After finally getting his hands on the medicine for his Ether Intolerance, he moved to the training grounds with Aleksi. The man had been quiet since their visit to the infirmary and Galen’s intense talk with Milton, and had remained so until they made it to their destination.

  “Alright lad,” Aleksi began, his expression unreadable as he handed Galen a rock, “time to see how effective that medication is. First, breathe in Ether and fill your Capacity.”

  He nodded, and did as instructed.

  Aleksi then said, “Whenever you’re ready, lad.”

  Galen put the rock in his hand away before taking out the bottle of pills and placing one into his hand. They were incredibly small, just slightly bigger than a drop of water. He popped one into his mouth, and swallowed. It went down easily enough.

  He closed his eyes and tried to see if he felt anything. Any sort of change within himself or how he felt.

  He sensed…

  Nothing.

  How anticlimactic...

  “I’ll say!” Redian spoke in his mind.

  Before he opened his eyes, he heard Aleksi say, “Alright, they said that medication works fast. Take the rock I gave you, enhance your strength with Ether, and break it. Just as you did before.”

  Galen nodded and began his mental visualization of metabolizing the Ether within him. Like last time, it took him a few tries before he felt as though a spark had ignited within him. He felt a burst of energy, and, like last time, he focused and directed the energy to the muscles in his body, specifically the arm and hand holding the rock.

  Feeling the same burst of energy and strength as his last attempt, he clenched the rock in his hand and squeezed.

  CRACK!

  And just like before, the Ether enhanced force behind his grip had damaged the rock to the point that several cracks had appeared on its surface.

  Galen’s heart pounded with excitement.

  And fear.

  He waited, trying to see if there was anything going wrong in his body. When he realized his ability to breathe remained the same, and that he was suffering none of the side effects from the last time he burned Ether, he audibly sighed with relief.

  Oh, thank you, God… Galen thought with gratitude.

  He looked to Aleksi, who looked almost as relieved.

  “Well, lad…” his mentor chuckled, “I sure am glad those pills worked. I would have hated to have rushed you back to the infirmary.”

  Aleksi grinned, “Now that we know the medicine works as intended, we can finally get started on your Ether training. Prepare yourself, lad.”

  Galen nodded, ready to learn how to finally use the power of Ether.

  ***

  He didn’t know what kind of training he expected to undergo to master Ether, but it certainly hadn’t been to move and break rocks all day. He panted as he sat with his back to a large boulder that he’d been pushing around.

  At first, he’d been utterly shocked that he’d been able to push the boulder at all after enhancing himself with Ether. Granted, it still took most of his effort to do. But the fact that’d he’d been able to do it at all had made him drop his jaw. He’d felt exhilarated at the feat of superhuman strength.

  At first.

  Now, after hours of breaking rocks and pushing around boulders, the novelty had long since worn off. His muscles were also feeling the strain, even with Ether empowering them.

  Thankfully, Redian had stopped pestering him with his almost cheerleader like encouragement after he had told the Sentient Weapon to shut it.

  “You throwing in the towel, lad?” Aleksi called out with a smirk.

  Galen glared at his mentor, “Remind me again… why am I doing this?”

  “I told you already, didn’t I?”

  “No. No, you didn’t.”

  Aleksi chuckled, “Well, in my defense, you didn’t ask why, lad.”

  “I am now.”

  “And I will explain,” his mentor cleared his throat, “I’m having you break rocks and push around these boulders to get you used to using Ether. Once you’ve gotten the hang of it and are able to empower yourself without failure, you’ll work on speeding up the process of empowering your body.”

  “This is a lot less exciting than I thought it would be.”

  “You’ve got to learn how to crawl before you can learn how to walk, lad,” Aleksi chided, “if you don’t learn how to empower yourself quickly and without failure, what do you think would happen if you leapt into the air using Ether, and then failed to reinforce your legs when you landed?”

  Galen winced, imagining bones snapping from the impact, “Would I really be able to jump that high, though?”

  Aleksi raised a brow.

  Then, to prove his point, he squatted just a bit before leaping straight up, far higher than any human ought to be able to. The man must have gotten at least 50 feet into the air before he began to fall back down to the ground.

