A beam of light shot through the wooden crate she called a home causing the child to startle awake and flinch against the bright invasion. She had no alarm clock but that meant little when the sunlight was as bright as could be when it finally did hit the alley way she was hidden away in. The reason she was sleeping in a wooden crate was simple enough: she had no true place to call home. She figured she likely had had a rather normal life at some point, but when that point was was anyone's guess. She had no idea about the majority of her past and had simply awoken one morning, on the very crate she had been sleeping in, and had picked up her life from that point.

The crate in question had gotten some decorating done to it, or rather was made more comfortable and suitable for living in. She had found straps of cotton that hadn't made it into pillows because it wasn't of the needed quality. She had picked it out of the garbage, given it a very good wash, and then spent a good while drying it out in the sunlight before using the majority of it to pad the bottom of the crate for more comfort - the bottom being the side since she turned it that way so she could get in and out with the lid acting as a door - and had put the remaining cotton around the sides so she didn't bump herself. She had then found some straps of cloth that had likewise been disposed off and had borrowed some nails and a hammer from one of the kinder merchants. Those straps of cloth had been added to the interior of the crate to help block out any wind or coldness that would have otherwise seeped through, furthering to add to her comfort. It wasn't a pretty job, but it was better than sleeping in what was essentially a wooden box with no comfort at all. She never had to worry about the crate being moved, as most knew she called it home and didn't bother with it.

With that said, it meant that as Kaia Mai started to stretch she didn't bump against wood and instead her fingertips brushed against the softness of cloth covered cotton. She was getting a little too big for the crate and knew that eventually sleeping in the thing would become uncomfortable and she would have to find something else to call home, but today wasn't that day. No, today was a day of training and improving herself. If she wanted to take any of the missions available she was going to have to do a lot of soul searching, figuring out who she was, and improve it from there. No one was perfect, but Kaia Mai secretly strived to be.

So after another round of glaring at the light filtering through the one slit in the crate she reached her hands up and rubbed gently at her eyes; getting all of the sand and sleep out of them. Her stomach was empty, she knew this and could feel it, but it no longer grumbled or made the sounds a normal persons stomach made. Hunger was just something she was far too used to at this point. With a yawn she sat up, her head not even skimming against the top of the crate yet: yes she would have to find a new home but not for a few months yet, or perhaps longer if this newest growth spurt stopped.

Total Words: 596 Words
Perception E - E1: 596 - 75 = 521
Perception E1 - E2: 521 - 150 = 371
Perception E2 - E3: 371 - 225 = 146
Perception E3 - D: 146 / 300

Since she was sitting up Kaia Mai stretched, arms and legs going in front of her instead of above her since that would hardly work with the height of the crate. When the stretching was finished she looked down at herself with a frown: the outfit she had fallen asleep in was as good as any to train in and she wasn't worried about getting it dirty: she would just wash it in the river when she was done. Her stomach offered up at that moment another pang of hunger but without all of the annoying growling.

Rolling her bright blue eyes Kaia-Mai slipped out from underneath of the blanket she had been given and opened up the crate, flooding the thing with sunlight and the rush of air that was slightly cooler than what was in the crate itself. Taking a moment to adjust she climbed out and closed the crate door behind herself. She offered a wave to one of the merchants he knew who was on his way to his stall and then ran her fingers through her hair: using them much like someone would use a brush or a comb. Once she was satisfied that her hair was untangled enough she pulled it up into two pigtails.

Just as she was finished adjusting her pig tails to make sure they were even, using her reflection in a piece of old broken mirror she noticed the friendly merchant behind her. She turned around and waved. "Hello, Lee."

"Good morning, child. I brought you something.", the merchant responded as he then handed over something wrapped in a white colored cloth.

"Oh?", Kaia Mai asked curiously as she reached forward and took the cloth. She could feel that whatever was inside was in an oval shape and rather light. It seemed to have a harder outside shell but gave way when she poked it. She unwrapped it to find a day old tiny loaf of bread. Before she could look up and thank the merchant he was already gone.

