Training Pt. 1) A Dragon's Wish for Power [r]

[Tarry]

OOC: This thread will be occurring around a week after the freshman orientation and will cover Fortuna undergoing fights or whatever in the monster world in order to get stronger. Basically, a training thread where he is skipping school for a while.

---

It was currently a time for students to be in school. In fact, it was a Monday following Orientation Week. But a single student didn't care about that. Dressed in an unfamiliar school uniform was Fortuna Locks, a Dragon Hybrid who had gotten weak over the two years he spent in restraint of his powers. The current location was a forest of sorts full of all sorts of monsters, from strong to weak, which would make the perfect area to train. With him, he had a couple of packs which he carried using his monster strength. It contained a few sets of clothes, food, camping cooking and eating utensils and a tent of sorts to set up to put his things in and stay in if the weather turned bad. But where he was, he would be thankful to get a few hours of undisturbed sleep. He would have to be on guard all the time, ready for anything to attack him in this hostile place. Having decided the place after scouting it beforehand, he knew there was a stream and so he brought along some bathing items (shampoo, soap, towel, etc). If he had to fight nude, then so be it.

He had but one goal in mind. Become stronger. Fortuna had decided he would skip school for a week and survive in the wild against powerful foes in order to better himself. If he died, then so be it. Either his will to carry on living would win, or his desire to end his misery would eat him and cause his death. He was here to fight. His parents had told him there were three types of combat. The first was playing, where they would simply do it for recreation or to have fun. The second was sparring which was a battle to improve yourself and get stronger. The third was a fight, a battle with your life on the line with no rules, no dirty play. There would be things that would be considered unfair, but that would be in sparring or playing. A fight had no rules. It was a cloudy day today, and rather cold, but no doubt he would be getting heated up very soon.

He had been in the forest about ten minutes so far and had managed to set up his tent, pile his stuff into it, and hide it well enough. Monsters would likely ignore it anyway since it wasn't interesting. Out here in the wild, there was no hiding appearances and pretending to be human. Fortuna would surely stand out since he had his human form at the moment with midnight blue hair, indicating he was only using his zero stage. Just as strong as a human, maybe a little on the powerful human end. Funnily enough, he still had his music player with him and they were playing in his ears at the moment. He had probably around 20kgs worth of batteries in his pack to replace the dead ones throughout the week. Just as he was thinking that, the first opponent came in. It was a weakling, but still stronger than his zero stage which he was going to fight it with.

"... Lets do this, monster."
With that, he engaged in combat. His rank in zero stage was probably similar to an E+, if not D-. His first stage was around D+ or C- while his second stage (which he despises) was at full power of C+ for him. The monster he was facing was probably D rank. Not exactly strong, but facing it with zero stage would be difficult. Not to mention he was bare-handed and can't use any of his techniques in zero stage. Usually he would go straight to first stage and finish off any idiots who tried to fight him, but that wasn't enough anymore. While he was hesitant to reveal his true nature, others were getting stronger and surpassing him. And he was only getting weaker. His opponent was slow so he could at least outrun it. Charging forward, Fortuna delivered a few punches to the monster which simply got pushed back by it. It had some effect, but not enough.

"This all you got? You weakling of a Monster! Pitiful!"
This didn't particularly make Fortuna angry, but it was still irritating. He hated those who thought they were so much better than others. Clenching his fist tightly, Fortuna dodged left and right, jumping and ducking to avoid some attacks, managing to avoid getting hit. When the opponent stumbled, he quickly followed up with some well placed blows into what his intuition and instinct thought to be vital parts. It seemed to work as the monster bent backwards in pain, cursing under its breath. Fortuna kept it up like this for the next five minutes or so, dodging while countering with well placed shots. In the end, he managed to beat it and finished it off with a blow to the torso, the sound of something cracking being heard. Standing up and breathing slightly heavily, the sound of bushes being rustled resounded around him. It seems he had beaten one monster, but there were around two dozen more that were out for revenge. Now, what to do in this situation?

