Two figures are seen clashing in the frozen terrain of The North, the taller wielding a knife whilst the shorter holds a short sword. They swung at each other, almost in sinc. Until the shorter of the two diverted the taller’s jab and held his sword at his neck. The taller sighed and nodded at the shorter man; he returned his sword to its scabbard.

The shorter man wearing a suit of light armour gave the taller guy a pat on the back. He looked up slightly to meet his eyes, his full height only reaching his opponent's nose, and congratulated him.

"That was very well done Bell. You have grown so much from the little boy I came to know. How long has it been since then? It feels like I've been training you for years," He finished with a sigh.

"It's been a few months," Bell deadpanned at his master's words. Though, in all fairnessness it was difficult to tell the time of year in The North thanks to its constant winter climate.

"Well I guess your finished then," Goblin Slayer said as he patted himself down.

"W-Wha!? But I'm not ready yet and, an-"

"Regardless of what you think. You are ready. Just look back at your training for Gods' sake, look at how far you've come."

Bell stopped and did just that.

X——————————————————X

As soon as he had woken up Goblin Slayer had started to train him rigorously. He had had to adjust to his new height first, though that only took half a day till he was running as good as always.

After that his master ordered him to start his morning workout routine: now seventy five push ups, sit ups, squats, pull ups and a two kilometre run in the freezing cold every morning.

When he finished that his master went on to teach him how to wield a new weapon. He started off with light weapons as that was the type he was most used to, He improved his knife wielding and was shown how to throw it properly to stab a target.

Then it was onto short swords and the such and with it being his master's speciality he had it down in a day or two. They dueled again and Bell lost after being cut slightly across his left thigh.

After training Bell for a while Goblin Slayer noticed Bell's senses seemed to be immensely more sensitive than a normal human's. So he put them to the test.

Bell lay under his blanket in the carriage grinning at his growing muscle mass. Until he heard a loud thud outside his resting place. He jumped up and grabbed his Goblin Knife and jumped out of the front of the carriage.

Eyes almost instantly adjusting to the dark, he peered around the area. Feet cold on the freezing snow he quickened his pace; finding a track of weird looking feet he followed it with hastened steps.

He came up to a cave and heard movement inside, he unsheated his knife and entered. His nose wrinkled at the strong smell of blood that hit him. He saw a fire up ahead. He looked past it and froze.

Standing there behind the fire was the seven foot tall body of a Yeti. It seemed to be minding its own business, it hadn't spotted him. It's only source of sight was the light produced by the fire. He willed the fire to be extinguished with his magic; the yeti frantically tried to kindle the flame.

The brown furred monster stood at its full height and let out a roar. Bell used its anger as a leverage and snook on behind it.

His nervousness caused him to stand on spare piece of fire wood. Which snapped. The Yeti whipped around and grabbed Bell by the throat.

He was being choked and had no means of defending himself. He stared into the black eyes of the monster and saw close to no intelligence. He was going to be killed by a mindless monster who would probably forget about him in ten minutes.

He struggled as his face grew blue. He reached for his knife, but it had fallen to the ground.

He felt his magic strengthen his throat, but it wasnt enough...

'That's it!'

He reached out with his magic and he felt it latch onto the monster's blood. He focused on the chest of the Yeti and made a crushing gesture with his hand.

The monster's grip slackened and it dropped him completely, grasping at it's chest before it started vomiting up blood. Bell grimaced when he regained his breath.

He grabbed his knife and stabbed the Yeti through the skull; putting it out of its misery. It dropped a scarf made of its hide and fur. He wrapped it around his neck and left the cave without a word.

All Goblin Slayer had done was light a fire and the rest sorted itself out. Though it was an extremely dangerous test, it would be wrong to say he would just sit there and watch Bell die.

After the test Bell seemed a little shakened but he was now more determined than ever to grow stronger. He now took all training in stride and without question. He wore the scarf as a reminder that there will always be a stronger opponent than him, but that didn't mean he couldn't outsmart them!

So they went on to ranged weapons which Bell, while clumsy at first, did pretty good in. While he was no elf he still had a pretty decent shot. They used bows, crossbows, shuriken, kunai and slingshots.

Goblin Slayer told him they would be moving onto heavy weapons next and while he was gaining muscles, he'd need to be stronger to wield them. So he upped his daily workout to one hundred of each exercise and a ten kilometre run every morning.

They then devoted full days to working out. He made Bell start bench pressing multiple branches, stalks, stones and the like of varying weights.

Goblin Slayer noticed that Bell relied on his speed for his fighting style and he also noticed his growing muscles and made Bell start swimming to tone them down. It started off with him having to teach Bell how to swim and how to cope with the shock of entering freezing water. After the first day Bell could do some basic breaststroke and front crawl. The next day, after his morning workouts, they spent the whole time improving Bell's strokes. By the end he had breaststroke down, aswell as front crawl. Only breathing every ten strokes on the later. He had even started doing backstroke and butterfly. They went to sleep that night, but unbeknownst to his master he went back to the lake and trained all throughout the night. Goblin Slayer woke up to sight of Bell doing sets of two hundred metres butterfly. He chuckled and added five sets of four hundred metres I.M to his morning workout routine.

