Axel woke up the next feeling more refreshed than ever except for his empty stomach, periodically grumbling its dissatisfaction loudly.
Not yet, they might be poisonous, he thought as while continuing toward the massive wall on one side of the temple, yet now he started noticing the subtle things, the deep brown oak of the towering trees, the faint rays of light seeping through the cracks, the distant movement of water.
Yet after moving for a while, there was something new, it was as if, slowly but surely, the world became heavier, pressing down on him slightly harder each step.
Normally he wouldn't have noticed, but after the day before, when he saw how the smallest details or imperfections could make or ruin anything. He chose to look out for the imperfections and perfect his senses, as senses were the backbone behind every style.
Interesting, it's trying to stop me from reaching the wall, at my old pace, I would've reached the wall in about 20 hours of moving, it might be my way out. he thought, continuing on the path.
His progress was incredibly small yet his weight always increased ever so slightly.
...
After 4 hours of jogging, his weight had doubled since he'd started , slowing his pace slightly, blessed humans (Humans with mana) could handle a lot more weight than a regular one because of the mana in their body, strengthening it to the point where they are at least 5 times stronger than normal humans.
After another 4, it doubled again, his speed slowing down to the point where his speed was now comparable to a sprinting, adult human, sweat and exhaustion slowly building up.
At the ten hour mark, he took his first break, sitting with his back against one of the towering oak trees gazing up at the plump fruits, hunger erupting in his mind.
I can't keep going like this, He thought.
Unlike before when he could simply jump to the tall branches of the trees, now, he had to slowly and methodically climb up.
The branch was 5 meters tall so it was neither an easy or difficult climb, yet when he got up, he was gasping for breath due to all the physical exhaustion creeping in from moving all day.
A few moments later, he grabbed one of the fruits and took a nibble to check for poison. Its taste was incredible, the juices gushing out from the bite caused him to admonish his past self for even thinking of starving when those fruits were in front of him.
Afterwards, he climbed down from the tree and decided to take a quick nap. There were no animals from the start, so there was no danger.
…
After waking up, Axel determined that it was now evening, so instead of continuing on his way, he chose to stay, train, and get used to this area's gravity before continuing on his route.
By now, the boy wouldn't stop until he got to the walls, to see what they were hiding. To uncover what lay there, and so, he started training his body by doing every exercise he could think of, day in and day out.
This continued for days, only pausing slightly to periodically eat another one of the fruits before continuing.
Whenever the boy felt his determination wane, he would just look up at the mural, reigniting the fire in his soul, yearning for perfection.
Back when he got ambushed, he couldn't take anything because he was low on mana and was tired from having to stop a dispute from a rival group, so he couldn't even take any weapons with him, thinking he was safe with his family.
So now, all he could do was train his body and senses.
The only bright side was that his amplified weight helped a lot in his training, making everything harder.
Axel pushed himself harder and harder, always stopping only when he couldn't move anymore, when he would guide mana to transfer and move it around his body, speeding up healing and bringing him back to normal in only a few hours because of its high density in the air.
And just like that, a month passed.