Limits

I tried to fall asleep for a while but her staring at me was annoying. It felt like an animal waiting for some kind of chunky size of its favourite meat. I managed to get some sleep but didn't dream of the Dark Traveller. It was because I didn't train my body or skills that day.

When I woke up in the morning, the first thing I saw was Laly's face. I asked "What are you doing exactly?". She said quite brashly "Where is your aura? You didn't have it during the whole night! What happened to it?". I replied "First, get off my face and second, I didn't dream of anything last night. How could I have that aura?". She looked at me for a while and asked "What do you mean?".

I replied "If I don't have my dreams, I will not have that aura". She got worked up and said "But it never happened before. Why don't you have a dream? We agreed that I will use your aura and you will learn about my skills in exchange. Don't try to swindle me!". 'Yep, she is crazy' I thought and said "Calm down. There is a reason for that. Sit down and I will explain. Stop acting crazy".

She quickly made her way to the only chair in the room and sat there. She looked like a loyal dog waiting for her owner's return. I said "If I don't train my body or my skills, I don't have dreams. It's a side effect of having that aura, I guess. It never happened before because I always trained! Yesterday, we ran the whole way, I wasn't training anything but running. Today, I will train and at night, the aura will return".

She seemed to calm down and said "Well then, why don't you go train now?". '... I would anyway. You don't have to tell me that' I thought and got off from the bed. I was about to walk out when I remembered something and said "Right, I have a specific timeframe for my training. So could you teach me about archery in the afternoon? I also need a bow and arrows". She replied "Sure, any time you like. It's not like I have things to do. As for the bow, I have an old one that I don't use anymore so you can have that. Don't worry about arrows either, I can make some for you."

"Great, I'm off to train then" I said and went outside the cave. I started my day from the 3rd modified diagram. I was able to last a bit longer now but the improvements were very tiny. Still lasting for 4.5 minutes was a large improvement nevertheless. After my initial warm up, I ate my breakfast and then prepared to practice my Natural Path skill. Before I could do that, I had to find another destination, then figure out all possible routes to that destination and so on. I think you know the drill.

It was afternoon when I finished with my routes. I found an optimal route that took me 23 minutes to run. I chose a destination further away, just to make it more interesting. My training with Laly would soon start, I ate my dinner before starting any other training. With all that done, I called out "Laly! Are you ready?". After a while, I heard her response "Yep, I will be there in a minute!".

Laly arrived shortly after she responded and handed me a bow. "This is for you. It is an old bow that I used long time ago but it is still very good. It also has very good bow string so you don't have to worry about breaking it" she said and I took the bow. The bow was quite light. I expected it to be much more heavy, considering that I didn't have to worry about breaking it. 'I'm not that knowledgeable about bows. I can shoot one but I don't know what this wood is. I used to work with wood but it was common type, stuff like oak or chestnut' I thought.

The bow itself was from some kind of red wood that was very light. The string was very tight but at the same time stretchy. I pulled on the string to see how much strength I needed in order to use it. I found out that not a lot of my strength was needed in order to open the bow fully. 'She said that I can't break this bow… Sounds like a challenge to me' I thought and used my maximum strength to pull the bowstring.

I could hear some creaks and Laly shouted immediately "Stop!". I stopped pulling and asked her "I will not be able to destroy it huh?". She responded "I forgot you were this strong physically. Don't use your full strength. Half of your strength is the maximum you should go with!". I nodded my head in agreement. I didn't want to break a perfectly useful bow but I also wanted to prove a point.

Laly started laying out her understanding of archery. "Your posture is quite important in the beginning. I'm already in advanced stages, I can run and shoot accurately but you can't! So don't try that!". 'Damn, she was quick to figure me out' I thought and replied "Alright, I will learn from the beginning as you say". Laly nodded her head and continued "I will show you the basic posture so just copy me. If you do something wrong, I will point it out". I nodded my head and looked at Laly.

She stood straight with her legs apart, about half a metre of distance. Her upper body was twisted to the side a bit while her bow and arrow were prominently displayed in front of her. I tried to position myself in the exact posture and awaited her comments. Laly said "You are taller than me so keep your legs a bit further apart. You are also twisting your upper body too much. Hold the bow a bit higher and hold your arrow dead straight".

I adjusted all of the things she pointed out and asked "Is this alright now?" to which she responded "Plausible. Now draw your bow and release the arrow. Don't make any unnecessary movements! Just draw and release. Aim at the tree over there" and she pointed at a tree that was about 100 metres away. I did as she said and pulled the string of the bow then released it while aiming at the tree. "Swoosh!".

"You missed. Try again". I drew another arrow and tried again but this time, I corrected my aim a bit. "Swoosh!". The arrow barely scraped the tree but it was improvement nevertheless. Laly said "You have to concentrate more. Take under consideration things like wind and the distance. Don't assume that if you use more strength, the arrow will hit your target". I tried again but this time, I focused more and felt for any wind that could blow my arrow off the path. After a while "Swoosh!... Puk!" The arrow embedded itself into the tree.

I was a bit off the centre of the tree but it was a hit nevertheless. Laly said "just continue like this and I will correct any errors you make. You need to get used to the basic stance as well as shooting in that stance. With time, I will introduce more advanced methods of archery". I nodded my head and continued shooting.