Training

Then the next step is to learn how to fight. Of course, as a dragon that has lived for as long as I have, I have fought a lot, so I can teach you plenty. Don't worry, under my care, you will grow quickly."

The first thing he learned was how to hold a proper stance and breathing. Now, he was a rather fit person but this was on earth. To a dragon of a world full of mana, he was an average human at best.

His balance was especially bad. It was so horrible that he would fall over on one of his first tests, to complete an entire parkour course balancing on only his right leg.

Soon into the test, Afir yelled, "This should be easy!" For a soldier of the royal army that is. In fact, it is one of the mandatory tests to becoming a core soldier standing in the front lines in the fight against dragons.

So no, it wouldn't be easy for a human from Earth at all. it wouldn't even be easy for a normal man from Zorbia who had been strengthened naturally by the mana.

But it didn't matter to Zeeth how hard something was, he just tried it again and again until it was easy to do. All he knew was that he wanted his memories back. And to do that, he had to explore and from what he's heard from God and what he has seen of the world so far, that wasn't going to be easy if he was weak.

Maybe his luck would allow him to survive a bit longer than usual, but luck wasn't always to be counted on. It's a tricky force of nature that wasn't certain to work and he could still die at any time and Zeeth knew that. He also knew that being weak would just make him die sooner and not allow him to explore as much, which would be bad.

The only part he was really good at was the flexibility exercises. he found it easy and fun to dodge under speeding branches and jump over hurtling rocks since it made him feel really cool.

With these thoughts in mind, he spent weeks after weeks training his body to get stronger, and during this process, he learned so much more. How to cast and hone his own magic, how to utilize his slimes, and through his talks with Afir he also learned the details of human civilization here and so much more.

Just like that, 5 months had passed by and he went from super weak trash to just weak trash. At least that's what Afir said.

watching Zeeth, Afir thought, 'But… this boy's talent is monstrous! How is he able to adapt this quickly to whatever I throw at him? I don't think I've met anyone capable of his growth in hundreds of years. Too bad that girl died due to that incredible growth. I must not let him know how strong he is. It would go to his head and lead to his demise.'

On that night, five months after he started his training, Afir decided to have a feast, celebrating his five months of hard work. Afir decided that it would be good to continue eating instead of relying on his tamer ability due to the nutritional advantages and beneficial side effects that food brought him. It was also incredibly good food. It would be prepared by the magical table, that apparently was designed by a good friend of his and made with the help of Afir. the magic part of it was implemented by Afir himself, although he says it couldn't have been done without Faber, a blacksmith friend he met a while back.

"You know, I never questioned this before, but how do you make your food so good? I thought you were a battle-oriented dragon. How do you have so much knowledge on food?"

Between bites of his giant lamb cow leg he somehow managed to say, "Well, the table really helps. Once it cuts up all the meat it can also cook it as long as there is fire under it. But also, for three years when I was a child, I was kidnapped by pirates and forced to cook for them. They were an incredibly strong group of pirates, the Astra pirates. Apparently, they made a big name for themselves when they found some hidden treasure and took down a bunch of the other big pirate guys. But they were horrific chefs.

I was originally kidnapped to clean their ship and keep their cannons and weapons clean. They of course had to keep me alive and forced me to eat their food. Mmm, this hindleg is so good. but the food there was like torture, and I honestly thought it was. I thought they were the messy leftovers they intentionally made bad for their kidnapped cleaners.

Until one day, when I saw them all trying to force down the same junk and throwing the same black muck into the trash that I was cleaning. I just couldn't handle it after three days and demanded that I make their food instead. Everyone on the ship was basically on board since none of them were any better and they were all sick of eating crap. And what harm could be done by allowing some skinny chump like me to handle the food? It couldn't be worse than the burnt crap they were making.

They stored all of their poisons safely in another section of the ship, away from the untrustworthy ones. I often stayed in my human form because staying in the dragon form was too risky. People would try to kill me to steal my parts or kidnap me to keep at some circus and I wasn't that strong then, being only 3 years old I couldn't even fly yet. Of course, to them, I looked like some 15-year-old human child.

Well, I spent three years year cooking for those guys and I learned a lot about cooking then. I even learned tips and tricks from all over the world since, well, they were sea traveling pirates who had to stop at many cool places to re-stock their ingredients and weaponry.

Well, I slowly gained their trust by making really good food and many of them even warmed up to me enough to teach me how to fight as well. That was the first time I properly learned how to fight. I felt like I belonged there and many of them were the first few friends I made. They were like brothers and sisters to me. Too bad many of them are dead by now."

"What happened to them?"

"Well, three years after they kidnapped me, the navy sent out secret messages to about fifty other groups of pirates to help them take down my pirate group. They promised them a lifetime's worth of money for all of them and lifelong protection from the navy, only if they had helped them take down us, the Aralam Pirates. Many of those that they had contacted were either one who we had defeated before and had a grudge against us or those who were just jealous and blinded by greed.

One of them was even a group that we had helped out before. They were a promising bunch of pirates, but they were young and foolish. They stupidly agreed to the navy's request, completely taken by their lies. The navy knew exactly who to target, who would be tricked and who wouldn't.

They cornered us and so many of my brothers died in order to allow me to live. Those filthy traitors. That was the first time I learned what it felt like to make some incredible friends, and then lose them all. And what it felt like to be betrayed by someone you really trusted. Before we went down, we destroyed half of those guys and the navy cleaned up the rest after that and killed off all of the weakened pirates.

That battle, the Battle of Eizn, or as it is more commonly known, the Battle of Betrayal, started the end of the great pirate age. Too many great pirates were taken down at once and many more were discouraged from becoming a pirate once they heard the news. Nowadays, all the pirates are weak nobodies. Haaaa, nothing like they were before."

