Days had passed as I fought against Virgil.
Well, it was more of a one sided beating. Virgil kept coming at me hard every single time and I kept eating the damage whenever I failed to slow his attacks in time.
We had been at it for so long that I had almost memorized his attack patterns. Almost. Until he decided to mix things up by trying to pull my pants down mid-fight or going for a kick straight at my groin without any warning.
Virgil fought like both a savage and a seasoned veteran at the same time. No shame, no restraint, just results.
But the more he attacked, the more my control over the time element grew. When we first started I could barely slow him down at all. Now I was doing noticeably better. Whenever his attack entered my range I flooded the area with time energy, slowing him down and making him less fast than before. His punch would still reach me but it was easier to read now, easier to react to, and we both knew that soon, very soon, I was going to be able to stop his movement completely.
On top of that, my concentration in the middle of a fight had improved a lot. I was adapting. The panic that used to hit me the moment things sped up was fading, replaced by something steadier.
Virgil swept my feet out from under me and I hit the ground back first. The moment my back touched the floor his fist was already coming down, aimed directly at my face with the clear intention of rearranging it.
I manipulated the time around his fist, slowing its speed just enough to buy myself a window, then rolled hard to the side.
His fist hit the ground with a heavy thud and left a crack in the earth.
I pushed off with my arms and flipped back onto my feet.
"Huff, huff." I breathed hard, keeping my eyes locked on Virgil and not letting him leave my sight for even a second.
My body was battered from head to toe. My lip had split from one of his earlier punches and a couple of teeth on the side of my mouth were loose or outright gone. Virgil was not holding back even a little, and judging by the wide grin sitting on his face, he was enjoying every second of it.
That smile made me want to hit him back so badly.
But I was not going to make that mistake again.
Early on in the fight I had tried throwing a punch at him, just once, and he had stopped me dead and then beat me methodically while explaining in a very calm voice that my job was to defend, not attack.
I had been fuming. But I swallowed it and kept going because I was tired of getting hit and the only way out was to actually get better.
The other problem was my mana. I kept burning through it faster than I could manage and every time I ran dry, Virgil would beat me until I refilled and then we would go again.
Virgil pulled his arm free from the crater it had made, straightened up and looked at me.
⌈You are doing well. You are almost there. Get your affinity and mana management tighter and you will have it.⌋ He said, and then launched himself at me again without giving me a moment to appreciate the compliment.
I watched him close the distance fast.
I did not move. Did not run.
I couldn't. My body was running on fumes at this point, pushed well past what I would have considered its limit days ago. The only way to avoid another beating was to actually stop him this time.
I closed my eyes and spread the time element outward from my body in a full 360 degree radius, thin and wide, and waited.
Virgil stepped into it almost immediately.
The moment his foot crossed the edge I snapped my eyes open and his fist was already there, filling my vision, headed straight for my face.
My hand at my side closed into a fist. I pushed every last drop of mana I had left into a single command.
Stop the arm. Not his whole body. Just the right arm.
Come on, come on! I screamed inside my own head, forcing everything I had into it.
Virgil felt it. An invisible pressure wrapped around his arm and began dragging at it, pulling the momentum out of the punch.
He pushed through it anyway, because of course he did, grinding forward through the resistance with raw force. But it was slowing. Actually slowing.
Either this works or I am getting my nose broken again.
I held it. Kept pouring everything into that one point.
And just before his knuckles could connect with my face, the fist stopped.
Right there. Right in front of my nose, close enough that I could feel the air from it.
"Huff, huff." I panted hard, shaking. "I did it."
Something warm ran down my upper lip. I raised my trembling hand and touched it.
Blood. From the strain of it, probably.
Then I just let myself fall back onto the ground, flat on my back, staring up at nothing while my chest heaved.
"Heh. I fucking did it!" I shouted, and felt something wet running down the sides of my face as well. I did not care even a little. "I am never getting beaten up again."
Virgil watched the whole thing with a look of mild disappointment and pulled his arm back slowly. ⌈Tsk. Shame I could not get one more in. But good job stopping it.⌋
"Hahaha. You wish."
⌈Rest for two hours. Then we continue with your remaining elements and swordsmanship and after that we are done for the day.⌋ He said, and then without me even asking, healed every injury on my body in one go.
When he looked back down to say something else, I was already out cold.
Virgil let out a quiet chuckle and shook his head.
He shifted into his wolf form, laid down and rested his massive head on his paws. With a quiet thought he moved my unconscious body from the ground up onto the top of his head, where I apparently grabbed a fistful of his black fur in my sleep and refused to let go.
Virgil closed his eyes and slept as well.
**
Two hours later my eyes opened slowly.
The first thing I saw was black. Soft, dark and everywhere.
The first thing I felt was warmth. Something large and fluffy beneath me, rising and falling with a slow steady rhythm.
"Am I in my bed?"
No. My bed did not breathe.
I pushed myself up on one arm and looked around.
I was lying on top of something enormous and black.
Oh. It is Virgil.
Specifically the top of his wolf head. He had moved me up here after I passed out so I could sleep somewhere more comfortable than a patch of dirt.
That was actually kind of him. Not that I was ever going to say that out loud.
I got to my feet carefully and walked to the edge of his head to look over. He was not moving or saying anything so he was probably still deep asleep.
I looked down.
About a hundred meters up. Virgil's wolf form was genuinely enormous. Almost unreasonably so.
I checked my cores. Both were full. I had been doing mana breathing in my sleep out of habit, which was turning out to be one of the better habits I had picked up.
I started wandering around on his back for a few minutes, just exploring, the way you do when you find yourself somewhere new and your brain decides that looking around is obviously the right move even when it probably is not.
Eventually I made my way back toward his head and as I got close to one of his ears, a very compelling idea presented itself.
What if I screamed directly into it?
I crouched down, got close, pulled in a breath and prepared.
⌈Think very carefully about whatever it is you are about to do.⌋
I froze instantly. Then straightened up and started whistling at nothing in particular. "I was not going to do anything."
⌈Get down.⌋ Virgil said, sounding deeply unimpressed.
"Aight."
I walked to the edge and jumped off.
It was not that high. Manageable. And before I even hit the ground my body blurred and I reappeared standing right in front of Virgil without a scratch.
Teleporting is genuinely the coolest thing I have ever been able to do.
Virgil shifted back into his humanoid form with a wide yawn and then we got back to work.
First was gravity. He cranked the pull around my body until it forced me to my knees and my job was to push back against it with my own gravity element and stand back up. It was brutal at first but I kept at it until I got there, and then he walked me through the fundamentals before moving on.
Then space. He had me teleporting to specific locations at specific distances, and if I landed too far or too short he hit me. The accuracy training was harder than it sounded because there was no margin and no mercy.
After that came the reaction training. He threw large rocks at me and the only way to dodge was to teleport. Simple enough until you land somewhere new and there is already another rock coming straight at your head and you have to move again immediately. I got hit more times than I wanted to count. He just healed me each time and kept throwing.
Then the sword. We fought for hours and every time my form slipped or I left an opening he made sure I felt it. I cursed under my breath the entire time but I kept going.
And somehow, through all of it, I could feel myself getting better. Faster. Sharper. My swordsmanship was tightening and my control over the affinities was growing at a rate that genuinely surprised me.
Getting beaten repeatedly by a god was, apparently, an excellent training method.
⌈It is finally time for you to go.⌋
After what felt like months, the training came to an end.