The practice could wait until morning, Karl decided as he climbed into bed next to Dana, only to have Cara come out to snuggle between them.
She was taking her self-appointed duty to keep Karl wholesome until Thor found a date entirely too seriously, but the Void Badger was actually rather soft and warm, not at all unpleasant to sleep next to.
Dana would have much preferred that the Badger not lick her face to wake her up, though.
“Alright, I’m getting up already. Now, what are we up to this morning?” She complained.
“Same as yesterday. Breakfast, rescue the Acolytes from themselves, then training.” Karl replied with a shrug, then jumped as Cara smacked his ass.
[Hmm, getting soft. You need to work out more.]
Karl stroked Cara’s fur backwards to rile up the Void Badger, then left the room to go find breakfast. The first order of business was to call the concierge and have them bring up a stack of parchment paper slips, a set of brushes and some ink, along with a selection of casual clothes for everyone to wear when they weren’t training.
Rae had been busy lately, and she was still training with Overlord Niall even now that the sun was coming up.
The two of them had made great progress last night, if Rae’s impression of the evening was correct, and they were at a point now where even with her Golems out, she couldn’t keep up with the Overlord’s tricks.
Rae got a lot of combat practice, relative to her age, but Niall had spent a lot of his time since reaching Overlord doing security work, and he hadn’t had the chance to really go all out for a long time.
It was a refreshing chance for him to hone his skills against someone with a similar skill set, instead of his usual training partners, whose moves he already knew as well as the other Overlords themselves did. With new practice partners, he would be better prepared should another nation send their own stealth type Overlords against him, instead of the usual Mage or Monster type infiltrators and challengers. For that, he was even willing to upgrade Rae’s reward for the outfit she had made him to a bit of his own blood, instead of Monarch Ranked, as they had originally agreed.
Now that Thor was awake, he was casting [Eternal Lightning] barriers over them both to increase their stamina regeneration so that they could get the most out of the last few minutes of their training. But soon enough, the Overlord would have to go back to work and then get some sleep after spending all night training with Rae.
A gentle knock on the door caught Karl’s attention, and he looked over as Ophelia opened it to reveal Sybil, along with a staff member from the lobby of the building.
It was the employee who spoke first. “Lady Ophelia, a group of trainees is here to see your team. They claim to have morning training scheduled with you, but it is not on the building’s schedule for approved visitors.”
Ophelia nodded. “We didn’t expect them to be up and moving so early in the morning. But if they’re this energetic, perhaps we went too easy on them yesterday. Please invite them up, and we will get a high-energy breakfast into them before a full day of training.”
The concierge nodded. “Will you be requiring any ingredients?”
Ophelia turned to Tessa, who handed a short list to the delicate featured man. “That should do for breakfast. We will cook the rest ourselves.”
“Very good, High Priestess.” He agreed, then turned to leave, with Sybil still standing in the hall.
She turned to follow him, clearly only here because she was interested in what they would have to say, and not because she had been escorted. But Ophelia was faster, and grabbed the little rogue by the back of the neck to put her inside the apartment.
Lotus laughed and signed along as she spoke. “You can wait here for the others to arrive. The building staff won’t keep them away.”
Tessa had ordered a stack of omelettes, which arrived before the acolytes had even been brought upstairs. It would go well with the huge pile of bacon that the clerics were making, ever so reluctantly donated by Hawk.
After his evolution, Hawk actually ate less than he had before, despite his size increase. He would be an Overlord before he even made it through the Royal Ranked boars, if their progress remained steady, but he did enjoy looking at his mountains of food.
“Good morning everyone. Sit and eat to get some energy for the day.” Karl instructed as the acolytes finally made it up to the apartment.
“Sir, we already ate breakfast at the Cathedral.” Aaron reminded him.
“And now you will have a second breakfast, with a lot of high-grade protein. We were informed that you were all full of energy and eager to get training this morning, so we have a more intensive routine planned for the day.”
The trainees began to wonder if the Cathedral’s schedule had made Karl think that they were more energetic than they actually were. They had to admit, they were excited to get into training today, but that didn’t mean that they didn’t have sore muscles, even after healing and a good night’s rest.
But it might also be the Monarch testing them to make sure that they were sufficiently devoted to learning and deserved to keep their spot in this elite team.
For the Special Forces group, it was a given that everything in life would be a test until they graduated. But for the others, they hadn’t had a chance yet to learn just how creative the instructors of the Church Army could be with their training methods.
“What is first on the schedule?” Tessa asked as she finished serving breakfast.
“Strength training. Even mages need some muscle tone and stamina, and with all this extra energy, plus Thor’s magic refreshing them, they should be able to build some strength in a hurry.
Getting a class increases strength for warriors, but it still takes a lot of training to get to peak form. Especially for the Rangers, who will be moving through difficult terrain and chasing their beasts, building that muscle tone will be essential to your survival.” Karl informed the group.
It made sense, but they all got the ominous feeling that they were going to end up doing laps around the field to start their day.