Lux

  I woke up from my nap hating the fact I possessed bones. Holy shiza I am sore. Several parts of my body were currently informing me that they did indeed exist and had been severely neglected by me. Ikol was alert, scanning around for potential threats to us. Good musclehead. The real challenge was going to be standing up here in a second after I found the resolve to face the rest of the day. Maybe it was a new day, but the sun looked like it hadn’t moved anywhere near as much as I would’ve liked. It’s fine Lux, you can stand up. That was much easier thought than done, however. Lords above my body hurts. Every fiber of my being howled at me as I adjusted where I was, while my body was rudely informing me how much I pushed that new .

  Thinking of that , it needed a name. What should I call that? The name needed to be something cool, something that encapsulated how awe inspiring it was. I simply needed to think of what that name was; some part of me wanted to practice it a bit more but with how my body was screaming that certainly was not happening in the next few hours. I can just watch Ikol try his trial while I brainstorm. I began stretching, feeling the regrets of how far I pushed it. I am definitely training to avoid this happening again; how sore can one body be? Ikol perked up but remained in place when he felt me stirring. I slowly got to my paws with some light stretching, causing several joints to pop and crackle from the motion. I need to stretch and train my joints more; they take most of the stress when I’m using my fast movement .

  “Chef!” Ikol chimed happily, tails wagging slightly behind him.

  “Ikol.” I replied while trying to stretch and move some of the stiffness out of my body. I doubted anything I was doing was going to improve how sore I was feeling.

  “Did you rest well?” Ikol probed as he got up and began stretching.

  “Relatively. Thank you for keeping watch.” I informed him while giving him a head pat for a job well done.

  “No problem, Chef!” Ikol cheered with a few happy hops.

  “You can get back to your trial.” I told him as I kept stretching a bit.

  “Yay!” Ikol stated, hopping over to his stone collection to resume his attempts.

  I continued my light stretching as Ikol grabbed the next rock to attempt carving into a sphere. What did I want to call my ? It had to have some cool name, just what to call it? The inspiration was sunlight, so maybe mix that into the name somehow. How important was naming it right now? I did a few test hops with my body greatly protesting such actions. As it is about the only thing I can do effectively right now, I guess quite important. That was somewhat good news, but it was not great that I needed to recover more currently. Hopefully it wouldn't take me too long to recover from this; I didn't believe that King Ilrymax would intentionally spar me to the point I needed more than a handful of hours to recover properly.

  Something to involve sunlight, or maybe the fact it used a combination of several of mine. It did require , , and several runes to be functional as well. I do not think I can incorporate everything without making the name excessively long, so there will be some abbreviation of what it involves. The deserved an epic name to reflect how useful it was. I did manage to scratch King Ilrymax with it when he was making the fight more fair. Still was irritated by the fact that he claimed Miril might have had a point with her draconian lessons. I did, however, wish the fact I needed to breathe was not such an immensely limiting factor to how long I could maintain the assault.

  That was for later me to concern myself with. ? No, that was most certainly not it. ? ? Naming things is hard. ? That one felt kind of self-centered. Definitely not me nor what I should name a . ? ? This was proving to be more challenging than I thought it would be. Why was it so difficult to come up with a name? I didn’t think it should be this challenging; there had to be some trick to it I could use. Unfortunately, whatever that trick was did not register in my mind at the moment. You’re better than this, Lux. I thought it over a bit, trying to think of what I could use to help narrow down the ideas. Maybe I was just overthinking it? How did one overthink what to name something? Lux, do not go down stupid rabbit holes while trying to come up with a name for a you came up with less than a day or so ago.

  I grumbled internally as I looked at Ikol. He is not one for overthinking. Part of me was tempted to bounce names off Ikol to see what he thought, but I didn’t want to risk one of the lesser name ideas sticking in his head. That was a dangerous gamble that could happen if I used him to work on naming the , so that was going to be avoided at all costs because even telling him the final name may not stick properly in his head. Ikol currently was on an attempt of his trial that looked quite promising as the he formed was quite thin and stable. He might get it this attempt if he keeps this up. I paused my thinking to see Ikol slowly rotate the stone around in his paw while the carved it, steadily shaving around the stone until he was holding a nearly perfectly smooth sphere in his paw. Ikol ecstatic leapt in celebration, chucking the stone high in the air. Genius. I bounded up, catching it for him so his progress didn’t shatter. I landed, feeling my hips and paws screaming from that little jump I just did. Are you serious? A jump that small hurts this much?

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Thank you, Chef!” Ikol chimed happily as I handed him his sphere.

  “No problem, Ikol. Good job.” I praised him. Now he just needed to replicate it and then he was also done with his trial.

  “Time to do it again!” Ikol replied in a joyful tone, grabbing another stone to see if he could do it twice in a row.

  “You’ve got this Ikol.” I assured him before returning to my thoughts.

