"Get in," Aris said to the nearest orc. It turned and walked into the pool without hesitation, stopping where the water swallowed its ankles.
He commanded the remaining eight to do the same. One by one, they entered, their movements precise but hollow, like puppets on invisible strings. He narrowed his eyes at their backs as he watched them form a loose, uneven line in the shallows.
Their obedience was too absolute, too terrifyingly mechanical to feel right. A knot of unease tightened in his chest. Now that he thought clearly, this wasn't the intended effect of the hallucinogenic poison. The normal poison should have left them stumbling, dazed, or half-dreaming. They should have mumbled on and on, or even tried to run. Instead, they stood frozen, their eyes entirely vacant, their bodies coiled and waiting for a master's voice that only he could provide.
Had Prime's recipe overdone it? Were the herbs too powerful? Or was there something fundamentally wrong with the orcs' minds to begin with?
The questions chilled him, but he forced them down. He would ponder them later. Time was moving, and anything could happen the longer he kept them here.
His gaze moved to the murky water. The surface was calm, as always, and beneath this placid water lay the boulder, the hole, and the unknown he wanted to call home if the endeavor proved successful. He exhaled slowly, then drew several deep breaths as he calculated the time needed to reach the boulder and how long he could remain below.
Moments later, he turned to the orcs.
"Stay," he said. Then he dove into the water and swam toward the boulder as Prime ran a timer in his mind.
Twelve seconds later, he was before it. He circled the boulder, scanning for weak points and the best angle to push. Another ten seconds passed. Then he kicked back toward the surface. Eleven seconds later, he broke through with deep gasps and waded toward the orcs.
"Follow me and do everything I do," he said, turning from the blank-faced orcs. He took several deep breaths, then dove in. The orcs plunged after him.
He swam straight toward the submerged boulder, glanced back to check the orcs were still behind him, then faced forward again. He planted his legs against the floor of the pool, pressed his hands against the boulder, and shoved to the left. As expected, the orcs mimicked the action, pressing their massive bodies against the boulder.
Within moments, the boulder began to grind and shift against the sediment. Aris pushed harder, and the orcs mirrored his exertion. His lungs began to burn for oxygen. With one final, collective effort, the boulder slid aside, revealing a circular hole beneath.
Immediately, a powerful vortex formed as the trapped water began to drain downward, spinning faster and faster. Aris moved behind the orcs, using their bulk as a shield against the current, which was not violent enough to sweep them away.
Feeling his oxygen running dangerously low, Aris kicked hard toward the newly exposed opening. He paused only long enough to gauge its dimensions and the strength of the current. The hole was roughly ninety centimeters wide, and the water grew noticeably colder the closer he swam to it. After three more scans, Aris noted something unexpected; the edges of the hole were smooth, not jagged as he had assumed such an opening would be.
Feeling his chest burn and the suffocating pressure increase, Aris reined in his curiosity, turned, and kicked powerfully back toward the surface. The orcs swam closely behind him.
Breaking the surface of the pool, he lined them up in a rigid row by the bank and scanned their bodies, checking the estimated time until the poison wore off.
[Remaining: 03:15:24.]
Three hours. More than enough, he noted. He dismissed the panel hovering before him and rested a hand on one of the bamboo containers strapped to his waist.
He turned to the first orc in line. "Do the breathing method," he ordered, tightening his grip on the container. He was ready to leap backward or strike if the breathing method somehow suppressed the poison, or worse, purged it entirely. All the while, Prime ran a continuous scan, analysis, and recording as the orc began taking deep breaths, its massive abdomen caving inward.
For a full minute, it held the inhalation before exhaling slowly and repeating the cycle, exactly as Olod had demonstrated a day ago. Though the poison was undeniably potent, Aris's initial anxiety about the orcs prematurely regaining their mental clarity began to ease.
After five minutes, however, the projected countdown timer for the poison's expiration dropped from three hours to two and a half. Frowning but unsurprised, he stopped the first orc and moved down the line to the next, repeating the same strategy. With each orc ordered to do the breathing method, more data flooded into Prime.
Ten minutes later, every orc had performed the breathing method, and the collected data had been merged into the body-forging art folder for later study.
Tucking the heavy book under his arm, Aris turned and began walking back toward the clearing, the nine orcs falling into line behind him in unquestioning silence.
Upon returning to the ambush site, he ordered the orcs back to their original positions. Two faced each other as if mid-argument, while a third had its hand outstretched toward the vine. Most of the water had already dried during the journey back, though their hide shorts were still damp and might raise questions once the poison wore off and they regained clarity.
Still, with the body-forging art book dangling right before their eyes, a bit of dampness would be the least of their concerns. What reasonable explanation could they offer for wet clothes, other than the humiliating possibility that they had soiled themselves?
He carefully rehung the book from the vine, then turned to leave. For a fleeting moment, a spike of regret hit him. It felt almost foolish to leave his enemies alive while they were completely helpless. But he shook off the impulse. Discretion was the smarter play for now. He began walking back toward the cave, scanning the undergrowth for edible fruit and herbs along the way.
Minutes later, as he neared the cave, the roar of the waterfall sounded different. He walked forward, knowing this was a consequence of the hole. When he finally stood before the waterfall, he saw that the waterline had noticeably receded. He didn't dwell on it. He waded into the shallows, hands clutching cloth bundles, one heavy with wild fruit, the other packed with nourishing herbs.
As he swam toward the cave entrance, he paused, frowning. The water felt colder than before. A nagging worry surfaced that the cave's interior might be affected too. But this time, his frown subsided clenching the cloth bundle with the nourishing herbs.