[Tarry]

Zero Stage. Time to test how far it could go. If he made a mistake, he may not even be able to make up for it even with his first stage. But he had to try. That was the point of his training. To become stronger through fighting real battles where his life was constantly on the line. If he resorted to First Stage now and won, there would be nothing to gain. The larger the risk, the greater the reward. Clenching his fists, he already fatigued body felt like it was crying, knowing what was about to happen. Deal with it, you accursed body of mine. If it wasn't for you, I... Clearing his thoughts at that point, he honed his senses and focused on what was ahead of him. He was a quick learner and evolved through first hand experience, adapting to situations as they came. He was instinctual and hated having to observe things to learn. Fighting to the death was the quickest option to improve himself.

Seeing the couple dozen monsters approaching him from all around, he gave a deep breath followed by a long breath in, calming and preparing himself. He knew he wouldn't get out of this one easily, and avoiding injuries were impossible. But he wouldn't give up. He would fight and take any blows thrown his way. Standing his ground, Fortuna took on the first ones that reached him, blocking some attacks with his arms placed as a guard in front of his face like a shield and dodging wherever he could, he did his best to knock them away from him so he could focus his attention elsewhere. They were coming from all directions which would make it hard to fight and defeat a single opponent at a time. He had to constantly fight against multiple enemies and defeat them before they could use their numbers to their advantage and retreat to the back to recover.

Within a minute, he was surrounded with little chance of being able to avoid them. Using his instinct, he dodged a few incoming attacks and then dashed forward, pushing away some that were in his way. He got hit a few times in doing so, but he managed to get out of an encirclement. It seemed he had to keep on the move if he wanted to beat them. Staying in one place would get him surrounded and greatly disadvantaged. He wasn't too skilled in styles of fighting so he just had to make it up as he went. Punching one of the monsters away, he jumped up and span around to deliver a strong kick into the face of another that was to his side, sending it tumbling back into its allies. The only advantage he had here was... well, there wasn't one. He lacked the physical capabilities to beat these opponents as he was. But that was what he was trying to make up for at the moment.

One hour passes. He had yet to take any of them down, spending most of his time running, getting surrounded, fighting his way out, then repeating the process. He was breathing heavily by now and sweat drenched his face. His music player was still going and safe, thankfully, since it gave him a bit more drive to keep going. But at this rate, he wouldn't get anywhere. Breathing deeply again, he tried to calm down and analyze the situation, taking a grasp of which ones he had weakened over the time. Seeing a few that were breathing heavily as well, he began his counterattack, jumping into the fray and unleashing a barrage of punches and kicks in rapid succession at the group. His main aim was to get the ones he had hit hard earlier, but any other damage dealt to them would be a bonus since it would make it easier later on.

Finally he managed to take a couple of them down in his fatigued state. The enemy was also getting tired but they wouldn't yield. About 19 of them were left. A large number. But he had gotten a hang of it now. At that moment, a calming song began playing in his ears. [Click Here] It cleared his mind, allowing him to focus. He could only hear the music and his own breathing. Looking around him, he could begin to see the monsters moving slower than before. During battle, there were times when combatants who were pushed to their limits would be able to experience heightened senses and increased abilities. Not to a strong degree, but this was one of those moments thanks to a string certain things happening. Seeing his enemies approaching, Fortuna dodged where possible and blocked what he could, taking some blows but not feeling the pain as much now. He began dealing heavier blows to the enemy as he knocked them back, knocked them down and finished them off. The entire battle lasted about 2 and a half hours and he was exhausted.

