Artemis slung his pack over one shoulder. The coarse canvas strap dug into his collarbone, heavy with sloshing water flasks, wax-paper bundles of dried rations, and a roll of thin salt-cured hide meant for emergency shelter. Each step towards the unknown felt like wading against a current. "Bye, Mum," he called, the words tight in his throat as he stepped into the dawn's pale, watery glow. Behind him, the familiar, salt-bleached wood of their cottage door seemed smaller, frailer. Two months of brutal training waited at Griff Forest's edge—a crucible he knew would be less about building and more about breaking, reshaping with fire and pain. The promise of strength felt distant, abstract, overshadowed by the visceral certainty of the gruesome ordeal ahead. Yet, the image of Rhea's tear-streaked face, the phantom weight of the shattered ironwood pressing on his conscience—these were anchors. If he wanted the power to shield her, to defy the suffocating hierarchy that stole children in the night, he had to see it through. There was no other path.
Griff Forest wasn't just a jungle—it was a living, breathing colossus, an entity older than kingdoms. It seemed to inhale the fragile silence of the dawn and exhale a palpable miasma of danger. The transition from Ocela's scrubland to its threshold was abrupt. One moment, the air was crisp with salt and distant sea spray; the next, it hung thick and suffocating with the cloying musk of damp, fecund earth and centuries of decaying leaves. Sunlight, weak and grudging, filtered through a canopy so dense it knitted day into perpetual twilight. Ancient roots, thick as a man's thigh and knotted like arthritic fingers, erupted from the black soil, twisting across the forest floor like sleeping serpents frozen mid-coil. Thick, ropy vines, slick with moisture and bearded with moss, draped from the towering giants above, dripping shadows and cold condensation onto the detritus below. A profound, watchful stillness pressed down, broken only by the irregular plip-plop of moisture falling from unseen heights and the unsettling, constant rustle of unseen things moving with deliberate stealth in the perpetual gloom. The sheer density of life felt oppressive, a physical weight pressing against the chest.
Every creature here, from the smallest insect to the largest predator, bore its tier not as a mark of status, but as tarnished armour essential for survival. High in the inaccessible vaults of the canopy, Brazenmarked howler monkeys, their fur matted and eyes glinting with feral intelligence, swung with impossible agility from bough to bough. Their bronze-fanged faces would suddenly contort, erupting in deafening, guttural territorial roars that vibrated through the very air, shaking leaves loose in a green rain. Lower down, on the shadow-dappled ground, Silverstone gorillas moved with ponderous, deceptive grace. Their muscles, visible beneath coarse fur, were like bundles of corded iron. They'd pause, beat their massive chests with fists like boulders – a resonant thump-thump-thump that echoed through the undergrowth – powerful enough to snap young sapling trunks with nothing more than a casual, contemptuous backhand. Argentblood jaguars, sinuous shadows incarnate, prowled the liminal spaces between shifting bars of light and deep shadow. Their movements were liquid silence, but occasionally, a shaft of light would catch their silver-flecked canines, flashing like captured moonlit blades as they surveyed their domain with cold, predatory calculation. In the dank, decaying undergrowth, unseen but ever-present, Brazenmarked vipers coiled tightly around gnarled roots or beneath broad, waxy leaves, their scales blending perfectly. Only a low, continuous hiss and the occasional, chilling glint of exposed bronze fangs, sharp as tiny, venomous daggers, betrayed their lethal presence. Even the crocodiles lurking in the stagnant, algae-scummed pools at the forest's marshy fringes were titans – massive Silverstone behemoths encased in armour-plated hides. They lay utterly motionless, like submerged logs, only their nostrils and the cold, reptilian slits of their eyes breaking the water's surface. Their jaws, lined with teeth as hard and unforgiving as carved steel, waited with primordial, infinite patience for the unwary.
Nothing here was weak. Whether Hollow skittering through the leaf litter, Brazenmarked beetles boring into iron-hard bark, or Silverstone predators dominating their territories, every beast, every insect, survived solely by fang, claw, venom, and the raw power imbued by their tier. The forest itself seemed sentient, a collective consciousness woven from root and vine and tooth, tracking an intruder's every rustle, every indrawn breath. To falter, to show weakness, was an invitation written in blood. The lesson would be delivered swiftly, brutally, and end in a single, final heartbeat.
