The dark clouds had finally cleared from the sky. Today was a rare sunny day.
Outside the Golden Forest, near the northern cliffs, lay a patch of hard-packed ground the size of a basketball court.
Clang!
Figures darted past one another across the clearing. Two longswords forged from golden light collided, then swiftly separated.
Ten Blessed warriors were fighting in pairs... no, perhaps it was better called fighting to the death.
They wore no armor, only coarse clothing that allowed them to move freely, marked with tears both old and new, patches, and bloodstains.
Yet in their hands were Order's Blades, capable of cutting through metal and jade, their golden light tracing deadly arcs through the air.
Having received the blessing, the warriors possessed physical abilities and reflexes far beyond those of ordinary people, and they fought at a dazzling pace.
To an ordinary observer, every thrust, block, dodge, and charge was completed in an instant, their attacks coming one after another with barely a pause.
Each of them tried to force an opening in his opponent's defenses through swift footwork and fierce attacks.
"Ugh-!"
Under such intense combat, injuries soon appeared.
A blade of light sliced open one warrior's chest, leaving a wound so deep the bone showed. Blood instantly stained the front of his clothes red.
Another warrior was stabbed in the calf. He staggered and fell, unable to get back up.
The worst of them had his sacred sword knocked from his hand. A streak of golden light then swept mercilessly across his right arm.
Splurt!
Blood gushed out like a fountain as his entire right arm was severed at the shoulder, his face contorting in agony.
Yet he swallowed his scream and rolled hard to the side and back, narrowly avoiding another attack aimed at his leg.
At the edge of the clearing, Yupa took it all in and nodded to himself.
Even by his exacting standards, these men could be considered true warriors.
"Stop!"
At their instructor's command, the warriors who had just been fighting to the death immediately withdrew their swords, stepped back, and formed two neat rows.
Only then did Yupa turn to the woman beside him, who wore the brown robe that marked her as a granny.
"Sorry for the trouble, Granny Tika."
"Not at all. This is my duty."
The woman, somewhat advanced in years yet still graceful and shapely, was Tika, the Valley of the Wind's medical elder.
Unlike the other elders, she never took part in decisions concerning the valley's affairs, focusing solely on treating the sick and teaching medicine to the grannies.
Two days ago, she too had become one of the Blessed on Nausicaä's recommendation.
Remarkably, Tika had displayed a unique talent after receiving the blessing. When she used Erdtree's Favor to heal the wounded, it cost her far less than it did the other Blessed.
In exchange, however, the incantation she cast had completely lost its ability to make plants grow.
Even Mu En could not make sense of this, and in the end could only attribute it to individual talent.
Soon, golden light welled up before Tika once again. She had lost count of how many times she had treated these warriors.
Gushing wounds rapidly vanished without a trace; severed tendons reconnected in the blink of an eye. Even the severed arm was no problem. Once it had been placed back against the wound, flesh, bone, nerves... everything quickly returned to its proper place under the golden light.
In a mere dozen or so seconds, everyone's injuries had healed completely, without even a scar left behind.
Throughout the healing, not a single soldier made a sound from the pain. Instead, their eyes were filled with... enjoyment.
For the ten Blessed warriors, these had been three days of hell, but also three days of transformation.
They had been forged from raw recruits with nothing but brute strength, who could not even hold a sword properly, into agile gladiators who radiated a fierce aura.
Though they were still some way from becoming true battle-hardened elites, the change was already astonishing.
Yupa deserved much of the credit for it.
After Mu En asked him to "train qualified warriors in the shortest possible time," Yupa immediately recalled the scene of Nausicaä saving the dying during the barn fire.
And so, he proposed a brutal training plan.
Question: How could a group of recruits be turned into fearless, fierce veterans in three days?
Answer: Send them to the battlefield.
Though the Valley of the Wind had no battlefield, it did have a most formidable warrior.
On the first day of training, Yupa personally stepped in to face the soldiers, who had already been defeated once but still refused to submit.
Armed with a sharpened ceramic steel sword, he fought them until their blood literally flowed like a river.
Blood dyed the ground red, severed limbs lay everywhere, and screams, wails, and pleas for mercy rang out together.
Some soldiers even broke down, crying out that they wanted to quit and refusing to train any further.
Yet once the light of Erdtree's Favor passed over them, the full, invigorating sensation of their injuries instantly healing and their stamina being completely restored, of passing straight from hell into heaven, nearly erased all their psychological scars. It even gave them the illusion that they could keep fighting.
Then Yupa's blade came at them again.
The master swordsman and fighter avoided their vital spots, targeting ankles, joints, and other places that would immediately disable them, or striking hard at their waists, bellies, ribs, and even their groins-areas where the pain could make them wish they were dead.
Amid this endless cycle of brutal punishment, the soldiers were forced to start using their extraordinary reflexes to adjust their footwork and feel out techniques for dodging, all to suffer a little less-
They learned the basics of footwork.
Then training entered its second stage: the Blessed warriors fought one another.
The winners could catch their breath for a short while, while all the losers had to accept a "punishment": enduring five minutes together under Yupa's sword.
To escape punishment, the warriors fought like mad, feeling out how to bring down an opponent as quickly as possible.
And so they learned the techniques for killing an enemy.
Of course, such insane training had to be accompanied by sufficient rewards, or the so-called "sense of collective honor" could easily become a breeding ground for resentment and anger.
There was carefully prepared food as good as the dishes served at festival banquets; work points far exceeding those of ordinary villagers, enough for their families to live in comfort; and...
Healing performed by Mu En himself, which filled them with a sense of vitality and eliminated all fatigue.
The warriors suffered and enjoyed themselves in equal measure. They feared training, yet looked forward to the rewards that came after it each day.
In Por's words, it was:
"Addictive!"
Fortunately, their training was finally about to come to a close today, because something important was about to take place.
It was the previously arranged challenge for the position of captain.
Por flicked his wrist, his Order's Blade taking the form of a shortsword as he spun it through a flourish, his gaze sweeping over his nine companions.
That gaze held confidence and pride.
"You lot," he said, grinning to reveal a row of white teeth, "who's first?"