It has been three days since their last mission. Since then, they had been staying at the Savepoint Bar. They pay a monthly fee and get a free meal each day. Compared to the prices of the other rooms for rent in town, the second floor of the bar was a steal. Dumog was fine with that since he wasn’t homeless even though he was in debt.

Another reason for their short break was their awful teamwork in their last mission. Jacked complained and criticized them for it the whole time. He was mostly mad at Dumog for stomping his face with his bare feet. So he called for them to take a break and build camaraderie among them.

“Since when were you the leader?” Amihan questioned him.

“I think I’m the oldest one in the group, naturally I would be the leader because I have the most experience,” Jacked said.

“Wasn’t it already obvious that he was the oldest one here?” Dumog whispered to Amihan, giggling.

They argued on the first floor of the bar. It never got any customers most of the time, so Sinta and Eeya weren’t bothered with the noise they were making.

“We’ve done nothing for three days. And when are you teaching me magic?” Dumog complained to his master.

“You know what, great idea! Let’s go out and I’ll give you an assessment. I’ll be able to make a personalized training program if I see what you’re capable of,” Jacked started heading out the door. “Amihan you come too.”

“No,” she was lying down on the couch, hat covering her face.

“We’re going to the lake,” Jacked smirked.

“Fine,” she ran up the stairs and grabbed her bag.

“I still don’t understand her obsession with fishing. I saw her up all night looking at a picture book of fish,” Dumog scratched his head.

Jacked shrugged at that, “Whatever keeps her going, I guess.” They left the bar.

“Come back before dark,” Eeya waved goodbye.

They went to the south of town. It wasn’t a dense forest like the one Dumog woke up in, but there were still some trees around. The wildlife were scarce as well, due to the cabins and general human activity in the area.

Jacked found a nice, flat, and open space next to the lake. A dock was a few meters away, and a couple of old men were fishing under the hot sun. They gestured a greeting back at Dumog as he waved his arms around maniacally.

“Okay, before we do any of the tests, let’s make sure both of you are properly warmed up,” Jacked told them.

“Yes sir!” Dumog exclaimed and started stretching.

Amihan ignored thema and walked to the dock, sitting next to the old men. From her pack, she pulled out a collapsible fishing rod and a line. In a matter of minutes she was already sitting still and waiting.

Jacked let her do whatever she wanted, not wanting to argue with her again. He turned to Dumog and caught him doing an awful job at stretching. They spent the first hour teaching Dumog about proper form and breathing.

Dumog felt nostalgic about it, like he was in gym class again. But this time he was learning because he wanted to and he couldn’t escape it by faking an illness. Doing now would cost him another fortune he wasn’t ready to pay.

“Okay! First test, upper body strength. Let’s see how many pushups you can do,” Jacked brought out a whistle from his sleeves. “Go!” He blew a high-pitched tone, making the fishermen flinch.

It had been a while since Dumog did any form of exercise. But he was confident from all the manual labor jobs he had, all of them he got fired from.

For a 24 year old man who weighed 180lbs, he did five pushups, with horrible form. Jacked was beyond disappointed but kept it to himself. He hoped that he was better in a different muscle group. Dumog made it hard to believe as he did two repetitions for his pull-ups.

“Let’s see your core strength,” Jacked sighed.

Dumog couldn’t hold the position for a minute, only lasting twenty seconds. During those twenty seconds, Jacked thought he should help Dumog by motivating him. He screamed into his ears and slapped his lower back. It only made him throw up into the lake.

The old men decided to leave from all the noise they were making. They didn’t bother hiding their disgusted faces when they walked past Dumog. He felt horrible from being seen in such a state, and from losing his free meal of the day. Amihan remained, unbothered.

They continued on with the torture, next was leg strength. Jacked felt relieved with the results of the Sprinting test, Dumog was slightly above average for a person his age. A huge difference when compared with his previous results.

Wanting to see his limits, Jacked climbed on his shoulders and ordered him to squat. He could barely stand up with him on his shoulders. Dumog thought that an old man like him shouldn’t be that heavy. In the end, he managed to squat him two times before collapsing on the ground.

“Well, I guess that’s it for the tests. You were horrible in all of them, except for running. Maybe you should run away from all of your problems instead of learning how to fight or magic,” Jacked sighed and sat on a foldable chair he whipped out from nowhere.

“So, are you finally going to teach me magic?” Dumog asked in between breaths.

“No, not yet. This would only let me make a training program first before we get you doing anything magical,” he wrote on a clipboard.

Dumog stayed there on the ground, spent from doing a fraction of a normal person’s workout. He complained to the bald wizard repeatedly, just to annoy him.

“Looks like you have enough energy left to talk. Why not try to find how good your endurance is? Run around the town’s walls, if you manage to do it three times I’ll teach you a spell,” Jacked had temper issues, and he wanted to beat Dumog. “You know what? To really motivate you, I’ll reduce your debt by a thousand if you do the three laps.”

He immediately stood up and ran into the forest. Dumog appreciated his new boots, but they made running hard. Like dumbbells strapped to his feet.

The disciple ran as fast as he could, he was going the same pace as the old man walking back home next to him. When they reached the walls he decided to go left. There wasn’t much space for him to run along the walls so he had to make compromises. And that was to take another left, bringing him back to the direction of the lake.

Dumog ended up on the other side of the lake without noticing. He ran deeper into the forest, the trees were getting thicker and the foliage denser. His feet got caught in vines and plants a couple of times due to it getting darker. Too tired to think properly, the only thing on his mind was learning a spell from Jacked. A bush caught his diaper and made him fall on the ground.

There was no more sunlight coming through the leaves. He couldn’t even see the night sky past the forest’s ceiling. Dumog didn’t know how long he had been running for. Resting there, he caught his breath.

Something crawled up between his thighs, making him jump up and scream. The overgrown plants next to him hid a gaping hole. He fell through the layer of plants in the attempt of shaking the bug off his leg. On the way down, he hit his head on the walls of the rocky hole, four times.

Back at the lake, Jacked finished his workout plan for Dumog. It didn’t include a diet yet since they were poor, but it didn’t matter for now at the state of his body. He stretched and packed his things.

Amihan was still on the docks, fishing. Jacked walked up to her. Peeking inside the bucket by her feet, he saw nothing in it. She sensed his movement and tried her hardest to not show a frown on her face.

“I thought you wanted to be an angler, we’ve been here for half a day,” he teased.

“It’s about the process, not what or how many you catch. The catch is just a bonus,” Amihan packed her equipment.

“Then what’s the point?” Jacked perplexed with her choice of hobbies. “You just say that because you didn’t catch anything.”

“It’s getting late, where’s Dumog?” She brought her hat down to cover her face.

“Don’t change the topic. He’s probably back at the bar now, I told him to run back to town or something,” Jacked scratched his beard. “Why didn’t you catch anything? I wanted to eat fish for dinner.”

“Bold of you to assume I’d share with you.”

“Aren’t we all friends?”

“Keep thinking that.”

The two went home assuming that Dumog was in his room sleeping. It took two days until Jacked checked, searching for him. He had just accepted a job to guard a caravan to a nearby settlement. Dumog never came home.