Noah hadn’t been exactly sure what Moxie meant when she said things were just getting started. He’d been of the opinion that the gorilla was a pretty good way to train, but he’d been on a completely different wavelength than Moxie.

While he was trying to think of larger monsters to put the kids up against, Moxie decided to go in the opposite direction. Instead of getting fancy, she went back to the basics. And, as Noah watched the students sprinting in circles around the camp, he had to admit that it looked like it was working.

None of them had been in particularly bad shape by any means, but there was only so much they could do. It had been nearly thirty minutes since they’d started running, and Moxie didn’t show any signs of letting them stop.

Whenever one of them started to slow, a nearby tree would reach out and smack them in the back with just enough force to push them forward without actually stinging. Noah had lost count of the number of laps they’d run, but the exertion was taking a heavy toll on them.

All three were panting for air, their shirts soaked through with sweat and their limbs trembling with every step. Lee sprinted past them, cackling. She’d been running with the group since they’d started, but she still didn’t show a single sign of getting tired or even starting to sweat.

“Just how long are you going to make them do that?” Noah asked Moxie as he watched the three exhausted students stagger past. They were barely going faster than a jog at this point, but he couldn’t blame them.

“Not much longer,” Moxie replied, keeping a close eye on them. “I want to push them to their absolute limit, and that starts with draining all the excess energy they have. Survival isn’t about getting through the easy parts – it’s about making it through the hard ones. The best way to simulate that is to start by getting them exhausted.”

“This is just the start?” Noah asked, aghast. “They look like they’re about to collapse.”

“This is how the Torrins trained me,” Moxie said dispassionately. “And they’re all strong-willed. They’ll make it. Runes provide a lot of energy, and they’re all already well on their way to reaching Rank 2, right?”

“I suppose that’s true,” Noah admitted. “Just looks… rough.”

“Like your method of training wasn’t.” Moxie snorted and glanced at him out of the corners of her eyes. “Between being exhausted and forcing people to fight monsters without Shields, I’d say you’re the more barbaric one.”

“It was effective.”

Moxie raised an eyebrow. Noah cleared his throat.

“Right. Point taken. So, what next?”

They both watched as the kids staggered through another lap around the camp, barely managing to keep their weary bodies moving. Moxie wasn’t even pressing anyone on with the trees anymore – there just wasn’t any extra energy left for them to draw on.

“Stop!” Moxie called out. Almost instantly, all three students crumpled to the ground. They rolled to their backs, gasping desperately for air as Moxie and Noah approached them. Lee sprinted past the group on another lap.

“That was torture,” Todd said between gasps for air. “I think I see my dad in the sky.”

“Shut up,” Isabel rasped, not looking to be in much better shape. “You’ll live.”

“That’s the attitude,” Moxie said with an approving nod. She gave them a minute to catch a little bit of their breath, waiting just long enough that they could actually pay attention to her words before continuing. “Now, I want you to gather all the energy in all of your Runes and use all of it up. I don’t care how, but do it as quickly as possible.”

All three let out a collective groan as they slowly pushed themselves upright. Isabel pushed herself upright with a pillar of rock, then helped Todd and Emily to their feet in the same manner.

The three of them walked over to the edge of the clearing and started to gather their Runic power. Emily called Ice into her bow, channeling a powerful shot, and Noah noticed Todd and Isabel watching her carefully.

After a few moments, their brows both creased in concentration and they tried to mimic her. A ball of fire appeared in Todd’s palm as his bracelet sparked. It grew in size quickly, then started to condense. Isabel pulled a sword from her chest and focused on it. The blue glow grew several magnitudes brighter.

Todd’s flame shot from his hands and he let out a curse as it slammed into the ground, burning a deep furrow into it. Emily and Isabel still held onto their Runes, drawing more energy from them.

With an irritated huff, Todd started to channel his magic once again. Not more than a few seconds later, Isabel’s sword shattered in her hands. She was so tired that she just let her hands drop instead of jumping back. Isabel let out a weary sigh and drew another sword out, repeating the process.

Emily still hadn’t released the arrow she’d been forming, and Moxie’s face showed her pride as clear as day.

“She’s pretty good at that,” Noah observed. “I take it you’ve spent a lot of time helping Emily get a lot of control over her Runes?”

“We have,” Moxie said. “Fine control over your Runes is very important, especially when you’re going up against someone stronger than you are. The more time you spend practicing it, the better you’ll be at drawing large quantities of energy from your Runes at once. Or from one Rune, rather. You can’t do it from all of them at the same time.”