With the magic inside his body it already was covered in toned muscles and a six pack that was almost fully formed. He now stood at six foot one inches tall and was holding a stone club above his head. He swung with it and smashed through trunks of trees, he pulled it back over his shoulder and threw it at a makeshift dummy and it smashed into pieces. He heard the crunch of snow behind him and he grabbed a nearby claymore and greatsword to block his master's two war axed downward strike. He overpowered Bell and pushed his two weapons to the ground and out of his grasp. He swung again with one of his war axes which Bell blocked with his Goblin Knife and was knocked into a tree from the force behind his master's blow. He slumped to the ground and looked up to see his Slayer's open hand. He grasped it and he pulled Bell up.

"Your getting better,"

"Thanks,"

And they were back at it again. After their training session, Goblin Slayer told Bell to give him all his weapons. He did so and was left with some kind of ball of flesh in his hands that smelled peculiar to him. A few minutes later he was being surrounded by three Icehounds and two Frostfangs. The former being slightly bluish-grey furred wolfs who had a freeze breath attack and the latter being dark blue almost black scaled snakes who were poisonous and could freeze the things they bite. Bell froze and observed the area. He was surrounded and all he had for a possible weapon was a thick branch and a stone that was lying beside him. He sighed and picked them up.

The Icehounds attacked as one and unleashed their freeze breath attack which he dodged. He ran around them and stabbed the one on the left with the sharp end of his branch, it cried out and fell to the ground. He tried to run behind the one on the right but had to dodge a strike from a Frostfang. He wacked it on the top of its head, it fell down in unconsciousness. Returning his attention to the hounds he fell to the ground to dodge a breath attack. Jumping up, he ran to one of the hounds and crashed the stone into the back of its skull. He quickly turned around only to feel pain course through his right arm and spread into his chest. He looked down and saw a Frostfang latched onto his now slightly frozen forearm. He ripped it off and tore its head off. All that stood against him now was a lone raging Icehound. It lunged at him with a froting mouth, but in its rage it failed to see Bell move his branch to point directly at its heart. It was impaled on his stick and died soon afterwards. He slid it off the branch and grabbed it's corpse by the scruff of its neck. He did the same with the other Icehound corpses and hung the bodies of the Frostfangs around his neck.

He was walking back to camp when his adrenalin cut out and he realised the pain in his arm and chest was now spread throughout his entire body. He fell to his knees and grabbed his head in pain. His magic working overtime to overcome the poison in his system. He lay flat on the snow completely still, all his attention focused on his magic fighting against the poison. Bell stayed like that on the ground for ten minutes till he regained enough strength to sit up and think. He was going to coat his weapons in poison against monsters from now on seeing as how effective it was. He felt strength come back to the rest of his body and he grabbed the corpses and trudged back to camp.

He sat with his back to the fire and skinned the Icehounds and pulled out their teeth. He grabbed a few spare vials and filled them up with the still whole Frostfang's fangs, it was purple in colour. He skinned both of them and cooked both of the remains over the fire on a stick. He filled up a few vials with the Icehounds' blood and labeled them and the poison ones.

His master strolled up by him and sat at the fire.

"Your shirt's burning off you know," he said casually. Bell looked back and sure enough he was on fire, but he didn't feel a thing.

'Guess that's another thing added to my list of abilities, huh.' he mused. Goblin Slayer straightened his posture and turned to Bell.

"I'll be training you in longer melee weapons, spears, bidents, tridents and that, then it'll be lock picking and if your training bears fruits I'll teach you some basic alchemy." he told Bell with a slight awkwardness in his voice seeing the hollowed look in his eyes. The young man liked the thought of learning alchemy and how to wield longer weapons, but was still greatly affected by almost dying for the fourth time now. He looked down at his hand and saw the two lined scars and nodded his head. He was going to be a hero his grandfather would be proud of. He went to get back to training but was grabbed by the shoulder by his master.

"But, before that. Let's go out and have some fun, shall we?" he asked in a playful tone. Bell sighed and nodded.

X——————————————————X

While his master was getting into some more casual clothes he sat down, grabbed a spare white shirt and put it on. He then picked up the skins of the Icehounds and Frostfangs and started cutting and sewing.

He soon had a new silky smooth extremely dark blue almost black scaled jacket with slightly blue-grey fur on the inside. He stood up with his new jacket, white shirt, dark brown scarf, black trousers and his black boots on. Goblin Slayer came up to him wearing a white dress shirt, black trouser and black leather shoes. He smirked at Bell, patted him on his back and led the way.