  Galen winced again as the man landed gracefully without rolling to break his fall. His mentor’s legs should have broken from the fall at bare minimum, yet he looked completely unharmed.

  “That may have looked simple,” Aleksi began, “and I suppose to me, it is. But for you, you’d have to successfully empower your legs to pull off that leap, then successfully reinforce your legs to land safely. And this isn’t even getting into mastering using only what is necessary to cut down on how much Ether you use.”

  Galen nodded.

  Aleksi then walked up to the boulder he rested at, cocked back a fist, then punched the solid rock so hard that cracks spread throughout it.

  He gulped at the display of strength.

  Aleksi shook his fist, not out of pain, but to get rid of the bits of rock that were on his knuckles, “And if you don’t master how to empower yourself every single time without fail, then you’d risk breaking your hand or even your entire arm when attempting things like this.”

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Okay! I get it already. I’ll take my time to master the basics.”

  His mentor smiled widely, “Well, you’re certainly more understanding than others I’ve seen trained. A lot of them want to quickly jump to mastering the more flashy stuff. You won’t believe the amount of people who frequent the infirmary with broken bones or even worse injuries.”

  Galen looked to his mentor, and asked, “What about you?”

  “Me?” Aleksi frowned.

  “Yeah. Were you like that when you learned how to use Ether?”

  His mentor thought for a moment, no doubt recalling his own training, before answering, “I was one of the more cautious ones. I didn’t really have anything to prove to anyone, and I really didn’t feel like accidentally breaking any of my bones.”

  Aleksi smiled, “You know, you actually remind me a bit of myself.”

  Galen was surprised to hear that, “Really?”

  “Yes. If you grow at the same rate that the First Champion did, then you’ll no doubt surpass my level within a few years. But that’ll only happen if you don’t cripple yourself trying to grow faster than your body can handle.”

  “And what level are you at?” Galen asked, “just how strong are you, Aleksi?”

  “A good question!”

  Galen waited, but his mentor didn’t elaborate. He frowned at him, but Aleksi merely chuckled, “Well, that’s a long enough break I suppose. Let’s continue your training!”

  He groaned.

  ***

  After finishing his training for the day, Galen was more than eager to rest. His complete lack of energy made the trek to his room seem far longer than it actually was.

  Man, I can’t wait to get to my bed and relax-

  His mind froze as he turned the corner and saw one of the last people he’d wanted to see.

  “Ah! Champion…” a beautiful and feminine voice said with a meek tone.

  And that voice belonged to none other than Callista.

  Galen flushed with embarrassment and shame as he remembered the night they’d almost shared together. It had been prevented by him literally running away from her.

  His blush reaching his ears as he looked away from her. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw that she too was blushing furiously, looking down with a similar expression.

  It was an uncomfortable, tense silence.

  “Boy is this awkward… for you, boss. Not for me. For me, this is hilarious!” Redian chuckled in his mind.

  That inspired Galen to break the silence lest the Sentient Weapon somehow make the situation feel even more uncomfortable than it already was.

  He cleared his throat, “Uh… Callista. It’s… it’s nice to see you…”

  He winced at that horrendously awful attempt at breaking the ice.

  He took a deep breath, and had been about to apologize when, unexpectedly, Callista beat him to it as she bowed deeply, “Champion, I am SO sorry for my conduct towards you during the feast!”

  Galen blinked, I didn’t expect that…

  Somehow he felt even more awkward than he had a moment ago, “It’s… it’s okay, Callista. I should be the one apologizing for… for running out on you…”

  Literally, he mentally added.

  “No,” Callista shook her head as she stood straight again, “the fault lies with me. I… it was wrong of me to push you as I had. I sincerely apologize for my misconduct. It won’t happen again…”

  He sighed, though a part of him felt relieved. What he’d done in running away from Callista after she’d tried to seduce him had been a move he’d taken from Joseph. He’d been a Hebrew man in the Bible who’d been sold to Egypt as a slave by his brothers out of jealousy for the favoritism their father showed towards him. As a slave, his master’s wife had taken a liking to him and attempted to seduce him, a situation similar to what Galen had gone through.

  With adultery being condemned as a sin, and Joseph being as devout to God as he was, he escaped the situation by fleeing from the temptress, leaving his coat behind in his haste. That had resulted in his master’s wife taking his coat and using it as evidence to frame him of forcing himself onto her, in retribution of him denying her.