Not unless it’s Imbued in your soul. Probably a terrible idea to Imbue a normal Rune into your soul for most people, though. When you reach the next Rank, you’ll give yourself a huge soul wound that takes the average person a really long time to heal.

“Makes sense,” Noah said with a nod. “I should probably work on that a bit myself. I’ll do it in my free time. Anything else?”

Moxie rolled her eyes. “Maybe you should be out there practicing with them.”

“Not a bad idea, but it would set a bad example. I’ll do it at night,” Noah said.

“Wait, you’re serious?”

“Yeah. Never hurts to practice.”

Moxie just shook her head. “That’s true enough, but I would have thought you’d already know this stuff. I really want to know where you’re originally from if this is new to you.”

“Another time,” Noah said, turning back to watch the students as energy poured out of them. Emily had fired her first bolt of ice into the forest, and it left her bow with such force that it barely even made a noise as it carved holes through trees and vanished into the distance. Not even pausing, Emily just pulled back on her string and started to form another arrow from a different Ice Rune.

It took the three a little under ten minutes to completely spend the rest of the energy in their Runes. Emily was the first to finish, followed by Todd and then Isabel. Even though Todd had initially struggled to pick up on the technique Emily was using, he’d quickly picked it up and, by the end of the ten minutes, had managed to channel his Runes for almost three quarters as long as Emily could.

Isabel wasn’t too far behind them, but it didn’t click for her quite as quickly. It wasn’t like either of them had the strength left to care. As soon as the last of their power was spent, they all slumped back to the ground.

“All spent?” Moxie asked, walking up to them. The dirt and trees directly before them had been torn to pieces, scorched, frozen, and impaled with shards of rock. It looked like an entire battle had been fought in the tiny space.

Emily mustered the energy for a nod, and the other two mirrored her a second later.

“Are we done?” Todd asked.

Moxie burst into laughter. “Not at all. We’re ready to start.”

Todd couldn’t even gather the breath to say anything else. He just stared up at her, his chest still rising and falling with heavy gasps, then sent a desperate glance toward Noah. Noah shrugged helplessly.

“Sorry, Todd. You’re in Moxie’s clutches now. I can’t do anything to help you.”

Moxie gave Noah a rude gesture, not even looking back at him. “Right. Everyone get up.”

Isabel gritted her teeth and slowly forced herself upright. Her legs trembled beneath her as she rose, clearly using every single ounce of strength she had left just to stand. Then, to Noah’s surprise, Isabel held her hands out to Todd and Emily, helping both of them up.

Good shit, Isabel.

“I’m going to give you a scenario,” Moxie said, unblinking. “You’ve been fighting monsters for the past few days, but they’ve been far stronger than you expected. All of you are running low on supplies, and you haven’t been able to defeat enough enemies to regain your energy properly.”

Lee sprinted past them as she completed another lap. Moxie paused for a moment, nearly laughing, before continuing.

“There is also a monster that is actively seeking you. It has below average intelligence, but is powerful enough to kill any of you. If you were in good shape, you might have a chance against it, but as you currently are, it’s impossible.”

“So what in the Damned Plains are we supposed to do?” Todd asked.

“Survive,” Moxie replied with a wry smile. “I’ll be nice for the first exercise. You’ve got five minutes to plan and recover just a little bit of your energy. This exercise will last until tomorrow morning. If you are all caught, you fail.”

“What happens if we fail?” Isabel asked.

Moxie’s features thinned. “Don’t.”

“Can you tell us anything else?” Emily asked, leaning on a tree for support. “Do we know what kind of monster is after us? Does it have any weaknesses?”

“You don’t know its capabilities, but you know it relies heavily on sight and sound to locate you.”

“It’s a scenario that we’re not supposed to win,” Isabel said. “We’re supposed to find a way to wait it out until we regain enough strength to fight the monster, right?”

Moxie shrugged. “Time’s ticking. It’s up to you. Trap it, escape it, kill it, it doesn’t matter. Just survive. I’ll head into the forest while you all plan. When I come back out, the exercise is on.”

“Wait,” Todd said, swallowing. “You mean…”

“I’m the monster,” Moxie replied with a smile. She turned and headed into the woods, only pausing to glance over her shoulder and call out one last thing to them. “Get to thinking. If I were you, I’d really want to take steps to make sure you don’t fail too quickly.”