Rox and Arthur already waited at the forest's gnarled, root-choked threshold. Rox stood rigid as a storm-carved cliff, arms crossed tightly over his chest, his silverstone gaze fixed with unnerving intensity on the oppressive green wall before them. He radiated no warmth, only the sharp readiness of a blade drawn from its sheath. Arthur shifted beside him, his usual bravado subdued by the forest's palpable menace, his knuckles unconsciously shimmering with a faint bronze sheen.
"First two weeks," Rox barked suddenly, his voice cutting through the forest's low, organic murmur like a honed blade through silk. He didn't turn to look at them. "We train out here. On the edge. Strength. Speed. Endurance. The fundamentals. Drills until you drop. Then," his voice dropped to a gravelly promise, "drills until you find the will to stand again. Then, one week. With me. Inside." He finally turned, his pale eyes locking onto theirs, holding the weight of the unseen horrors within. "Putting those hard-won skills to the test against what truly lurks in there. Prove you can apply it, not just sweat it out. After that," he paused, letting the implication hang heavy in the humid air, "you get one month. On your own. In its belly. Survive that… then maybe you're ready for the academy's kindergarten."
Arthur frowned, shifting his weight uneasily, his gaze darting from the forest to Rox and back. The reality of the schedule, especially the solitary month, hit like a physical blow. "Survive how, exactly?" he asked, his voice tighter than usual. "What are the rules? What do we *do*? Just… wander around getting chewed on?"
Rox's eyes hardened, pinning Arthur in place with the force of his glare. "By understanding," he hissed, the word sharp and demanding. "Understanding your body—down to the marrow, boy. Your teeth. Your bones. Your physiology. Your tier. Two thousand years ago, scholars scraped enough sense together to realize it wasn't just the enamel in your mouth that sang your potential. It's the skeleton, too. The very framework that holds you together, infused with the same resonance." He uncrossed his arms, gesturing with a calloused hand. "You learn to forge weapons from your own bones. To boost speed and strength beyond mere instinct, to channel it. To heighten your senses – touch, sound, heat, vibration – until you can catch the whisper of death approaching through a hurricane. But!" His voice snapped like a whip. "All that theory, all that internal mapping? It's worthless parchment scribbles without true battle experience and forged durability. Steel isn't tempered in a library. And the beasts in this forest…" He jerked his thumb towards the green wall. "…they offer nothing less than the primordial forge. Tooth and claw. Fang and fury. They will test you. They will break you. And if you learn, if you adapt, they will make you stronger. Or leave your bones to feed the roots. Your choice."
Artemis's throat tightened, the immensity of the task, the sheer, brutal finality of Rox's words, settling on his shoulders like a physical weight, threatening to buckle his knees. The diamond lattice within him seemed to hum faintly, a cold counterpoint to the fear coiling in his gut. "I understand," he managed, the words scraping out, feeling utterly inadequate against the scale of the challenge. They were all he had. Survival wasn't a promise whispered on the wind; it was a grim, bloody pact he had to carve into his own spirit, signed in sweat and pain.
***
"Run," Rox commanded the next dawn, his voice like two stones grinding deep within the earth. He pointed towards the mist-shrouded forest edge, barely visible in the pre-dawn grey. "Ten miles. Circuit. Carry these." He kicked two rough-hewn sandstone blocks towards them, each easily half their body weight, landing with solid thuds on the dew-slick grass. Arthur groaned, a deep, visceral sound, as his Brontide muscles bunched and strained. Bronze knuckles flickered instinctively over his fingers, reinforcing his grip as he heaved the monstrous weight onto his shoulder, his knees dipping momentarily. Artemis gritted his teeth, the canvas pack strap already a familiar point of agony, now joined by the brutal load. His Adamanthe bones accepted the crushing weight without protest, a solid, unyielding foundation, but his lungs were another matter. They screamed for air almost immediately, burning as he struggled to find a rhythm. His movements were clumsy, uncoordinated, the heavy block throwing off his balance with every other step. Rox fell into step beside them, a haunting, silent ghost moving with infuriating, effortless ease. When Artemis stumbled, his boot catching on a tussock of grass, a switch of thornvine, seemingly materialized from nowhere, lashed across his shoulders. The sting was sharp, immediate. "Diamond skeleton, pottery legs!" Rox barked, the disdain thick in his voice. "Move like you own that strength, not like it owns you! Lift your damned feet!"
