Eclipse and Chael stood in front of Celestia. It wasn't even dusk yet, and the sky was still as dark as night.

  "It's five in the morning~" Eclipse yawned, and in synchrony, Shadow, who was half asleep on top of his head, let out a yawn which lasted just as long as Eclipse’s.

  "Stop complaining, you smelly brat", Celestia scolded, "Today we'll begin your actual training!"

  When these words rang into their ears, both of their eyes lit up. Even Eclipse, who was practically asleep standing, when he heard the word "training", his ears perked up, and his eyes opened.

  Chael jumped up from excitement, then whipped his wooden stick around, "So are we finally going to start the slash push lash thing with swords now?”

  "Sword training." Eclipse corrected him.

  Celestia let out a chuckle.

  "Why are you laughing?" Chael asked.

  "You two remind me of a certain someone in the past." She said in a carefree tone, but deep inside her eyes lay a longing.

  Eclipse had a lazy smirk on his face, "Don't laugh too much, Granny. You might get wrinkles.”

  Several veins popped in Celestia's forehead, and she smacked Eclipse in the head. “How many times did I tell you? Call me sister! If any of you call me granny or old hag again, I’m gonna kill you!”

  Eclipse and Chael then went silent, clearly afraid now.

  "That’s better!" Seeing their serious postures, Celestia stuck out her chest, "Now listen carefully. For the first part of your training, you will focus on building your physique and your physical capabilities!"

  "Say less." Chael grinned, "So how're we gonna do this?"

  She then pointed far into the distance, "Do you see my house over there?"

  Eclipse and Chael followed the direction of her finger, and they could barely make out the outline of the small house Celestia had first bought them to. They had to walk it all the way to the hilltop here just a few days ago, and it had taken them the entire day.

  "Run all the way back to my house, and inside the kitchen drawer would be two spherical pebbles. Get that for me - before sundown, or no food. When I say run, I don’t wanna see you little shits even think about walking slow or taking breaks, else you won’t make it on time for dinner. "

  Eclipse let out a bitter smile, his lips twitching and Chael's face turned completely pale, "No way… It took us a whole day just to get here, and now you're telling us we should go there and be back before sundown?!"

  "Why're you complaining? It's dawn. You have a lot of time!"

  Eclipse swallowed hard, "Then how about breakfast and lunch…?"

  Chael's face turned even more pale upon realisation, "Yeah?"

  “Kahahaha!" Celestia laughed heartily, but to Eclipse and Chael it sounded like the crackle of a devil. "No lunch or breakfast! If you can't handle that much, what makes you think you can be my students, huh?"

  Eclipse and Chael robotically turned to look at each other. They didn't say anything, but their eyes screamed one message: ‘What the hell did we get ourselves into?’

  Celestia furrowed her brows, "What the hell are you brats waiting for? It’s already on! If you are even a second late past seven, no dinner!"

  Eclipse and Chael instantly scrambled on the gravel before they took off at full throttle. As they ran down the mountain, Celestia yelled behind them, "I’ll be keeping close watch! Every time you stop to take a break, I'll take half an hour off the deadline, kahahahaha!"

  "Tch!" Eclipse voiced his annoyance, feeling the mountain breeze wash past him as he glided down.

  The sound of their footsteps echoed, waking up small animals from their slumber and sending them scurrying away. Since they were running downhill, it didn't feel too hard. As Chael got the hang of it, he overtook Eclipse, "Wow, this is a lot easier than I thought!"

  At Eclipse's lack of response, Chael sighed, and a tired expression formed across his face. He didn't even bother looking back, "… you're asleep, aren't you?"

  Sure enough, he didn't get a response. But Eclipse continued running down with him. A vein popped in his forehead before he whacked Eclipse in the head with his stick, promptly waking him up, "Ahaha, how about this? The loser’s gonna have to give the winner his largest piece of meat."

  Eclipse looked a little lost, but the instant he heard these words, his eyes lit up, and he immediately overtook Chael, who was slightly ahead of him until now.

  "Huhhhh? Hey, wait for me!" Chael shouted, trying to keep up with Eclipse, but he kept falling behind until soon the gap between them was at least several hundred metres. “You… you bastard! My food!!!”

  Now he severely regretted waking Eclipse up and proposing the challenge.

