Progress

Thud!

Seraph reeled back his hair fluttering in the air, his sword to the side as he reeled back from John's hard thrust to his chest. John pushed forward, his mouth opened and let out a threatening roar, his long beard fluttered in the air, as he raised his sword high in the air. The long black hair of his beard, The aggressive attitude and the roar of his voice combined with his threatening stance which held his sword high in the air to block out the sun and his body erect like a statue to overshadow seraph's.

All of this combined made John look like a fearsome ogre, While seraph could only reel back like an inexperienced novice fighting their master. One hand clenched his chest as the other hand maneuvered his sword with dexterity, it raised the sword turning it horizontally just as John's sword swung itself down colliding together.

Seraph immediately felt the pressure go down his arm, and reeled back even more his footwork was in disarray, his body was heavy and his clothes and hair stuck to his skin because of the large amount of sweat he was producing. Despite all this he was calm. His gaze was narrowed and his eyes searched for other ways to escape.

John quickly raised his sword, and brought it back down. The wood on wood contact rang out, seraph ducked to the side and moved quickly to john's side who had already pulled his sword back and swung it once more. Seraph took a step back, the sword sailing right past his gut.

Seraph pulled his sword back, his eyes looked determined. He took one firm step forward and thrusted his sword toward John's exposed chest.

John's long beard fluttered, His eyes narrowed almost into slits. He tilted his body to the side, his sword met seraph's and slapped it to the side, it then made a swift circle in the air and embedded itself into seraph's thigh.

Seraph once again reeled back, his hand held his thigh in pain. John followed seraph, his palm sending a series of slaps to seraph's body making him lose balance and land flat on his butt.

"Argh!" Seraph sword clattered on the ground, he tightly held his eyes closed as he felt the pain all over his body "Ow ... " Seraph placed his hands on his gut.

John stood above seraph, "You're getting better, That was about a minute longer than are previous fights."

Seraph sighed "But that's because we added the rule that it's over only when someones pinned or gives up."

"Don't look at it like that, just think of it as the same game just with some new rules." John hooked the wood over his shoulder, stepped over to seraph's side and sat down.

"Alright." Seraph answered.

John looked at Seraph's downtrodden face. Seraph pulled his knees toward him and hung his arms down the side of them, his gaze focused to the ground. He didn't even look like he was in pain anymore, the pain was zapped away from his limbs and was replaced with an even greater pain which was his stress and depression.

He couldn't find a way after 2 days, to increase the bibles skill percentage. This stressed him out every single day…

John could recognize seraph's suffering, his eyebrows raised and then went back down.

"Hey, kid… Are you feeling alright?"

"Yeah, I'm doing okay." Seraph now was hugging his knees.

John scratched the back of his head, He turned his head away and then turned back toward seraph's pitiful figure he looked conflicted with something, he struggled out "Was the bible good?"

"Yes."

"Did you read all of it?" John asked once more.

"Yeah. . ."

"How about you come over here tomorrow with the bible and we can both discuss it together."

"Hm?"

"I mean like it seems like the bible i gave you isn't helping you with those nightmares that you're having anymore… So let's just talk about it together, see if that can calm you down instead." John placed his hand on Seraph's shoulder.

'It wouldn't hurt… Maybe he can help.' Seraph's natural instinct was to think about the bright side on things, even if john's method didn't increase the percentage he could take his mind off of the failure with both of them talking to each other.

…

Seraph brought the bible tomorrow. He held it under his armpit, turning his head he could see that John was in the same place he was yesterday. Astrid was not there again, she got busier recently, apparently there were people high up about to get to the second level and astrid needed to level herself up or risk having her authority seriously questioned.

Seraph couldn't care enough about camp drama, he told himself to focus on his training and reading and that's what he did. Seraph's bullies also began backing off a lot, they saw the amount of time he spent around John and Mr. Zhu who was one of the people about to level up to 2.

Most people really cared for the prospects of what level 2 meant, they had no idea what a level up might do. However, most people have the general conscious that a level up is going to increase someone's power by a margin or by a lot.

Seraph also had to admit that leveling up seemed very appealing to him, it was also something on his priority list. However, right now his first priority was learning this skill.

He brought the bible over to john, who picked it up and looked at it before beginning to talk about the bible a bit. John by all means did not have a soothing voice, however seraph felt very calm when John was speaking the same calmness that he felt when he touched the bible. Which had decreased over the weeks because of the stress associated with it.

However, John's voice now mimicked the original bible's effects on his body. Seraph smiled, he leaned forward to listen some more to john's little speech and when it was his turn to talk he spoke.

[Preach Activated]

The voice in his head said, Seraph was about to stop speaking but he was compelled to continue talking. John looked at seraph with pure amazement written on his face.

"Kid, you read this book before?" Once Seraph was done john asked with a mysterious look on his face.

"No- I'm just really passionate about these things."

"That so? You sounded just like the preacher in my local church."

Seraph was happy internally, internally he was screaming in joy and dancing. Through the corner of his eyes he could see the progress bar increase. Even though it was minute, he was happy.

John spent a long time with Seraph to realize when he was happy and to realize when he was sad, Even though seraph does a very good job at hiding his emotions and actions. The slight smile on Seraph's face combined with the constant bobbing of his knee which tapped against the ground like a rabbits feet didn't escape his gaze.

This made him happy, he immediately smiled and patted seraph's shoulder "Let's continue, You wanna keep preaching?"

"Yeah! Let's take turns, you know way more than me." Seraph nodded, then picked up the bible and began talking about some parts of the bible. He talked with John about the parts he disliked, also about the parts he couldn't understand at all. The parts that he loved a lot.

John did his best to explain everything to him, while also taking out a second bible which seraph eyed immediately before disregarding it he didn't attempt to ask for that bible, he needed to complete this one first before starting on another one.

The day went by, quickly. By the time seraph had realized it he had and john had spent about 6 hours talking about the bible. John picked up his bible, placing it under his armpit while stretching out his other arm and leg.

"That was a nice talk, I even forgot to teach you some footwork. . . guess we'll go extra hard tomorrow."

"Tsss..." Seraph sucked in cold air.

"Is something wrong?" John turned his head and looked seraph up and down.

"No. .." Seraph gulped, he didn't dislike John's training but... John's training was already pushing his limits. Making it any harder would kill him. He shivered but didn't say anything else, other than a goodbye.