He simple noted the difference, attributing the drop in temperature to water now flowing underground, or perhaps a seasonal change and continued toward the cave.
He halted at the entrance, shaking water droplets from his hair as he looked up, only to find Lilly rummaging through the scattered piles of loot by the wall. He dropped the cloth bundles to the floor and began stripping away the heavy outer layers he had wrapped around his body as a barrier against the poison.
Lilly glanced toward him, her face lighting up, and hurried over to help, circling behind him to tug at the stubborn knots.
"Where did you go? I wanted to cook some rice," she said, her small fingers wrestling with the damp knot around his waist. "But I searched everywhere for the pot. Did you take it? And why did you wrap yourself up this much?"
Aris smacked his forehead lightly, watching her fumble. "I left it outside." He unwrapped the bindings on his shoulders, then moved to those on his arm. "And the rice is all finished." His hands paused for a fraction of a second. "I went out to get some herbs and fruit."
He nudged the cloth bundle containing the fruits with his bare leg. "They're riper and sweeter than last time. Try one." He reached over and took the stubborn knot from Lilly's hands, adding with a faint smile, "I ate several out there already." He noticed how her gaze locked on the bundle and her mouth began to water.
He finally freed himself from the excess layers, scooped them up, and tossed them carelessly near the cart.
Lilly knelt eagerly, opened the bundle, and pulled out a plump, pear-shaped fruit. Before she could sink her teeth into it, Aris raised a hand. "Hold on. What did I tell you we always do before eating fruit?"
She looked up. "Wash it?"
"Good. Now go clean them properly," Aris said, smiling as she scooped up the bundle and trotted toward the indoor cascade.
His own stomach gave a low rumble at the sight of the food, but he suppressed the hunger immediately, lest she see it. He shook his head and walked to his straw bed to change out of his damp clothes.
"Ouch!"
Lilly let out a sharp yelp, as if she had touched a glowing coal. Aris whipped his head around. "What's wrong?"
"The water is cold!" Lilly called back, though she continued rinsing the fruit.
Seeing this, he turned back to changing. He put on dry, coarse clothes and collapsed onto his bed, his body aching with exhaustion. Even then, he didn't allow himself to sleep. Closing his eyes, he focused inward, to the new folder containing the body-forging art.
The moment he opened it, a torrent of knowledge—complex postures, rigorous training methods, medicinal herbs, meat requirements, and more—rushed directly into his mind, causing him to bolt upright in shock. A surge of raw excitement followed instantly, his eyes glinting as a smile spread across his face.
Although the art was brilliantly complex, featuring detailed guides on how to strengthen the body, specific postures designed to isolate and target obscure muscle groups, and the ideal energy sources for strengthening them, Aris's focus was locked onto one specific element: the breathing method, the core pillar of the entire art.
Its mechanism was deceptively simple, and in his experience, the simpler a fundamental principle was, the more profound and devastatingly effective it proved to be in practice. At its core, the entire breathing method revolved around forcing the heart to beat in an irregular, controlled rhythm.
That irregular rhythm was not the goal, but rather the means. The true purpose was to manipulate blood flow, driving it faster and more forcefully than the body would naturally allow. That blood flow carried the energy extracted from food and herbs, especially the specialized meats and specific herbs the art had deemed essential, directly to targeted body parts. This essence from the food or herbs, as Aris called it, accelerated recovery and sped up muscle growth. It allowed one to train harder and more often than would otherwise be possible.
Perhaps the energy could even be distributed throughout the entire body at once. But the localized approach seemed the more logical starting point.
Aris frowned slightly, turning the thought over in his mind. Without the breathing method, training would still build strength, of that he was certain. The body would adapt, slowly, painfully, over time. But recovery would drag on far longer. And certain muscle groups, the deep and obscure ones that ordinary movement never reached, would remain almost impossible to develop.
The breathing method was not merely an enhancement. It was the key that unlocked the art's true potential. Without it, he would be grasping at shadows much less reach the so-called limits.
"Prime," he muttered as he slowly lay back down. "What are the chances for opti—" He caught himself midway, shaking his head. "No. First, consolidate the fragmented breathing-methods from the orcs into a whole."
[Task Initiated.]
[Estimated Completion Time: 10:00:59.]
"Ten hours just for a consolidation?" He paused, lacking the energy to let frustration take hold. "What about merging it with the breathing method from the art?"
[Estimated Time: 3 days, 4 hours, 25 minutes.]
"Three days. That's a long time. A lot can happen in this forest, let alone three days." He rubbed his throbbing forehead and took a breath. He knew that to get the better version of the art, he had to leave Prime uninterrupted. Then he would optimize the new merged breathing method for his human body though that might take longer time.
But if he was going to have a personal breathing method, aiming for the best was a must. Yet danger could strike at any moment. And even if they remained undisturbed, it would take weeks of grueling training under Prime's guidance just to reach the so-called limit of the first aspect of body-forging—let alone the remaining three aspects, which also needed to be pushed to their limits.
Too bad I didn't ask them how long it takes to reach a limit, he thought regretfully. I could have planned my time better.
He closed his eyes, but before drifting off, he glanced over at Lilly, watching her happily munching on a sweet fruit. A smile softened his hardened expression, washing away the last lingering traces of his frustration.
Haste is waste, he reminded himself, consciously calming his racing, overactive mind. During these next three days, I should map out the underground. Relocating there faster might be our safest play.
With that thought, exhaustion finally claimed him, and Aris slipped deeply into sleep.