The following days blurred into a relentless tapestry of blood, sweat, and searing, bone-deep pain. Colors seemed bleached, time distended. Blindfolded and with crude wax plugs jammed into their ears, they stood isolated in a small, open field near the forest's edge. The world vanished into muffled darkness and the frantic drumming of their own hearts. Then, the whistle. Pebbles, hurled with vicious accuracy by Rox, cut through the air. Arthur flinched, his entire body tensing. His Brontide senses, pushed to their raw limit, strained to feel the subtle vibration through the soles of his feet a fraction of a heartbeat before the impact. He'd jerk sideways, sometimes avoiding the stone, sometimes not. A sharp crack echoed in his muffled hearing as one clipped his shoulder, drawing a bitten-off curse. Artemis stood rigid within his sensory void, a statue of tension. His diamond-tier senses – potentially capable of mapping the field by air currents alone – remained frustratingly sluggish, dormant, locked away. Thwack! A stone, larger than the others, slammed squarely into his ribs. The force drove the air from his lungs, leaving him gasping silently behind the blindfold. Rough hands yanked the cloth away, flooding his vision with painful light, revealing the already purpling bruise blooming over his ribs. "Diamond senses cut sharper than any Silverstone's blade!" Rox snarled, his face inches from Artemis's, breath hot and smelling of salt and iron. "Yours are rusted shut, boy! Gathering dust! Wake them the hell up! Focus! Feel the air move!"
Exhaustion became their constant, grinding companion, a third entity haunting their steps. After runs that left them sprawled on the grass, chests heaving like bellows, Rox allowed no respite. "Manifest!" he'd snap. Arthur, sweat stinging his eyes, blurring his vision, would wipe his face with a trembling arm and focus with desperate intensity. A shimmering bronze buckler, translucent at first, then solidifying into dull metal, formed on his left forearm. It felt thin, insubstantial, like poorly cast tin. Rox didn't hesitate. His Silverstone-enhanced leg snapped out in a blur, the kick connecting with a sickening crunch. The buckler shattered into dissipating fragments like cheap, brittle glass. "Rust bucket!" Rox spat, the contempt palpable. Thicker! Denser! Put some backbone into it, Brontide!" Arthur spat a glob of blood-tinged saliva onto the grass, teeth gritted so hard his jaw ached, and tried again, pouring more energy, more will, into the forming metal. Artemis, trembling not just from fatigue but from the sheer effort of reaching inward, concentrated on his knuckles. Jagged, flickering shards of crystalline light sparked over the skin – beautiful, lethal fractals – but they wavered, unstable, and vanished instantly, leaving him drained, shaking, and hollow with failure. "Pathetic," Rox stated, the word devoid of anger, just cold, brutal assessment. "Your own bones don't trust you yet, Adamanthe. They feel your doubt. Convince them."
Week two dawned not with hope, but with a deeper, more savage edge to Rox's methods. He unleashed a constructed gauntlet designed to break bodies and spirits. Hauling sledges piled with jagged boulders up treacherous, mud-slick slopes where every step threatened to send them sliding back to the bottom. Dragging their own battered bodies hand-over-hand along thick, tarred ropes strung precariously high between ancient trees, weighted down with sandbags tied to their ankles, muscles screaming with the strain of suspension. Wrestling monstrous, waterlogged logs, slick with algae and impossibly heavy, through waist-deep pits of sucking, cloying clay that threatened to trap them permanently. Arthur's Brontide muscles shrieked in protest, pushed to their absolute limits. He fueled bursts of mach-speed exertion to gain momentary advantage on a slope or heave the log forward a precious inch, his manifested bronze claws gouging deep, splintering grooves into the wood for purchase, but each burst left him gasping, vision swimming. Artemis, powered by the seemingly bottomless well of diamond-tier endurance, didn't tire in the same way, but his strength was a wild, untamed beast. During the log haul, frustration mounting, he drove a diamond-knuckled fist into the stubborn trunk for leverage. The uncontrolled power didn't just dent it; it exploded a section near the end into splinters, sending shards flying. "Control!" Rox bellowed, appearing beside him like an angry wraith, his voice cutting through the grunts and sucking mud. "Strength without control is just pointless wreckage! Channel it! Direct it!"
