by Aaron Oster
This news cheered Morgan up somewhat and he hoped they would make it in time to fight this Patriarch.
They ran into a few more flocks of the ironwool-sheep as they moved through the plains and soon fell into a comfortable rhythm.
Morgan, using his tailwind skill, would rush in and attack the sheep head on. Sarah stood back and took out any that tried to circle him to attack from behind.
As they were handing over another batch of cores, Gold commented on something he’d been meaning to for a while.
“I’ve noticed that you’re quite adept at hand to hand fighting. Care to tell me where you learned to handle yourself like that?”
Sarah’s head perked up at this. She’d been curious about it as well and waited with baited breath for a reply.
“No,” Morgan said, as his face hardened. Then he turned and walked away, making sure to get a good distance from them before slowing down.
Sarah stared after him as he went, more than a little surprised at his blatant refusal to answer the question. She turned to Gold, expecting him to be angry, but instead found him with a contemplative look on his face.
“Can you tell me why he’s so guarded with everyone but you?” Gold asked her.
Sarah bit her lip for a moment, wondering if it would be alright to tell him.
“He’s an orphan,” she finally relented as they began following Morgan. “He grew up on the streets, so he didn’t have an easy life.”
She sighed sadly as she watched his back.
It was stiff as a board, which meant that he was upset, but trying to hide it.
“I see,” Gold said, now understanding just a bit more about the boy who so intrigued him.
He would not to press the issue any further, at least not for today.
For the next two hours, they walked deeper into the Beast Zone. As they went, the ironwool-sheep grew slightly larger and began to hit a bit harder.
When Sarah commented on this, Gold nodded.
“We’re getting close to the Patriarch, so the sheep around here are likely rank 2 or 3.”
Morgan hadn’t spoken since his earlier refusal to answer Gold’s question, but now he broke his silence.
“How much farther is it?”
Gold shaded his eyes for a second, then pointed up to the top of a nearby hill, where a large boulder was obstructing their view.
“The Zone Patriarch is up there. That boulder marks the entrance to his territory.”
As soon as Gold finished speaking, Morgan sped up and began running towards the top of the hill.
“Wait up!” he heard Sarah call out behind him, but he ignored her.
He was still feeling annoyed at Gold’s earlier question as he couldn’t remember who had taught him. In fact, there was an entire two years of memories that were just not there. It was almost as if someone had gone into his head and blocked him from accessing them.
Morgan reached the top of the hill and took a deep breath to calm himself.
This was no time to lose his composure. He would deal with this when the lesson was over and he had time to think.
The Patriarch came into view as he rounded the large boulder and Morgan felt his heart rate redouble with excitement and trepidation.
23
The beast stood at the center of a massive plateau strewn with rocks and small clumps of grass. A tall wall of stone rose around the edges of the plateau, forming a sort of closed in half circle.
The ram- because this was undoubtedly a ram- stood in the midst of a flock of sheep, its ears flicking back and forth as it lowered its head to graze.
It was half again as large as the surrounding sheep, and two massive horns curled around the sides of its head.
Morgan crouched as he prepared a strategy for taking them on.
There were currently eight sheep surrounding the Patriarch. If he moved fast enough and used his wind blade, he could probably kill half of them before they realized what was happening. He could then use his superior speed to finish off the rest and take on the ram.
His planning complete, Morgan used wind blade and felt the familiar rush of air as the spinning lance formed on his arm.
It was then that Sarah finally caught up to him.
“What’s the big idea running off like that, you moron?!” she yelled, placing her hands on her knees and panting for breath.
Morgan winced at the volume of her voice and turned to see that all of the beasts were now looking directly at them.
“Damn it, Sarah!” he shouted, as the sheep let out a collective bleat and charged at them.
She looked up and seemed to notice, for the first time, the predicament they were in. Her mage shield flickered on around her as she straightened. Her arm shot out as she used her frostbite skill and the sheep all noticeably slowed.
“That should give you some time. I’ll cover you!”
Morgan nodded and shot towards the oncoming sheep with lightning speed. The air swirled around him as he ran, aided by his tailwind skill.
He needed to be careful with how much he used it. His regen still wasn’t fast enough to keep the skill going indefinitely and he was already down to only half his remaining MP.
He met the oncoming sheep with a grim smile, his arm shooting forward and skewering one of them through the eye.
There was an explosion of gore as the sheep’s head was torn apart and he just managed to avoid being showered in it, by jumping to the side.
He whirled on the spot and his other hand whipped out as he used wind blade once more. Another lance of air appeared, just in time to shear one of the sheep nearly in half.
A spear of ice flew passed his face and buried itself into the skull of a sheep that was trying to sneak up on him and Morgan waved his arm in thanks. He rolled to the side, avoiding a pair of lashing hooves and came up on one knee; bringing his arm up and destroying the animal completely.
A sound like a thousand sheep bleating at once shook the plateau and Morgan’s head whipped around to see that the ram; who’d been ignoring them up until this point, had turned its gaze on them.
