Chapter 60- More Blood, Sweat and Tears.

Morpheus spent the whole morning trying to lift the boulder above his head, his stamina regeneration helped him keep up constantly doing it. Every single time Morpheus dropped it, Lucifer would violently hit him.

He was gaining more comfortable with the beatings, he knew when they were going to come and he always braced himself.

He didn’t have any food and the fatigue was getting to him slowly.

The time was eleven in the morning when Lucifer told Morpheus he would have a ten minute break. Morpheus drenched his water over his face and in his mouth.

Lucifer hit him straight in the face.

“You mustn’t clean yourself.” He calmly ordered.

Morpheus scowled and poured the water directly in his mouth.

“You need food.” Lucifer said.

“Have you got any Sir?”

“No, I said you would have to hunt for your own food.”

Morpheus stood up and his belly rumbled again.

“You have seven minutes.” Lucifer said.

Morpheus began to panic, he doubted he would survive without any food.

“Fuzz! Bird!” Morpheus shouted as he took off into the forest.

Fuzz flew high in the air and Morpheus sent messages that he was hungry.

Fuzz returned the message.

Morpheus sprinted through the forest, concentrating on all his senses and Arcane Pulse. He was absolutely ravenous.

He heard Fuzz chirp loudly in the sky. Morpheus spread his wings and flew over to the bird.

Morpheus looked down and saw a group of three grey skinned goblins carrying a boar of sorts.

(Warrior, Grey Goblin, Level 118)

(Scout, Grey Goblin, Level 108)

(Scout, Grey Goblin, Level 121)

One of the goblins looked up in the air and saw him.

Morpheus tucked his wings and began to fall towards them. He didn’t have his axe as he left in a hurry so he extended his nails.

“Fuzz! Bulgur!”

Shadows drenched the bird and a bulgur appeared next to Morpheus.

He dropped down on a scout and landed on top of it. His claws dug into the goblins neck and he yanked its esophagus out.

Fuzz had also landed on a poor goblin and it’s head was torn off from its shoulder. The last goblin looked terrified, it looked down to see a tentacle coming out from its heart.

“Good boy Fuzz!”

“Gurgle! Gurgle! Gurgle!” Fuzz shouted as his tentacle shot back with the heart in his mouth.

Morpheus picked up all three goblins on his shoulder. He grabbed the dead boar like creature by its tail and grew his wings.

Fuzz transformed into a bird without even Morpheus telling him and they quickly flew back to Lucifer.

Morpheus slowed his fall and landed next to Lucifer.

“Three minutes.” Lucifer said.

He quickly dumped the dead goblins to the size and leaned over the boar. He wouldn’t have enough time to cook it and his spark skill wouldn’t be able to do it fast enough.

He looked up Lucifer and began digging into the boar with his nails. He ripped the fur and began to eat the fat from its stomach.

“Two minutes.”

He gagged, it was absolutely disgusting. He kept eating, stuffing his face with raw slimy meat. Fuzz absorbed a goblin next to him.

“Times up.” Lucifer said.

Blood and skin covered his mouth as he stood up ready for the evening training.

“Boulder again.” Lucifer ordered.

He reluctantly nodded and walked over to the boulder.

For the next two hours he tried to lift up the boulder, using the same technique and Archaic Wings.

Morpheus was already covered in blood from head to toe, he smelt worse than a tavern and looked insane.

After a few more tries he managed to lift the boulder over his head and keep it there for a few seconds, it felt like a lifetime for Morpheus. Dropped the boulder and began panting from exhaustion.

Not even a second later and Lucifer’s fist came flying at him. Morpheus dropped the boulder and flicked his head to the side.

He looked back at the man with a smile, unfortunately he did not look down and caught a kick in his balls. Morpheus’s knees bent inwards and fell on the floor.

Lucifer then began to repeatedly kick him in the stomach until he got up.

“You will learn to hold that boulder above your head.”

“Ye…” He wheezed.

Lucifer kicked him again.

“Yes Sir.”

“Good, repeat until you can.”

Morpheus got up, his face was white; contrasting the stained blood around his mouth.

“Yes Sir.” He weekly moaned.

Morpheus really thought about taking a knee and praying to Natur to give him endurance. But he had to do this, if Lucifer thought it would help him then Morpheus would do his best.