Kaia Mai smiled and went over to the crate she slept in and hopped on top of it. She ripped the bread in half as evenly as possible and wrapped half of it back up: she would save that for later and so she tucked it into the little pouch she carried with her. With the half she was saving put away she brought the other half to her lips and took a tiny bite. She knew better than to devour the thing quickly because it would only lead to making her sick - bread or not it was just too rich for her stomach like that. She nibbled slowly, taking time to chew her food carefully and savor the taste of it. She didn't care it was day old bread that was given to her because no one would want it and therefore it would be thrown out: food was food at this point and she wasn't going to knock or insult a good thing.

With each bite she took the half of bread got smaller until she popped the last bite into her mouth and picked at the crumbs remaining in her hands; popping those into her mouth as well. When she swallowed her last bite she hopped down off of her crate and figured it was time to get started in what she had planned for that day.

Total Words: 570
Perception E3 - D: 570 + 146 = 716 / 300
Remaining Words: 416
Endurance E - E1: 416 - 75 = 341
Endurance E1 - E2: 341 - 150 = 191
Endurance E2 - E3: 191 / 225

Kaia Mai landed lightly on the ground while ignoring that dust that got stirred up from her landing and which cling to her feet and legs: she wasn't some sort of prissy girly girl who had to be clean one hundred percent of the time or risk hyperventilating. Dirt never hurt anyone, or so she figured. She was a tomboy down to her very core apparently. It was why she would have rather hung out with a bunch of guys who wouldn't care about a little bit of dirt then a bunch of girls who could scoff and taunt her. Sometimes being 'one of the guys' was just the best choice.

She looked around with her bright blue eyes while attempting to figure out where the best place would be to go do all of this training she wanted to accomplish. Figuring the training grounds would be the best place for her to go without getting yelled at for bothering something she formed a mental plan of the day. She wanted to train up her speed: getting faster was always the best thing she could do. She was already littler than most people so that gave her a advantage when it came to a fight, but some speed never hurt. However, in the same breath she needed to get stronger. She was little, weaker than most, and if she didn't get strong enough for a blow to actually hurt then her speed wouldn't matter in an actual situation where she was forced to fight. No, she would have to train both.

That brought around other things that needed trained: such as her reaction time - she needed to be able to react in time to dodge hits from others, especially if she found herself surrounded. Endurance would also need to be trained up because of she was going to take a hit she needed to be able to withstand it. And finally perception would likewise need to be trained up. All in all it was going to be a very busy day, and possibly a busy night if she didn't get to the goals she wanted to reach before bed time.

So, with that thinking in mind Kaia Mai turned and began to run down the alley ways that were all to familiar with the mental map her mind had created of them after spending so much time in them...

Total Words: 399
Endurance E2 - E3: 399 + 191 = 590 / 225
Endurance E3 - D: 365 / 300
Remaining Words: 65
Speed E1 - E2: 65 / 150

Figuring that now was as good a time as any to get started on her training she pushed herself while she ran. She bobbed and weaved her way around the people in the alley way, and then more so as she was forced to exit the alley way and begin to move her way through the much busier streets. She pushed herself faster and harder than she had ever bothered to run before: she had never tried seeing how fast she could go but now was willing to push it.

She could feel her muscles screaming in protest but she paid them little to no mind: if she didn't push herself to her hardest potential then she wasn't going to gain anything out of this training. 'Faster! Faster!', chanted in her mind as she ducked underneath of a piece of furniture that was being carried at the ends by two strong looking men. Another twenty or so feet down the street she took a leap over a barrel that had came loose and was rolling through the road. Still, she didn't bother slowing down: she couldn't and she knew it.

She ran like she was being chased, allowing nothing to cause her to slow, allowing nothing at all to get into her way. Speed was what was on her mind and speed was what she was going to accomplish. Sometimes as she continued to run she would cause someone to shout out to her to slow down, or otherwise call her a uncontrolable brat but she paid them no mind: they just didn't understand what she was trying to do. They didn't understand what she absolutely had to do. She had to improve. In the world in which she was living it was either you improved or you died. Simply really, even if it was a horrible thought for a ten year old little girl to have.

Onward she continued, still ignoring the cramping in her legs. She knew eventually those cramps would go away, that her body would adjust to moving at speeds such as this and it would no longer be as hard as it was. Her face showed mild strain but she hardly cared, especially as she headed off of the main street and onto smaller ones: heading towards her target goal of the training grounds. There was where the rest of her training would go down: especially the strength training she planned on preforming after this. She figured getting the hard stuff out of the way, the painful stuff, first would be the best idea.

