Cultivating Heroism Read online

  By the time he could consistently hit the slimes in their weak spots on his first attempt with each type of kick, the sun had almost set, and he was exhausted.

  More than ready for a sit down and some food, he moved back toward the edge of the forest and to where his backpack was. He’d asked Jakke about where the best place to set up a camp would be, and had been instructed that at the edge of the forest, but far enough in that he wouldn’t be seen from outside would be the best spot. With that in mind, he set up the small tent he’d been given beside a large tree that would shield him from view, and hunkered down in the thick woolen blanket to nibble on the dried meat and bread.

  He sipped water from a flask he’d refilled at a stream on his way to his campsite.

  It was almost cozy, but he couldn’t help thinking that it would have been a thousand times better with Kaarina by his side. He hoped she was lying comfortably in the temple thinking about him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  In the morning, Mack woke refreshed and with energy running through him that he wasn’t used to.

  He normally woke up feeling a bit despondent that he had to go into work and face his frustrating colleagues and his dead-end job, but today he was going to some jungle ruins to practice grappling and throws and then jumps and takedowns in a hilly region to the south of the temple. Adventuring sure beat the hell out of working a mundane office job with a bunch of chumps.

  He beamed as he packed his tent and sleeping bag away into the backpack and ate some breakfast. He was going to have to learn how to hunt at some point, but his skill set wasn’t the best for capturing the small, fast creatures that would make a good meal that he’d seen running through the forest and the long grass of the plains.

  Kaarina or Vekku would be better at that because they had physical weapons. Maybe at some point he’d find another friend who carried something ranged and then they’d definitely be able to hunt. He didn’t think Jakke would approve of his using a bow or anything like that either.

  He hadn’t really thought much about how his journey was going to go in the future, but if it was as big and tough as Jakke made it sound then he was sure their party would increase as it went on.

  Right now, all he really cared about was his journey to the jungle ruins that Jakke had indicated on the map. They were a bit of a trek since he was heading back toward the temple and then diverting west at the last minute.

  It was a simple, flat trek, and even as the humidity increased as the forest turned more tropical, the heat didn’t bother him. He was intrigued by the various creatures he saw clinging to trees and watching him. He was sure they were all unintelligent life forms—they definitely gave no indication that they were anything more than animals—but they looked so different that he couldn’t stop himself staring. He wished he had some kind of paper to catalog all the new things he was seeing. He doubted he’d be able to remember them all.

  He came upon the ruins suddenly. They trees were so thick by this point that he could barely see what was in front of him until it was right there.

  They were wooden, which surprised him, but something in the trees seemed to have preserved the expansive ruins rather than decaying them. It was a huge building not unlike the temple, but this one was reduced to just the foundations. A few walls still remained as tall as his head, but he knew they must have been much taller at one point.

  And in the ruins were the creatures that he’d been sent there to practice his grapple and throws on.

  Mack could see why Jakke had described them as apes. They were bipedal and covered in fur with almost human mannerisms, but there were some definite differences. Mainly the fact they all had two heads. Even with the brown hair and surprisingly human facial features, it was impossible to get past the fact they all had double heads sprouting from an obscenely thick neck.

  They faced in different directions, too, making their vision range exceptional.

  He was sure that was one of the reasons he was here. It was another, different challenge that he was going to have to get used to.

  And compared to the slimes, these ape creatures looked far more powerful, and potentially more hostile. They stalked around the ruins picking at trees and eating fruit they found. At least they probably weren’t man-eaters then. A group sat in a corner grooming each other.

  If they were anything like the apes on Earth, they would be more intelligent than the slimes, too.

  Still mostly hidden behind a tree, he quietly deposited his backpack on the ground and chose to sit for about ten minutes and just watch them to see if he could get any indication of their temperament. More than once a small animal would scurry its way through the ruins and none seemed to have any interest in attacking it. He figured they must be definitely vegetarians.

  And while there was a small group grooming each other, there didn’t seem to be much social interaction between the animals either. They didn’t make noises or speak to each other.

  Skirting around the edge of the ruins, he found the least densely populated area, with just one ape behind a line of thick foliage. If he was going to get to face one of these apes one on one, then this seemed like it would be his best chance.

  He was supposed to be practicing his grapple and throw on the beasts, and he went through the movements in his head before stepping out to face his opponent.

  Unlike the slime, who appeared completely unaffected by his presence, the ape looked up straight away. Then it charged.

  Mack was so taken by surprise that he could only watch for a second as the ape, as big and muscled as he was, threw itself at him at full pelt. He recovered in time to dodge the attack, but the ape wasn’t concerned. It immediately rounded on its heel, quicker than any human would have been able to course correct itself, and started straight back at him.

