Chapter Three - The Beginning

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"He woke up earlier than the rest of us and went to practise swinging that wooden toy of his."

Both men looked at each other with an exhausted look

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Before either of the men had woken up, Noah had already gone to the well and carried two freshwater buckets back home. He walked into the kitchen and poured both of the buckets into a cauldron. Lighting a few pieces of kindling on fire and making sure they were placed under the centre of the cauldron.

Making sure it was safe and not going to cause the house to catch fire, Noah then went and checked on his mother. Today was his 16th Birthday, he still remembered the deal Isan made with him to make sure his mother agrees on Noah leaving and going to be taught by Isan. He had brought it up a few times already but she disagreed every time.

Since it was already his 16th birthday he was trying to figure a way to get her to agree so he could start his adventure. He slowly tucked in his mother and walked out of the house after grabbing his wooden sword, staring into the light sky. The sun had yet to come up but the moon had already set. It was a deep red sky but it still looked amazing to Noah.

He started his journey to the area he had claimed as his training zone, just passed the villages wheat farm near the start of the forest. It was a small open area with little to nothing there other than grass. It was a good flat land which made practising easier for Noah.

He stood with his legs apart, his feet lined up with his shoulders. Taking in a deep breath he grasped his wooden sword in front of him with both hands. He heard a small buzzing noise start to come from the sword. Noah was used to this by now already, there wasn't a day he missed practising. Be it raining, snowing or blazing heat.

Noah knew that the sword, when clasped in both hands, would start to hum and buzz, that from the handle to the tip of the blade would start to dimly light up. The symbols that were engraved onto the wooden blade would light up brightly. As Noah gained more experience with the blade the symbols would slowly fade away one at a time until they were all gone.

Noah got to work practising. The image he had been sent to his head was a combination of moves that he had practised previously but not all together. It seemed the sword wanted him to follow through with the training and combine this into a smooth movement.

Getting into position, Noah moved his feet so that he was standing and prepared to take a hit from an imaginary sparring partner.

Swinging the sword as if to intercept another, Noah's movements were clean and precise. Every swing had a clear intention. If anyone saw him they would think that he had trained with others and not studied by himself for years.

After swinging for the interception he made a movement to parry the imaginary opponents' sword again. Moving back before getting into a power stance and preparing to give a strong overhead blow.

The time flew by for Noah, the sun had already started rising before he knew it. He had sweat buckets due to the exertion of the training, more than he had in a while. He was cursing himself for not bringing a flask of water with him.

Sitting down to catch his breath, Noah stared into the forest listening to the sounds around him. he could hear the birds and the running of the water but other than that it was just silence. Peaceful silence. When Noah was in the village it always felt like everyone was non stop moving. Always having a task to do, the only time there was a little bit of quiet was when there were bowls of food being eaten but even then you could hear the munch of food being eaten.

Enjoying his break he was preparing to get back to town and help out the farmers but he heard a scream from the forest. This sent shivers down his spine. The only people who should be in the forest are people who are prepared to fight monsters and bandits.

The town was protected by the spire that took in the lightning during storms. This is something that Noah had only recently learned from Farmer Ken, they had been talking about the frequency of storms increasing and how the symbols on the tall spire seemed to be a lot brighter these days.

Ken had told Noah about how when the symbol was first established that there was often attacks by beasts of all sorts, from goblins to lizard beasts. The village lost a lot of people during this time and it wasn't until the Dragon Squad built the spire that the attacks stopped. None of the villagers understood it but they knew it was thanks to them that the village could prosper.

Noah stared into the forest before cursing himself and running towards the forest. Whoever screamed was in trouble and even if all he had was a wooden sword it was still enough to bash somethings head in.

Even after training for an hour or so Noah had still built up his stamina quite well. He was able to run to the forest quickly and search for the scream, As soon as he got to the edge of the forest there was another scream this time for help. It came from deeper in the woods.

The speed that Noah took off would surprise many people, even though they knew he practised with the wooden sword when he was in the village he would help plough fields or harvest the wheat with them. None would expect that Noah had such strong stamina and body.

After five minutes of travelling deeper and deeper into the forest. Noah could finally hear the sounds of mumbling and grunts. He approached slowly getting behind the thicker trees of the forest.

Holding his wooden sword in one hand, Noah peaked around the corner checking out what was going on. There was a pit with a fallen tree over it. Gathered around the pit were several Orcs all different statures and heights. They all had some decent muscle on them. The majority of them had wooden clubs that seemed to be ripped branches off of trees.

Noah couldn't see inside the pit but he could hazard a guess that whoever screamed earlier was probably inside of it. The Orcs were all grunting between each other, Noah didn't understand what they were saying but he could only guess that they were talking about what to do with the person in the pit.

Taking a deep breath in, Noah psyched himself up ready to at least knock a few out and be able to pull whoever was in the pit out and run back to the village for the spire to deal with the rest.