  Shadow, who had been peacefully sleeping on Eclipse’s head - or so he had thought he was- opened his eyes only to see Celestia’s giant face inspecting him. He let out a freaked-out grunt and tried to move away, but Celestia was holding him by his nape.

  “Hmm… what a strange doggy.” Celestia muttered to herself as she shoved her face into Shadow’s, “You’re a blood beast, aren’t you?”

  Shadow bit her nose, and Celestia yelped before letting go, “Ouch! Why you!”

  He growled at her and ran into the cottage, and an angry Celestia chased after him, “C’mere you little…!”

  The sun was at its highest, and it was mid-afternoon. The winter clouds had parted ways to reveal a gloomy sun which encompassed whatever its rays touched, and somewhere with no shade for miles on end in a mountainous region, were two figures.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  They ran much slower than before, and their postures were completely sloppy. Their tongues were sticking out as they desperately tried to overtake one another, panting as sweat trickled down their entire bodies.

  The earth was wet with rain or melted snow from the previous night, so they’d trip and stumble a lot more than once in a while.

  "Hah… hah… how mush longer?" Eclipse panted, one step ahead of Chael.

  Eclipse almost collapsed as he tripped over a rock, and Chael overtook him by a step or two, "N-not too long now"

  "You've been… saying that since three hours ago…"

  Since they had been running up a large slope in the mountain for some time, they couldn't really see how much farther the house was.

  "I need… water…!" Chael panted as they finally reached the top of the slope.

  When they looked down, their eyes brightened.

  "That’s the house!" They said excitedly. Sure enough, just about a kilometre away was Celestia's cottage. All of their tiredness and fatigue seemed to have vanished, and they ran towards the house with even more vigour than when they began. They quickly overtook one another, and in about thirty seconds, they crossed a two-hundred-metre distance and reached the house. The first thing both of them did was not get the pebbles, but run straight into the flowing spring behind the house and fell down on their knees before they started to desperately guzzle the ice-cold water from their bare hands. If the spring wasn't flowing, it would’ve been emptied in seconds.

  After one final long slurp, Chael let out a satisfied sigh and fell on his back. "How rejuvenating!"

  Eclipse washed his face in the spring, taking away all his sweat and grime. His grey hair stuck to his forehead.

  "It's already noon, and we started at daybreak. We have just about enough time to make it before dinner. We should hurry." Chael said.

  "Huh?! But we just got here." Eclipse complained.

  Chael halted his motion, and all the water in his hands slipped back into the spring. He slowly turned to look at Eclipse, his eyes dead serious and firmly said, "I'm not missing dinner."

  Eclipse was taken aback by his serious tone but locked in just as quick, 'Yeah."

  They made their way to the kitchen and opened the drawer, and surely, there were two marble spheres the size of a pebble. However, one was black, and the other was white.

  Chael picked up the white one and examined it, "What exactly is this thing? She told us it's a pebble, but it seems more like a marble. What do you say, Eclipse?"

  There was no response.

  "Huh?" Chael turned to look; however, Eclipse was gone along with the black marble.

  He then rushed out of the house and tried to catch up to Eclipse, who was already a few hundred metres away. “Arrghhh! My fucking food!!"

  "Pfft. Your chicken will be mine, dumbass."

  "That's not fair, get your ass back here!"

  A few hours had passed, and once again, they had been reduced to a state of fatigue and restlessness. The sun was starting to shrink behind the horizon, giving way to the winter night, which made the trip back slightly easier. This coolness they were feeling felt like a blessing. Unlike before, neither of them had overtaken one another.

  "It's probably 5 o'clock about now. We've got two hours to get back." Eclipse said, panting.

  Chael looked a little bit more concerned. He scanned his surroundings for a bit and let out an audible gulp. He didn't recognise this place.

  "Yo, urm... Eclipse. Are you… sure, we're going the right way?" He asked, his face ashen.

  Eclipse turned to look at him, "Huh? I was following you. Did you get us lost?"

  "Whaaaat?! I thought we were following you!"

  Eclipse scratched his head, but before he could respond, a low growl resonated from behind them. Both of their faces instantly grew pale.

  "Eclipse, do you remember what the old hag said on our way to this place?"

  "Yeah." Eclipse muttered, his face comically grim and deadpan, "Stay on track, or we’ll encounter bears that will rip us to shreds."

