself. The air is thick with the tang of blood and beastly sweat and it sets my nerves on edge, as it very well should.

The thought of accidentally stumbling upon this place without first having met the Matriarch gives me a newfound level of respect for her and her clearly-intelligent kin. A growl will occasionally escape from a cub and it invariably sends a nearby aggressor scrambling; these cubs are loud. Each roar sets my bones to shaking in the sockets and it feels as if my whole world is crumbling to pieces. It gets easier to bear as we make our way, but it by no means becomes easy.

It takes us a good 30 minutes to reach our destination and along the way, all but two cubs break off from the pack to engage in what I can only describe as battle.

Of the two cubs remaining, one is the cub I noticed earlier with large, black tusks eminating a strange, lightly-crackling energy. The other is quite small compared to the others, yet is treated no differently. I sense the same level of ferocity from this one along with a hint of something on which I just cannot put my finger.

We make our way to a section of the valley containing fewer combatants than average. I also notice that the average size and level of ferocity is somewhat lackluster compared to the areas through which we had previously passed.

They lead me directly toward a clearing that currently contains few occupants, all of which are even smaller than those I can see in the immediate area. We stop in front of a Boar Goat [lvl 3] and the cubs urge me forward. Each cub has a twinkle in its eye and paws at the ground as if in excitement, which doesn't exactly leave me feeling filled with confidence. It seems like they expect me to be soundly beaten and I can't really blame them. I'd be irritated with this treatment if it were not how my friends and I used to routinely teach each other news games and activities: headfirst and with little to no guidance.

I take a few breaths to calm myself and keep from shaking before approaching the Boar Goat. It raises its head to inspect me and lithely descends the craggy embankment upon which it was precariously perched. I take the time to use my enhanced senses and am left in awe of the beast's level of control over its own body. The movements are graceful and precise despite coming from a creature wider and sturdier than an average goat. The tusks jutting from its mouth are stout and midling in length and its limbs end in cloven hooves that cling so well to the side of the embankement that it appears almost as a magnet stuck to a refrigerator.

It huffs at me in what I can clearly tell is an utter lack of amusement at the challenge. I begin to take a deep breath to steady myself and launch to the side before getting halfway through as the Boar Goat decides to kick things off without waiting for me. Caught off guard as I am, I'm still able to avoid most of the blow. Perhaps having the venom ape charge at me so many times ingrained in me an inherent ability to sense when I need to dodge.

Or not, seeing as how a skill could do that and I don't have one. Acquiring a dodge skill is going to the top of my extremely long list of priorities. As I move out of the way I feel the light influence of a few different skills. At this point I'm almost certain that Reckless helped but there is at least one more that I can't quite figure out.

I hit the ground and roll a few times before using the motion to move into a crouch and from there, regain my feet. I prepare to launch myself at the beast and unleash Mana Detonation upon it, yet I freeze in place. My stomach drops and a sense of foreboding overcomes me. I see mental visions of the Stone Pangolin being slammed into the concrete as well as the Raptor Goose getting blasted into a bloody heap. Violent as it is, this is training. There have been accidents, sure. However, this is not a situation in which I need to fight for my life and that lack of necessity is holding me back.

I rip and tear at my mental bonds yet I make minimal progress. The beast readies for another charge and I know I need to act.

So I dash toward it at and angle and aim a haymaker charged with Rapid Strike as it launches itself toward me. My fist connects with its shoulder and I feel a crack, yet I escape the exchange at a loss. It doesn't gore me with its tusks, instead, it headbutts my chest and my world goes briefly black before I regain my vision and notice that I'm staring at the sky. I roll quickly to the side despite my swimming vision and lack of breath. I sway as I stand and prepare myself to meet a headlong rush by the Boar Goat, yet as my vision pools into coherence I notice that it has ragained its perch. What's more, it already appears to be asleep. I was only out long enough to hit the ground, how in the hell is it back up there already?

I prod my chest and stop immediately; it is a mass of deep and angry bruises that set my mind ablaze with pain. I know that my regeneration will allow me to recover quickly yet the sensation of a complete lack of body integrity is not something with which I can easily become accustomed. I make my way back to my guardians...

Fine, my babysitters, and lean heavily on them while attempting in futility to regain my breath. Despite having a regeneration that fully recovers my stamina in two minutes, my lungs clearly have not healed completely. An interesting interaction that I'm going to need to learn more about.

Later. And preferably with someone else on the receiving end.

I'm relatively well-healed after a little over an hour. Most of the time is spent lying against one of the cubs as the other does battle before they rotate. With each rotation they nudge and give me a quick lick, seemingly disappointed that I don't heal as quickly as they do.

I regain my feet and stretch gently, feeling intimately every muscle, joint, ache, and crack of my body. I move around testing each joint and form of movement to make sure everything is as it should be. Once I'm finished with my routine, I gesture to the closest cub and look at it questioningly. The cub gives a huff and begins to lumber toward the other. Once reacquainted, we move farther from the center of the valley and approach an area even more sparsely populated with inhabitants.

Instead of leading me toward a specific beast, I'm left to choose. They are all around the same level as the previous area but these look weaker. I see a Volt Squirrel [lvl 3] fighting against a Fox Rabbit [lvl 2] and can't help but wonder how the Fox Rabbit feels as a being that is composed of one part predator and one part the prey to that very predator? Probably nothing at all but it just seems so strange and arbitrary.

