?As the days passed by, the Wanderers fell into a daily routine.
Run in the mornings, and chop down trees after breakfast.
They would then remove the branches of these trees, and sharpen the tip of its main body to serve as some kind of giant projectile that Thirteen asked of them.
After lunch, they would then hunt Monsters in order to fill up their quota of Cores, so that they would rank up after they completed their First Wandering.
They were only given four hours to hunt for Monsters before they returned to the base. After they return, they would fight with Thirteen’s subordinates as a team.
These were real battles, and Thirteen’s subordinates didn’t hold back and attacked the Wanderers, leaving them seriously injured.
Fortunately, the Troll Shamans had the ability to heal. Also, they would make the Wanderers drink healing potions to speed up their recovery.
Kane, Herman, Raon, Lambert, Phoebe, Rio, and Miriam were surprised because these healing potions weren’t the watered down versions that were given to the common folk.
They were high-quality potions, which made them wonder how Thirteen was able to produce them for the hundreds of Wanderers who got injured everyday.
When these group fights ended, they would eat dinner, too tired to do anything else, then they would sleep for the night.
Their tired and injured bodies would recover overnight, and when morning came, they would start their routine all over again.
This happened day after day, with no end in sight.
After a week, those who were scions and retainers of the Monarch Clans, Prestigious Families, Military, as well as other well-off families, who received proper training since they were young, finally understood what was happening.
Thirteen was training all the Wanderers, especially those who hadn’t been able to receive proper training because they weren’t born in good families.
For ordinary Wanderers, they would be asked to run ten miles everyday.
Those who received proper training were asked to run twenty miles.
However, Thirteen’s sister, Shasha, had been ordered by her brother to run thirty miles every day.
The ten-year-old had set a course for everyone, and most of them along the sandy beaches, putting a lot of strain on their bodies.
“I thought the training I received from my family was already hard,” Kane said as he ran beside the leading group. “Brother Zion’s Spartan Training will put the Training of the Monarch Clans to shame.”
The other leaders of the different Wanderers nodded their heads in agreement.
Shasha only kept silent because she had been trained by Zion for years. But, she had to admit that the training they were having now was on a whole new level.
When she was trained by the Leventis Family, they used Rank 1 and Rank 2 Avatars to develop her fighting ability.
However, her brother was different.
Instead of ordinary ranking monsters, the monsters that she had to fight everyday were Sovereigns.
The one she usually fought against was none other than Blacky.
The fastest monster among Thirteen’s monster army.
If she wasn’t fighting Blacky, she would be fighting Giga.
These battles were one-on-one battles, and not group battles.
Kane, and the other trained Wanderers complained that they also wanted to fight Sovereigns.
But, Thirteen only looked at them in disdain.
The trained Wanderers would almost always fight two versus one battles against the Alpha Trolls, and yet, they always lost without even managing to land a proper hit.
Kane’s partners were sometimes Herman and Raon.
But, even with their combined abilities, the Trolls they were fighting against were simply too strong, too fast, and too experienced in fighting that they would always get beaten and battered during their battles.
Thirteen’s training was indeed Spartan, and the Wanderers had no choice but to adapt by hook or by crook.
At the beginning, only Taiga and Kane joined Shasha in her thirty-mile runs everyday.
But after two weeks, the other trained Wanderers joined Shasha’s training regimen.
After four weeks, all the Wanderers were also doing thirty-mile runs, which made Uncle Boo, who was very interested in the Wanderers, notice the result of their training.
“Will you look at that?” Uncle Boo said as he looked at the Wanderers running on the beach. “A few weeks ago, some of them would have collapsed at this point. But, now, their stamina and muscles have developed properly allowing them to run faster.”
“What can running do?” Albion snorted. “In the end, can they outrun the people of Artem? It’s just wishful thinking. These humans are simply too weak, and too fragile to survive their onslaught.”
“You might be right,” Uncle Boo nodded. “But now, I believe that they have what it takes to run and reach their destination. Even if some of them die on the way, the others will definitely reach their goal.”
Albion scoffed because in his eyes, all of these fragile creatures were merely cannon fodders.
And, he was right.
All of them were indeed cannon fodders, which was why Thirteen was determined to train them, and give them a fighting chance to return to Pangea.
While everyone was busy training, Thirteen would disappear from the island from time to time.
Sometimes he would disappear for days, sometimes, he would disappear for a week.
When Uncle Boo asked Albion if he knew where Thirteen went, the Unicorn would stay silent.
But, Uncle Boo could be persistent at times, and during those occasions the Unicorn would tell the Beholder that he didn’t know, and didn’t give a damn about wherever the ten-year-old was.
After being captured by Thirteen, there were many restrictions that were placed on his body, preventing him from divulging anything about what he saw or heard when he was in the Treasury of the Apocalypse.
Albion had only two goals.
The first one was to find the candidate who would become the Moon Princess among the Wanderers.
The second was to rescue Callie.
He would then cross the Gate of the Moonlight to escape the Arcadia Archipelago.
Thirteen knew that the Unicorn planned to have Callie merge with the body of the Wanderer, allowing her to live… for at least a decade longer.
But, the ten-year-old had asked Metatron to put a restriction on Albion that prevented him from targeting Shasha.
In the slim chance that Thirteen’s sister was chosen as the candidate to become the Moon Princess, he wasn’t allowed to touch her, which would force him to just rescue Callie, and follow Thirteen’s strategy.
Finally, during the fifth week of their training, the boy, who had been away from the Arcadia Archipelago for a week, finally returned.
There were only a few days until the Lunar Eclipse, and his return signaled that thepreparations that he was working on, had been finally completed.
“Welcome back, Zion,” Shasha said, hugging her brother in front of everyone, and patting his head.
Taiga and Kane could only watch with envy as the younger boy got pampered by the apple of their eye.
After that short sibling bonding, Thirteen glanced at all the Wanderers who were all looking back at him with determined looks on their faces.
Their stamina, strength, fighting prowess, and overall performance had improved by leaps and bounds, making the younger boy nod his head in satisfaction.
“Uncle Boo, Albion, call the Monster Sovereigns, and tell them to gather on the Second Island,” Thirteen ordered. “It’s time for us to have one last strategy meeting, so that we can give our unwelcome guests a warm and resounding greeting.”
Thirteen smirked because he had worked overtime to make sure that everything was ready on his side.
Seeing the devilish smile on his face, Tiona, Giga, Taiga, Blacky, Rocky, Hercules, Vassago, Poca, O1, O2, T1 and the rest of the Trolls grinned back.
They had seen their Master smile like that many times during the last three years that they had been with him.
Although the battle up ahead would be an extremely dangerous and difficult one, as long as the ten-year-old was standing on the battlefield, they would stand beside him and destroy all those who would stand in his way.
Uncle Boo, and Albion, stared at Zion for nearly half a minute before transforming into their true forms.
Since they were all on these together, they decided to obey the boy’s orders, and rally the largest monster army that the Arcadia Archipelago had ever seen, and would probably never be seen again.