Tessa tossed the weapons into the pouches that were built into the harness Thor was wearing, left over from their last battle and equipped by him when he left his space, so his knight would have a saddle.
Then the group retreated to their original positions after Hawk grabbed the last Royal Rank Hill Giant into his space for safekeeping. He didn’t really want it, they tasted awful, but the warriors had already looted it, so there was no point in letting the Giants recover the bodies of their leaders.
For half an hour, they waited while the survivors of the Hill Giant attack retreated, taking their wounded and most of their dead with them.
That was something that the Frost Giants didn’t do, and Karl wondered if there were Hill Giant Clerics who could resurrect their fallen. He hadn’t seen any sign of them in combat, but they might be somewhere in the back, as anything beyond the front lines was their undisputed territory.
Once the whistles blew to inform them that they could retreat from the line to their regular morning duties, the students breathed a sigh of relief, and Karl took a comfortable seat on a nearby rock.
His team was still on duty this morning, and the battle had lasted long enough for shift change to have occurred, as the sun was now well above the horizon.
Tank sat down on the rock next to him and looked up at the sky.
“Good work out there. That ambush with the Spider Golems was pure poetry.” The Berserker congratulated him.
“I didn’t know that you had the chance to see it. It worked just as well as I had hoped. There isn’t much on an average battlefield that can stop them.” Karl replied with a smile.
“That wasn’t actually why I stayed back. I know the others think that the way my size increased in combat was one of my skills, but that was you, wasn’t it?” Tank asked.
Karl nodded. “Yeah, it’s the same skill that I use on myself and the beasts. You’re bestial enough when you rage that it will affect you as well. It also works on Ophelia, we just didn’t see it because she was behind us.
The skill is called [Brutality], an increase of ten percent in both size and strength per rank of the user.”
“Do you think that you could teach that to me? I heard that you can make skill books of the skills that you know.” Tank asked, becoming more eager by the word.
“Sure, if someone brings over paper and ink, that’s all I need for that one. Or we can do it after I’m off shift.”
Tank shook his head with a glance toward the Hill Giant side of the line. “They’re likely coming back. If there is one thing that you are truly talented at, it has to be the art of angering the Giants. We’ve heard from our scouts that the Frost Giants are still looking for you, and they’re not giving up.
I don’t know how they pieced it together, but they realized that the team who was ambushing their reinforcements was the same one that had killed their Royal Rank Elder.”
Then Tank sent a brief message over the radio, requesting supplies for Inscription, and the two patiently watched the horizon for signs of movement.
“I heard that you had the ability to learn more skills after the Frost Giant incident, have you learned them yet?” Tank asked after a few minutes of silence.
“Yeah, Brutality was one of them. I also learned skills that add impact damage to all my physical hits. It’s a bit like [Earthquake], but internally.” Karl explained.
“That sounds messy. No wonder they were so wary of that Maul. What comes next for your skills?”
Karl shrugged. “I have two options, I can learn some basic defensive skills, or I can learn one that gives my pets a chance to evolve their skills up a tier. Like, Fireball to Flame Storm, or Stun to Petrify.” “It’s just a chance when you learn it?” Tank asked, confused as to the nature of the skill.
Karl shook his head. “No, it’s an increasing chance every time they use the skill. I don’t have the ability to get it yet, but the way that my luck goes, it won’t be long.”
“If it could advance them a Rank, that would be even better.” The berserker sighed.
“I’ve already learned that skill. Did you ever wonder why two Spider Golems can move through Ascended Rank Hill Giants like knives through warm butter? It’s because that is a Royal Rank skill. Rae is still a Commander Rank beast, but that one skill increase is enough that Hill Giants one rank below her aren’t even a challenge for the Golems.” Karl explained.
“And you didn’t think to mention that to anyone?”
Karl smiled gently and patted the enormous berserker on his massive shoulder. “I have come to realize that Academy Instructors are very different from politicians and bureaucrats. Telling you means I’ll receive new courses better suited for my training. Telling them means they’ll find a reason to say that I have Royal Rank combat power and should be reassigned to more dangerous battlefields.
And I don’t have that level of power yet.
The maximum cap is still much lower than an actual Royal Rank monster, but the energy efficiency is up there.”
Tank nodded. “I get it. It’s an overpowered skill, but when Rae is actually a Royal Rank monster it will be better. You have to be getting pretty close yourself, though. I’m not on the weak side of Commander, and you didn’t have any trouble keeping up with me.”
“It shouldn’t be too much longer. I just need to keep building the strength of my mental spaces, so the beasts will advance. I think that once the space forces Remi to advance to Commander, we should be very close.”
Remi got excited about that. She was almost there, she could feel it. The next time that she shed her skin, she would likely advance.
She was thinking about all the wonderful things that she might be able to do as a Commander Rank Snake when the runner arrived with the supplies for Karl to start making books.
The Class skills were simple to transcribe, and Brutality didn’t need anything but blood, which they had a plentiful supply of.
“What are you filling the pen with?” Tank asked as Karl got to work.
“Oh, it’s Royal Rank Hill Giant blood. The book has to be written in blood, and I prefer not to use my own. I have plenty of blood available, thanks to Rae and Hawk, so I am using that.”
He wrote out the Brutality ‘book’ which turned out to be nothing more than an incoherent and rage filled poem about tearing things apart, and watched in pleasure as the blood-red cover formed over it.
“There, try that. I don’t know if it will work for you, but if it does, I should make more. At least one for Ophelia, and one for the Clerics’ records.” Karl suggested.
Tank tried, but could not open the cover to the book. But Karl had an idea. “Try it while raging. That’s the only time that it worked on you.”
Tank’s eyes went red, and white scales formed on his arms and neck, then the book opened smoothly and vanished in his hands.
He surged in size to roughly four metres tall, then returned to his normal calm state.
“Did you say it was called Brutality?” He asked.
“Yeah, that’s what was on the cover of the book as well.” Karl agreed.
“The skill I got was a modification of Rage. [Bestial Rage] was the name. It replaced my old Rage skill.”
Karl tapped the back of the pen on the extra paper. “Give me a second, I want to know if I can teach you another skill that is intended to be used by beasts. Do you know Haste already?”
Tank nodded. “I know a haste equivalent. Berserker Rush increases my speed while enraged.”
Karl refilled the pen with Hill Giant blood and began to write out Terrorize. Tank with 40 percent more damage would be awesome.
“There, rage and try to open that.” Karl instructed.
Tank followed the directions, but when the book vanished, the result was not what Karl had been expecting. The already enlarged Berserker grew even larger, reaching four and a half metres. Then his whole body became covered in scales, while his hands grew long claws, and his enraged red eyes turned completely black.
A roar of victory echoed through the camp, causing dozens of students to draw their weapons in fright before realizing that it came from their lines.
With that sort of buff, Tank was now nearly as large as the Ascended Rank Hill Giants. Letting him loose in combat would be a game changer for the humans.