Tower To Immortal: Inception (Book One)

Chapter 8: Training Begins

Before we’re going out to hunt, Eilbart told me to wait for a minute as he needed to get something real quick. He then returned in just a few seconds.

“Take this…” Eilbart gave me a bow and some arrows. 

“Couldn’t I just kill the monster with my sword?” 

“You could but if that's the case I can’t teach you anything, as I myself doesn’t good at using a sword. Using a bow was more of my style.” 

I thought Eilbart was a master of any kind of weapon, I had a wrong impression of him. But that’s fine actually, as a bow might come in handy if I somehow encounter monsters that were out of my range. 

“I see, I guess I will be using a bow then…” 

“Let us go now, we wouldn’t want to be late or the monsters would probably be gone soon.” 

With that, I follow Eilbart's lead as we’re going into the forest. He does seem to know the way around the forest. It’s almost like he had spent a very long time here, maybe Eilbart had been here quite a while. 

I wonder why Eilbart decided to live here. I suppose he must hate the other people out there in this tower. As Eilbart did say yesterday that the people here couldn’t be trusted at all. 

They will just act nice upfront but after they had reached their objective, that was for that person to lower his guard. They will then use that opportunity to kill the victim… As their goal from the start was stealing the victim's time. That’s what Eilbart had told me. 

I bet Eilbart had experienced that kind of situation and that’s why he chose to be alone in the forest. That way he wouldn’t be betrayed… 

But why did Eilbart trust me? I found that a bit weird. 

He was the one that warned me not to trust anybody but Eilbart did the opposite. What happens if I somehow betray him? I guess I already know the answer for that, I would surely die. 

There’s no way I could defeat him. Even if Eilbart says that he was just good at using a bow, I really doubt that. He is probably better than me. 

“Stop here! Draw your bow and be prepared to shoot…” Eilbart says. 

I followed his intrusticion but somehow I didn’t see any monsters at all. I then looked around and there was indeed nothing in this area. 

“There aren't any monsters here?” 

Eilbart laughed but it wasn’t that loud, he then looked at me. “It was because you can’t sense it yet but that’s what this training was about… to improve your sense.” 

“Okay but shouldn’t you be guiding me on this, I basically know nothing at all.” 

“Don't worry Eion, I will but as soon as you pass this test. If not I couldn’t do anything as the bow will not suit you at all.” 

“Test!? You didn’t mention that at all… besides can I shoot the arrow if I can’t even see where the monster is… at least tell me where the monster is and I will surely shoot it down.” 

“That part was included in the test so I'm afraid I can’t help you with that… as a good bow user could sense his enemy far away. Because if the enemy had gotten closer, the bow user would clearly be defeated. That’s why you need to develop your sense.” 

Hearing that, I realize what Eilbart said was right and I agree with him. A bow user would lose all of the advantage it’s had when the enemy or monster was in a close with the user. The bow user needed to defeat the enemy before they could even come closer… 

“But how do I do that? Is there any tips you could give me right now?” 

“Hmmm, I guess the only thing I could say was to look closely and hear the sound. If you pay close attention, you might be able to do it.” 

That’s a really vague instruction but I didn’t receive any more tips anymore. That was all the thing that Eilbart said to me. So all the thing I could do was to hope that I could do it right… and my senses wouldn’t fail me at all, if not I wouldn’t be training with Eilbart at all. 

I began to close my eyes, and paid attention to the sounds of the forest. As I know I couldn’t rely on my eyes right now, all that I needed to do was to hear the sound of footsteps or something that is different from the sound of nature here. 

It was hard for a few minutes, I didn’t listen to anything at all but I tried my best and for a moment there… I heard that there’s a strange sound south from my position. I hear it just for a second and then it’s gone. 

I quickly opened my eyes and shot some arrows into that direction hoping that I hit it but there wasn’t any sound of a monster growling because of pain. 

“Bad luck, you missed.” Eilbart says. 

“Could I give it another try, I’m sure that I could hit-” 

Eilbart cut in, “No you can’t… it’s over.” 

“What that can be! Please give me another chance as I know I will hit the monster… I'm just getting the hang of it.” 

“Like I said earlier, I can’t because the monsters ain’t there anymore. It had already scattered away because of your arrow.” 

“Does that mean I fail then?” 

“Of course not, you did a great job… I didn’t expect you to hit a monster at all, besides I didn’t say you need to shoot down the monsters.” Eilbart then smiled at me, “All I needed was for you to sense the monster's place and shoot the arrow… you did that and you passed the test.” 

“Really!? Are you serious… Did I really pass the test?” 

“Yes, you did pass the Eion test. But remember this is just the first step, until you fully develop your senses… then we will move into the next part of the training.”