That night, Darwin and I stayed up discussing many things about the Monkey King and his Wardens. As it turned out, Darwin told me that he already knew of three other Wardens that the world is well informed of. One of them was a Polar Bear that travels across the coldest regions of the world. Another was a Monstrous Hippo that dwells in a riverlands area somewhere in the Morland Kingdom. The last Warden Darwin mentioned was a giant snake that is revered as a local deity in A region of Cashmere. I was curious if that snake had anything to do with the giant wilderness that Vulcan had mentioned before. While we discussed all of these things during the night, at some point Dutch just got up from where she was laying and wandered out of the tree house. I was unsure of what she could be thinking about, but I suppose it's possible she just doesn't care about all of this kind of stuff. I can't help but think that Dutch may have some kind of connection to all of this, as it seemed like Vulcan was speaking to her at certain times. There are just so many mysteries that I feel like I need to uncover if I am ever going to be able to figure out this situation with Fritz. Gwyn sure gave me quite the task sending me to find him. Nonetheless, I won't let Gwyn down. I am sure that I am getting closer and closer to finding my friends as well. Despite uncovering so much information about the animal Wardens, something Vulcan said still kept bugging me at the back of my mind. I vividly remember him saying something about transcended power. I was undoubtedly no match against him and I was unfathomably lucky that I didn't lose my hand when I tried to strike him… If I am ever going to face these wardens again in the future, I need to discover what this transcendence is. I have to become stronger if I ever want to find Fritz and reunite with Ivan and Oli. I need to train harder.
Although Darwin had said that the Tavern owners would be visiting us any day now, about a month passed before we actually saw any signs of them. In that month, I entirely dedicated myself to training and meditating. I tried everything I possibly could to try and comprehend what Vulcan meant by transcendence. Ultimately, I realized that I was lacking insight and knowledge about blessings and their capabilities. Because of that I don't think I was able to truly grasp what transcendence meant. However, in the process of training I decided it would be best to strengthen myself first in order to utilize my blessing further. I would race Dutch up and down the stone spire every day. Currently, our record stood at 28-3… Somehow Dutch also seemed to get faster and faster each time and I was only able to beat her a mere 3 times in a race. Despite that, I felt I had become increasingly fast. I convinced Darwin to create a field of bubbles for me in the air. I used this opportunity to practice my special awareness and speed at using my blessing. Just as I had practiced with leaves in the past, these bubbles worked even better as they would float on the wind and travel high and low through the air. Just as I was able to recognize the flow of the water with Gwyn while fishing, I also used this same technique to focus on the flow of the wind. By the end of the month, I was able to close my eyes and completely feel the presence of every single bubble within a mile radius of the tree house. Then by using my increased speed, I would rapidly open waypoint and strike the bubbles out of the air as if my hand itself was a javelin. My speed had become insurmountable, but I still felt my strength was lacking during my training. I decided to dedicate countless hours to building my muscles. I would have Darwin float up massive stones from the sea using his bubbles so I could use them for training. I would hoist them up over my head while honing my vital energy and hold them up high for as long as I possibly could. I would hold them for so long that my muscles felt like they would tear themselves apart. All of it was worth it. When holding the stones no longer felt like they were enough, I decided to strap them to my back and carry them up and down the stone spire. By doing this, my grip strength had increased tenfold from all of the climbing I had done. During this whole process, Darwin had even decided to start training as well. He told me that he didn't want to be a burden to me on our journey, and although he couldn't handle as much training as I could, his creativity in his use of the bubbles became increasingly apparent. He ended up creating an offensive technique he called the bubble gun, where he would drastically compress a bubble at the tip of his finger and then shoot it out at a high speed. This was similar to the bubble he first sent towards me when we met each other in the tree house. Except now this bubble was much more powerful. He could instantly shatter a rock with the air pressure he was able to create within his bubbles. His creativity made me realize that I too needed to hone my offensive skills with my blessing. So eventually instead of striking the bubble out of the air, I began having Darwin float some stones high into the air and let them fall to the ground. I would then strike them out of the air using my traveling hands, crushing them on impact. Although this was useful at first, I realized that I need to strike something even stronger in order to strengthen my fists. So I tried something I had never thought of until then.