Total Words: 429
Speed E1 - E2: 429 + 65 = 494 / 150
Remaining: 344
Speed E2 - E3: 344 / 225
Remaining: 119
Speed E3 - D: 119 / 300

As Kaia Mai kept moving pushed herself even harder, even faster, she could see the training ground in the distance that she was aiming for. She knew this particular training ground was normally empty which was good for her because she didn't want to be bothered: she didn't want an audience for this, especially if it didn't go well enough. She no longer had to worry about people being in her way since she was far enough out for the crowds to be little to non-existent so she kept pushing herself further and harder than normal.

The training ground came into view and a grin spread across her young looking face. She had finally reached her destination and already she could tell she was faster than before. Her legs no longer ached as they had when she had begun to run and instead they were rather quite numb. In fact, they felt like this was a normal every day sor tof thing. She knew she could get faster than she now was but she didn't want to wear herself out in one area too quickly. She had two other things to train up after all now.

She slowed herself down to a jog and then into a walk by the time she reached the training ground itself. She wandered in, glancing around to see who all might or might not have been around. She couldn't see anyone and she couldn't hear anyone but that did not always mean that they weren't there. She waited a moment to see if anyone would reveal themselves and then gave a shrug: apparently she was alone.

She moved in deeper, now wanting to be at the edge where everyone could see her easily: she didn't want to be watched or bothered that easily. Besides, there was something she was looking for: a way to train her strength. She wandered for nearly ten minutes a frown slipping more and more onto her face as she felt her hopes drop: she couldn't find anything that would work. But, then she spotted a small out crop of rocks. They weren't embedded into the ground which meant she could lift and carry them as she wanted. It would work nicely for strength training exercises. She could carry them around a pre-determined path increasing the weight of them when the ones she was carrying became too light. It would help her to build up her strength in a slow but gradual way. It would work perfectly.

The grin slipped back onto her face and she walked over, figuring some stretching was going to be needed before she tired herself out even more and inflicted more stress, strain, and pain on her body.

Total Words: 453
Speed E3 - D: 199 + 453 = 572 / 300
Remaining: 272
Strength E - E1: 272 / 75
Remaining: 197
Strength E1 - E2: 197 / 150
Remaining: 47
Strength E2 - E3: 47 / 225

Kaia Mai took great care in stretching out. She had already dealt with her legs being sore during the running she had done, and the last thing she wanted was to wake up the next morning and be completely useless because her body wouldn't stop throbbing in pain. The first thing she did was stretch out her arms, they would after all be taking the majority of the weight of the rocks she was going to be carrying around. She stretched from her shoulders down to the very tips of her finger tips, taking care to go slow and not pull or tug anything too hard and end up harming her muscles. When she was finished with stretching her arms she worked on her back and then to her legs, making sure to stretch out every muscle in her body that she could manage to protect them better.

Once all of her stretching was complete she turned her focus onto the boulders before her. The majority of them were tiny and would be easy enough to carry but the others were far larger and would be more useful if she were dragging them behind herself. However, she didn't have any rope on her at the moment and so she was going to have to improvise. But, she was going to save that for later on.

Without wasting anymore time she went over to the first of the boulders, the smallest in the group: roughly the size of a cantaloupe. She knelt down and picked it up, using her knees to lift. The thing was heavy but not nearly as bad as she thought it was going to be. However, she was going to start small and so she started to carrying this cantaloupe sized boulder around the large clearing: which was roughly a quarter mile in a full circle. She went around once while feeling her arms go through different stages: at first it was easy to carry the boulder, then her arms had started to tire, and finally as she reached the last of the circle her arms became much like her legs had been earlier and no longer seemed to feel any sort of strain or stress to carrying such a weight.

Taking that as a sign of progress she moved on to the next boulder on the line, this one being about the size of a watermelon. She dropped the cantaloupe sized boulder down and out of the way and the knelt down like she had before and scooped up this new watermelon sized boulder up into her arms. This boulder was far heavier than the last and as she began to walk around the quarter mile around clearing she had to move slowly so she didn't accidentally drop the watermelon sized boulder on her foot and end up harming herself. It was slow going, and her arms hurt, but she kept pressing on...

