Adrian, still stunned by what Aero had just done, found himself falling into the valley. Blood rushed to Adrian’s head as he curled himself up for he was about to come down crashing into the hard ground however, Adrian suddenly felt a strong gust of wind break his fall as if lifting him up, still landing on his back however because of the bewilderment on what had just happened.

“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ABOUT!!!” he screamed at Aero from down at the valley. “YOU ALMOST DAMNED KILLED ME, YOU BASTARD!!”

“You still survived didn't you?” Aero said nonchalantly from the top of the chasm walls, still smiling as usual.

“I would be more worried about what’s coming next if I was you,” Aero said while heading towards what looked like a bunch of chains coming out of the ground. The chains seemed to be inter-connected to several gears inlaid into the walls of the chasm while passing through tubes bored into the wall leading to the top near where Aero stood.

“What the hell do you mean!!” Adrian shouted, “Didn't I come here to train with you?” he asked anxiously.

“Oh you will train alright” Aero exclaimed “Just not with me”

“You see kid on top being a guardian training ground, this place also serves as a crex containment area.” he explained, “After all what better to train with than the real thing am I right? So this place is filled with all kinds of crexes of varying grades that have been captured over time for either training or research.”

“So what am I supposed to do knowing that,” Adrian said while breaking into a cold sweat, as he got a hint of what Aero was up to. “You said I need to develop my mana core first right?”

“True, you do need to get a mana core” Aero replied as he bent down to fiddle with the chains lying in front of him, “and you need to get it fast since I won’t be here for a long time, so what we are gonna do, is force your body to awaken a core, or you will die”.

“Wait what!!!” Adrian shouted back, not believing that the man had said something so grim while being so relaxed. “What do you mean die!!, there was nothing mentioned anywhere about dying!!”

“Relax kid, it’s ‘if you die’, we will just be sending your body into a sort of panic to force out a mana core in order to survive,” Aero said while studying the chains and what appeared to be tags tied at the end of each one. “Besides I have charged the mana blade you are holding with enough mana to help jumpstart the process, now all you need to do is to draw it in and focus on circulating it, and voila, you will have a core”

Adrian could not believe the absurdity of the things this man was spouting, he took hold of the sword that was thrown down along with him and got a good feel for it. The blade seemed to exude a slight pressure when gripped, and when looking closely, Adrian observed a thin layer of whitish aura covering the blade's edges. Aero wasn’t joking when he said the blade had been filled with mana.

“Hold on to that sword well kid, it's about to get rough,” Aero shouted, interrupting Adrian from observing the blade as he pulled one of those chains triggering what sounded like a giant clockwork mechanism.

Suddenly one of the iron gates lining the valley walls started opening up, and from within it came what sounded like a myriad of low growling sounds. Within a single second, many thoughts ran through Adrian’s mind. But one sentence reverberated through and through. “I HOPE YOU GO TO HELL AERO!!!!!!!!”

Then in a flash, out of the gate burst out a whole pack of cat crexes, cat crexes were considered a grade 1 class of crex with extreme ferocity, sharp claws and incredible agility, but the worst thing about cat crexes was their ability to avoid incoming attacks, if attacked straightforwardly, a cat crex will simply just curl its body around to avoid the attack making it incredibly tricky to deal with them.

Adrian started running as soon as he caught sight of the cats while screaming obscenities at Aero.

“Chill out kid, all you need to do is deal with them, it's your training after all.” Aero said to him nonchalantly, while  carrying what looked to be a sheet of clean tarp. “just focus on drawing in the mana imbued in the blade to fuel you as you fight, and then slowly apply that feeling of drawing into the ambient mana around you”

“JUST YOU WAIT AERO, THE MOMENT I GET OUT, IT'S YOUR ASS!!” Adrian screamed at the top of his lungs as he turned around on his heel to face the clutter of crexes headed straight towards him, ready to pounce.

“But you need to get out for that”, Aero said as he started to tie the tarp between two training dummies planted in the ground to turn it into a makeshift hammock, “I will be here till then,” he said as he proceeded to doze off on the cosy bedding he had just prepared for himself.

Adrian swiftly planted his feet on the ground and raised his sword. As he saw the crexes approaching near him, he immediately swung his sword down and struck it on the ground.

The sword upon making an impact with the ground made a shrill ringing sound, throwing off the cats as Adrian proceeded to slash one of the crexes straight through, and with that, he started running again.

Since Adrian from the beginning had dealt with low-level crexes for practice since he was mana-less, he had spent more time learning about the behaviour of the different kinds of crexes, their habits, where they are usually found, and how the blight mutated them from their original forms and how to deal with them. As it turns out, cat crexes had an enhanced sensitivity to hearing because of their origin as feline mana beasts.

