Aetheria’s Awakening – Soulforge Legacy Book 1

It felt like I had been running for hours. My muscles had long since stopped burning, leaving only numbness. I gasped for breath as I continued in circles around the room. Sweat trickled down my back and into the waistband of my pants. If I hadn’t agreed to training, I would have thought I was being tortured.

The only thing that kept me from just running away was the damn elf's melodic voice. “You can quit at any time.” He repeated this after every lap, making sure that I knew that this torture was my fault and no one else’s. Finally, though, I could no longer run. My legs gave out on me. Of course, I didn’t just stop and fall to the ground. My momentum still propelled me forward.

“Oh, seems you are ready for your next exercise.” He said, not even bothering to look up from his book from his chair. “Since you are on your belly, how about some push-ups.” A groan left my lips before I could stop it. “Or would you like to give up?” He kept offering the option as if testing me. Seeing if I was worth training. My stubbornness was on full display as I refused to take the out even as my mind kept demanding to quit. It wasn’t like anyone was forcing me to be here.

I laid there, my cheek against the cold wood as I gasped for air to keep from passing out. Still, I couldn’t give up. I couldn’t give in. Not yet. Sheer stubbornness helped me struggle to my hands and knees. Sweat beaded up everywhere including along my hairline. The salty liquid stung my eyes as it raced toward the ground.

The sweat that managed to drip off of me and to the floor pooled directly beneath me. As I tried to do my first half-assed push-up, he stopped me. “Just what are you doing?” Damn it. This guy was not going to let me get away with anything. Which, now that I thought about it, was probably a good thing. “Legs straight, arms and feet shoulder-width apart. Go down until your arm is at or past a ninety-degree angle.”

Moving my arms and feet, I repositioned before lifting my knees off the ground. My goal of trying to figure out how to get back at the elf was the only thing that kept me from collapsing into a heap. Every dozen seconds or so, I heard the distinct sound of a page being flipped. The sound cut across the sounds of my ragged breathing and blood rushing through my ears. It drove me to keep going.

With each push-up, I come up with another idea to get back at him. Maybe I could find an assortment of bugs and drop them on him. Or, what about paying for the cooks to always give him cold food? Hmm, no, that might get the cooks in trouble. How about spiking his water with something? No, that might be considered an attack. What about finding a way to shrink his pants? But then I would have to find out where and how to get into his room.  

As I thought up these ideas, my fatigue increased nearly as fast as the pool of sweat grew. Eventually getting to the point that I had to stop thinking. Soon enough, I had to focus on each movement lest I just collapse.

But there is only so much I can force myself to do before my body simply refuses to continue. Finally, my arm and chest muscles refused to exert the force required to return to the up position. The deadlock with gravity ended with gravity winning. The pooled sweat caused my hands to slip, sending me crashing to the ground.

“Guess you're ready for the next exercise.” The elf said as he turned the page. “Let’s go with some crunches now.” Ok, yeah, I was going to get him back for this hell. That is if I survived.

My arms hurt even as I used them to push me onto my back. Slowly I shifted my legs closer as I prepared to perform the exercise. “No, get your legs up in the air. Either straight out or bent as if you are sitting in a chair.” The demon called out.

Mentally I cursed him, I fought to get my leg muscles to cooperate. They protested but eventually, I won the battle. They shook but they were in position as I worked through crunch after slow crunch. The burning pain in my arms made its way down to my chest. As it expanded something in the back of my mind demanded to know why I was letting myself be tortured like this.

I used every argument to try and convince myself that it would be worth it. Things like how my stats would increase or how he was probably going to train me in magic and weapons later. But eventually, I just told myself to shut up as I focused on getting through the next crunch.

An eternity, and at least fifty page turns later, my legs collapsed to the ground. Victims of yet another overworked muscle set. “While I want to see you do some other exercises, I doubt you can even stand at the moment. Take ten minutes.” He called as something hit the ground near me. “And make sure to drink that water slowly.”