  Her laughter after she said that now replayed in the duo's mind. They robotically turned around at the same time, and sure enough, a large bear was behind them. It was over three metres in height, and its eyes glowed with violent fervour as saliva drooled off its exposed fangs.

  "Chael… you know what to do, right?" Eclipse muttered.

  "Ahaha, of course.” Chael let out a smirk and briefly closed his eyes, before his foot launched off the ground and he ran as fast as he could away from the bear with Eclipse slightly behind him, “We run the fuck away!”

  They sprinted through the mountainous pathway, their hearts pounding in their chest like a drum. Chael struggled to keep up, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The colossal bear thundered behind them, and it didn’t seem to fall behind, no matter how far they got.

  "Holy shit, it’s no ordinary beast," Chael grunted between breaths, looking at its frenzied eyes reflecting the red glow of the brightening moon. “It’s a Blood Beast! Fuuuck! It’ll only get more and more powerful the brighter the moon gets!”

  Eclipse shot him an annoyed glance, "And who got us into this mess? I’ll end up missing dinner because of you."

  “Don’t say ‘dinner’, damn it! I can’t focus on running away!” Chael huffed as a giant rumble echoed from the chasm that was his stomach. Eclipse stared at Chael in exasperation, a few steps ahead. Even the bear that was rampaging towards them raised a curious brow.

  It’s roars echoed through the mountains, which sent shivers down their spines. They could feel the shockwaves the bear produced with each step from behind them, and the fear fueled their desperate escape.

  Chael glanced over his shoulder, eyes widening as he saw the bear gaining ground.

  "Ahaha damn, that thing's not giving up!" Chael sneered in self-deprecation.

  Eclipse, struggling to keep pace, shot back, "Yeah, how about we find a tree to climb or something?"

  Chael nodded, scanning the area for a suitable escape route. They spotted a sturdy-looking tree with low branches and made a beeline for it. With adrenaline pumping through their veins, they scrambled up the tree like a pair of frightened squirrels. The bear, enraged and frustrated, roared beneath them and clawed at the trunk. Eclipse and Chael clung to the branches as it shook violently.

  As the bear circled the tree, unable to reach them, Chael couldn't help but chuckle nervously, "Remind me to never follow you ever again."

  Eclipse clung to the tree like a sloth and glared at Chael, “Remind me to beat the shit out of you when we get back.”

  They finally found a comfortable position in the tree and caught their breath. After loitering around the tree and losing interest, the bear eventually gave up and wandered off.

  The mountains fell silent once more, except for their own heavy breathing.

  When they finally got back to the cottage, it was already nighttime. Eclipse and Chael panted and then collapsed onto the ground in front of the door.

  "In the end, I guess none of us are getting dinner, let alone extra chicken…" Chael muttered sadly.

  Their stomachs rumbled simultaneously as they watched the starry sky above them.

  Eclipse let out a fatigued sigh, but didn't reply.

  "So, you brats are finally back?" Celestia’s stern voice came from above their head after they heard the door creak open, "What time do you call this?"

  Eclipse groaned, "Don’t start, granny."

  “We got lost, then a massive bear almost mauled us to shreds, ahaha.” Chael laughed in fatigue before coughing violently.

  Celestia raised an eyebrow, "Yeah, I know. I saw everything."

  "Huh?" Chael looked up at her.

  "Kahahah!" Celestia laughed, "Sorry, sorry. I knew you two would've been able to get out of the situation yourselves, so I didn't help."

  "I just want food," Eclipse muttered.

  A warm smile appeared on Celestia's face, "Well then, come on in. The food's getting cold!"

  The moment they heard these words, their eyes widened, and they stared up at Celestia in utter shock.

  "You said we weren’t going to get food if we came late," Chael said. Only now did he notice the pleasant smell coming from inside the cottage.

  "This is your first training, so I guess I'll make an exception..." She said, scratching her head.

  The duo scurried inside the cosy cottage, and the scent of a hearty meal wafted into their nostrils, replacing today's wild escapade with a warm sense of home. Celestia's laughter echoed through the walls, and soon enough, Chael joined her, his fatigue momentarily forgotten.

  The flickering candlelight danced across their faces as they bonded around the dinner table. The night sky outside continued its silent watch, and stars sparkled above the cottage.