Sparring became a terrifying whirlwind of agony. Rox shed any pretense of instruction, moving faster than conscious sight could track, a blur of weathered leather and grey hair. The padded staff in his hands became a weapon of precision punishment, cracking against limbs, ribs, shoulders, heads. Arthur blocked frantically, his arms a blur of shimmering, hastily conjured bronze arm-guards. The impacts jarred his bones, sending shocks up to his teeth, each block a desperate, reactive scramble. He was perpetually a step, a thought, behind Rox's Silverstone speed. Artemis, relying on his innate diamond density, absorbed blows that should have been dodged. The padding prevented cuts, but the sheer kinetic force translated into deep, bruising thuds that resonated through his frame, leaving him breathless. Rox's staff was a serpent, finding the gap in his flailing guard, cracking with terrifying accuracy against his temple. Stars exploded in Artemis's vision, white-hot pain flaring. "Your skeleton can move faster than thought, Adamanthe!" Rox roared, already repositioning, the staff a whistling arc aiming for his kidneys. "Stop planning! Stop hesitating! Let the power flow! Move!"
Nights brought no respite, only a different kind of torment. Forced into stiff, meditative postures on the cold, unforgiving ground long after the last embers of their small fire died, Rox circled them like a gaunt spectre. "Feel your teeth!" he demanded, his voice a low growl in the darkness. "Not just the enamel in your jaw. Feel the resonance they anchor. Trace it. Down. Into the marrow of your bones. The Bronze thrum. The Diamond lattice. The cold fire. Sense the energy humming within the framework. Map it in your mind. Know its pathways, its strengths, its limits." In the oppressive silence, Arthur learned to sense the low, metallic buzz within his bronze-infused skeleton, a constant vibration like a plucked wire, a source of power he could now consciously reach for, however weakly. Artemis, guided by Rox's harsh, insistent whispers that seemed to bypass his ears and vibrate in his skull, began to perceive the terrifying, intricate architecture within him. It was a lattice of impossible complexity, humming with cold, dense power – vast, potent, yet frustratingly disconnected from his conscious will, like trying to command a mountain. "It's not jewellery, boy," Rox growled, his silhouette stark against the starless sky. "It's not decoration. It's your sword, your shield, your engine, your life. Learn its language. Speak it fluently. Or it will consume you instead of serving you."
Precision drills under Rox's unforgiving eye turned brutal, demanding minute control amidst exhaustion. Arthur practiced shifting the very structure of his manifested bronze. One moment, razor-sharp spikes erupted from his knuckles, aimed with desperate focus at a dangling vine target – a piercing weapon. The next instant, he had to dissolve the spikes and reform dense, interlocking plates along his forearm – a defensive bulwark. Rox didn't wait for perfection. He attacked with heavy stone mauls the moment the shield formed. CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! The impacts rang out like discordant bells, the bronze reverberating violently. Each blow threatened to buckle the shield, to shatter it back into nothingness, forcing Arthur to pour every ounce of his Brontide strength, his focus screaming, into maintaining its density and integrity, reinforcing the molecular bonds. Artemis's task was no less demanding. He focused on forming diamond-edged blades along the ridge of his fingers, visualizing surgical precision. The crystalline structures that manifested were lethally sharp, catching the weak light with prismatic flashes, but they were often brittle, fracturing on impact, or misshapen, lacking a true edge. He practiced slicing through progressively tougher materials – thick, fibrous vines that resisted like leather, then young, supple saplings, then finally seasoned hardwood logs. Too often, the uncontrolled power behind the diamond edge wouldn't cut; it would simply shatter the target explosively, spraying woodchips. "Finesse!" Rox yelled, ducking a flying splinter, his voice thick with exasperation. "A scalpel, boy! Not a gods-damned sledgehammer! Control the force! Guide the edge!"