I'm led to an area with a number of Turtle Monkeys and wonder at the misfortune of these creatures. Each seems to have gained the lithe body of a monkey as well as some form or another of the bulky turtle shell. Ideally this form allows for a quick, agile creature with a study central defence yet this is most definitely not ideal. The shells are either too large or too dense for the monkeys and while not entirely prohibitive, they do drastically reduce the mobility without a commensurate improvement to defense.

As I stretch, they send forward a smaller of their kind and I idly wonder if the smaller or larger ones will be the more difficult opponent. I push the thought to the side and shout at myself mentally while summoning the feeling of a pulverized chest in order to psych myself up enough to use mana detonation, but I still can't. It's fucking destroying me but I don't think I can handle accidentally killing something that isn't actively trying to kill me. Sure, maybe every beast here is a sadist but I chose to engage them. I want to be able to spar with my full compliment of skills but using Mana Detonation feels like attempting to spar with a loaded pistol. Is someone guaranteed to die? No, of course not. But it could happen easily and while I realize that I'm going to need to make this change, I can't do it all at once.

I feel all the fears I've been harboring swim around my head, clinging to my every thought, tainting my perspective of the world. I let it rage for a few seconds before allowing it to wash over and through me. I acknowledge and accept it as well as the value a sense of fear can bring, yet I refuse to allow it to control me. Once the feeling has suffused me to my core I begin to pull it toward me. It hangs around me like a veil and returns to its original form at the end of every attempt, yet I make progress. I imagine the stagnant scent of lingering fear and mentally urge it to flow around me. Wisps of fear begin to sway to my mental command and I'm rewarded with a notification.

Fear Manipulation has increased to lvl 3!

Ha! Talk about a sense of near-immediate confirmation I'm on the right path in terms of the skill. Knowing I don't have enough time I gather as much of the sensation as I can and hold it in my chest. Uncomfortable yes, but this way it doesn't affect my thoughts nearly as much and, well, this is the most familiar place for me to have a physical reaction to fear, so I'm used to it by now.

Fear Resistance has increased to lvl 34!

Learning a bit from my earlier mistakes, I launch myself at the Monkey before it has a chance to hit me while unaware. I put everything I have behind this punch and feel the irresistable pull of Rapid Strike act as a cyclone before my fist. The pressure drives my fist home against the shell of the beast as it decides to take the hit instead of attempt to dodge.

And like that it's over. There is a moment of suspense when my fist first hits the shell, yet reality comes crashing down immediately afterward and the Turtle Monkey is launched across the clearing and impacts the stone-and-dirt embankement with a muffled thump.

Thankfully I don't receive a notification for defeating it, so it must still be alive. Its shell doesn't even crack, however, so I'm sure it'll be fine.

I turn back toward the cubs and stop momentarilly as I notice that their gaze is not focused upon me. Instead they are looking past me at the slowly settling rubble and debris. What could possibly be interesting about...

I'm a moron. It didn't die, its shell didn't crack, and I'm now positive I didn't finish the fight like I thought I had. I turn around fully expecting to be knocked senseless again, only to find the Turtle Monkey only halfway toward me. It's moving more slowly than it was originally and I can tell it isn't completely unscathed.

Despite having dabbled in a number of different forms of martial arts, I only ever stuck with one long enough to have a permanent sense of how utterly inadequate my fighting skills truly are.

However, that apparently only applies to other people trained in martial arts. This Turtle Monkey has no true concept of hand-to-hand fighting and I'm able to repeatedly dodge its weakened blows and bites while punctuating the beast's misses with a Rapid Strike of my own at every opportunity.

Perhaps I was right about not using Mana Detonation this time. I clearly should have used it on the Boar Goat, yet this beast may actually have died. As far as I know, none of the cubs or even the Matriarch know I have the skill so they couldn't have taken this fact into consideration.

Despite this, I absolutely need to practice using deadly skills in training; improving during life-and-death struggle is wonderful and fulfilling, but I can't keep it up forever. Without training I will certainly die before long. Even with training I may very well pass soon.

My chest is heaving and I am utterly exhausted by the time the form before me rapidly retracts into its shell; head, limbs, tail, and all. I take this as my victory and hear the cubs perform their version of hootin' and hollerin' before the adrenaline rapidly recedes. I drag myself back to the cubs, lungs like stone and feeling as if I'm moving underwater before I collapse next to them. They're bouncing up and down excitedly and I can't keep a massive grin off my face. I don't know why they seem to like me and Seph so much or why they're so excited that I finally beat the equivalent of a toddler, but they are and that is all I need to know for right now.

I watch as one of the cubs makes its way to find a challenger before somehow signaling to a number of the weaker beasts to attack it simultaneously. It doesn't surprise me that the cub focuses on fending off attacks in order to improve its defense instead of actually fighting back. Doing so in this area would likely end in at least one death.

I sigh deeply in contentment and marvel at the wonders before me. Not only the variety of sentient life around which I currently find myself but also the level of compassion I've been shown by the Matriarch and her cubs. I don't know what I did to deserve it but I'll certainly find a way to make myself useful to them if I'm able.

For now though... I'm going to lose myself to the Thrill of the fight and see if I can't learn anything from the cubs while doing so.

For the first time in a while I truly feel the gloom recede and I crack a smile in anticipation of what other joys I can find in this world so long as I'm able to continue to survive.