Praise

From what I felt, he was explaining everything about the swordsman practices for around an hour, but it was actually around ten minutes or something like that, maybe even less.

"So you are saying that once you start learning to fight with a sword weird things are happening around you and when you train it you can control those things?" Bog wanted reassurance in what he understood from what he explained to me and now to the large man.

"Exactly. That's what I meant! But I haven't mentioned something to Hayden as well. Not everyone is meant to reach a peak in their life. Maybe, if the afterlife exists, there you can reach your peak. I don't know since I am still alive and my master told me something like that, but only now it came back to my mind." So there is a hook to all that… No matter what I do or what I experience there will always be a hook behind something. "But anyway. Hayden, you did really well! I know that I said it just now but it is still pretty astonishing that you were able to get in there once again, not against me though. Well, it's good for now but later it will be very important to be able to use it against someone who inflicts fear even to the masters. This kind of power is not to fight only those of the same level but those that overpower you as well. Why would someone learn it if it wasn't for that anyway?" He nodded forcefully and looked at me as if I was a new hope for something… Something great.

"That's true. Stepping on one's fear is something almost anyone that wants to achieve greatness wants to do. Fighting those stronger with no fear but confidence." Bog added and for this entire time, I stood silent. No words came out of my mouth and just looked at both of them, listening to them speaking with one another.

"Estel… Do you think… I really will be able to do a lot in my life? Achieve something if we escape?" After those several minutes of being quiet, a question came right up my tongue.

"I think you have a lot of potential. Even though you aren't a mage, I see that you want to make something major. The passion in your eyes each time you say something about changing this world just makes it really hard not to believe in you or cheer for you. If your attitude to having companions in this endeavor changes, it won't be hard to find them nor will it be hard to get followers that would be there for your cause. For the better cause." He exhaustingly explained and then looked at Bog. "Just like he wanted to become one," Estel added, stood up, and stretched out with both of the sticks in his hands.

"You are… Someone different Hayden. Maybe not a prodigy, maybe not someone destined to change things. But you want to change things that from my knowledge and the knowledge of the elf here, no one else ever wanted to change." Bog sat down on the broken down tree.

"You make it sound so easy actually…" I added while huffing a lot more intense than just before. Estel didn't tell me that but entering that realm and fighting in it put a really big toll on my body, the pain from four to five days ago and even from before that was hardly explicit. Four to five days ago? Am I regenerating faster than normal? I don't think the pain of dying a hundred times would disappear just like that and anything like that. Is it also because of the changes in my head? Is that second me… Taking all of it onto himself?

"Hayden, do you think there is something a swordsman can't do?" Estel asked me specifically. Well… That question doesn't make sense anyway, a swordsman doesn't make you a great cook right?

"I don't know… Cook?" I answered and he started laughing, the voice resonated and seemed like that of a demon.

He stood in front of a tree, put his hand on the frosty wood, and closed his eyes. I looked very weird. His ears tingled and he took a big breath, both sticks in his hands. In an instance, both of the blades hit the tree. That shock splintered the tree in three different places, at the bottom a little higher than the roots, in the middle, and right under the crown.

My jaw fell to the ground and Bog seemed even more amazed than me. How did he do it? Is that his sheer strength? He is only at the beginning? Bullshit, what is the real master like? Years of expertise on that infinite road of the sword… A place far away on it… How absurdly powerful can one become if he is only training for two years.

"See? If the buildings at the arena weren't protected I would be able to break them down just like that. Almost like a match. I am a very strong fighter, maybe not the strongest, but still pretty strong." He made a small movement to show his muscled biceps. Clapped the left one with the right hand.

"You splintered a tree… In three different places in the same second with all of those holes being of the same power. You are stronger than me like tenfold!" Bog amazed jumped to the tree almost and looked exactly at the splintered frozen tree.

"It's not only sheer power you know. There is also style, the places where I hit with both of the swords. I didn't just put all of my strength inside it and it will just be like that. No, it's something more. The exact amount of force that hit those two places, all matters. Almost exactly like sculpting." He rose once again from the ground. Sculpting? Are you joking? He knows how to sculpt. What hasn't he done in his life? Was it all a part of him working for the drug lord or a part of being the academy's apprentice?

"Your voice makes it sound easy," I answered with a lot of sarcasm in my voice. But what he is saying, the tone seems as if it wasn't a struggle at all.

"You just need to know your enemy's weakness and that's all! Nothing else…" The elf makes it all sound like just a breeze. A weak wind blowing through my face.

"I am hungry…" I didn't say that, my stomach growled on its own and that was a clear indication of what was going on with me.

"Right, I forgot to tell you. Using it also makes every part of your body go to its full potential and then comes the backlash of using it. The longer you train the less backlash there is or it appears longer but weaker. It solely depends on you. Let's go back." Estel only now told me about another hook of this power that I had to realize myself. Once I leave this place I will have to train a lot, maybe trying the method of doing it in my own mind will be helpful. But for that, I need to fight more with Bog and Estel to train it.

We entered the cave once again with all of them sitting around the fire. After I finished fighting Bog, at that very moment he went back to the cave. All of them sitting on their asses watching the flames dancing in the weak dance as it's song, wind, like waves of water flowing through the cave.

"Throw me the knife," Estel said while entering the cave, Marcus threw the small flint knife to Estel without wavering away from the fire. "Also, would you mind if later you would spar a little with Hayden? I want to see how he fights someone who is using a spear instead of a sword or anything of that matter."

"Sure, I don't have anything better to do anyway." He answered.

"Estel… When I was in the world I didn't see only swords, but spears and other weapons as well, does it mean that other weapon masters can also use the same realm?" When I asked it shocked him a little.

"That's weird…" He put his pointing finger and thumb on his chin, he was thinking. "I only see swords in my world. You are probably right about it but you can see other weapons. I don't know what it means though, my master never told me about something like that. It would make sense for other weapons to have their own realms or something like that, but why aren't they all in the sands? I don't know." He explained to me, still wondering, he just shrugged and cut the meat. Put it on the fire and the meat again made a scorching sound together with making everything smell very nice. The meat of the bear had a lot of fat on its meat, much more than the boar's meat. Therefore the fire was much louder.