Red didn't sleep very well. In fact, he didn't sleep at all. The stinging pain in his ribs and the strange environment of Viran's tent didn't let the boy rest during the next few hours. He didn't know how long he was laid down for, staring at the ceiling and reflecting on his encounter with the man. Soon, even the faint light of the torches inside the tent burned out and Red was left in absolute darkness, except for a faint green glow coming from the desk nearby.

 

It wasn't until he heard approaching steps outside the tent, that he snapped out of his reverie. Looking over, rays of light flooded his view, and Red saw Viran standing by the entrance, looking down at him.

 

"Did you get some rest?" The man asked. "Actually, don't answer that. Get up, I'll be waiting for you outside." He turned around, before suddenly stopping and looking at Red again. "Don't forget to bring the knife."

 

With that done, the boy saw the tent flap down again, as darkness was restored. In truth, he hadn't tried to move much during the past few hours, so he wasn't sure what sort of state the rest of his body found itself in. If he had to guess, it wasn't any good, but laying down here certainly was not likely to help him much further.

 

Taking deep and slow breaths, Red slowly gathered his strength as he sat himself up. Just as he had confirmed last night, his arms were in working condition, at least, supporting his upper body weight albeit with some difficulty. Next was his legs. Their recovery didn't feel nearly as good as that of his other limbs, a dull pain spreading through them as Red extended and compressed them. They felt weak, moving them being an arduous and painful task, and he didn't know how well they would be able to support his body.

 

Red didn't feel like waiting around to see them fully healed, though. Being on the ground, the kid looked for some support to pull himself up. Crawling over to Viran's desk, he grabbed the edges of the improvised furniture and tried to pull himself up in one go. The simple task seemed to take a huge amount of his energy and his arms eventually failed him as he tumbled bottom first back to the ground.

 

His situation was worse than he had thought. Truthfully, Red had been hurt before in these caves, but not anywhere near as bad as he was right now. The foreign feeling of weakness mixed with the pain that came at his every breath was a hard opponent to contend with, but he wouldn't let himself be defeated by it.

 

After regaining his composure, Red grabbed the desk once more, this time intent on working at the task in segments. First, a single pulling motion of his hands lifted him up enough for him to put his knees beneath himself. Another pause for breath. On the second pull, Red managed to get his feet beneath him, staying crouched even as his legs protested under the effort. Finally, the final pull.

 

He almost fell down once again, but by throwing his body weight against the stone desk, Red managed to stay up. The muscles in limbs protested in pain, but now at least the boy was standing up on his own two feet. Looking around, his eyes found the shining reflection of the steel knife on the stone surface, proceeding to grab it and stow it away by the side of his waist.

 

Then next came the hardest part. Walking. Gathering his breath once more, Red made a tentative step forward with his right foot, gradually letting the full weight of his body onto his legs. This was a mistake.

 

His leg buckled from under him as his vision went dark for a second. Thankfully, Red managed to latch himself to the desk and avoided falling down. The sudden movement made him breathe deeply in surprise, at which point extreme pain shot through his chest, and his consciousness almost faded away again.

 

It took one more minute for the pain to subside, and Red could have sworn that it felt as if he was at the task for the last hour. Viran seemed understanding enough to not press him though, as the boy didn't hear from him during the whole thing.

 

This time, instead of stepping forward, though, Red tried to flex his legs by bending them ever so slightly before extending them again, letting the feeling and strength over his muscles return to him. After repeating the movement a few times, he finally felt confident enough to take another try at walking.

 

First, it was one step. A success. Then came the second one, as he let one of his hands go from his support. This one was a bit trickier, but Red managed to retain his balance, and he felt some semblance of confidence in his body return to him once more. Following a few more steps, he tried to let go of the support entirely and stand on his own.

 

Another sharp jolt of pain shot up his legs, but this time he didn't fall. With slow and steady steps, the boy approached the tent's entrance and lifted the flap before moving outside.

 

A lot of slaves were sleeping around the clearing, some of them covered in injuries like him. Red recognized them as belonging to the hunting party from earlier. He had almost forgotten that he wasn't the only one that had fought the centipede monsters. If it wasn't for Viran, he truly didn't know if any of them would have made it back alive.

 

Much to his dismay, Gruff seemed to be amongst the survivors, soundly sleeping in his own bed with not one visible injury. Looking at the center of the camp, Red saw the smoldering remains of a bonfire, as well as the leftovers carapace pieces of the centipede, stacked to the side. Those would be used to craft simple tools later. Up ahead, he saw Viran leaning back against the cave's entrance, holding a torch in his hand.