Total Words: 487
Strength E2 - E3: 47 + 487 = 534 / 225
Remaining: 309
Strength E3 - D: 309 / 300
Remaining: 9
Reaction Time E - E1: 9 / 75

She continued to move around the circle with the large watermelon sized boulder. She wasn't going to be defeated easily. She was no stranger to pain as the bruises she tried to keep hidden on her body proved: she had no idea where or how she got them just like she remembered nothing from her past at all but if she was still alive after getting them then that meant she was a survivor and she would survive this task too: no matter how badly it hurt in the end. She could feel the uneven boulder begin to cut into her arms and could even feel a small trickle of blood moving down them but she still ignored it: she wasn't done with her task after all.

The circle she was moving around grew smaller and smaller until eventually she was at the pile of boulders again. She dropped the watermelon sized rock and jumped back suddenly and quickly to keep the thing from smashing her toes and feet as it tried to roll towards her. The last thing she wanted was to end up in the hospital because of a stupid mistake.

She stepped out of the way of the rolling boulder and watched it until it came to a stop a few feet away. Once she was sure the thing wasn't going to keep rolling she thought about the next part of the task. She was done with carrying boulders around for a while but still needed a way to train her reaction time - though dodging that watermelon sized boulder had counted towards something. She thought of the vines that were hanging from the nearby trees. Not all of them would be secure while some would: perhaps she could make some sort of dangerous little game out of swinging from one to the other. If one started to fall she would have to be able to react quickly enough to save herself and get to another one. It seemed like a legit enough way to train it.

So, with that plan in mind she moved away from the boulders and over to the trees. She grabbed a hold of the first vine which brushed against the ground and gave it a tug: it held. She added her full weight onto it and gave herself a swing - feeling the strain in her arms from having to hold up all of her weight in the process. When she swung herself enough towards the next vine she reached her right arm out and grabbed a hold of it. She curled her hand around the vine and then transferred her weight to it which held it nicely. She started swinging herself once more, moving to yet another vine. This one looked as sturdy as the rest but as she transferred her weight to it it began to give instantly. She forced herself to lunge forward and grab another vine which was sturdier than the last, her reactions saving her from falling the two or three feet she would have otherwise fallen to the ground below: not high enough to hurt her, but she didn't fancy landing on her butt regardless. Already she could hear the vine she was beginning to creak and knew it would end up giving way in the next few seconds if she didn't get a hold of another one.

Total Words: 561
Reaction Time E - E1: 9 + 561 = 570 / 75
Remaining: 495
Reaction Time E1 - E2: 495 / 150
Remaining: 345
Reaction Time E2 - E3: 345 / 225
Remaining: 120
Reaction Time E3 - D: 120 / 300

Kaia Mai reached out for yet another vine just as the one she was on was beginning to give way. This next vine held her easily enough and didn't creak like the other: at least, until it suddenly snapped from the sudden strain on it and sent Kaia Mai falling to the ground. Instead of landing on her butt however like she had thought she would she was able to switch her footing at the last moment, allowing her to catch herself in a crouched stance.

Her bent knees absorbed the impact keeping her from harming herself: all while the vine came falling down on her head. It didn't hurt of course as it hit her and she simply after several minutes of agitated flailing in which it got more tangled than she was was able to throw it off of herself and step free from the mess. She glared at the vine for several seconds as if it had offended her by breaking before turning and walking away.

Her arms were hurting but all in all it had been a very good day of training. She went over to the pile of boulders she had been using before and sat herself on top of one of the larger ones which had a flat surface. She reached into her pouch and pulled out the other half of the small oval loaf of bread. Her stomach was finally roaring in protest to all that she had put her body through that day and she was glad she had saved the other half: she had worked up some hunger with all of the training she had done. She bit into the loaf of bread, chewing the piece up and swallowing as she thought about what her next bout of training was going to be and what she could possibly accomplish next on her trek towards her goal of becoming as strong as she could be.

Total Words: 323
Reaction Time E3 - D: 120 + 323 = 443 / 300
Remaining: 143

-Training Completed. Thread Exit..-