Alone

The night air had a slight chill to it as a lazy wind sputtered down from the mountains. A young boy stared worriedly out into the darkness asking himself "where are they?". This boy is named Vale with his family's name being Swan. Although the the stars twinkled in the night sky his worries only increased, it had already been 3 days since his parents went to the closest village to sell energy herbs collected from the nearby forest and two swords his father had made.

Normally his parents returned the same day by dinner time or at the latest the next afternoon. Now though it was the third night since and still they hadn't returned. Vale considered making his way to town but without a horse it would take most of the day and that was if he didn't get attacked by Dirge wolves, a violent breed of wolf that even a body refinement practitioner would rather avoid. Vale wasn't naive, even though he was still waiting for them to return deep down he knew it was unlikely but at 10 years old he couldn't bring himself to give up on the hope his mother and father were fine and would come back to him.

Vale was not weak a weak child he'd already entered the beginning stages of a body refinement practitioner and was showing great promise. The Shackled realm was the entry into body refinement, the name was thought to have been given because until you completed it you'd be Shackled to a normally life span. There are 3 levels in the Shackled realm, Straining was the first level and the level Vale had reached the peak of, Striking the the second level followed by Breaking. Above that was the Unbound realm, the realm of energy refining the body and the hope of most warriors and knights.

If only his parents would return home! After a few hours Vale finally turned his back on the direction of the village and dejectedly looked at his home, its ironwood log walls still light brown in the light coming from the windows. It was a rather sizeable house and off to one side was his father's forge built of stone and clay barely visible. Vale's sight started to blur as he walked towards the door, when his hand finally settled on the metal handle tears stained his face. His hand trembled as a shudder went through his body, finally drawing a deep breath Vale stopped his trembling and opened the door. He knew his life was not going to be as he'd dreamed when he saw the brightly lit but empty living room, oh it had a table and chairs and bookshelves with filled with books his father had collected but the most important things to Vale were missing. After closing and locking the door Vale doused all the lanterns but one. Taking the last source of light he made his way to his room, it seemed much larger than he remembered as he sat down in the edge of his bed while putting the lantern on the side table.

Eventually he extinguished the light and laid in his bed staring into the darkness once again. Soon he drifted off into a nightmare laden sleep.

As sunlight peeked through the window Vale rubbed his his eyes, his long light brown hair in disarray from tossing and turning in his sleep. Suddenly his eyes snapped open as if startled and he quickly jumped out of bed and ran to the front door. He unlatched it quickly and hurriedly went out bolting to the small outhouse behind his father's forge. After the outhouse door closed soon a long sigh of relief sounded out.

"I guess I forgot to go before I went to sleep last night." Vale berated himself as he exited the outhouse before staring towards the direction of the village his parents had left for over 3 days ago now.

"Mom, Dad, I know you'd never abandon me which means something bad has happened, but if you're alive I'll find you as soon as I'm strong enough." Vale said calmly as he stared at the point where the ground meets the sky.

Before mumbling something unintelligible. His eyes slightly watering before he took a depth breath closing his eyes. When they opened again there was a strong look of determination in them, something rarely seen in a youth of his age.

Starting his day off as normal Vale are some smoked rabbit meat and a few slices of bread along with some boiled vegetables. He could help but lament that the vegetables were horribly over seasoned but since his mother had always prepared everything for meals he had no idea how to season anything at all. Worse yet was he only had half a loaf of bread left and was clueless as to how to make dough.

" I really should have taken mom up on her offer to teach me to cook." Vale said in concern before he shoveled another spoonful of veggies into his mouth. A frown formed almost immediately when he started chewing. Whatever the powdered green herb was that he added may have made it smell good but it tasted as good as he imagined a boiled leather boot would.

After forcing himself to finish his meal Vale started doing his training exercises, starting with the horse stance which requires one to squat with the knees at a 90 degree bend while keeping their back strait and arms up in front or to the side. Vale's father had been adamant about not only performing the horse stance but increasing the difficulty each month. Currently Vale could maintain the horse stance without any extra weight for a half an hour, unfortunately he was holding a 15kg weight in each hand and 25kg metal plated vest this reduced the amount of time he could hold on to less than ten minutes with his goal being thirty minutes. Even though he was far from the goal his father set for him he didn't mind, he knew that only through hard work and constant effort would he have a hope of breaking through the levels in the Shackled realm.

The horse stance was only the first exercise that he was required to do. Granted his parents weren't there to make sure he did them properly but Vale had never thought about slacking off, he enjoyed getting stronger and dreamed of earning a knighthood through heroic deeds for his country. Though to be honest he'd never even been to a village with his parents and everything he knew of the world came from books and his father.

Sweat poured down his brow as he strained to maintain his posture, pushing himself as far as possible. Finally with a thud Vale's butt firmly collided with the grass covered earth.

"Ha... Ha... Ha... Only 8 minutes roughly" although he was hoping for longer he knew things couldn't be rushed. Even though it was only around 8 minutes Vale had a bright smile on his face as it'd only been a week since his current level of training with weights had started and the first day he could barely handle 4 minutes, there was a chance he could make it to half an hour within the next three weeks. After resting for a quarter hour Vale got to his put his weights back against the wall of the forge. He took off his metal plated vest and grabbed another metal plated monstrosity, this was his running suit. It was pretty much armor except it was leggings and long sleeve shirt all in one covered in a distribution of metal plates. Altogether the suit weighed 80 kilograms which if a normal kid his age was to try to wear it'd smother them. Putting on the suit Vale carefully tied the leather straps that held the suit closed making sure they wouldn't come undone in their own.

"Ugh! it's so hot in this thing." Vale commented as he started his run. Although it was mainly flat plains around his home, there was a hill to the South about 1km away. The top of that hill was his target, followed by returning to the forge and repeating it 3 times. Granted he couldn't do it three times right now. In fact he could only do a lap and a half before having to rest an hour or so but he'd slowly work his way to the 3 laps in one go eventually.

It was about noon by the time Vale finished his run, joy could be seen in his eyes right next to the exhaustion. He'd managed to squeeze out an extra quarter of a lap before needing to rest. That on its own wouldn't be enough to bring him joy, what caused that was he finally felt a slight weakening to the next level, if he could enter the Striking level of the Shackled realm he'd be ready to practice the sword manual his father had gifted him for his tenth birthday. It was just for motivating him and Vale knew it was one of the three common sword manuals called Shieldless Defending Sword or Shieldless Sword as most called it.

Vale quickly ate lunch before setting about cleaning the forge and house, although neither looked dirty his daily routine could not be put aside. Suddenly looking up from sweeping the last bit if dirt from the living room Vale shielded his eyes with his hand, without him realizing it the sun was starting to set. He couldn't help himself as his thoughts drifted towards his parents, would they ever return? Were they dead? What happened? And last but not least how long could he survive because once the smoked meats and jerky runs out in a few days he'd be in serious trouble. He'd never learned how to hunt or how to skin a beast...