Chapter 37: 38-Training

Draw.

Aim.

Release.

Draw.

Aim.

Release.

Words that repeated themselves in Rowan's mind as he focused on drawing the arrow from the bow and releasing it.

Those were the actions which fully concentrated on practicing the bow and arrow. There were times when arrows completely missed the target mound while others times the arrows were able to hit the target. When he was aiming, there were times where his hands delayed in releasing the arrows. Other times he thought his hand grasped the arrow, only to miss or drop it instead.

While accuracy should be one of the utmost important aspects of archery, it currently did not matter to Rowan. Many of his arrows missed, but there was no disappointment found in his eyes. It did not matter how long it took for him to pull back on the string and release the arrow. 

What mattered to him was the form.

Rowan wanted his body to learn the feeling of archery. The fact that there were times his body had trouble following his commands showed how unfamiliar he was with his own body.

So, Rowan did the only thing that was ingrained into him in order to become better.

Through hard work, dedication, and practice. 

Just like how he swung his practice swords for hours back at home, he would do the same here. This would serve as good training for his new arms.

Once Rowan had the form down, then he would focus on accuracy. The boy had no idea how long it would take for his arms to get used to his body, but he had time.

Afterall, besides carrying the exchange with the Mother Tree seed, there was not anything else for Rowan to do. 

There were times when striking with the sword that people knew right away that the strike was good. His father had called it intuition. Other knights had called it instincts. Rowan did not know what the right term was, but he had hoped to achieve that with the sword one day.

However, that day would never come as right now the current him could not even wield a sword.

That was fine as Rowan had a new goal. That was to reach a high enough level in his archery skills that he knew right away if the arrow shot was good or not.

It was still a far off goal, but Rowan was hopeful.

He would take as long as he needed to inorder to reach that goal.

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The sun rose and fell each day as Rowan fell into a routine. Besides carrying out the exchange with the Mother tree seed, he would shoot arrows all day. When the arrows in the quiver ran out, Rowan would run around to collect all the arrows before returning back to his original position.

It was hard to tell how much time passed as Rowan could only rely on the sun. The camp had no trees to tell if autumn arrived as it was surrounded by the barriers of thorns. It was only when the temperature slowly began to drop that the boy could tell fall had arrived

Or perhaps the season had already arrived for some time and Rowan had not noticed until later. 

The gradual decline in temperature did not affect Rowan as he continued with his routine.

His sense of time slowly became distorted. He found himself needing less sleep which he could only attribute to the Mother Tree and life mana. He would find himself waking up at times while the sky was still dark. Less sleep meant more time to train which he was thankful for. Everytime he found himself waking up early, he would begin the day by carrying out the exchange and then go to practice his archery skills.

The Mother Tree seed showed no sign of sprouting which had Rowan slightly worried. However, since he was able to perform mana exchange with it, then that was a sign to him that the seed itself was fine. Perhaps because the seed was special it needed a long time to grow?  

The signs of approaching winter was troubling news for Rowan. Not only because he barely wore anything, but he wasn’t sure how the Mother Tree seed would handle the drop in temperature.  

Rowan contemplated on what to do. There was still some of the deer pelt left which he could use to drape over himself for warmth. He could also break up one of the tents to add extra cover since one of them was no longer in use. 

That led to another problem. Tents were not made to be warm enough to last the winter. So what should he do? Rowan thought about it before finally coming up with an idea.

How did animals survive through the winter? A lot of animals fatten themselves up and hibernate. Others adapted and  roamed about in the snow, while minimizing their movement to save energy. Thinking about the different animals, one animal in particular came to Rowan’s mind.

Bears.

An animal known for their size and ferocity, he also knew they hibernated during the winter. The fact they hibernated was not important, it was where they hibernated that was important.

Bears hid themselves inside caves to escape the cold. 

While there was no cave on the camp, Rowan could easily dig himself something that resembled one. Seeing as winter may soon be approaching, he decided to start digging right away with his own hands.

That was what he did for the rest of the day, creating his own little personal cave.

By the time he finished his own cave, the sun had begun to set. Rowan had created a den for himself. It was by no means perfect, but it was only meant for himself in the end. He had dug diagonally downwards into the earth. The entrance was big enough for only him to walk in, following a tunnel of ten feet which then led to a meager size  room. The room was big enough for him to sleep in and nothing more. It didn’t need to be bigger as he planned to spend most of his day outside training himself anyways. He would store some of the other belongings inside the room for the winter and then he would be set.

Now that the clothing and shelter problem was solved, what should be done about the Mother Tree seed? He did consider making a mini cover made of dirt to help protect the seed from snow, but he felt that would also block off the sunlight that the seed needed to grow. In the end, Rowan decided to do nothing and take the wait and see approach. If there was no problem with the exchange throughout winter, then there would be no problem for the seed. Only when issues show up later would he try to solve them.

For now, he would go back to training and keep shooting at the practice mound. 

Days passed before the first snowflake began to flutter down.

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