Once the chaos of the battle had subsided, Karl realized that a significant amount of time had passed while they were inside the trials, and the night shift was about to start their rotation on the line.
It was strange to think that so much time had elapsed since the start of the trial, when the second group had only taken a few hours at the most, but the sun’s position didn’t lie.
Karl was waiting and watching, to ensure that the Hill Giants didn’t try to push their luck and return, when a friendly hand patted him on the shoulder. “You can return to camp for dinner. The next shift is here. I think that the Administration Staff are going to want to talk to you as well after that incident with the trial. It appears that your team got some pretty serious rewards, and they are all excited.” The soldier informed him.
Karl chuckled at the man’s gift for understatement, and nodded his head. “I will return to the line once I have upgraded shields for the pike line. As soon as they switch, I will give them a layer of Earth Shield, then call it a night.” Karl explained.
The soldiers lined up and raised the large rectangular shields of the shield wall, which remained on the line until they were damaged. “Earth Shield Incoming.” Karl shouted as he cast the spell, then moved down the line again, as he had earlier in the day.
That should keep them through the night, or at least through the first few hits of an engagement if there was something happening during the night shift.
The Hill Giants didn’t normally attack at night, but they had been particularly upset today with the abbreviated Trial, where both sides had only gotten two teams through. The Giants were going to want to punish the humans for taking two of the available four slots and not even using half of them to try for a Royal Rank fighter, but instead stacking their number of Commanders instead.
But what the Academy knew was that the faster you progressed while you were young, the further an Elite could go before they hit the limits of their potential. It seemed to decline with time, and readministering the serum didn’t help refresh it.
So, pushing students to Commander still made it more likely that they would get to Royal Rank, and it was a better deal for the Academy if those opportunities were given to students than to teachers, whose peak growth years had already passed.
But they had another issue today, and that was that one of the students really did make it to Royal Rank. Namely, Karl.
They should have known better than to think that the news of Rae advancing wouldn’t bring an immediate response from the higher powers. The Academy, the Bureau of Elite Development, the Church and the Army all had ranking members stationed here, but that wasn’t enough for this unprecedented situation.
Rumours were already flying that his assigned group had produced two other unregistered Commanders plus two High Priestesses, but the power that Morgana and Bob were showing when they returned to the lines after the Trial had everyone wondering how long it would be before they also made Royal Rank.
So, more influential members had been sent from every possible facet of Golden Dragon Nation society, including reporters and a government Press Officer. They had all arrived in the last hour, while the second team was in the trials, with the hope that they would have an entire team of Commanders added to the Academy’s population, in addition to the confused reports of Karl and Rae’s advancement.
Karl followed the camp workers’ directions to a secondary dining hall, where he found his expanded group, along with the other ten Elites who had been sent as the second group.
“I would like to say that nobody expects the Holy Inquisition, but this time their presence was entirely predictable.” Karl greeted the group at the table beside his as he took a seat.
“Brother Karl, it’s good to see you advanced again.” A Royal Rank Inquisitor replied with a smile.
Karl nodded politely, then looked around the room to see if there were any familiar faces among the guests.
There was a High Priestess of the Nature God who he remembered from when they signed the contract to work as a team. She giggled at him and waved as he looked her way, which made Karl laugh along with her.
The Nature Clerics had to think that it was hilarious that Lotus was now a High Priestess, even if the thought of her in charge of anything horrified the rest of the clergy.
Other than that, some of the politicians looked vaguely familiar. They might have been part of the groups trying to recruit him at Commander Rank a few months back. It made sense that some of them would be the same, as they were originally sent to try to talk to Prince Corbin when he had reached the Academy.
One of the politicians in an expensive looking suit stood to address the room. “Now that we’re all here, I would like to congratulate you all on your advancements. Today we recognize fourteen new Commanders, four of which are from the Church’s ranks, and twelve of which are still students.” He began.
Karl looked over at the other group and realized that there was a white robed Priest and an annoyed looking blue dragon cleric with them. Why they had a cleric from the god of Knowledge seemed fairly obvious to Karl, as everyone wanted to know what the anomaly was, but they normally didn’t specialize in healing or group buffs, so they were rarely sent to combat.
They could do it, but their skills might be rusty, as they spent all their time in the library and inscription rooms.
At least she should have had [Refreshing Lightning] for her solo trials.
“We also recognize a new Prince of the Nation, and as is tradition, we would like for the Prince to choose one cause to assist with his influence.” The politician continued.
Karl could see that most of the other factions’ representatives were rolling their eyes, but Karl smiled politely back at him and rose to his feet. “I have been thinking about that issue since I advanced to Commander Rank, and I believe that I have an answer already. I would like to devote my time to increasing the individual combat power of the Elites. I believe everyone here has the clearance to know that I have already donated a number of skill books to the Inscriptionists, and I have assisted a number of our barbarians in gaining a powerful new Rage type skill. That is what I plan to continue. I will spend my leisure time looking for signs of relics or other methods that can be spread among the Elites to give us an advantage over those who would seek to harm us.” Karl announced.
That would almost certainly have a dozen groups pushing for some of his time, but it didn’t devote all of his efforts to one faction.
But as he had advanced and had been force-fed information from the final trial reward, many things had become clear to Karl. One of them was that he simply lacked the skills to share all of his skills.
What if he could teach someone else to have a beast space? Wouldn’t that make for even more overpowered Elites? If it didn’t work on other Elites, maybe it would work on some of the soldiers.
Or if he could teach more people the higher ranked skills that he was sure to learn in the future? Even just finding time to make books for the new skills he could use would be huge for the Clergy Library. Not even Lacerate had a proper skill book for it yet, and Rae had learned that from an Elite.
“Did you have more that you could teach the Elites?” One of the Inquisitors asked.
“I believe that with a bit of time I can create a book of Lacerate. That should be useful to dozens of warriors and rogues. After that, I will have to see if there are any other abilities that can be easily shared.” Karl explained.
That was enough to get most of the people in the room excited. Everyone loved a chance to make the Elites more powerful, and that one skill book would be enough to ensure that Karl was not a name that was easily forgotten among his peers.