X——————————————————X

They came up to the door of a tavern in a nearby village and Goblin Slayer led him inside. There was loud chatter inside coming from a vary of races. His master pulled him up to the bar and asked for two whiskeys. Bell stammered thinking he'd be arrested. Some ladies in the tavern giggled at his behaviour. A drink sat in front of him and he gulped, feeling peer pressure fall upon him like a whale he chugged it down. Thinking it was the wise thing to do. His mind almost instantly grew fuzzy and he nearly slipped off his seat. But his magic, having already neutralised a very toxic poison that invaded his system, built up an almost instant tolerance and he was sitting upright in less than two seconds. His master choked on his drink and stared wide eyed at Bell. They were soon narrowed and he called for the bartender to serve Bell pure vodka from the bottle. He did so seeing as Bell looked older than he was.

He felt a drink being pressed to his lips by his master and he chugged it down in one. His senses took a temporary shock that was silenced by his magic improving his tolerance. He looked at Goblin Slayer out of his armour and tilted his head.

"Am I supposed to be drunk?" he asked, puzzled. Silence spread throughout the tavern like The Plague as all eyes turned to look at the boy. The three dwarfs in the corner he hadn't noticed called him over and the talk returned, though it was direct at Bell more than before. The three dwarfs were all old friends in town for the night. They were on their way to the mountains to meet relatives. They slid him over a stein of some dwarvish ale, smirking and chuckling to each other as they did so. The shortest of the three turned to him.

"Boy, if you can handle this... I'll grant you one request. Ask now," he said in an aged voice. Bell considered this and thought some smithing lessons would be nice. So he asked for just that and was soon gulping down the drink in mouthfuls. He slammed the stein onto the table with his head hanging low. Silence filled the tavern again as he lifted his head...

"When are my smithing lessons?" Bell asked as he smirked. The occupants of the tavern roared in joy as Goblin Slayer lifted him up onto his shoulders.

They laughed and drunk the night away.

X——————————————————X

Bell woke up in the carriage. He recalled the night before and set out for his workout routine. He had some smithing lessons to get to...

So it turned out that Bell was 'too damn bloody talented' for the dwarf to get in debt about smithing. All he had done was coat his fist in flames and punched a bar of metal into the shape of a sword, was that so wrong? Sure he had done it in less than a minute, but still.

And speaking of flames, he had to start working on his magic. He got into a meditative sitting and dropped into his mindscape;

He got a face full of grass and smiled. He sat up in a crossed leg position and summoned some basic flames to envelope his right hand. He focused on the heat and visualized a dial and imagined turning it up. He felt his hand grow warmer and looked to see the flames turning blue. He smiled and dismissed the flames. He strolled towards his 'house' and found Morpheus inside sitting on his couch.

"Don't you have better things to do than stalk up on me?" Bell asked as he stared out the window and at the small transparant bonfire burning in the distance.

"You'll want to watch your tone young man," He said in a warning voice. Bell smiled and sat on the couch beside him.

"I know, I was just kidding...

so what brings you here?" Morpheus glanced at Bell and smirked.

"Z didn't think you'd make it out of those near death exchanges with the same personality. So he wants me to reward you for it." He tapped Bell's temple and he felt information flow into his mind. "It's a spell that connects your mindscape to the real world. Store shit, live here. I don't mind or care frankly, just put it to good use. Alright?" Bell smiled and nodded his head. Morpheus scoffed while a smile crept onto his and he faded away.

The spell was simple; all he had to do was say 'Open' with the intent of opening up a rift to his mindscape.

X——————————————————X

Bell was knocked to the ground again by Goblin Slayer, but he grabbed the spear nearest to him and stabbed at the area behind him. Goblin Slayer dodged by a hair.

"I'd say that does it for spearmanship, Bell." he said as he pulled Bell up off the ground. His student smiled but hit him with the but of his spear. Slayer chuckled and patted him on the back.

A few days had passed and Bell was now fairly good in spearmanship and lockpicking. His master had also brought him to the fire to tell him about alchemy; the study of how things work and how to change the circumstances needed. Basically screwing with the laws of nature.

They continued to improve his skills.

X——————————————————X

Bell now stood at a crossroads. Literally.

He had transported the carriage to his mindscape and waved to Goblin Slayer as he ran in the opposite direction. Bell sighed deeply and started walking towards Orario. Where his adventure would begin.

X——————————————————X

I think Bell's gonna be a bit stronger than I had originally planned, but hey! Who cares?

Also, dont expect chapters to be published this soon. I just had a good bit of spare time and my muse called for this.

And sorry if Bell seemed a bit depresso expresso in this chapter, he won't be staying like that.

And if anyone has some harem recommendations, please review them or sumtin.

T-T-T-That's all folks, I think at least, Sparetime out!

Should I rate this M? Cuz I think I should. *whispers* more blood and gore.