  Come on, it cannot be this hard to name a . Despite my desire to come up with a name, my mind kept going back to the awful names I had before. Maybe the name was not going to include sunlight. But I kind of want it to. What was I thinking to envision it? To be like sunlight, to be inescapable. To be able to attack in a way that covered everything. THAT’S IT! ! No, attack was not the right word. ! There we go, that’s a good name. Didn’t even take me that long. I knew coming up with a good name wasn’t going to be difficult. I returned to staring at Ikol, seeing that he was about to successfully complete carving the second stone into a sphere. From what I could tell, he had the control down well enough to replicate it each time now. That is a strong suit of his once he knows how to do something; he is great at replicating if he knows how they work and can do them consistently. After a few more moments Ikol had now carved a second sphere out of stone.

  “Victory!” Ikol declared while looking quite pleased with himself.

  “You got it. Now you just need to get King Ilrymax and show him that you can do it.” I congratulated Ikol who was prancing around.

  “I did it. I did it. I did it.” Ikol celebrated, happily bouncing around me. Part of me wanted to join him to make him a bit happier, but that was not happening right now.

  “You did a great job. Even finished your trial before the dragons and the bug.” I pointed out to him, which made him even happier.

  “I did! I did!” Ikol cheered while happily shifting in place still.

  “Now make it official.” I instructed Ikol. Ikol made a small burst of light in the sky, summoning King Ilrymax.

  “Yes?” King Ilrymax inquired as he noticed the two spheres on the ground.

  “I want to show you I can do the trial!” Ikol told him excitedly. King Ilrymax shifted to a more relaxed position, which was his version of sitting from what I could tell.

  “Show me then.” King Ilrymax directed, looking for Ikol to begin.

  Ikol grabbed another stone on the ground, summoning a thin once more. He carefully began shaving the rock, polishing off the crags and jagged pieces, leaving behind a fairly smooth surface. Good Ikol! You’ve got this! His control looked good, his pace was steady, and he was not getting overly excited. Ikol slowly stuck his tongue out while he focused. Don’t laugh Lux, it’s not that funny. Why did his tongue slowly but surely stick out more as he focused on carving the stone into a sphere? It didn’t matter, because Ikol was marching towards completion of his trial. Focus, focus. Do not rush at the end. Remain steady. His paw rounded the final bit of stone, completing an even smoother sphere than his previous two attempts.

  “Done!” Ikol exclaimed, showing King Ilrymax his stone. King Ilrymax used for the briefest of moments to inspect it. Blasted bird, I wanted to try and sense the a bit more.

  “Congratulations Ikol, you have passed your trial. Do keep practicing while you wait for the rest of your

  to complete theirs.” King Ilrymax told Ikol with a smile.

  “Yes King Ilrymax!” Ikol stated while nodding his head.

  “That was a very good job.” King Ilrymax praised him. Ikol did some more happy hops once King Ilrymax praised him.

  “Thank you! Thank you!” Ikol cheered, seeming over the moon to have completed his trial.

  “I need to go check on the others; I need to make sure they are progressing well now that you two are done.” King Ilrymax informed us before taking off.

  “Good job, Ikol! You did it!” I added on while patting his head.

  Ikol obediently stood there as I pat his head for a job well done. Good musclehead, proving you are better than the other three. And they thought they might be better than him. Ridiculous. I stopped petting Ikol after a few moments, as my body was still quite sore. Maybe I should check on the others. I did a few test movements, confirming that particular idea was not happening currently. I’ll check on them later once I’m feeling less in pain for living. Why did muscles and bones have to get so unbelievably sore? It was so inconvenient for learning and practicing new things. Definitely not the fact that I way overexerted myself. I sighed as I knew I just had to be patient and wait for the others to finish their trials. On the bright side, the longer the three of them took to complete their trials the more time I had to recover. I also need to be ready for when Ufr and I run into each other again; I doubt he is going to be patient nor understanding if I'm not in shape to settle the score. He definitely was going to want to rematch no matter how bad of shape I was in.

  “What do we do now, Chef?” Ikol checked, cocking his head to the side.

  “We practice and train as we wait. You should see how smooth you can get the stone.” I suggested to him.

  “That’s a great idea!” Ikol agreed before picking up another stone and trying to do even better.

  Yet again, his tongue slowly extended out as he concentrated. Now that I’ve noticed it I can’t unsee it. That was unfortunate because I couldn’t laugh at it no matter how much it made me chuckle internally. I was glad Ikol managed to complete his trial second in our

  . Show those dumb dragons and bug that he is indeed better than they are. The audacity they had to imply they were anywhere near as useful as my loyal musclehead. In time they would understand where they belonged. Me on top with Ikol loyally at my side like the good musclehead he is. That was such a nice vision, thinking of myself on a throne above them all. I will get the title of strongest for this , it is only a matter of time.