[Tarry]

Fortuna collapsed on the grass. The terrain and topography of the area was mostly flat to rolling land with green grass and living trees. It was a part of the Monster World for those monsters out there that were more for life than destruction. The Yoki in this particular area wasn't that high which was why the life of the area was reasonably alright. In higher Yoki concentrated areas, trees tended to die. Fortuna listened to his music player peacefully, breathing heavily but slowly starting to calm it down. He was taking a rest from his battle, catching his breath and letting some of the fatigue go. It sure had been a long time since he fought so much in zero stage. It really drained him of energy. But it was only some time past midday. He had a lot of the day left to go. He must have spent an hour or so just laying there in the shade of a tree with the monster sunlight shining on him. It felt similar to how he would rest in the shade back when he was a child with his friend beside him.

But he couldn't spend his time idly. He had decided to leave school for a week for this. He had to make the most of it. Keeping his eyes closed, Fortuna ran through his memories, emotions, movements, everything that had transpired a little while ago. What had he done? What went well? What could he do better? What should he avoid next time? Things like these were what he asked himself as he went through the battle in his head. In particular, he thought more of improvements for himself instead of tactics. He didn't ignore them altogether, but he put more emphasis on finding his own faults rather than the faults in his combat. He found there was only so much he could do in a human form without using much of his Yoki. But the point of zero stage was the disguise of being human, hiding his Yoki presence. It wasn't enough, though. He wanted to be strong enough to fight as a human without having to use Yoki like in the past.

After spending enough time reflecting, Fortuna got up, feeling a cool breeze. The clouds had been around in the morning and cleared during midday for a while, but it seemed it would remain cloudy for the night, possibly with rain too. Making sure his camping stuff was sealed in the tent properly and hidden away, he headed off into the forest. All he really wanted to do was test what he reflected on and start hunting more monsters and see if his improvements helped or not. Over the next few hours, a couple of hours until sunset, Fortuna scouted the forest around his tent and began attacking different monsters that were within his combat level. There were some easy ones for him to take care of, but also some difficult ones which caused him to sustain some injuries. But they would heal with time. Just hopefully they would heal before he went back to school. As he got back to his camp, he sighed heavily. He only brought three sets of clothing, one of them he was wearing now. Two pairs for the first four days, the next two days wouldn't need clothing, then the last day he would wear his clean set. His clothes he had on now were already torn up pretty badly and had dirt and blood on them.

Grabbing his soap, shampoo and towel, Fortuna headed down to the stream that was nearby. It was going to get dark soon, so he wanted to finish and get into his tent before the light went out. He had to put away his music for now since it obviously wasn't waterproof, so he was walking in silence with only the sound of his footsteps, the stream nearby and insects chirping. Reaching the stream, Fortuna stripped down completely and set his clothes aside. Even if they were dirty, as long as he washed his body it would be better than nothing. Jumping into the freezing stream, he felt like letting out a roar with flames accompanying it, but sighed when he knew he couldn't and shouldn't. It felt kind of nice since it relieved his overheated body which was sore all over. Some dried dirt and blood flowed down the stream. It was fresh water so at the least it didn't irritate his wounds. He had multiple small cuts across his body. Soaping up, applying shampoo, he washed himself thoroughly before getting out, drying himself and getting changed again.

Heading back to camp, Fortuna hung his wet towel over a tree branch and held it down using some rope he had in one of his two packs. Out of the other, he pulled out some food which didn't require cooking so that he could eat it straight from the pack. He was hungry for a big meal, but after so much exercise, his appetite had decreased. The sort of things he had brought along to eat were things like protein/snack bars, "just add water" types of shakes, juice mix and other simple to eat and drink/prepare stuff. He did have some proper meals he could cook but he would rather do that later on in his training camp. Putting away his rubbish and packing things back inside his tent, he looked around outside one more time to confirm nothing was there, and then went to sleep without music so he could hear if something approached him. He had to be on alert all night. Part of the reason he had gone scouting and defeating monsters all day was to make sure he wouldn't be jumped in his sleep. And so the first day of his camp passed by like that.