The sheep surrounding him suddenly disengaged and ran back towards him, bleating in terror.
Morgan rose slowly to his feet as Sarah came up next to him, never taking his eyes off the ram. It shook its head, pawing at the ground and snorting. Then it let out another rage filled bleat and charged at them.
“Slow it down. I’ll try to kill it, but I may not be able to do so alone. If you see the opportunity to strike, take it!”
Morgan didn’t even wait to hear her reply before taking off towards the charging ram. He could feel the ground trembling as he approached the massive creature and wondered if he could really kill it.
The ram was only a few feet away when Morgan used tailwind and dodged to the side. The ram snorted in fury as he missed his mark. The roar turned to a bleat as he lashed out with one of his wind blades and cut a deep gash through its wool and into its side.
As the beast turned to face him once more, the telltale shimmer of Sarah’s frostbite appeared around the ram. It shook its head and roared once more. Then it’s horns began to glow a bright red.
Crap, it’s using an ability!
Morgan readied himself as the ram charged once again, lowering its glowing horns and aiming right for him. There was a muffled thump as two icicle spears buried themselves in the ram’s rear and it shrieked in pain, redoubling its speed as it ran towards him.
Morgan was easily able to dodge the incoming beast and watched in horror as its glowing horns impacted against a nearby rock. The rock exploded in a shower of stone fragments and the ram kept going for a few feet before turning around to glare at him once more.
It pawed at the ground and snorted, this time with seemingly more anger, bellowing out in rage and pain before charging once more.
“Challenge accepted, you wooly bastard!” Morgan yelled.
He ran at the beast, fully intending to end the fight.
He closed
the distance between them in a matter of seconds and buried a wind blade right between the beast’s eyes.
The ram died instantly, however the momentum of its charge couldn’t be stopped. Morgan grunted as several hundred pounds of ram crashed into him at full speed. He was thrown several feet through the air and landed on his back with a whoosh as the wind was knocked out of him.
He could dimly hear Sarah laughing as he desperately gasped, trying to get in a lungful of air. He floundered for a few seconds, then finally managed to take a deep rasping breath.
The laughter grew louder as he gasped and spluttered, and soon Sarah’s laughing face came into view.
“Ha ha ha ha! You should have seen it! The great and powerful supermage defeated by a farm animal!”
Morgan groaned in pain as he forced himself into a sitting position. Gold was standing off to one side, a look of amusement on his face as Sarah clutched her sides in mirth.
“I bet you wouldn’t be laughing if you were the one down here,” he said with a scowl, wincing as he got to his feet.
The clothes he was wearing definitely helped, but there was only so much they could do. He was sure he’d gotten a few bruises, but thankfully nothing was broken.
“I wouldn’t have ended up down there! Only an idiot would take a charge like that head on!”
“At least I managed to kill it instead of just shooting it in the ass,” he said, walking over to the dead ram and pulling the metal rod from his belt.
It only took a few seconds to retrieve the core. This one was much larger than the others and Morgan eagerly pulled up its stats.
Name: Ironwool-ram Patriarch core
Rank - 5
Total available energy - 524/524
This core was taken from an Ironwool-ram. As this ram was the Patriarch of a Beast Zone, the amount of available energy has been increased.
Now this was more like it. He could do a lot with this much energy; and if they killed it every day, it wouldn’t take long to move to the next rank.
“Great job, you two.”
Morgan closed the status screen as Gold approached the two of them. He rose to his feet and was about to hand the cover over, when a very noticeable problem presented itself to him.
“Who will get the ironwool-ram’s core?”
“Well, seeing as you were the one who killed it and the beating you took; I believe you deserve it today Morgan,” Gold said with a grin. “Sarah will get the next one and we will switch off by the day.”
He nodded, feeling his growing excitement ebb slightly.
His growth was significantly slower than average, due to him needing energy for two abilities instead of one. If he got three cores like this a week, plus the regular cores of the ironwool-sheep, he should be able to rank up pretty soon. Though he had to wonder how long it would take to unlock the supermage ability.
Morgan looked up as Sarah slapped him on the back, still chuckling to herself.
“I agree, he’s definitely earned that core.”
“Thanks,” he answered dryly.
“Alright, enough of that.”
They turned to see Gold turning the key in midair. The next moment, a tear opened up in space and they all walked through to exit the Beast Zone.
They stepped into their living room and Gold closed the portal behind them.
“Lessons are over for the day. I would recommend you wash off before you eat,” he said, gesturing to their mud and gore splattered clothing.
“I’ll count up the cores and divide them. They’ll be waiting for you in your rooms when you come back from dinner.”
He grinned then and turned to leave the room.
“I’ll see you at eight sharp tomorrow morning; and don’t forget your badges.”
Then he was gone.
Morgan stared at the closed door for a few seconds before he heard a loud exclamation from Sarah.
“You mean we’ll have to do this all again tomorrow?!”
