Preparing For The Journy

Word of Xiaoyis arrival had already made its way to Tharla. She had not expected to see her again so soon. She had expected it to be a couple months at least.

She quickly hurried to the town hall and saw Xiaoyi coming out with another man. She saw that the man had a massive bag similar to the ones that orcs would have when they went on journeys.

"Xiaoyi! It's nice to see you. However, I was not expecting you to return so soon. What brings you back?"

Xiaoyi ran up and hugged Tharla. While Tharla just patted her on the back.

"I went the wrong direction so now we are going the right direction. Found a town and Weiyuan knows how to get back,"

She pointed at the man that was walking to them with a big bag on his back.

"Hello, I am Weiyuan. I have heard so much about you."

"Hello I am Tharla, I haven't heard anything about you."

She smiled at him and squeezed his hand extra tight.

Weiyuan took the hint that she doesn't like him already.

"How about you two come to my cabin and spend the night? We can get spare beds for you placed in there for the time being."

"Thank you so much we would appreciate that." Xiaoyi said while starting to skip to the cabin.

Tharla took the bag from Weiyuan and led the two of them over to her cabin where Thruk was not present.

"Where is Thruk?" Xiaoyi asked seeing that he was not there and most of his stuff was gone.

"Thruk is out hunting for the next couple of days. Due to small beasts being here we have to go farther to get bigger animals that keep us stocked up longer. If we hunted everything close by, eventually we would have no beasts for emergency food."

After a couple hours of catching up a orc brought in two beds for the two humans to use. He placed one next to Tharla's bed and the other next to Thruk's bed creating a super bed. All 4 beds connected allowing them to spread out and sleep in any direction that they wanted.

"Xiaoyi, why don't you sleep on my bed and I'll sleep on the one they brought for you?" Tharla asked while sitting down on the temporary bed. She then gave a glare to Weiyuan who was silently eating a plate of cooked meat.

He looked around trying to see what he did wrong, but felt as though he was being judge for something he hasn't even done.

"Why don't we use the same bed? Orc beds are pretty big. I doubt having a human added will take much space." Xiaoyi said in a reply.

"I like your idea even more." She said as she joined Xiaoyi in the bed.

***

The next morning Tharla got up early to make them more of the bacon tasting meat that Xiaoyi seemed to like last time she was here.

"Good morning Xiaoyi. I made breakfast so make sure to eat soon."

Xiaoyi just grumbled as she recently got out of bed to eat. As always her hair straightened itself out by the time she sat down.

"Thank you for making us food Tharla." Weiyuan said nervously.

"Anyways, how long is your journey?" She asked while looking at Xiaoyi, completely ignoring Weiyuans thanks.

"It is going to be between 5-12 days. Maybe longer if we are unlucky."

"That is a long time to be in the wild. You may want to consider staying here for a few days and train with us orcs to be prepared for your journey."

Tharla said while flexing her muscles to emphasize their effective training methods.

"I would love to do that but if there is any sparring I think any orc would accidently kill me." Xiaoyi said in reply.

"If I die I don't think it would be an accident." Weiyuan whispered, causing Tharla to give him a deadly stare.

"Luckily you won't be sparing. You are not a worthy opponent of the orcs so we will do strength training. I will only allow you to leave after your strength increases to 10. Then you will have a third of my strength."

"What if it's already past 10?" Weiyuan asked as the training might not be fit for him.

"Oh do you want to fight me?" Tharla asked while smiling and fluttering her eyes.

"I would like to do strength training." he quickly changed their mind.

They soon finished eating their meat and leave with Tharla to prepare for their journey ahead.

They were led to a small dirt field filled with craters and with rocks of various sizes. Next to the field was a skinny but small mountain peak.

Each rock had a carving on it displaying its weight.

"Super light, very light, light, average, slightly heavy, very heavy, super heavy, crazy heavy, chief level heavy."

They both looked in awe as the small Rocky Mountain that was about 100 feet tall was called chief level heavy. It also looked out of place as though it didn't belong here.

'This is what the chief uses to train?' Xiaoyi could not believe it.

How could a living being be so strong to carry the top of a mountain with them? She knew there were mountain peaks in the direction they were heading but it was at least a mile before you got to the mountains. Even then you had to climb down the mountain with it in your hands.

"Don't worry, I don't expect you to carry that one. However, Weiyuan you will use the light one and Xiaoyi you will use the very light one." She said while picking both the super light and very light rocks up just with her grip strength.

"They have been compressed by a previous chief so that they won't be so big. The current chief has not started compressing the chief level hard yet so we can't mess with that."

She handed both of the rocks over causing them to both fall to the ground.

"With these rocks you will do push-ups, squats, running and much more. Normally we would work for years to get to the next rock. However, with the box that showed up I think we can do it in months." She said while braggingly picking up the slightly heavy bolder and starting her squats.

The two of them continued this brutal strength training regime for 2 weeks. During their time they both got well known amongst the orcs. Even some orc traders passing by began to spread tales that not all humans are weak.

Xiaoyi was able to grow her strength to 11. On the other hand Weiyuan only increased his to 16.

As they were often on the training grounds they then could understand just how weak they were for the ones that inhabited this world.

Many orcs came and went and the only time they would pick up a light bolder was to play catch with each other. They truly had a long way to go before they could protect themselves properly.

During their time there they also had 2 basic sworld lessons from Tharla as she used a much bigger sword akin to a long clive.

While their time was coming to an end they both knew they would have to see the chief once again. However, this time they felt it would be different.