 

As Red approached him, the old soldier's brow furrowed.

 

"Why did you take so long?" Viran seemed to be quite serious, but he didn't let Red answer before continuing. "Make sure to pick up your pace and keep up with me." With that, he started walking off into the dark corridors beyond.

 

Red didn't even have time to take a breather. Although the man didn't seem to rush his step, he still kept a steady pace for an adult, and the young boy obviously struggled to keep up in his condition. They passed through various clearings, packed full of slaves whose eyes squinted as the torch broke the darkness of their rest. Some of the braver ones even started to complain, before they noticed who was the one holding the light in the first place.

 

He had never visited these parts of the caves too much before. Red mostly tried to keep away from crowds, and they tended to gather in larger groups towards the surface. This kept him isolated from certain parts of the mine, but the boy was able to get by exploring the darker regions for moonstones, where the monsters were more likely to wander by, and also where Viran and his goons hunted them.

 

Soon enough, they entered into a tunnel Red was entirely unfamiliar with. It winded and stretched for a few minutes of their walk and just as he felt that he couldn't keep up with Viran's steps much longer, they found themselves faced with a dead end. Or at least so it would seem.

 

"We're here." The man shined the light in front of them, and Red was able to see that what blocked their way wasn't a rock wall, but rather a very large stone the size of an adult that obstructed the passage. "Hold this for me, will you?" Viran held the torch in his direction and the boy grabbed it from him.

 

Approaching the stone, the man crouched down before putting his two hands beneath it. With a grunt, Red saw him lift the rock up little by little into his grip. Eventually, the stone hit the ceiling, and Viran couldn't raise it any longer. Still, he didn't seem to be particularly pressed holding the weight even in his awkward half-crouched position and started to push forward into the previously blocked passage.

 

Red saw a clearing open up before his eyes as he followed behind. Eventually, Viran set down the stone to the side with a heavy thud before patting himself down. It was then that the boy was able to see the area fully.

 

The clearing was fairly large and had a smooth floor. A handful of large wooden boxes lined up the walls of this place and in it, Red saw all sorts of things. Insect parts, improvised weapons, torches, glass bottles full of water and food, papers with writings on them, and a lot of moonstones. A lot of them. In fact, it wasn't just the box that held them, they were spread all over the floor. There was also an improvised stone desk and seat near the back wall. As the torch illuminated the environment even further, Red was able to see what was on the walls too.

 

A huge picture of a rough human silhouette was drawn on the wall. In the empty shape of the figure, the boy saw interconnected lines that traveled all over its body, as well as dots interspersed through these lines. Red didn't need to count all those points for him to notice that this was the depiction of the spiritual veins and their acupoints.

 

Viran walked over to one of the boxes while the boy was occupied staring at the clearing in wonder. Fetching some torches and firesteel, the man started to light them up and hang them around the room, illuminating the entire environment very brightly. Seeing no need to carry the torch in his hand anymore, Red put it on the ground and walked over to the large drawing on the wall.

 

"Is this where you keep your stash?" He asked, while closely examining the boxes. He had no doubt someone like Viran kept some supplies and other things he found in the cave to himself, at least more than what he had in his tent.

 

"One of them." The man replied, before pointing to the huge rock that had been blocking the passage before. "It was a pain to find a safe hiding spot, not to mention it wouldn't necessarily be able to fit all that I wanted, so rather than looking for one I just decided to block one of those clearings and make it my hideout."

 

It was a smart plan and something that only someone with his strength could do. Red was sure that no slave would be able to push the rock out of the way, not even if they worked together.

 

"What are we doing here?" Red finally asked, making use of this break to catch his breath once more.

 

"Right. I think we need to make something clear, kid." Viran replied walking over to his desk. "You are an investment, Red. Something I decided to raise and use to escape this place. At first, I wasn't too confident that it would pay off. Your talent is mediocre at best, and in this environment so lacking in spiritual energy your training speed was going to suffer no matter how hard you worked. Not to mention, the training method wasn't guaranteed to work either..." He looked at the drawing on the wall before continuing. "Still, you managed to surprise me. Some way or the other, you managed to train far faster down here than you should have been able to, and your survival instincts have proven to be much stronger than they looked at first glance. You've shown to me that you are, after all, worth further investments..." He trailed off, picking off another knife from his desk.

 

As the weapon was brought into view, Red was able to see the glinting of metal as it reflected the torchlight.

 

"Now... I'm going to make sure you don't die before you can pay me back for all my efforts."