24
Morgan was sitting on his bed, examining the small pile of cores laid out before him. He had already bathed and eaten, making sure to leave his soiled clothes in the laundry bin near the door.
He and Sarah had debated going to the arena to check out some ranked matches, but almost immediately decided against it. They were both too exhausted and had no interest in further fighting.
Now he absent-mindedly rolled the cores around before him, as he contemplated where to put the energy.
There were sixteen cores including the one from the Patriarch, all together giving him an impressive 784 energy to assign.
He was having a hard time, though, deciding on whether to put it all into one ability or to keep a balance between the two. At first he’d been tempted to dump it all into his super ability as it was closer to ranking up, but something told him that he needed to keep his abilities balanced.
With a sigh, he opened the stats of each core in turn and began assigning the energy. Gold had provided a large felt cloth to spread out on his bed and when the cores shattered, the cloth caught all of the fragments.
When he was finally done, he gathered up the sides of the cloth and tied it together with a small piece of string. Then, he set it on his dresser and planned to hand it over to Gold in the morning. He laid down in his bed and turned down the lamp. He could already feel his eyes closing, but decided to take a look at his status before he did.
Name: Morgan
Super: Rank - 4
Energy to next rank - 700/2,300
Mage: Rank - 4
Energy to next rank - 719/2,300
Super ability - Gravity
Mage ability - Air
CP - 170/170 (Regen - 1.8 per second)
MP - 170/170 (Regen - 1.8 per Second)
Strength - 16
Agility - 21
Constitution - 16
Intelligence - 17
Wisdom - 18
Super skills - Fly, Heavy handed
Mage skills - Wind blade, Tailwind
He sighed as he closed his status and pulled his blankets up to his chin.
Not bad for a day’s work.
∞
“Run faster, you lazy good for nothing sacks of garbage! I’ve seen snails that could move faster than you! Pick up the pace!”
Morgan didn’t even have the energy to groan, instead doing his best to run faster under the crushing weight of the chain. His muscles were screaming their protest and he felt like his lungs would soon be exiting his body, but he made sure to keep running.
“Drop to the ground and give me fifty pushups!”
He stumbled to a halt and dropped into the correct position and began loudly counting as he did them.
He’d made the mistake of counting in his head earlier and Gold had made him repeat the entire set, saying that if he couldn’t hear him counting, he probably did it wrong.
Morgan finished counting his set and got shakily to his feet. His arms were so shot, that at this point they felt numb, but his legs had recovered just enough for him to start running again. He passed Sarah who didn’t look any better off than he did.
She was wearing a chain as well, albeit a much lighter one than him. She’d made the mistake of asking why a mage needed physical training and Gold had punished her for it.
After another hour of pure torture, Gold finally called an end to their lesson. At this point, the two of them merely wobbled over to their respective showers without saying a word.
This was their fourth day training under him and the lessons seemed to be increasing in difficulty by the day.
Morgan gritted his teeth as the icy cold water washed over his tortured body. He didn’t hear any sounds from the stall next to him. Gold had so thoroughly wrecked them that Sarah didn’t even have the energy left to curse him.
When the two of them emerged from their showers, they were surprised to see Gold still standing there. He was accompanied by another man that Morgan vaguely recognized.
“Good, let’s
be quick about this. Come on you two, step up.”
Wondering what fresh hell Gold had dreamt up, the two of the warily stepped forward until they were standing just a few feet in front of them.
“You really did a number on these two,” the man said, turning to look at Gold. “It’s almost as though you enjoy torturing them.”
A wide smile stretched across their teacher’s face and he raised his hands as if to say; well, you caught me.
The man stepped up to Sarah and placed his hand on her shoulder. She flinched back a little at his touch, but then stopped. She stood absolutely still for a second, then a cry of ecstasy escaped her lips and she slumped in obvious relief.
The man walked over to Morgan next and placed a hand on his shoulder. He felt a familiar cool feeling wash over him as his battered and abused body knit itself back together.
He groaned in relief as all his aches and pains were washed away, leaving him feeling healthy and refreshed.
“You’re Eric, right?” he asked, as the man stepped back. “You’re the one who healed me after my test to get in.”
“It’s nice to be remembered,” Eric said with a kind smile, as he stepped back to stand next to Gold.
Morgan was almost afraid to ask, but he decided it was best to get this out of the way.
“Why have him heal us?” he asked, noticing that Sarah had suddenly tensed up.
Gold pretend to think for a second before answering.
“Well, since you haven’t gone to the healers since we began our lessons, I figured I’d bring one to you.”
Morgan gaped.
They could have gone to a healer this entire time?!
“You purposely left that out didn’t you? You psychotic sadist!” Sarah practically exploded in outrage.
“Who me?” Gold asked, putting on an innocent look that didn’t fool either of them for a second.
“Come on Morgan, we’re leaving!” she said, grabbing his arm and dragging him towards the door.
“Don’t forget, Sarah, our next lesson is at half past two,” he called after her.