He pushed the pain away and repeated the same process over and over again. Each time holding the boulder for a second longer.

By four in the afternoon Morpheus could now hold up the boulder above his head for two minutes.

Lucifer kept hitting him in the chest and stomach as he held the boulder up, when he talked about tempering Morpheus now understood what the Scarecrow meant.

His whole body was now stained with blood sweat and mud. It had just started raining and his hair was glued to his nose, party covering his eyes. He was extremely thankful for the rain as it washed over him, taking care of majority of the blood stains.

Morpheus had the boulder above his head when Lucifer stopped hitting him.

“Drop the boulder and come over here.” Lucifer ordered.

Morpheus happily dropped the boulder and walked over to Lucifer.

“Bend your head down.” Lucifer said.

Morpheus complied and bowed his head down, Lucifer then brought out a pair of scissors and started to cut his hair.

“Sir?” Morpheus asked.

“Messy hair is a messy life.” Lucifer replied.

Morphues shrugged and let Lucifer continue. The Scarecrow brought out a mirror and showed it to Morpheus.

His hair was much shorter, his messy fringe was now straight and only an inch. The sides were even shorter, he never cared about his hair but it was still a shook to him.

“We have thirty minutes left, proceed with the boulder.”

Morpheus nodded, his hair didn’t flick forward as it used to.

“Yes Sir.”

Morpheus kept repeating the exercise; lift the boulder above his head for the longest time possible. If he dropped it, he would receive a beating.

The time was approaching seven at night and Lucifer finally told him to put down the boulder.

He slumped down on the hard stone dripping wet.

“Oh, did I mention that you may try to attack me at any time?”

Morpheus weakly raised an eyebrow.

“So I can kick you in your dick?” Morpheus asked.

“You can try but I wouldn’t recommend it.” Lucifer said with a slight smirk.

Morpheus curved over his back and acted like he was exhausted from the day, even though he actually was.

As Lucifer turned away from him he jolted up and teleported to his back.

Unfortunately, the attack was amateur and foolish. Lucifer saw the attack coming and planted an elbow into Morpheus’s face.

His nose exploded and blood splattered all on his face but not even a drop landed on Lucifer.

“I said you may try, the art of fighting is to use everythinh you can. Surprise, environment, tools, allies. They all can help you win.”

Morpheus nodded while clutching his nose.

“I will leave you now, you have enough food to last you till morning.”

He nodded again.

“What about the magic Sir?” Morpheus asked the man.

“You said it is written in riddles?” Lucifer asked.

“Yes Sir.”

“Then solve the riddle.” Lucifer said as he walked away. He wore a plain black suit and it hadn’t got dirty the entire day.

Morpheus on the other hand looked like a psycho-ward patient. The rain from earlier had barely made a difference to his appearance. The mix of water, blood and dirt covered his body, all dried in different places. His fingernails were all stained black and scratched.

Fuzz shot out of his cloak and looked longingly at his master.

Morpheus held out his hand and the shadow rolled up his arm and sat on his shoulder.

“Shall we go home?”

‘Happy! Happy!’ The messages said.

Morpheus sighed, it was a tough first day. He had even gained a lot of notifications and stat points.

Before he went over them he scooped up the other two dead goblins, they had been sitting outside since his break. He grabbed his axe and water skin aswell.

Morpheus thought about how he would preserve them. Butcher’s usually let them bleed out first and then skin them, so that’s exactly what Morpheus planned to do.

He picked the two up and Fuzz flew off his shoulder towards the platform.

He jumped up to the platform, he threw the two dead goblins over a branch and went to work trying to hang them.

He found a variety of flexible twigs where he could use them as rope. Morpheus tied their legs together and then hung them both by looping the flexible twigs around the thick branch.

The young chimera cut off both their heads to let the blood drop out. It was a horrific sight but he needed to eat something decent, he still kept finding bits of fur in his teeth. A shiver went down his spine when he thought about what he did.

He sat on the branch as the blood was pouring out and went over his notifications.

You have levelled up Archaic Wings Level (E) (7)

You have levelled up Arcane Tuning Level (E) (3)

+1 Constitution

+1 Endurance

Morpheus was really pleased with the gains, his skills in the evolved stage took ages to level up. Gaining stat points showed that the training was actually working to some degree.