Axel woke up in anguish, a headache still booming while his thoughts were delirious, it felt as if someone rolled him down a never-ending slope.
Gathering his thoughts, the first thing he did was notice something different in the air, it was filled with dense mana, next was the towering foliage, reminiscent of the forest surrounding the city. Wasn't it supposed to be barren around here. The pillars were still there just towering over the foliage and everything underneath
He slowly rubbed his eyes just to find his fingers were healed; Must have been quiet a long time for them to heal, maybe even the mana in the air helped.
He surveyed the surroundings, maneuvering through the dense foliage carefully since the last time he wasn't careful ended in a rather unfortunate meeting with an eldritch monstrosity.
The only difference between the trees in the temple and the ones from the forest are that these ones had plump fruit dangling from the branches.
They might be poisonous, Axel thought, he could survive a few more days without food, once he'd even survived 2 weeks on nothing but water from the slum well.
After moving for around five hours, and sitting down to take a break near a river flowing through the forest, it was weird since the ground was still made of marble yet the stream was flowing as if it was always there.
There were no animals so far from what the boy had seen so he relaxed, taking in the surroundings, but calmly this time. He took a deep breath feeling the damp smell of moss, water and mana converging to create a feeling of something the boy hadn't felt in years, warmth.
There were no expectations, no hate, nothing.
The calm running of the stream flowing down created an atmosphere of serenity, he looked up to see a massive, breathtaking mural of stained glass adorning the ceiling, creating an image of a gorgon head from the stories he'd heard as a kid from the orphanage as a kid. There was no blemish on its surface and Axel wished he could have seen it in its glory, before its age had caught up to it. Its creator was a master in their craft, the shapes perfectly symmetrical, the colors, blending into each other and cascading in a way that made them look alive, that the snakes were slithering, gleaming, it was the most beautiful thing the boy had ever seen. Every detail carefully measured and perfected, bringing it all together. It looked divine.
perfect.
"Aegis" He muttered, it was the symbol of the Pantheon of gods and one of protection, yet cracks were adorning it from old age letting light seep in from beyond it, yet it was dimming signaling night.
Little did he know that from that moment on , something changed deep inside him, going from just trying to survive to reaching for the same perfection he'd witnessed in the thing he loved best, swordsmanship.
...
One time, when Axel was young, he'd mistakenly gotten himself into a training ground, running off from the orphanage to try to explore.
Hiding in a large bush, he saw a public training ground where soldiers were training their swordsmanship, fighting against each other to improve and Axel was mesmerized, the way swordsmanship always had the same goal yet could be expressed so differently, how there were always ways to improve it, to better it, and in turn, yourself.
The young boy decided that becoming a swordsman was his dream, yet growing up, he had to do so much for himself just to live. He had to clean his own clothes, steal food, and so much more for survival; so he just made the rest do it, even if they didn't want to. yet now he had new responsibilities, to lead the group, plan who to steal from and so much more.
The whole reason he tried making others work for him was to give him more time to follow his dream, yet now he wasted his time doing mundane things.