  Galen had been worried something similar might happen here since he’d denied Callista’s advances. However, it seemed he’d once more underestimated the influence his role as Champion gave him, as apparently even a noble would apologize to him for a slight.

  I’m just glad it seems like nothing bad will come of this, he thought, heck, Callista doesn’t even seem mad that I ran out on her! She was the one who apologized to me after… all… damn…

  His thoughts trailed off when he finally made eye contact with her and saw, just barely, the bit of hurt and anger in her eyes. It turned out she did, on some level, take offense to what he had done.

  And why wouldn’t she, you moron, he reprimanded himself, ANY girl would take offense at having the guy they were after run out on them like that…

  Feeling guilty, he rubbed the back of his head as he sighed, “I appreciate the apology. And I forgive you. I should also apologize for running so suddenly. That was rude of me to do. I just…”

  How do I explain this in a way that will placate her? He thought, especially when I can barely make sense of my own conflicted feelings here…

  Nonetheless, he did his best, “Look, Callista. I’m new to this world. Even with all my studies and all my time here, there is still so much I don’t know about the Dominion. And some of that involves its culture. I don’t know how things like this are treated here, but back in my world, at least, with the family that I was raised in, it was instilled in us that doing… you know… THAT… was something that should wait until marriage. It’s not that I dislike you or anything, but if I had gone along with what we’d been doing, with what we’d almost done, I’d have spit on the values my parents instilled in me. And those values are one of the few things I have left of them now that I’ve been brought to this world. So… I don’t know if any of this makes sense, but I AM sorry. Not for stopping what we were about to do, but for the way in which I did.”

  Callista held his gaze for several moments, her expression unreadable. Just when Galen felt a drop of sweat running down his face, she smiled, “Well, I suppose I can forgive you then. It seems just as there is much you don’t know of our culture, I failed to realize how little I knew of yours.”

  “Soooo…” he cleared his throat, “are we cool? I mean, is all forgiven between us?”

  “Yes, it is,” Callista then tilted her head, “though, I do want to ask you one more question.”

  “And that is?” Galen asked.

  “You rejected my advances because I tried to move things along too quickly,” Callista walked right up to him, her body and face close to his own, “and not because you weren’t interested in me… correct?”

  He gulped, taking a step back to regain his personal space, “Uh… that’s… I guess?”

  “Noted,” Callista gave him bright smile before giving a light bow and saying, “with that said, Champion. I must be going. I was on my way to meet with some of the Dominion’s architects about an upcoming project. Something about the underground walls? I must be off.”

  He waved goodbye as he quickly resumed his trek back to his room, hoping that he wouldn’t run into anyone else.

  Because he now felt even more drained than before.

  ***

  Galen had all but collapsed onto his bed when he made it back to his room. He just knew every fiber of his body was going to be sore tomorrow, and he wasn’t looking forward to it.

  He had nearly fallen right to sleep, but managed to jerk awake as he got up from his bed with a groan.

  Can’t sleep yet! Need to continue my research, Galen told himself.

  “You sure, boss?” Redian spoke in his mind, “you’re going to need the rest, you know?”

  I’m sure, Galen thought back to the sword, I need to be able to discern what’s true and what’s not for myself. Otherwise, I’ll never be able to do what needs to be done to get back home.

  “And if you don’t like what you find?” Redian warned, “what will you do then? Will you continue working with the Dominion, or will you turn your back on it even if it means losing your chance to return to your world?”

  Galen didn’t have an answer to that, and he didn’t want to think about that now, We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

  “Procrastination it is then! Oh how prone you humans are to putting things off.”

  Galen ignored that as he walked to his study desk and pulled out the history book he had been reading last night as well as the notes he had been taking. He opened the book to where he had left off and continued his research.

  He would not rest until he had his answers and could judge for himself whether or not he’d continue working with the Dominion.

  Galen glanced to Redian in the corner of the room, and mentally asked the sword, Wake me up if I start to fall asleep, will you?

  He got the impression that Redian was nodding and saluting in his mind, “Roger that, boss!”

  He sighed as he thought to himself, Tonight’s going to be a long night…

  https://www.patreon.com/c/GenZVall2025