  Mack dodged again, but he wasn’t going to be able to keep doing that forever. He knew he was supposed to be practicing his grapple hold and throw on the ape, but he didn’t see why he couldn’t make the most of his other teho techniques in order to fight it. This time when the ape charged, he met the blow head on with a punch to the shoulder that would throw it off balance but wasn’t intended to do so much damage he couldn’t then grapple with it.

  It worked as intended and the ape was stopped in its tracks. It grunted in pain, and then threw a fast punch with its uninjured arm.

  He ducked under the punch and went in for the grapple move that he’d learned from the training dummies earlier. He could barely fit his arms around the broad chest of the ape, but just got his hand around his other wrist to secure the hold. He looked up at the faces of the ape, and found four sets of eyes looking down at him.

  Then a hand came underneath his chin and forced his head backward so abruptly he cried out. His hold was broken, and he was flung to the ground, where he landed painfully on his back. With a groan, he just barely rolled out of the way before the ape pounced.

  Back on his feet, he tried to shake off the shock of being tossed so easily. The ape was strong and fast, and he’d have to do better if he was going to throw it to the ground before it could act. His punch would be able to take down the beast easily, he knew, but that would defeat the point of the task.

  Back in his stance, he waited for the ape to come charging at him again and employed the same technique. The creature couldn’t have been intelligent because he fell into the exact same trap of letting Mack punch its shoulder and throw it off balance. He went straight in for a grapple again, and this time kept his face tight to the furry chest of the ape instead of being tempted to look at the dual faces up close. Unable to get its hands under his chin this time, the ape struggled to push Mack away.

  But from this position, it was unable to. Mack had the advantage, and the sudden surge of power from the throw that he’d learned, to heave the ape over his shoulder and onto its back.

  He grinned at his success, but didn’t allow himself to be complacent. The ape was fast, and he didn’t know how much that move would have
injured it.

  When he turned around, the ape was crawling away rather than turning around to fight.

  He could have gone after it and finished the job, but didn’t see the point. It would be death for the sake of it. Instead, he moved on to face more of the apes in the jungle ruins and make sure that his success hadn’t been a fluke. Instead of always disarming with a punch, he made sure to practice his kicks on the strong, agile targets as well, until he was working like a well-oiled machine, going from attack into grapple into throw as though it was second nature.

  And it did feel like second nature. He still couldn’t fully comprehend the fact he had this teho energy inside him, but he couldn’t deny that it did make everything come more easily to him, and that it was giving him raw power he could have only imagined super heroes having before.

  And now there was just one more region to go before he would be back in the temple and hearing more about what he was really going to be using these new powers for in the future.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The last walk was a bit of a trek, and even though Mack’s back was sore from the unexpected throw from the ape creature, he powered through with high energy. He was excited to practice the next set of moves: jumps and takedowns. While he knew something about takedowns, jumps were a completely new discipline to him. They were the kind of move normally reserved for wrestlers and the kind of jumps that Mack had been taught would have been difficult for a mere human to have performed.

  With his enhanced skills, though, he would be able to move with more agility and take less damage from performing such a move, and he was excited to use it out in the wild.

  His surroundings gave him plenty of opportunity to use the terrain to his advantage with such moves, too. He was trekking his way up a relatively steep mountainside with large rocks growing in interesting formations on either side.

  What was most exciting was when he saw the area he would be fighting the creatures in though. They were medium sized flying lizards that fluttered around on leathery wings in a clearing surrounding by rocks but with an otherwise flat surface.

  He would have the rocks on the outside to use for leverage and then the flat terrain for his takedowns.

  Once again, he set his backpack down on the outskirts of the clearing and then cracked his fingers. The last task, and he was ready for it.

  Just like with the apes, the moment he stepped into vision, the lizard creature he’d been planning to attack spotted him. It made a sharp whistling sound that echoed around the clearing, and all the rest of the lizards perked their heads up and stared straight at him as well.

  He swallowed. There were half a dozen of them there, ranging from the size of small dogs to sheep.

  And they all coalesced on him at the same time, darting forward through the air faster than he’d expected and with sharp teeth bared and claws extended.

  “Shit,” he hissed. His automatic response was to move backward. He stuck to his original plan to use the terrain surrounding him to get an advantage for his jumps. It was just like a wrestler using the ropes around a ring to propel himself forward and downward. Mack jumped onto a small rock in one swift movement and waited for one of the lizards to get within range. When it did, he lunged forward with his hands outstretched, intending to grapple with the lizard while he pulled it to the ground to deliver a takedown maneuver.

  It worked, flinging the lizard to the ground and allowing Mack to slam his elbow into the neck of the beast as he landed and break it cleanly.

  Only it left his back exposed to the rest of the beasts, and they immediately swooped to get revenge for their fallen kin by scratching him viciously with the extended claws on their feet.

  He yowled and rolled over, batting them away with kicks and punches.

