The Trials of Endurance came twice a year at Mount Helicon, testing students' limits across physical, mental, and spiritual challenges. For most, they were gruelling ordeals to survive. For Aetos, they were revelations of exactly how different he truly was.
"The Meditation Marathon begins at sunset," Brother Anemoi announced to the assembled students. "Twelve hours of sustained deep meditation. No breaks, no movement, no external pneuma manipulation. Only you and your breath until dawn."
Several students groaned quietly. Maintaining deep meditative states for even an hour challenged most practitioners. Twelve hours seemed impossible.
"What if we need water?" Cassia asked.
"You don't. Your body can survive far longer without water than your mind believes. This tests will, not flesh."
As the sun touched the horizon, twenty students arranged themselves in the meditation hall. Cushions had been placed with precision, far enough apart to prevent distraction but close enough that monitors could observe everyone.
"Begin," Master Zephyrus commanded.
The first hour passed peacefully. Students settled into their rhythms, breathing patterns synchronising with the ancient harmonics of the hall. Aetos found his centre easily, dropping into the state where consciousness expanded beyond his small body.
By the second hour, the first student failed. A newer boy, only recently advanced, suddenly gasped and fell sideways, muscles cramping from the sustained posture. Monitors silently removed him.
Aetos barely noticed. His pneuma circulation had found its perfect rhythm, each breath drawing in energy and releasing tension. His heartbeat slowed to match the mountain's geological pulse. Time became fluid.
The third hour claimed two more students. The fourth, another three. By midnight—the marathon's halfway point—only eight remained.
Markos failed at hour seven, his solidity finally crumbling under the sustained mental effort. Daphne lasted until hour nine, her adaptability serving her well until dehydration headaches broke her concentration.
By hour ten, only three remained: Aetos, Lydia, and surprisingly, quiet Tomas who'd learned air breathing from Aetos's unconventional teachings.
Lydia's breathing grew ragged at hour eleven. She fought valiantly, but the combination of physical strain and mental exhaustion proved too much. When she finally collapsed, tears of frustration streaked her face.
Tomas and Aetos sat in perfect stillness as dawn approached. But where Tomas's face showed strain, muscles trembling with effort, Aetos looked as peaceful as if he'd just begun. His breathing remained deep and even, his posture relaxed yet precise.
When the dawn bell finally rang, Tomas gasped and fell forward, body refusing to support him after twelve hours of stillness. Aetos opened his eyes slowly, stretched like a cat waking from a pleasant nap, and stood smoothly.
"How?" Tomas croaked. "My entire body is screaming. You look ready for breakfast."
"I am ready for breakfast," Aetos admitted. "But also... I wasn't really holding still. My pneuma was circulating the whole time, keeping blood flowing, preventing stiffness. It's not that I'm stronger—I'm just... efficient."
Master Zephyrus approached with an unreadable expression. "Aetos, a word."
They walked to the courtyard where dawn painted the mountains gold.
"You felt no strain at all," Zephyrus observed. It wasn't a question.
"Some mental fatigue around hour eight," Aetos admitted. "But my body could have continued indefinitely. Should I have pretended to struggle?"
"No. But understand what you've shown. Tomas pushed past human limits through sheer will. That's admirable, teachable, inspirational. You revealed that human limits simply don't apply to you the same way. That's... concerning."
"Concerning?"
"Power without struggle breeds arrogance. Ability without effort creates disconnection from those who must earn every advancement. You're becoming something beyond your peers' understanding."
Aetos felt the familiar sting of isolation. "So I should hold back?"
"You should find challenges that actually challenge you. If the mountain is too easy, climb it carrying others. If meditation lacks strain, go deeper. Find your actual limits before you forget you have any."
The Mountain Trial came three days later. A seventy-two hour expedition up Mount Helicon's treacherous north face, students carrying full packs of supplies. It tested navigation, elemental application, teamwork, and raw physical endurance.
"Stay in groups," Brother Thomas commanded. "This isn't about who reaches the summit first, but who reaches it together. Watch for altitude sickness, exposure, exhaustion. Your pack weighs forty pounds. Manage resources wisely."
Within the first day, the groups naturally stratified. Stronger students ended up carrying extra weight from those who struggled. By evening, when they made camp at the first waystation, everyone was exhausted.
Except Aetos.
"I can take more," he offered as Petra struggled with her pack. "Really, I'm not tired."
"Everyone's tired," Markos snapped, his own shoulders aching. "Stop showing off."
"I'm not—" Aetos began, then stopped. How could he explain that his body converted food to energy so efficiently that physical exertion barely registered? That the thin mountain air, which left others gasping, felt perfectly normal to lungs trained in air manipulation?
That night, while others collapsed into exhausted sleep, Aetos lay awake listening to the wind. It told stories of the summit, of ancient eagles nesting in unreachable peaks, of storms brewing beyond the horizon.
The second day brought crisis. Elena, one of the younger students, developed severe altitude sickness. She could barely walk, certainly couldn't carry her pack.
"We'll have to turn back," her group leader decided. "Get her down to safe altitude."
"Wait," Aetos interjected. "What if... what if I carried her?"
"Carry her and your pack? Up the mountain? That's sixty pounds extra."
"I can manage."
They looked at him like he'd gone mad. But Aetos was already fashioning a carrying harness from ropes, creating a way to secure Elena to his back while keeping his hands free for climbing.
"This is insane," Brother Thomas said, but he didn't forbid it.
