Karl smiled at the Sergeant. “If it’s a great success, that means there will be more resources, right? We’re still finishing the ones you gave us, but now that Hawk has reached full maturity, his growth is slowing to a crawl, and it’s going to take more than just my efforts to keep him growing at this sort of rate.”
Sergeant Rita laughed. “If you can keep growing at that rate, what would the rest of the elites call themselves? I think it’s natural that you would have to slow down at some point and consolidate your powers, but if you can keep feeding Hawk extra energy, he should progress toward the Ascended Rank from Awakening in a relatively short time.
I will find you what resources I can, though I’m not sure what the Hawk can use now that we’ve tried the two that seemed the most beneficial to it.”
“Well, if there is an upgraded version of the strength stone, or some more powerful infused blood, that would be great. I don’t know if the air stone will do much. He’s still digesting the second one he ate, and the first was so powerful that it caused a huge breakthrough. But if there are other air type resources, maybe they will help him as well?
Every time that he improves, my body improves as well, I just need to train my skills and stamina to keep up, so resources for Hawk seem to be the most effective way for me to grow.” Karl suggested.
Hawk was definitely a fan of that plan. He didn’t mind if Karl got strong, they were a team, but if the plan was to make him the most powerful Windspeed Hawk, then it was definitely a good idea.
Their next stop was back at their usual training grounds, and Hawk was looking forward to being able to show up the mages of the class with his new skills. Now that he was fully grown, and his power was getting better, he could block many more shots to protect the targets.
Karl could tell that it wasn’t actually about the target, it was more about Hawk wanting to show off his skills and get praised, or cursed, by the mages. Both were fine in Hawk’s mind, as long as they were recognizing his might. That was the important part in the Hawk’s mind, reminding them all that he was the predator here, and all the mice were his.
“I swear that Hawk is picking on us. It gets better by the day, just to remind us all that we’re beneath it.” One of the mages announced, sweaty and exhausted at the end of the class.
“It’s a Windspeed Hawk, do you really think that it has some innate grudge against mages?” One of the others scoffed.
Everyone turned to look at the Water Mages, whose fluid attacks drove the bird particularly crazy, and then back at the questioner.
“I mean in general. It’s pretty obvious that the Hawk has a hatred for water attacks. But I doubt that he hates mages in general.”
Karl smiled. If only they knew that Hawk really did see himself as innately better than humans, who couldn’t fly, could barely see, and didn’t even hunt their own meals.
The fact that Hawk himself didn’t hunt his own food was a matter of luxurious living in its mind, so that didn’t count. At least, to him, it didn’t.
Instead of returning to rest, Hawk decided to circle in the sky for the afternoon while Karl trained his martial arts skills. His great hope was that he would finally find something that was able to be hunted in this Academy. Unfortunately, there were no rodents, no pests, nothing at all wandering around the grounds. The spells that the mages had put on the Academy, and the constant use of powers had long since scared everything away from the academy itself, and he didn’t have permission to go out in to the fields around the grounds to hunt for a snack.
Karl’s words had been “Be where I can see you” and that didn’t extend out into the fields on the far side of the wall. If Karl had told him to stay where the others could see him, Hawk might have just given up and gone back to rest inside.
But while the hunting didn’t work out as he had hoped, Hawk did find a few good things. There was a nice tree along the side of the strength training grounds, where he could rest his wings in the shade. There was a carving on one of the buildings that almost looked like him, there was an old lady who kept taking pictures of him, and finally, the truck docks.
Once he could figure out how those things worked, he would be in for a treat. Even from up in the sky, he could tell that the buildings behind the docks were just packed full of good stuff.
Karl mostly ignored Hawk’s adventures, and only occasionally reminded him not to make trouble for anyone, or take food from strangers. Not everyone would know that he was Karl’s Hawk, so some might try to poison or attack him like he was a wild monster.
Sergeant Rita had another book full of information for them to study, this time on Monster Biology, in hopes that they would stumble across something that might help Hawk continue to grow at an accelerated rate.
Every Elite wanted to be famous, powerful, or both. That was the whole point of the training regimen here. So, her job as a private instructor was to do what she could to help Karl keep advancing and live up to the potential that the senior staff believed he had when they observed him on the train.
If the final result was intense early growth, leading to stagnation and a growth plateau, that just meant that they didn’t understand the next step in his training. But the next time that they saw a class like this one, they could use his experience as a baseline and start growing the new elite from there.