  His mind was blank for a minute. He had no idea how to perform the jump and takedown without leaving himself exposed to other enemies. His only option was to be faster, but he wasn’t sure even he could move that quickly.

  It was his only idea, though, so he ran with it. He performed the same move this time without using the terrain as a springboard but instead pouncing from the ground toward one of the lizards and flooring it. He didn’t have time to properly attack the lizard, and its neck didn’t snap, but he rolled away immediately and instead got scratches all over his stomach and chest.

  They were less severe, but still enough that he couldn’t kill all the lizards without losing too much blood.

  He racked his brain for a different strategy. There must have been something either Jakke or the training dummies had told him that would allow him to beat these things, otherwise Jakke wouldn’t have sent him out there. This task was obviously supposed to be about learning how to fight multiple opponents at once too, but he hadn’t been given any direct instruction on that.

  He wished that Kaarina was there. The slow on her sword would have made taking down these lizards a piece of cake, just like when they’d taken down the gruks. She would also be able to heal all these nasty cuts.

  If he could slow the lizards then he could take them down one by one, but he didn’t have utility abilities like Kaarina. He was pure assault. All attack.

  But an attack could stun, if just by putting things into so much pain that they couldn’t move for a moment.

  He should have known that would be the real lesson of the final challenge. It wasn’t just about fighting many enemies at once, it was about the entire first level protector’s martial skill set to fight them all at once.

  It was like he’d told Kaarina before venturing out alone: he needed to know how powerful he was, to understand his limits. He could only do that if he’d used all the moves he’d learned in conjunction with each other, otherwise he’d be selling himself short.

  With that in mind, he clenched his fists and punched the lizard that was flying straight at his face with its claws out straight in the stomach, sending it flying backward and making it fall on the ground a good distance away. Because he’d used his punch the most, it was the quickest move he had and that meant he could deliver blows to all four lizards flying around his head in rapid succession before they had a chance to attack. He only received a single, shallow graze to the neck.

  The lizard he’d jumped last time was just starting to recover, and he targeted that one for his jump and takedown move. Launching through the air, he had the time to make sure that he snapped the neck of the creature when he floored it with his elbow.

  Without creatures swarming his back, he stood up and looked around for the next lizard that was starting to move. It was just getting its balance in the air as Mack attacked, performing the maneuver without error and killing the beast in one fell swoop.

  This time he didn’t have the same window between the other creatures recovering, and was forced to punch all three backward again. This killed one outright, and left the other two as easy pickings. He didn’t need to use the jump to use a front kick on one of the downed creatures, which caved in its chest and stopped it breathing. The final lizard was just getting back into the air when Mack turned his attention on it.

  He lunged forward with the jump and takedown and executed it perfectly.

  Standing with his hands on his hips, he looked around at the broken bodies of the lizards. He felt more powerful, Jakke had been right. Even though he’d only performed the jump and takedown a few times he was stronger for it. Just a few more clearings of these whelps, and he’d be ready to face down whatever came his way.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Hours later, he had a much improved teho jump, along with all his first level skills now working as one fluid martial technique. He grinned as he walked back into the temple, trying to resist the urge to cheesily flex his muscles as he strode back in.

  Kaarina waited at the entrance of the temple, and instead of wrapping her arms around him she instead stood on her tiptoes and held the straps on his backpack to anchor herself as she kissed him.

  He couldn’t help but flinch a little as th
e shifting of the backpack straps aggravated the wounds on his back.

  She pulled back immediately. “What happened?”

  “Nothing big.” He dropped the pack on the floor and shimmied out of his tunic to show her the damage.

  She still gasped and immediately healed him. “That looked sore.”

  “It really wasn’t that bad.”

  “And that’s the only damage you took?”

  “My back is a bit achy, but other than that, yes.”

  Now he was healed, she went back to her kiss, this time resting her hands on his shoulders. When he went to hold her, she pulled back. “Have you been okay here?” he asked, hoping she wasn’t still mad about him leaving on his own.

  “Of course. The temple is safe. I just missed you.”

  “I missed you last night, too.”

  The minute their reunion was over, Vekku was climbing up and onto her shoulder. “Hello,” he said, his grin revealing ugly teeth.

  “Hey,” he replied, tempting to pat the thing on the head but still not feeling great about actually touching the ugly skin of the gruk. “I’m going to go and find Jakke.”

  In the main room of the temple, Jakke stood with his arms folded, watching Mack walk in. Mack thought at first that he was disapproving, then he broke into a grin. “Excellent progress. I see you understood the lesson you were meant to learn in each area and have used all the moves you learned in training effectively. I’m sure that you now understand your limits much more intimately, and will feel more confident going into a fight in the future. Now—”

  His face turned slack for a moment, and then his eyes widened. “Avalu. I can see smoke.”