The next eight hours became legend among the students. Aetos climbed with Elena on his back, her pack strapped to his front, his own supplies distributed among willing helpers. When the path became too steep, he used air currents to assist, not quite flying but reducing effective weight.
"How are you doing this?" Elena whispered, embarrassed but grateful.
"Same way I eat six breakfasts," Aetos grunted, navigating a particularly treacherous section. "My body is weird. Might as well use it for something good."
They reached the second waystation before sunset. Elena's colour had improved in the lower-pressure zone Aetos created around her, a bubble of denser air that eased her breathing.
"You saved my trial," she said tearfully.
"We all reach the summit together," Aetos quoted. "That's what Brother Thomas said. Besides, you made your first wind last month. Couldn't let you miss the view from the top."
But that night, the cost showed. Even Aetos's pneuma-enhanced constitution had limits. He devoured three times his normal portions at dinner and fell asleep sitting up, still chewing.
"He's not invincible after all," Markos observed, with something like relief.
"No," Brother Thomas agreed. "But his limits are so far beyond normal that finding them requires extraordinary circumstances. Tomorrow will be interesting."
The final ascent challenged everyone. The last thousand feet were near-vertical, requiring technical climbing and pneuma-assisted movement. Exhaustion, altitude, and depleted resources pushed students to their absolute limits.
Aetos climbed with mechanical precision, his body moving on autopilot while his mind floated in the thin air. He'd found his limit—not physical collapse but a strange dissociation, as if his consciousness was separating from flesh.
"Stay with us," Daphne urged, noticing his glazed expression. "Don't you dare transcend into pure wind before we reach the top."
"Not transcending," Aetos mumbled. "Just... floaty. Everything's very bright. Is the sun supposed to pulse like that?"
"He's altitude drunk," Brother Thomas diagnosed. "His body's handling the strain but his mind isn't. Keep him talking."
So the final ascent became a group effort of a different kind. While Aetos's body continued its impossible performance, his friends kept his mind grounded with constant chatter, questions, jokes—anything to keep him present.
They reached the summit together, all twenty students plus instructors, as the sun painted the world gold and crimson.
"Look," Tomas pointed. "You can see the whole valley. Every place we've ever been."
Aetos swayed, then found his centre. The view cleared his mental fog, and he saw not just the physical landscape but the pneuma flows of the entire region—currents of elemental energy swirling in patterns of breathtaking complexity.
"Worth it," he said simply.
The Fasting Trial a week later proved his hardest challenge. Seven days of minimal food—water and thin broth only. For someone whose metabolism burned like a forge, it was torture.
By day three, Aetos couldn't maintain basic pneuma techniques. His body, starved of fuel, began consuming itself. Brother Alexei monitored him constantly, worried about permanent damage.
"We should end this," the healer urged Master Zephyrus. "His physiology isn't suited for fasting. He's burning muscle mass at an alarming rate."
"One more day," Zephyrus decided. "He needs to truly understand his limits."
That night, Aetos experienced something new: genuine helplessness. His mighty pneuma circulation sputtered like a dying flame. The wind still responded to him, but weakly, as if through thick cloth. For the first time in memory, he felt truly, completely human.
"This is what others feel all the time," he whispered to Matthias during evening check-in. "This struggle just to breathe properly, to move without exhaustion. How do they bear it?"
"With courage," Matthias replied gently. "The same courage you're showing now. Strength isn't about not having limits—it's about facing them with grace."
They ended the fast early, and Aetos spent three days recovering, eating constantly while his body rebuilt what starvation had claimed. But he'd learned something valuable: his gifts came with costs. His strength had a foundation that could crumble if not properly maintained.
The Combat Endurance Trial capped the series. Continuous sparring, fresh opponents every hour, no breaks except water between rounds. Most students lasted three to four hours before exhaustion or accumulated bruises forced withdrawal.
Aetos fought for twelve hours straight.
His style evolved as the hours passed. Early rounds showed his usual fluid, aesthetic approach. By hour six, he'd stripped everything to pure efficiency. By hour ten, he moved like wind itself—no wasted motion, no unnecessary flourishes, just perfect economy of force.
"He's not fighting anymore," one observing master murmured. "He's just... being. Combat as meditation."
When they finally called a halt after twelve hours—not because Aetos was failing but because they'd run out of fresh opponents—he stood in the centre of the ring, breathing hard but unbroken.
"How do you feel?" Master Zephyrus asked.
"Tired," Aetos admitted. "But also... clear. Like I finally understand something. My limits aren't walls—they're horizons. Always there, always moving as I approach them."
"And what lies beyond horizons?"
"More horizons," Aetos smiled weakly. "It's horizons all the way up."
That night, as healers tended bruises and exhaustion throughout the dormitories, a new understanding rippled through the student body. Aetos wasn't just talented—he was genuinely other, operating by different rules than mortal flesh typically allowed.
But he was also still one of them. He struggled, just on a different scale. He had limits, just farther out than anyone imagined. He could be hurt, exhausted, pushed to breaking—it just took extraordinary effort to find those points.
"I understand now," Petra told him as he devoured his fourth dinner. "You're not showing off. You're just... you. Like a bird doesn't show off by flying."
"But I do show off sometimes," Aetos admitted around a mouthful of bread. "Flying is fun. Being strong is fun. I just... try to remember that not everyone can fly. And maybe help them find their own wings."
The Trials of Endurance had revealed truths about all the students. But for Aetos, they'd shown something crucial: being beyond human didn't mean being separate from humanity. His struggles were real, just written in larger script.
And perhaps, in learning his own limits, he could better understand and honour the limits of others.