With their match concluded, Oliver and his party watched as the rest of their group of recruits battled it out in the arena. Compared to their battle the rest of the battles looked like a bunch of little kids swinging around wooden sticks at each other. There were a few good match's but most of them were just awful to watch.
This just goes to show again how different it was for most of the country compared to Shadow Glades. Oliver and company had been trained from a young age in the art of combat since they grew up so close to the wilderness. For them even if they hadn't gotten conscripted into Fated Sects war they would've still been expected to fight once they had acquired their classes. That was just the fate of everyone who lived in Shadow Glades.
Even though the small city was on good terms with most of the nearby beast kings, the beast kings only really controlled their own kin. Meaning that there were still a lot of beasts that didn't fall under the beast kings umbrella. Having beasts make their way to the city was just an everyday occurrence being so close to the wilderness. Even having beast somehow bypass their city walls and appear inside the city was something that occasionally happened.
After all the matches had ended everyone made their way back to the Mess hall and ate dinner. This time dessert was cake, which Loki took upon himself to eat all of said cake himself. Brutus was able to take a bite of his cake this time before Loki appeared. In the end Brutus was only able to take that one bite before it was eaten by a Shadow Weasel with a sweet tooth.
After dinner everyone returned to their lodging and went to sleep because lessons would start early the next day.
Upon waking up and getting ready Oliver found that he was missing not only one of his daggers but there was also a missing shadow weasel. Using the soulbind Oliver was able to pinpoint Lokis position which turned out to be under his cot. When he looked under his bed he found Loki laying atop his missing dagger. Oliver tried to take his daggers from Loki but the Shadow Weasel just hissed at him and told him that the dagger was his now and that all of Olivers shiny things were now his. Which Oliver found kind of funny because his daggers blade was barely even shiny since the blade was black. It took him several minutes and several scratches to his hand and even a bite mark before he was able to recover his stolen dagger. Oliver had a faint premonition that this was going to be a recurring theme in the morning.
Oliver eventually made his way to breakfast at the Mess hall with a disgruntled Loki lounging on his shoulders. After getting their food and taking a seat with the rest of his party members Oliver quickly began to eat his food, determined to eat it all before Loki finished his and moved on to his.
"I saw Loki steal your dagger this morning and when I went to go get it back for you Loki puffed up and hissed at me which made me decide it wasn't worth the effort." Tina said as she tried to suppress a laugh.
At this point Loki had finished his food and was prowling the table to eat someone else's only to find that everyone had already finished there's. Loki hissed at them all which Oliver knew meant that he was saying this was a conspiracy against him.
After breakfast they made their way to their first lesson of the day, combat training. Yet again Oliver found himself in front of Vincent battling with practice weapons. This time Oliver had gotten more used to Vincent's combat style and was able to land several killing blows on his frustrated opponent. This time the were allowed to use their skills which made it so that Vincent was constantly spamming his Disengage skill which made it so he could move backwards twenty feet enabling him to put considerable space between himself and his adversary. Unfortunately for him though, between Oliver's Shadow Step skill and his Fleet Footed skill Vincent found himself hard pressed to defend himself.
Before too long the combat training lesson came to an end with Vincent being bruised up and thoroughly frustrated.
Richard then split them into two groups. Group one was to learn from the other instructors in how to command their beasts more effectively. While group two would be taken to the arena in order to fight captured beasts with their soulbounds.
Oliver and his companions were part of group two and made their way to the arena.
"Today's beasts combat training will consist of you forming party's of two with a support beast in order to fight a level ten beast we have captured. If no one in your usual parties has a support soulbound then you will party with someone from another party to take on the beast. This means that those of you with support soulbounds will be fighting multiple times, but don't worry I'll be sure to make it so your soulbounds will have enough time in between fights to recover all of their health and mana." Richard explains.
"First up will be Oliver Shadowmere and his party member Tina. Tina has a rare Plant Sprite as her soulbound and you all should pay attention on how it fights because I expect many of you will need to party up with her since support soulbounds are so rare to have." Richard says.
Loki and Tina's plant Sprite make their way into the arena and wait for the gate built into the arena to open to reveal their opponents. Before long the gate opens and they find themselves against a level ten Dire Bear.
Dire Bears are notoriously hard beasts to take down because they're both a tank and DPS beast. They have thick fur which makes many attacks not be able to pierce its actual flesh while also having very large and sharp claws and even sharper teeth. Dire bears have the same skills as Dire Wolves them being Frenzy which increases its damage by ten percent at the cost of their rationality, and Fierce bite which causes increased bleeding for one minute.
As soon as the gate opens and reveals the Dire Bear the fight starts.
The dire Bear is five feet tall while its on all four legs and around six feet long, overall its a very large and intimidating beast to fight. Standing up on its hind legs the Dire bear lets out a bloodcurdling roar and a faint red light seems to appear around its body. This is it activating the Frenzy skill. It then lunges at Loki.
Before it can get to Loki though Tina's Plant Sprite activates it skill Entangling roots which is the same as Tina's Entangling Root skill. Roots burst from the ground and try to entangle the large Dire Bear. As the Dire Bear is trying to power through the roots, Loki turns into a shadow and makes his way on top of the Dire Bear where he re materializes and activates his skill Shadow Change which uses shadows to enlarge his teeth or claws three times while increasing his attack power by twenty percent if his opponent is unaware of his presence. In this case Loki buffs his teeth and clamps down on the Dire Bears tough neck. The bite is able to pierce the bears tough skin and tears through its flesh. The bite though causes the bear to go into an even deeper frenzy where it not only shakes off Loki but also causes it to bust free from the roots entangling its body.
Loki is still in the air when the Dire Bear breaks free of the roots and the bear tries to take a slash at Loki with his large sharp claws. Right before the claw descends on Loki's unprotected body a shield of thorny plants materializes in the way of the attack, This is the Plant Sprites Thorny Shield skill which creates a shield at the targeted area which not only protects the target but also rebounds the attacker while also doing a small amount of damage depending on how strong the attack was that hit the shield. This shield will last for five seconds.
The Dire Bear is pushed back several feet with its paw now bloody from the thorns of the shield. The shield gives Loki enough time to slip into the shadows again, only to again reappear on the back of the Dire Bear. The bear try's to shake off the Shadow Weasel but Loki's agility is to high and he's able to use Shadow Change again, but this time he buffs both of his claws and swipes both of them at the wound that he already made with his last attack. The Claws descend and rake two bloody lines across the back of the beasts neck. This attack sends the Dire Bear to the ground for an instant before it goes into even more of a frenzy and thrash's around trying to dislodge Loki from its back. Loki jumps from its back while Tina's plant Sprite entangles the Dire Bear with roots again. The Dire Bear struggles to break free when all of a sudden Loki appears underneath of the Dire Bears body with the bear being none the wiser. Loki then activates Shadow Change again but this time he uses it on his teeth. Loki then jumps up and latches his teeth onto the bear jugular. The elongated teeth strike true and breaks into the bears windpipe where Loki begins to fiercely shake his head back and forth as he try's to rip out the bears throat. The Dire bear thrash's around as it try's to dislodge Loki as well as break free from the entangling Roots, but this only makes Lokis attack more active because the vicious Shadow Weasel doesn't let go. Before to long the Dire Bear slumps to the ground dead. Loki has to turn into a shadow and escape from under the now dead beast body or else risk getting crushed under the dead weight of the bear.