Blindfolded once more, the world plunged into disorienting darkness, they were thrust into treacherous obstacle courses Rox had littered with distractions. Noise traps – him rattling chains suddenly to their left or right. Scent distractions – pungent, rotting meat hidden under leaves. Thermal variances – sun-warmed stones placed beside cooler patches of earth or shade. Arthur learned to navigate this chaotic world primarily through vibrations transmitted through his boots and subtle shifts in the air currents against his skin, his Brontide senses painting a rough, impressionistic picture of his surroundings. Artemis, pushed relentlessly harder, had to differentiate the faint, specific bio-signature heat of a small Brazenmarked lizard camouflaged on a rock from the ambient warmth of the sun-baked stone itself using his nascent diamond-tier thermal sense – a maddening exercise in focus. Simultaneously, he had to dodge Rox's silent, padded attacks, reacting purely to the displacement of air, the whisper of movement that preceded a strike. He stumbled, he fell onto rough roots and sharp stones, but amidst the failures, flickers of hyper-awareness sparked – fleeting moments where the world resolved into startling, minute detail: the texture of bark beneath his fingers, the exact location of the rustling chain, the cool patch of moss beside his foot. Fleeting, but undeniably real.
Rox taught them not just to use their tier, but to exploit its inherent properties tactically. Arthur practiced channeling his Bronze conductivity – grounding a simulated electrical shock sent through a wet puddle by directing the energy harmlessly into the sodden earth; focusing subtle vibrations through his palm onto a boulder, feeling for internal hollows or cracks invisible to the eye. Artemis wrestled with the complex thermal properties of Diamond – drawing ambient heat energy slowly into his palms until they grew uncomfortably warm, almost glowing faintly red, then releasing it in a sudden, focused burst directed at a pre-cooled stone block, causing it to fracture violently along stress lines; conversely, rapidly pulling heat away from a small pool of stagnant water, frosting its surface over with a brittle layer of ice in seconds. The control required was minuscule, exhausting, a constant battle against the raw potential that wanted to flood out uncontrolled. "Your tier isn't just muscles and teeth," Rox stated, watching their straining efforts with critical eyes. "It's the fundamental physics of the universe woven into your very bones. Understand its principles. Learn its rules. Then bend them. Wield it."
The final days blurred the line between training and survival. Rox sparred them simultaneously, shedding the last vestiges of restraint. His Silverstone speed and precision transformed him into a localized storm of violence. Arthur learned the true meaning of defense under genuine threat, conjuring instant bronze shields to deflect blows that could shatter bone, his reflexes sharpening to a razor's edge through sheer necessity. He managed to land glancing hits with swiftly formed bronze spikes, scoring shallow grooves on Rox's incredibly tough Silverstone skin, drawing only dismissive grunts. Artemis became the primary anvil upon which Rox hammered. Blows rained down, forcing him to manifest diamond plates over his forearms and shoulders that cracked under the relentless Silverstone assault; forcing desperate, instinctive dodges where milliseconds mattered; forcing him to anticipate the flow of combat before the blow was even telegraphed. The latent Adamanthe power, stirred by pain and primal panic, surged in erratic bursts. Flashes of near-Silverstone speed erupted as he barely avoided a crippling knee strike. Diamond claws, sharp as broken glass, manifested in a defensive swipe, gouging deep, ragged furrows into the dense wood of Rox's practice staff. He was still clumsy, still inefficient, burning energy wildly, but the raw, terrifying potential, the glimpse of what a fully realized Adamanthe could be, began to bleed through the cracks in his stunted control. "Faster! Harder! Stop thinking!" Rox roared, a relentless flurry of strikes driving Artemis back towards a tangle of thorny bushes, the message clear: hesitate, and the forest itself would finish the lesson.
The tortures Rox devised became intensely tier-specific, designed to push their unique physiologies to the absolute breaking point. Arthur endured hour-long sessions maintaining a constantly vibrating bronze energy shield against an unending barrage of heavy stones hurled by Rox. His arms trembled violently, muscles shrieking in protest, the shield flickering dangerously as his Brontide energy reserves depleted to near emptiness, threatening to dissolve entirely and leave him exposed. Artemis was buried up to his neck in dense, compacted clay that set like concrete. His task: manifest diamond spines from his spine and shoulders – agonizingly slow, like forcing bone through stone – and use them, along with sheer diamond-enhanced leverage, to fracture the suffocating earth around him and haul his entire body out, inch by excruciating inch. His diamond core didn't burn hot; it burned cold, a deep, draining ache that sapped his will as much as his strength.
