Orthos cleared his throat to get Karl’s attention. “We will send you as close as possible to the destination tomorrow morning. There is still time before the anomaly opens, and you won’t want to be standing around waiting for it. Is there anything that you need to make your preparations for the trip?”
Karl still had far too much prepared from the last time he had help preparing for a trip, and most of his inventory was filled with stuff he had gotten from the Elves. He had supplies for every conceivable situation already, so Karl shook his head.
The others did as well, as they had been prepared at home for an extended mission, in case they were stuck along the border for weeks trying to make a deal.
“Alright, then you have the day to yourselves. Do as you wish, just try not to cause trouble for others, they do have duties to attend to.”
Orthos clearly considered the conversation to be finished, but some of the other Elders were intrigued by Karl’s training skills, and eager to see what he was going to do next.
“Why don’t we all go help the older students today? I worked with the young children yesterday, but there is still a group about to take up official duties that could use some practice with their skills.”
And, of course, Karl was hoping that he might pick up one or two of them if he tried hard enough.
That wasn’t a possibility with the youngest ones, they barely understood the skills themselves. But the older ones were close to fully grown beasts, so they should have a good understanding of their skills, and they would be trying to advance it to speed their progress through the ranks.
Like Thor and Rae, most Divine Beasts finished growing in body long before they stopped growing in power. The Dragons were an exception, as they never stopped growing, and some weaker species reached peak power before adulthood, but those were mostly considered wild beasts or monsters, not Divine Beasts with intelligence.
The older trainees were mostly in beast form today when Karl reached the training field, though there were a few half-breeds whose natural form was demihuman. Transformation was a skill that he would love to teach the team, but he could feel that it was Holy Magic from their Beast God clerical symbols.
Other than Remi, it was unlikely that any of the others would be able to use that right now, if ever, as they weren’t exactly devout followers, much less ordained clerics. But there was zero chance that Karl would be able to steal the skill and teach it to them.
The bias between beasts and beastkin was eminently clear at this stage. The beastkin had mostly fallen behind in advancement and were relegated to the role of assistants, while the beasts were pushing to improve their power.
A winged wolf turned to nod at Karl as he approached, then smirk at Lotus with his tongue out.
“I thought that we would help you all with your skills today. You have gotten skilled at fighting each other, as you live and train together every day. So, today you can train with me and one of my teammates. We will give you pointers on improving your skills, as well any mistakes that you might be making in strategy.” Karl explained, then turned to the team.
“Who wants to volunteer to help?”
Dana smiled and nodded. “I will. I have barriers, so I shouldn’t be injured too badly.”
Karl smiled and patted her on the shoulder, then took off the damage reduction bracelet he had gotten from the bandit leader. “Here, wear this. It will make training much safer.” He whispered.
All of the beasts here were in the late Awakened and early Ascended Ranks, so they shouldn’t overcome the base damage reduction of the amulet without going way overboard on their sparring. But learning to fight against a humanoid mage would be a change from a bunch of beast clerics fighting each other.
Fighting Karl was more similar to sparring each other, but he could use skills to cheat and keep things interesting.
There was a constant buzzing in his mind as Karl prepared to go to the sparring ring to find his first target, and he realized that Remi was meditating and chanting. She was trying to teach him how to use [Bodyguards]. When she said that she wanted to see what they could do with some enhancement, she wasn’t joking.
Karl focused Skill Master between them, and he could actually feel the knowledge of how to call bodyguards flowing into his mind. It was a racial ability of the Naga Queen, and one of the easiest to learn to share. At least for Remi.
Dana picked her opponent first, a Moor Cat whose shoulders were the same height as her own.
For Moor Cats, it was still half grown. But it would be a good matchup, as they were both fast-moving combatants. The Cleric in charge put a golden barrier over them both, both for defence and to indicate who was the winner. The first barrier to break lost.
Karl focused on learning [Bodyguards] as the fight began, and Dana flipped through the air to avoid a leap by the Moor Cat. Her blade flashed down, and the beast twisted to avoid having its back slashed open, then leaped straight sideways to avoid a barrage of magic missiles. Dana was holding back on the power, to the same low Awakened standard that everyone was using, but if the cat didn’t figure something out quickly, it would be in trouble.
It didn’t take long to realize that keeping a mage at a distance was a bad idea, and the Moor Cat used its Species Skill of [Silent Predator] to vanish from sight and silence its steps.
Dana only had a limited amount of detection ability, but she knew how to deal with invisible attackers.
She created a field of fog, which would let her see the disturbance as the Moor Cat moved, even if she couldn’t clearly see the beast.
Claws raked her [Nullification Barrier] as she moved too late, but her blade caused a golden flash as she struck true before the Moor Cat could relocate.
The Winged Wolf transformed into a young man nearly Karl’s age, wearing the plain grey robes of the beast clerics. “Fighting mages is tricky. Even invisible, they can still find you. Plus, she can fly. I can see that she’s not using it as much to make the fight more fair, but she could be holding this entire fight from above and making Nala jump at her.”
Karl nodded. “We’re not here to discourage anyone, and flying targets are hard for anyone to deal with. Especially a Moor Cat cleric who doesn’t have ranged attacks.”
The wolf chuckled. “If I had ranged attacks, I would totally abuse them. But the flying species with ranged abilities train separately, and there is a whole class on how to deal with that.”
“If you would like, I can convince Cara the Winged Void Badger to spar with you. If she doesn’t use her ranged attacks, it should be a good learning chance.” The wolf barked a laugh and shook his head. “Thanks, but I don’t feel like getting beat up today. I can’t fly without magic, and a Void Badger can nullify that and send me crashing to the ground.”