The trails of sweat slowly dried in the cool air as I lay there, not moving. Instead, I focused on just taking in breath after ragged breath until I no longer felt faint from the simple act of breathing. My hand fumbled blindly beside me as I searched for the container of water. My fingers brushed against a soft-skinned container that reminded me of a balloon. Unable to lift whatever it was holding the water, I slid it across the ground and up to my chest. Thankfully, the cap came off with a simple twist.

Being careful to breathe through my nose, I tried to not let a single drop of the precious liquid escape. Cold water soothed my throat and settled into my stomach as I forced myself to take small sips. All the while, I wondered at just what the developers were thinking when they decided to make this game so damn realistic. It would be one thing if some of the exercises translated to something in the real world like some of the older VR games.

In the silence of the room, I heard the snapping sound of something being shut. “Well, while you are not as strong as I like, your ability to push yourself is decent, for a human.” Was he saying that I was stubborn? It sure as hell sounded like it. Also, was he insulting me for that or for being a human? “With your limits in mind, I think we can start your training.”

“Wait, you mean that wasn’t training?” What the fuck did he call everything I just did? I cried out in utter shock and fear as I sat up to look at him. His face was neutral, almost as if he was born without any sort of emotion. Too bad, thanks to the dwarf, I already knew better.

“Didn’t I say that I needed to see just what I had to work with when we started?” His voice sounded confused by my reaction. “How can one train someone without knowing their limits? Did you think I would neglect something so simple and fundamental?”

“Given just how much sweat I have lost and the pain I have been in for the last, however the hell long I have been in this room, I figured training had already started.”

His face didn’t show a hint of care as he gestured toward me. A flare of green appeared around his hand before it flashed in my direction. The sight of something flying toward me caused my entire body to flinch as, whatever it was, splashed against my chest.

A comforting warmth flowed out from the point of impact. Muscles loosed and aches disappeared. It was almost as if they had never been there in the first place. Only the pools and trails of sweat remained behind. The sudden relief from the pain caused me to nearly groan with relief. Confused and a bit more relaxed, I asked, “What did you just do?”

“That was a simple healing spell.” He replied, his mouth twitched as if he wanted to smile. “If I didn’t know better, I would think you had never seen magic before.”

Shaking my head I simply said, “No I haven’t.” Now, technically that is only true depending on how you quantify magic and what we mean by seeing it. As a famous writer once said, ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ If I were to bring a smartphone or 3D printer into this world they would consider it magic. On top of that, could I consider seeing magic in other games as magic in this world? What if the principles behind it were different?

To my surprise, he seemed happy with my answer. “Well, that will make training you easier.” Seeing my obvious confusion at his remark, he continued, “If you were to keep healing your body as you worked out, you would not gain the full benefits from said training.”

Fuck physical training, I wanted to learn magic. Maybe the people outside had been right about me becoming a mage. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about tiring myself out as much. Hell, if I could get someone to play tank then I could just hit any enemy from a safe distance.

He shook his head as if he knew what I was thinking. Before he could say anything though, something occurred to me. “Wait, can we increase our stats without spending any points?” While it wouldn’t be the only game to do something like forcing people to have their characters work out, this one required us to physically do said workouts rather than some character on a screen.

He laughed. The sweet sound seemed full of life as it sent a shiver down my spine. His laughter died down to a chuckle a moment later as he said, “Of course you can. In fact, I recommend training over spending points.”

“Why?” I asked because I was confused about his wanting me not to spend points on stats and not because I didn’t want to work out. No, really.

“How else will you know the limits of your body if you don’t push said limits with training?” He smiled as he spoke. His words caused me to shudder as they created an image of me pushing myself to the limit over and over. “Save your points for when you hit a bottleneck or for unlocking skills.”

Wait, skills can be unlocked with points and not with levels? How? Where do I go to get said points? What can be bought with them? All of these questions flashed through my mind as he changed back to the subject of today's training session. “For now, let us practice throwing punches and kicks.”

