The following months were the most extreme Lee experienced in all of his lives. Not only because of the intense exercises, although in some cases those were even worse compared to what Prides tried to enforce.
Physical practices, formation practices, spear practices and even marching practices was what Lee's days consisted from now on. His fears turned out to be correct – this was basically the army, except the soldiers were children.
One of the first things Lee learned was that there were actual days here.
Just as he guessed, the beginning of a new day was signaled by the blood moon rising, but he had no clue how anyone could tell when it was time to go to sleep. The sun never set, and besides the red one, there were a bunch of other moons that moved seemingly chaotically.
On the other hand, he simply didn't have the time to observe the sky to think of any reasonable explanation – just like the rest of the kids he was too busy and tired for that.
Everyone slurped the usual stew trice a day and spent the rest of the time training.
And, of course there was praying. Lee already learned that the passionate kowtowing was the key to success in this world and wasn't surprised that the kids here not only prayed when the blood moon rose, but before every meal as well.
In the very center of the fortress there was a twenty yard tall statue of a regular looking guy holding a red ball, probably the symbol of the blood moon, and everyone, even instructors and guards, prayed to it.
Lee had no clue that at first the cyclops was monitoring his behavior in order to judge whether he was sufficiently devoted, but fortunately he never had a thought of making it look otherwise. Lunax's statue was the most prominent spot in the fort and he happily came here along with the rest to do his back exercises.
Apart from the praying and training, Lee spent half the time the others slept to learn the local language along with a bunch of latest recruits. Those were the kids that came from Sunwell and the bunch was genuinely shocked to see an older compatriot arrive from nowhere.
Similar to the children that were brought to the blob farm, these were around the age of four to five – the perfect time to start the brainwashing. But contrary to the ones at the farm, these didn't cry or even sob, in fact, the feeling Lee got was that the scourge had expertly recruited a bunch of underage sociopaths.
Lee didn't become their leader or older brother, though. Not only he wasn't willing, he didn't even have the time to play nanny. He was assigned to a squad consisting of guys of similar age to him, or at least of similar body development stage.
The five boys, Fenax, Trapux, Olpax, Lirox and Kilax, proudly carried the local tradition and had the names ending with an x, and were surprisingly friendly and incredibly patient with their new mate who couldn't understand a word they were saying.
Lee quickly found out the reason for their pleasant attitude.
Turns out that between squads there was a fierce competition, but once a member was assigned to one – it was for life. Apparently the previous sixth member expired, thus the other five had no choice but to accept Lee as one of them to be able to rely on him in the future.
During the first days Fenax, the squad leader, spent a lot of time drawing formation movements in the gray sand, teaching Lee about his new duties.
While the newbie was relatively strong and his spot was in the middle at the very back of the formation, it was a vital one. Technically it was the safest, but if at any point something happened to another squad member, Lee had to have the capability to replace him. Thus he actually had to know how to take up any role in the formation.
Fenax didn't know why Roganax, the one eyed cyclops instructor Lee saw on the first day, assigned the newcomer to this position, but he wasn't going to question the expert.
Of course, Roganax's attention was drawn by Lee's ability to adapt to the changes during the test fight, and if one applied it to the battlefield, he was the perfect guy for the position.
Apart from Roganax, there were around fifty other instructors who took care of the numerous boys. Lee's estimate was that the whole regiment consisted of twelve to fifteen hundred kids, and the intent was to make a war machine out of every single one of them.
Lee turned out to be correct – the vanguard of the scourge army was trained here, and after realizing that he had to suppress the impulse of attempting an immediate escape. To the end of his days he will never forget how Vallen Sunwell went on the desperate killing streak, blowing up hundreds of scourge within moments even though he payed with his life for the feat.
Obviously the scourge were invading and plundering other worlds, and to no surprise the locals weren't particularly happy about it. As it turns out – some dared and were capable of fighting back.
With days going by Lee figured out that the Sunwell incident caused unexpectedly heavy losses, and it seemed that the scourge army pressured the fortress to release a new batch of soldiers as soon as possible.
On the other hand it might've only be a part of the brainwashing, because the children here were being promised the glory and fame after becoming elemental warriors.
That was the true reason behind the fierce competition between the individual squads – the kids fought for the right to get their sparks sooner so they could fight for their lord and savior – God Lunax.
From the looks of it, the Lunax guy was an actual living person. According to the instructors, he was the one who opened the dark purple holes, or rather – rifts, to the other worlds, allowing the scourge to pass through. Apparently he was the strongest entity in the universe, thus the God, was omnipotent, could see everything in this and the other worlds.
Lee was currently training to become one of his elemental warriors – the strongest and the most respected people among the scourge. Well, they called themselves God's children, but he had seen them in action and was certain that the scourge was a more fitting term.
Be as it may, while having strength was nice, Lee obviously didn't give a fuck about the respect of the others, but there was a nuance that terrified him.
In order to become an elemental warrior he had to absorb a fire spark, and it was kind of a must here. In addition, afterwards the new elemental warriors had to absorb another spark, the yellow one – the spark of the earth element.
Finally Lee understood why the invading army in Sunwell was all burning in flames, but few moments later, when the imperial cavalry went for a counterattack, turned into dark yellow color. That was probably a defensive skill that the earth spark warriors could use, and until the emperor made his move, it seemed rather effective.
But no matter how good, cool or effective it was, Lee was not going to absorb another spark, to not speak of two. He was not willing to spend his life force for some guy everyone called God Lunax, and that was ignoring the potential risks of him getting another spark besides the one he already had in his abdomen.
While it sounded nice that there was a technique that allowed the warriors to absorb more than one spark, Lee was pretty skeptical it would work in his case.
Fortunately, there was still time until his age group graduated.
According to Lee's estimate, the youngest group was around four to five years old, then there were three age groups in between and then his, the ones around ten, which were the second oldest. That meant he had around a year, maybe a year and a half to get away from this place.
Of course, he wasn't particularly happy to stick around – he had a reason why he came to this here, but with the impeccable discipline in the fortress it would be a miracle if he had a chance to escape. In addition, even if he got away – where was he supposed to go?
Ignoring the downsides of Lee needing to find a way to escape and the never changing, disgusting stew that was their only meal, the physical training was great.
Of course, being a part of a mindless religious mob was another problem, but he did his best to concentrate on the positive. At least he didn't have to poke blobs at the farm.