One day late into the night, I stood outside under the canopy of the Magnifigum tree and closed my eyes. I got into a fighting stance, as if I would strike the sky itself. I concentrated intensely, drowning out absolutely everything around me. Soon all of the sounds of the ocean, the wind blowing through the tree, and even the insects chirping in the night became absolute silence. My mind entered into a void of only my imagination. I thought of the hardest material I could possibly think of. Something dense, tough, and solid. I imagined a strong wall, something that was impenetrable. I needed to think of the toughest thing possible that I could punch in order to strengthen myself. One punch could be the deciding factor in a bout, and in the future I needed to be able to protect myself and those around me. After losing so much, I never wanted to lose anyone I cared about ever again. So I imagined this impenetrable wall, and I struck out my fist into the void using my Traveling Hands. After about two punches, I felt myself make contact with something far tougher than the rocks I had been striking before. I honed in on this object purely from the sensation I felt through physical contact. I ingrained it's tough nature into my mind so that I could use this unknown entity to strengthen myself from now on. That night, I punched and punched and punched. Although I could not feel the strength of this object give way at any moment during my training, I was determined to break it in the future. If I ever wanted to be strong enough to protect those I loved, I had to be able to do the impossible and break through this unknown wall. From then on, this is how I would train. Until I could break it, I would never be strong enough. I surely struck this object hundreds of times through the night until my knuckles were battered, bruised, and bloodied. My hands hurt like hell, but this training would be essential to my future. I continued on training like this every night for a week until the awaited time arrived. The month passed by too quickly, and the Tavern owners that Darwin spoke of came upon us. Early in the morning, we observed a boat approaching the stone spire from a distance away. It appeared to be a rather small yet bulky sail ship as its hull seemed sturdy and was tall above the sea water. Their ship adorned a sail with a small grape insignia on its corner and the boat itself was painted with a faded green diamond pattern. I could tell that the boat was past its glory days but was clearly well cared for. As they got even closer I was able to see an older gentleman and a younger man accompanying him on the front of the ship. The older gentleman was waving his hand towards us and Darwin responded by waving and shouting, "Mr. Pete!! WELCOME BACK!!!!" As Darwin shouted, I could tell that he was incredibly happy to see them. He was smiling from ear to ear as he waved. Considering they have been going out of their way all this time to make sure he's okay, they must be very kind people. They eventually made it to the Spire and were anchoring their boat. But as they were doing so I began to wonder how exactly they were going to get up here. It was quite the climb to try and make it to the top of this stone spire, and I would know since I've been climbing it almost every day since I got here. I thought this may be an arduous task for the older gentleman, at least that was until the two men proceeded to hop off of their boat with astounding agility and begin jumping from vine to vine up the stone spires cliff face. They moved at an incredible speed, easily ascending the stone spire. I was in awe at their abilities, I had never seen anyone move in that manner before. In a flash, the two of them had made it to the top of the spire without even breaking a sweat. I was in utter shock, I was truly left speechless. They moved so quickly that when they were actually standing before us, I didn't even realize that the older man was wearing one of the goofiest hats I had ever seen. It looked like a giant bean on his head, I actually had to cover my mouth and turn away to avoid laughing. Unfortunately, the older gentlemen had already caught on and said, "Hoh hoh, you have a funny looking hat too youngster." How did he know!? "Uh- I'm sorry, I agree my hat is also strange ha ha…" I had nearly forgotten that all this time I had been wearing that strange cap I had found when fishing into space with Gwyn. Now I must really look like a hypocrite… Before anyone could say anything else Darwin ran and jumped into the arms of the old man with tears in his eyes. "I missed you guys so much!! Navy, you look even stronger now!" Darwin said as he then ran to give the younger man a hug as well. This gave me a good chance to really look over these two new people.