[Tarry]

A new day arises. Fortuna gets up early from his tent, brushes his teeth using canteen water he gathered from the stream, spits the waste against a tree away from his tent, and sighs. Not really a morning person. But there was something that really woke him up this morning. As he stood with a cup of water in hand, toothbrush in his mouth, he finally noticed a monster standing just in front of him to the side of his tent. It was probably about C-, if not C ranked given by the Yoki it was giving off. Dropping everything he had and drawing the monster away from his camp, he did what he could to avoid getting his ass kicked, simply put. He would be pushing it to even fight this one at all. After getting far enough away, Fortuna was unlucky enough to get caught by a wide sweep which flung him into a tree. A definitive cracking sound could be heard inside his body as a pain struck through him. It seemed like a rib had broken.

But there was no time to worry about that. Getting straight up with a shock of pain as he breathed, he clenched his fist as if to confirm he had some power in it. His opponent was slow but stronger than him. Now was a chance to try gather Yoki Energy. Typically, a disguise (Zero Stage) shouldn't really display much Yoki Energy at all. But what Fortuna wanted to do was be able to mask it like the disguise should, but be able to bring out enough power to survive off of without having to rely on the First Stage. Gathering what Yoki Energy he could into his fist, he punched the quadrupedal monster in the hind right leg but with little effect. There were no signs of the Yoki Energy having really been utilized. Again. He had to try again. The pain running through him was hindering his focus, but still he kept pushing. One of his strengths was his willpower. He wouldn't go down. He couldn't go down. Not until he had achieved what he needed to do.

The fight went on for a good ten minutes or so before Fortuna could finally get a lucky blow into his opponent using Yoki Energy. Collapsing to the ground, he heaved in short breaths since breathing in too deeply caused a sharp pain from his broken rib. That would probably take more than a week to heal. He may had the durability and power of a Dragon in his blood, but they weren't particularly known for their regeneration. While he was laying there recovering, he decided to use his time wisely as he closed his eyes and focused on the Yoki Energy within his body. He may as well try put it to use. One minute. Two minutes. Six minutes later, he finally could feel enough Yoki Energy gathered within him as he used it to force his broken rib back into place with a painful sounding 'SNAP'. Gritting his teeth, he got up slowly and went back to his tent. Grabbing some bandages out of his packs, he wrapped himself up before putting his torn clothes back on.

Giving a short hour or so rest, since it was still the start of the day, Fortuna practiced focusing his Yoki Energy into a ball in the palm of his hands in the meantime. Once he felt he had rested enough, it was out to fight again. He began wandering the forest in a further distance this time, looking for those strong ones to fight again as Yoki Practice and the smaller ones for physical training. Three hours. Four hours. No, maybe five hours? Who knows. He had to replace his batteries for his music player three times but maybe that was because the batteries weren't good enough to last a long time. But in that time, there had been many low class monsters to fight, and found a few more of those bigger, stronger ones to fight and practice on. He didn't suffer such a hard wound as in the morning, but he did have more cuts on his body and quite a few bruises in places. The biggest problem he had was drawing out his Yoki in his weakest form. At most, he could draw out 10% of his Yoki Energy across his entire body, but it was a hard thing to focus it all in one point.

Rest time. And lunch as well. A well wanted rest for the day. It was a hard thing to do. By the way it is described, his days seem to pass by rather quick, but with the constant danger of death and the rushing of senses which slows the passage of time in the mind, it had been a very long day and it was only roughly half way finished. Enjoying a meal and semi-cool drink, Fortuna kept his music going in his ears. He had enough music to last one day without repeating, but thanks to his mind blocking out all noise at times, there were some he missed and could then listen to later when the list repeated. There was still more he had to do today. He was already physically exhausted from fighting as well as injuries, and mentally fatigued from fighting for so long. His sense of pain had been numbed but he could still feel the sharp pain in his chest from his broken rib. If he could find a healer at the Academy when he got back, that would be very helpful.

