Chapter 13: Different Skills
Lucian woke up early for meditation, he wanted to experience the feeling of being filled with energy again. The runes, symbols and sun patterns in his spirit body expanded into a realistic sun along with the rising of the sun in the sky.
All sorts of knowledge on the abilities present in the runes continued to resonate in his mind.
The feelings dissipated after about thirty minutes. He sighed a little at this wondrous experience.
The trio ate energy congee in the morning in preparation for physical training, the ingredients for this food were mostly treated meat, liver and other internal organs of extraordinary creatures. Apart from the organised extraordinary tribes, edible creatures are still in abundance in the planes. Also regular trading between neighbouring planes led to a diversity of livestock.
Adam asked, “I have not seen that fake teacher, do you think he wants us to practice alone?”
Lucian scoffed at Adam’s words, “what did you feel when you meditated today? He proceeded to describe his experiences in detail.
“I am sure it is partly due to the resonance with the rising sun… I think it will most manifest itself to those who just awakened.
Make good use of this opportunity at night.”
They started basic training for the day. They trained for about two hour before Aaron suddenly appeared, “today, Adam and Reina will spar, I and Lucian will go after you guys.”
The sparring duo looked at themselves while smirking at Lucian for his badluck. Reina stuck out her tongue to emphasize this point.
Lucian shook his head softly, “childish, it might be your turn soon.”
Reina and Adam walked to the centre of the hall, they were nervous because it was the first time they were being tested by the team.
They bowed to show their respect while preparing themselves mentally.
Aaron did not seem concerned at their nervousness, instead he said, “we recruited you because we believe in your strengths, don’t underestimate yourselves, it is just an internal competition not a war.
After making sure they understood he announced with a wave of his hands, “I will now give you the rules to determine the winner, the first to land three attacks will win. Only your reaction speed matters in this game, you must be alert at all times.
Adam’s expression became serious when he heard this, as a star path warrior, evasion and fast reaction was his fort, but he also did not dare to be careless just because his opponent was a moon path warrior, a path not known for spatial abilities.
Compared to a star awakened rank 9, a moon awakened has better long range attacks and better defence than other paths.
Aaron nodded when he saw their serious expressions, he raised the whistle to his lips and blew it signalling the start of the fight.
One part of the hall became colder with ice and mist rapidly appearing around Reina, Adam did not stay in the same spot, he blinked rapidly around Reina trying to find an opening.
“This is going to be a difficult fight, they are both cautious.” said Lucian.
“You need this kind of cautiousness if you want to survive in the wild.” Aaron who focused on the group on the stage replied.
Ice condensed around Reina which she threw at a part of the stage, Adam immediately blinked away. He used the opening to appear near Reina throwing a punch at her.
The mists and winds around became even more when he got near her, when Adam’s punch connected, he only saw ice shattering.
“I was too impatient.”
He wanted to blink using his void body to avoid the elements but ice immediately enclosed him preventing him from taking this step. Looking determined, he immediately felt the spatial points around and attempted teleporting, the result of his two days meditation, he appeared at the edge of the stage.
He needed to get rid of the vertigo so he could face Rein but a look at his legs made him realise the fight was out of his hands.
Water and mist was already everywhere, he couldn’t do anything as his body was being frozen.
Aaron clapped his hands stopping Reina’s actions, “have you learnt anything from this? He waved his hands meaning he was not expecting an answer.
“Adam, you were a little too impatient in this fight, despite seeing the mist, you did not release winds to confine the it to a particular part of the stage to give you an advantage.
“Another lesson for all of you here is to depend on your teamates when necessary, Reina won’t need to spend so much energy trying to fight a star warrior if Lucian is there.
“You have a lot of duties in the wilderness, and most of your enemies have the numbers. Fighting multiple star beasts with the without a way of escaping is trying to commit suicide.”
He immediately motioned to Lucian to get on the stage while he secretly smirked, “I expect you to fight normally, don’t think I will reduce the level of intensity of my attacks just because you are weaker than I am… start.”
Lucian rapidly materialised in front of him throwing a punch at Aaron that hit to the surprise of all of them. Aaron almost collapsed when he was hit, he could swear Lucian did not steer the elements before he abruptly appeared before him.
“Aster, your brother is really troublesome to handle.”
He immediately threw him himself backward to distamce himself from Lucian, fire spears appeared in front of him blocking any attack from this direction, his thoughts… “you can’t get me that way twice.”
Before he could stabilise himself, he was suddenly thrown out of the stage. He glared angrily at Lucian who replied him with a shrug of his shoulders, his sister had very good combat sense and she explained a way of fighting a higher level warrior called offensive escape.
Due to his unique ability, if he needed to buy time for his teammates or he needed to escape, he could attack the enemy making sure he hit so as to delay their reactions. He could then use the opportunity to escape.
After punching Aaron, he chose not to use any elemental abilities like the fireballs and ravens apart from the first because compared to a rank 6, he did not think he had a better control. Besides, seeing how shameless Aaron was, he would turn his abilities against himself.
Based on logical reasoning, Aaron will try to move backward because he didn’t know the trap set in front of him due to the abruptness of the situation. So Lucian flashed to the back anticipating Aaron, he was not disappointed, when Aaron got to his side he simply used the momentum to throw him out of the designated line.
Aaron did not say a word he simply materialised in front of Lucian, punching him. Lucian wore a dumbfounded look as he was thrown into the air.
“I didn’t even see him leaving his spot, is this the strength of high ranking warriors?”
Adam and Reina scoffed at Aaron’s shamelessness but the latter pretended not to see it instead he blew his fists like it was nothing to him.
“I only wanted to test your reaction, don’t even think of doing what you did notw until you are rank 7, in front of high level strengths, tricks like that are useless. Of course, we don’t plan on sending you out for any mission until you are rank 8.”
They all nodded in understanding while Aaron once again pointed at the maze of confusion, “that is your training spot today but make sure to run through as many doors as possible, I will be able to bring you out after six hours. That is the benefit of winning the artifact in your first try.”
….
After skinning the beasts, Aster and Leylah who already recovered their strengths were trying to determine the road to take from their current location.
Planes, ruin, ruin dungeons and other void spaces around dell plane formed a system, rank 5 star warriors opened the doors to this planes. Spatial artifacts are used to open tunnels leading to other planes.
Aster pressed her hand forward following her intuition again, starlight converged within the void blasting a tunnel that lead to an unknown distance. Leylah’s eyes tinged with gold and blue became even more golden as she entered the tunnel. The rest of the team immediately followed not wanting to waste time.
Dilapidated buildings lined the location Aster opened, Leylah who was waiting for her motioned her to be quiet, she pointed to a direction and before she could even say her piece, footsteps echoed in that direction.
They waited in readiness but immediately relaxed when they saw the newcomers, giant golden Lions walked majestically into the runes. Three of them had starlight patterns on their forehead, two had ice and elemental patterns while the rest gave the feeling of a suppressed volcano.
The sun path is the path the golden lion is most known for, they also occupied the volcanic mountain range. The leader of the group a rank 6 sun lion nodded at Xander, “we discovered this spatial passage recently, do you have any knowledge on what is there?”
Xandef simply smiled…“information like this is expensive, can you afford it?”
The golden lion scoffed at Xander’s attempt to be mysterious, “you must have a target in this dungeon, we don’t have any enmities so we won’t disturb you. Let’s open the tunnel together.”
Due to the influence of the awakening, extraordinary creatures can speak the dellish language fluently.
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Happy Valentine.