"I haven't seen many diamond users," Rox thought grimly to himself as he watched Artemis strain, veins standing out on his neck like cords, "but his diamond structure... the way it manifests, the resonance... there's something strange about them. Off. Like flawed crystal. " But he kept the observation locked behind his silverstone eyes. Now wasn't the time for mysteries; it was the time for breaking and remaking.
Sleep was stolen in stolen minutes between drills, a fitful unconsciousness that offered no true rest. Food was tasteless fuel, wolfed down without ceremony, its only purpose to stave off collapse. Their world narrowed to an endless cycle: searing pain, crushing exertion, Rox's relentless voice dissecting every failure and demanding impossible micro-adjustments, and the slow, agonizing awakening of the power woven into their very bones.
On the final afternoon, as the weak sun bled through the canopy in long, dusty shafts, Rox didn't bark orders or issue threats. He simply stood at the very edge where the thinning scrubland met the forest's dark embrace and pointed a single, calloused finger into the gloom beneath the ancient, gnarled roots of a colossal ironbark tree. "Brazenmarked Rock-Badger," he stated, his voice flat. "Nasty temper. Nesting in there. Bronze teeth like stone chisels. Fetch its fangs. Both. Ten minutes." It was a silent, unequivocal command: "Prove you learned something. Prove you can hunt."
They moved as one, instincts forged in fourteen days of shared agony taking immediate precedence over conscious thought. Arthur dropped instantly into a crouch, pressing his palm flat against the cool, damp earth. He closed his eyes, focusing the low, metallic buzz within him outward. A faint, distinct thrum resonated back through the ground – the badger's burrow, perhaps twenty paces ahead, tucked deep under the labyrinthine roots. Artemis, beside him, didn't need vibration. His diamond-honed eyes, pushed beyond their previous limits, pierced the dappled shadows and shifting patterns of light and dark. He spotted it – the telltale glint of bronze, like dull copper pennies, near the burrow's shadowed entrance, attached to a low-slung, muscular body covered in coarse, grizzled fur. A low, warning growl rumbled from the darkness. Before it could escalate, the badger erupted from its den in a compact fury of muscle, claws, and chisel-like bronze teeth, aiming straight for Arthur who was closest. Arthur's reaction was pure, honed instinct. A bronze shield flared into existence on his forearm not a moment too soon. The badger slammed into it with a bone-jarring CLANG!, the impact staggering Arthur but leaving him unharmed. Artemis didn't move with Rox's impossible Silverstone blur, but with a newfound, terrifying purpose that flowed from core to limb. He didn't aim for the badger directly. His diamond-encased fist, shimmering with cold light, slammed into the massive root beside the momentarily stunned creature. The sound wasn't a thud; it was a CRACK-THOOM as centuries-old wood shattered into splinters and dust. The badger, disoriented and showered in debris, stumbled. Arthur was on it in an instant, leveraging his Brontide strength to pin the thrashing creature, avoiding the snapping, bronze-tipped jaws. Artemis moved in, his fingers, tipped with wickedly sharp, perfectly formed diamond points, found the massive root of the left fang, then the right. A precise twist, a sickening crunch of bone and ligament, and the bronze teeth came free, slick with blood and saliva.
They stood before Rox, breathing hard, chests heaving. Blood smeared Arthur's tunic from a shallow scratch. Clay dust, sweat, and flecks of bark coated Artemis like a second skin. Arthur held out the two curved bronze fangs, still glistening wetly in the fading light. Rox took them, his expression unreadable. He examined the clean breaks at the base, the lack of splintered bone, the precision of the extraction. He grunted, a sound that could have meant anything. "Not bad," he conceded, the words rough. "...for driftwood." He pocketed the fangs, his silverstone gaze sweeping over them – bodies honed lean and hard, senses sharpened like newly whetted blades, the spark of their true tier potential finally, painfully, ignited behind their eyes. It wasn't mastery, not yet, but the forge had lit its fire within them. "Rest," he ordered, his voice lacking its usual bite. "Much as you can." He turned his back on them, his gaze fixed once more on the oppressive, waiting wall of trees, deeper and darker than ever. "Tomorrow, we leave the edge. We enter the forge." The two-week crucible was over. The forest's heart, the true testing ground, awaited its new fuel.