[Tarry]

With lunch over, it was time to get back to business. Fortuna headed back into the forest and went deeper until he could find one of those stronger monsters to fight. He may get a few more broken bones, but he would have to deal with it, as long as it wasn't a leg or arm that got broken. Even then, it would probably be alright. He could fly back to Yokai Academy and crawl to his dorm room and recover. After a half hour of searching and picking on the low ones he found, he managed to discover his intended targeted. What he was aiming to do this time was fight that large thing for as long as he could. And just his luck, there were two others with it, making his first battle facing multiples of them. Straight off the bat, he began fighting them. It was a difficult battle, and long. Dodging, jumping out of the way, feebly blocking attacks and injuring himself in the process, and sometimes just simply getting blown away altogether. He was getting thrown around like a rag doll but avoiding serious injuries by fixing his stance as he fell and so on. Half an hour of intense fighting. After that, he couldn't take any more. Fifteen minutes into the battle all of his energy had disappeared and made his knees weak. But he had to keep pushing through and move on. From there, he began attacking them as he could, though it was difficult given his weak strength in this form. The entire battle probably took an hour or so, since his opponent was also getting weak. Sweat drenched his face by the end.

This sort of training should usually be done once a day with heaps of breaks. A training regime meant to be done over a month or so. But as a student and doing this secretly, Fortuna didn't have such time. He was pushing his limits to achieve as much as he could before that. He had always been a quick learner so this sort of thing suited him best. The next bit of training he was doing was simple. His physical fitness without Yoki was too little, especially in Zero Stage. So to improve, he decided that for the rest of the day he would try increase his physical fitness. At the moment, he was sprinting as fast as he could through the forest while still tired. He knew he had pushed his body a lot already, but he also knew that it was the mind that made it harder to carry on. Ignore the body's pleas to stop and carry on with willpower. Sprint to one tree, jog to another, and repeat. His sprinting and jogging had slowed down considerably by now but there wasn't anyone attacking him so it was fine for now.

He would have to keep up some of this training each week to keep his fitness up, but at the least he could force it to a higher level and then train weekly to keep it that strong. What he was working on after his hour and a half of running was physical strength. The easiest and most practical way he could think of doing this was lifting heavy things and swinging them. Heading down to the stream and not getting in yet, he found a large enough rock that he could pick up and throw without it being too light that it wasn't useful. Laying down on the ground, he placed the rock on his back and began a push up. He held the position as long as he could, then switched to putting the rock on his legs and lifting it up off the ground and holding. The last one was standing up with a heavy rock in each hand, hold arms straight out parallel to the ground and holding it. With these, he continued them as long as he could. His vision blacked out a few times and he puked a couple of times as well, but he drank up water from the stream to make up for the loss in nutrients.

One last thing he wanted to do before getting back into fighting. Following the stream up the flow for half an hour where he found a river which was connected to a waterfall, although a small one. Jumping into the river, he swam across to the waterfall and, after some trouble and slipping, sat underneath it with the pressure of the water pushing hard on his body. It was a thing he had seen before to improve concentration and strengthen the mind, though he was unsure if it actually worked. Sitting cross-legged on the rocks underneath the waterfall, Fortuna did his best to sit there peacefully without moving. It was harder to breathe, and the pressure was hurting his already injured chest as he tried breathing in deeply. Under this, he could feel the extent of damage across his body. With some more Yoki Energy, he would probably recover faster. Clearing his mind as best he could, all he could hear was the sound of the water in his ears. He had left his music player on the side of the water.

It was quite exhausting to be under that waterfall, and with the accumulated fatigue of all he had done over the past two days so far, it was hard to focus. Time for one last thing before heading back to camp. It was getting closer to sunset so he would have to move and hope he didn't miss the last of the light before finishing up. It was quite a distance away from his camp and it probably had quite a few monsters in between. Physically and mentally tired, Fortuna dragged his feet to fight his way back to camp. There was no one there to push him on and make him work harder, so he had to go it alone with only willpower to lead him further. He felt like quitting already, but that would get him nowhere. He was suppose to be a human in terms of power at the moment, so what he was doing could be considered inhuman at the least. Reaching back to camp, he resisted the urge to collapse and sleep. He had more to do before the darkness of night set in.