He took another chunk out of his giant lamb cow and drank a mouth full of the pig flower liquid.

"What does that taste like? I saw that flower earlier in this light novel series on the top of a pig's head, but it got pissed at me when I touched it."

"Well, of course. The flower and the liquid on the top of a Flowered Pig are the equivalent of a devil's horn to a devil. The larger it is, the more attractive it seems to a Flowered Pig of the opposite gender, and the more proud of the flower the pigs are. Imagine if another human came at you with a pair of scissors to your sack of jewels. You wouldn't like it either. You would probably attack them. That's what the pigs are doing, protecting what's theirs.

And you can't drink it. Not now and not mine, anyways. If you can't catch the pig, then you can't handle the drink, the pig is kind of a test. If you kill the pig by knocking it over too fast, the liquid spills, and you are deemed unworthy. If you can't even catch it, then you are even more unworthy. But it tastes exquisite, especially the first time you drink it, so you should savor the flavor the first time you hunt a flowered pig. And also, the larger the pig, the stronger the pig, and the tastier and stronger the drink. If you try to drink my drink, you would probably pass out from the scent and have your first time ruined. Just keep drinking your berry juice. Heh heh."

"Ha?! Did you just snicker at my juice?! I will have you know, it is very strong!! I even put some Drunk Monkey blood into it!"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it's VeRy strong. Hehe."

"You wanna fight?! Huh?!"

"Kid, you don't want to try that."

"You're lucky I'm in a good mood tonight, so I'm not gonna punch you. Be glad."

"Yes, yes. I'm very glad."

Fast forward another 5 months. It has now been over a year since he has been here. Before he even realized it, he had grown an additional 3 inches and packed on a lot more muscles. He now looked like a proper Zorbling (like Earthling, but for Zorbia). A proper Zorbling knight of the second order. (Orders of knights go from five to one, five being the lowest ranking and 1 being the highest). So just his glare was enough to terrify the crap out of people. His strong determination and will and his monstrous body and talent allowed him to grow to this extent in just 10 months. And all of his exercise while catching his 100 slimes worked as some warm-up to get him ready for all this training.

"Finally, after 10 months, you can fight me without having my feet tied up! Although that's only if I don't use any magic and limit everything else to the best of my ability. Heh."

"Why the hell do you have to laugh at the end!?! I get it, I'm weak and you're strong! Damn condescending dragons and their arrogance. Whu-!!"

A fist flew at Zeeth and at the last second, he jumped to the side and the air from the punch that would have hit him curved up blew all the leaves off of a tree and knocked a giant hole in the wing of a water winged falcon flying above. It quickly regenerated the wing using water stored in its hump and just as it was about to angrily dive down to attack, another air punch flew at it. And another, and another. Between all the punches, the bird saw the fight that was happening. A long-haired gentleman with nothing but a giant bird feather covering his crotch was effortlessly throwing punches that suddenly became air missiles that shot at a younger boy.

Zeeth jumped around quite easily, avoiding all of the punches flying at him, and even had the time to return some. He couldn't create punches that wide or strong, so he kicked chunks of rocks and through boulders. He knew none of it would actually hurt Afir, but it was to cover his vision so that Zeeth could jump behind him as the rubble was settling and attack him from the back. Without being able to use any magic, Afir only noticed Zeeth when he was already behind him, but even that wasn't enough. Right as Zeeth was about to strike him in the back, Afir swung his left arm around, grabbed Zeeths hand, and twisted his hand back around, swinging Zeeth around in circles.

The crazy thing was, not a single bit of magic was being used. All of this destruction was caused by their physical bodies. Well, that was understandable since for about three months, Zeeth was forced to live in the forest all alone, with his magic locked and all of his ties to his slimes cut off. He hated every minute of it, but at least it allowed him to do all this and build so much physical strength.

Just as he was about to land on his back, losing the match, water coated his hand and allowed him to slip out of Afir's grasp. More water surrounded his feet and connected to the ground, pulling him safely to the ground and letting him land gently on his feet.

Afir smiled slightly with satisfaction and Zeeth smiled as excitement boiled up and adrenaline flowed around his body at the fighting and the insane maneuver he just pulled off. Every month or so he would fight Afir to test his strength and every month he would find it more and more enjoyable to fight.

"Nice move, boy. Now, come at- wait. Something is wrong. Someone violent is coming."

"Huh? I don't feel anything."

Afir lifted his hand and created a mini version of himself that popped out of his palm. The tiny version was an exact replica, it even had the bird feather. Tiny Afir then jumped onto Zeeths shoulder and clung to his hair.

"Just get in the house and listen to this guy. I'll stay here but you need to stay quiet and hide."

Zeeth dashed into the house and matched his mana to the mana in the area, allowing him to blend in and go unnoticed. The mini Afir then stared him in the eyes and sent a message telepathically, 'There is someone coming straight to this area. The person is trying to hide their mana by completely shutting it down and hiding it from the world.

This means that no one can sense their mana, not even I, Afir can sense the mana, so I can't tell who it is. But by completely hiding their mana like this, they create an empty space, void of any mana. I am unable to tell who it is because of that, but I can sense the unnatural mana less void that they created and I am using it to track where they are. And this empty void of mana is traveling here at an incredibly high speed.'

'Oh, that's pretty smart. No wonder I could sense anyone, I was looking for a flow of mana in the shape of a human in the usual mana in the air, I just had to look for an area void of mana and follow it with the mana around it.'

'Easier said than done. This is why I taught you to blend your mana instead of hiding it. But I will try to find out who it is. They are strong, but not experienced. Or maybe it is caused by an artifact.'