With that, Adrian began to take the cats one at a time by stunning them with the sound of his sword and striking and running, repeating it over and over again getting faster and more precise over time. Although this was a good strategy to take down an entire cluster, for an unawakened this method was way too exhausting and would leave him tired if he didn’t start drawing power from the reserve of mana in the sword.

“The kid’s got brains I must say that,” Aero thought to himself as he looked at Adrian from the corner of his eye as he lay on the hammock. “Oh well, if he doesn’t survive till the end, it won’t matter.” he thought to himself, closing his eyes, “just another brat with power who didn’t get what he wanted”

*****************************

With this Adrian kept fighting for hours when the number of cats was finally starting to dwindle. He was completely exhausted from the hours of fighting and running while gasping for breath.

Aero came over to the edge of the valley and said “Quite impressive kid! You have determination I must give you that, however, you won't make any progress like this.”

“Then what the hell am I supposed to do!!!” Adrian shouted as he continued running.

“Don't worry, pushing your body to its limits is a part of the process, but just swinging that sword around isn’t gonna do you any favours, you need to pour your own mana into it to make it yours and draw from it,” Aero explained to him.

“Just think of it as putting all your feelings and frustration into the blade itself, make an internal image of you channelling your feelings into the blade if it helps.”

Even though Adrian did not appreciate the vague advice after the situation he was put into, he grit his teeth and started fighting again.

‘Focus, focus, FOCUS!!!’ he thought to himself ‘Pour yourself into the blade, mould your frustration into mana, connect the blade to yourself, the blade is you’

‘All my feelings, all my frustration, FOCUS!!!’ he thought as he started rapidly slashing through the feline crexes. Adrian kept repeating the same thought in his head as fought the cats head-on this time since there was a manageable number of crexes left.

While Adrian kept grinding down in the valley, Aero who was resting calmly at the hammocks jerked up from the hammock. As he glanced around in all directions.

“Now that isn't normal,” he said to himself, “I could have sworn I felt something, mana……not so friendly.” he thought to himself as he looked around the camp, nothing. There was nothing that seemed out of place, yet the feeling of someone being there remained.

“Ah I must be getting tired of being holed up like this” he sighed as he got himself up. “You done kid?” he shouted to Adrian, “it's about time we leave you know?”

“After all, keeping you overnight may cause Hilda’s mind to run wild” he exclaimed with a smirk.

“Yeah,” Adrian said while finishing up the last of the crexes,

“You still didn't help me with anything though,” he said while looking annoyed and exhausted, even though he had started to feel the draw of mana being pulled into his body, it was not enough. Not enough to circulate and form a core. It was as if he was missing something, something he couldn’t quite place his finger on.

“Don't worry kid, there's always tomorrow” Aero said with his usual smile on his face “For now let's get out of here” he exclaimed while letting a rope ladder down.

As Adrian was climbing up the ladder, suddenly they both heard a sound.

The sound of chains rattling.

They both turned back immediately to the familiar sound of the clockwork mechanism turning again.

“Well……..that's not something I think is supposed to happen is it?” Adrian turned and asked Aero.

“Not without me doing anything it isn't” Aero exclaimed.

Then to their surprise, two gates opened simultaneously.

There was absolute silence.

Suddenly, two grade 3 panther crexes came out one of the gates, roaring and pouncing ferally, prancing about in the chasm for a second, turning their gazes towards Aero and his abundance of mana as they proceeded to pounce towards him, causing him to jump back to avoid them.

Adrian fell back down the ladder, from the sheer shock wave caused by the panthers pouncing directly out of the chasm in one step.

The beasts immediately charged at Aero, wasting no time to attack their target, biting and clawing fanatically. “This is bad kid. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Get out of there and get to a safer place.” Aero shouted at Adrian. 

“Well can’t you just kill them like you defeated that wolf crex?” Adrian shouted back. 

“Well, I would if I had my exquisa at hand. But you see the only blade I had is currently with you right now.” Aero exclaimed while evading the two beasts striking simultaneously at him.

“WHAT KIND OF A USELESS PALADIN ARE YOU?!!!!!!” Adrian screamed.

“ONE THAT IS TRYING NOT TO GET YOU KILLED RIGHT NOW”, Aero shouted back. “Now hold that sword and get out of there!”

As Adrian began to run towards the ladder once more, he felt a slight trembling of the ground beneath his feet, as the hair on his neck stood up. A ringing sound filled his ears as he turned around to look at the source of the low rumbling. Out of the second gate, six red eyes stared back at him as a beast slithered out, its giant snake-like figure looming over Adrian, baring its fangs out.

An Earth Wyrm.