I stayed where I was. Even if I could no longer feel any of the aches and pains, I didn’t want to get up. As he stood up, his book and chair vanished into the distance yet didn’t move. Almost as if being pulled in a fourth direction. The elf looked in my direction where I was still on the ground with my mouth wide open as I tried to figure out what just happened.

“Are you just going to lie there for the rest of the day?” He snapped

“Ah, wha, how, where,” I stammered as I hurried to my feet. Finally able to get out my question as I moved to see if the chair had simply moved somewhere out of sight. “What the fuck just happened to the chair?”

“You have heard of an inventory, right?” He asked as if not knowing if he was talking to an idiot or not.

“Well, sure,” I respond not quite understanding what he is getting at. Then again, who knew just what the developers considered realistic and not when they were adding features to this game?

“All I did was send both into my inventory.” He must have seen the dumb look on my face because he sighed. “Just focus on your interface, willing your inventory to come up.” He made it sound simple. Maybe it was. I closed my eyes for a moment and focused on pulling up an interface. Not that I knew what would be on it. Or, maybe that was the screen that held my status sheet. I cracked one eye open and found that the screen was there, hanging in mid-air, though it was a bit different from the last time I checked.

I ignored the changes, focusing on my current goal of finding the inventory screen. I could return and look over everything later. A moment later, the status screen changed to another screen. One filled with eleven empty boxes and one with a coin inside. Focusing on the object, it brought up the item's description.

“Now,” the elf said in an attempt to pull me back to reality. “Let me see you throw a punch.” I looked up just in time to see him smirk as he said, “Try to hit me.” I smiled because he was giving me one hell of an opportunity. My right hand curled into a fist as I tossed my entire body at him. Everything I had went into the punch as I tried to hit him before he could form some sort of defense.

I shouldn’t have wasted the energy. His hand felt like a band of steel as it stopped and held mine effortlessly. He tsked. “First, you won't be able to hurt me no matter how much you try.” Without releasing his grip, he turned my hand around. The move brought me close enough that I could make out a faint woodsy smell. It was mixed with some herb and seemed to waft off the guy. He didn’t seem to notice as he finished examining my fist. “On top of that, if you had hit me with that you would have broken your thumb. Have you never thrown a proper punch before?”

His fingers were rough and calloused from years of abuse as he tried to move my fingers. When I resisted, he looked me in the eyes as one of his eyebrows lifted. With a slight huff of annoyance, I gave up and allowed the guy to do whatever he wanted.

He wasted no time in splaying my hand open. One finger after another, he rolled my fingers down before finally tucking the tips into my palm. His hand held my fist tight as he moved my thumb over the nails. Using it to hold the rest down. “This is the proper position for your fingers when you throw a fist. Practice opening and closing them a few times until you get used to it. You need to keep practicing this position every day until it becomes natural. Now, punch me.”

Smoothly, he slid backward as he released me. I took a minute to open and close my fist. Taking the time to slowly move the fingers back into position as I tried to get used to the feel. Or at least that was my excuse. As soon as he seemed a little distracted, I swung at him. One of his hands flashed up. Instead of catching my hand, he gently pushed it to the side. Not by much, but enough that I missed him.

“I thought I said punch me?” He taunted as I stumbled from the deflection. I spun around as I threw another punch. This time I aimed for his face. With the same amount of effort, he deflected the punch. Using the change in momentum, I kicked out at his knee.

Everything seemed to slow down a little as I watched his other hand move just fast enough to grab my foot, holding it an inch from his pants. “I didn’t say kick me, I said punch me. You can try to kick me in a little bit.” He sounded like he was bored of this, of me. The thought of him already thinking I wasn’t worth his time pissed me off. More than the warm-up slash training earlier had. More than his calling me a girl had. It even pissed me off more than the damn priest had.

I ignored his demands to only punch. I lost myself as I threw everything I had at him. Punch, punch, kick, punch, kick. He deflected each strike. It wouldn’t be so bad if he had dodged some of the strikes but he didn’t. It was as if he was saying that even if I did manage to hit him, I would do no damage so why would he care?