[Tarry]

There was probably an hour or two left until the sun would set for the day. There wasn't much moonlight this week so he would have to move and get things done quickly. Packing up his tent, Fortuna gathered everything he had and carried his two packs in each hand, dashing off towards his new camping spot where stronger monsters would be waiting. He was walking quickly for the most part, giving him a reasonably good rest compared to how the rest of his day had been. Thankfully, he didn't encounter any trouble on the way to his next location, setting up his camp straight away. It took about half an hour traveling in a straight line with some jogging to get there. Once he had everything set up as it was before, he sat down on the grass which was shorter than the other area. The land was more desolate this time and open. The trees weren't as green and some of the grass had gone yellowish brown, indicating it was starting to die. There was a noticeable increase in Yoki in the air around here. But there were still some weaker ones around.

First things first; secure the area. Wanting to go to sleep, he forced himself onwards to finish up the day by finishing off some of the weaker Monsters in the area, practice those things he had put in place to improve himself. There were quite a few of those D ranked monsters about, and even some E ranked monsters which were probably only surviving as groups or even running away from others. Whichever monsters didn't attack him at this point he left alone, but got rid of any aggressors that were probably going to cause him trouble later on. A dozen or so monsters later and around half an hour until sundown, Fortuna finally got back to his camp and ate a quick meal, grabbing his shampoo, soap, towel and this time another set of clothing which was his black blazer and white shirt with black pants and a pair of glasses which weren't prescription. With those, he headed off to bathe in the stream.

Just the same as the day before, Fortuna got into the water which was freezing to his overheated body. It was painful on his wounds which had increased since the day before but his facials didn't show much pain besides maybe a twitch of the mouth and the tightly shutting of eyelids. His quick breath in that people usually do when they get into something cold caused a pain in his chest from his broken rib. It would hinder him in his training later on, but at the least it would heal quicker in the remaining days because he would be using first stage and second stage. The first two days were done and dusted, and the next two would be training against even stronger opponents, but this time using his first stage. His techniques would be open to use this time around. But he also had to be more careful because he would be using much more of his Yoki Energy so his fatigue would increase the more he used it.

Getting dried, changed and heading back, Fortuna sat on the grass in front of his tent as he watched the day turn to night on the horizon. Sitting there, he closed his weary eyes and imagined the Yoki Energy within him, trying to control it and direct it. He could tell he couldn't control much of it, and there wasn't much there in the first place in zero stage, so it was hard to do. But he tried anyway. Anything he could do to get stronger. From the outside, one would probably see a thin layer of energy on him, a small glow of red appearing from his concentration, the Yoki Energy becoming apparent. It was definitely small and useless but it was still there. He had a long time to go. While he did this, he reflected on everything he had done the past two days. A lot of hardship already and a few close calls which could have been the death of him, but he got through it. From here on, it would only get harder and he knew that. He had to get stronger and improve himself. If he didn't return to school, so be it. Someone would at least collect his bones. No, not even that. He had no friends, after all.

Jumping into his tent and laying on the thin bed roll he had with a pillow, he didn't bother covering himself with a sleeping bag as he stared into the darkness, waiting for sleep to come. It came quickly to the fatigued, injured and completely exhausted boy. But this wouldn't be the end of things. Just before his consciousness faded, he let his first stage activate. A sort of seal being released as energy flowed into him. His hair changed to a flaming red. His body also changed as he became slightly taller and weighed a bit more. His eye color which was a blue was now a red for the meantime. The more energy he used, they tended to turn yellow, so the red meant he wasn't exerting much energy. Not that he could in his current fatigued state. With this, he finally went to sleep after a long day. A preparation for the day to follow which would be even more demanding than the first two days. Can he go through with his training? No, he must. He has to.