Karl looked around the camp site and realized that it was mid-afternoon. Over six hours had passed since he left, though it only felt like a few minutes in his mind.
He went to move toward the fire, where there should be some fresh skewers to cook meat for lunch, and nearly tripped over a small golden chest at his feet. That wasn’t anything that he had seen before, but the moment he touched it, the chest vanished from his hands, and a burst of knowledge entered his mind.
[Taming Ability: Skill Master] Increases the chance of a beast learning new skills when actively used during training.
Was that what his class was supposed to be? He wasn’t just collecting the beasts and creating a place for them to grow strong, he was supposed to be teaching them new skills as well? Was that even possible without the help of the Skill Books?
They were a powerful magical item, and it had taken the Inscriptionist group nearly a decade to learn how to make them, but this new ability Karl had been rewarded with seemed like he would be able to teach them new magical abilities at will. Hawk had been able to use [Wind Shield], so if it was the right element, they might even be able to learn magical spells.
There was more to the knowledge than just the title, and as Karl focused on the skill, he began to understand the way that it should be used. With the skill active and the beast watching the ability that you wanted them to learn, as well as some related resources as needed to increase their compatibility, he should be able to teach them to use an incredible variety of new skills.
They lived at the Academy, there should be all sorts of skills available to watch on any given day. He might even be able to teach his pets some of the skills that the others already knew.
Karl brought up Thor’s lightning barrier around himself to help clear and focus his mind, as well as recover from the strain of the previous days’ trials and three nights sleeping on the ground. If he could teach this to Rae, how much more dangerous would she become? Or [Shred]. If she could learn that ability, she would absolutely annihilate anything that she attacked.
The real question was if she would be compatible with either of them. Karl couldn’t see Thor being capable of using Offensive Adaptation or Rend without some major attunement, or Hawk using Refreshing Lightning as he needed the delicate adjustments of airflow over his wings to fly.
But Rae might be able to use some new attack abilities, or possibly even fog, or a stealth skill, as her body coloration would naturally adapt to her surroundings. Just thinking about the possibilities was getting Karl excited, and the beasts weren’t even finished their daily training for him to try anything.
So, he passed some time meditating, and improving the beast spaces while he wasn’t on the stairs, giving himself a chance to compare the two training environments.
The difference was depressingly obvious. Though he had learned the technique to improve both the size and quality of the space while he was in the trial, his actual effectiveness at it when he was not partaking in the trial was less than a tenth as high. It would take him a month to get as much gain as he did in two days on the mana training stairs.
But compared to before he had learned and refined the techniques here, it was still much faster. That one month, which would feel so long after being on the stairs, was still equal to an entire semester or longer before they had gotten this opportunity.
So, there was no denying that this Holy Relic was a massive improvement for anyone lucky enough to have been able to enter, or that the change would have lasting benefits that could help them through their entire life.
As the sun got closer to the horizon, the other students began to tire of their training, and prepare to head back for the night. They had gotten an incredible amount from the Holy Relic so far, and most of them were only staying until the day ended out of general principle.
So, when the first one to come back early arrived, he wasn’t expecting to see Karl sitting by the fire, and he certainly wasn’t expecting the small silver box that appeared in his hands.
“What is this?” He asked nobody in particular.
“Try opening it. I got a gift from mine.” Karl replied, eager to find out what the others would be rewarded with.
The warrior pressed the latch, and the lid popped open, then the small chest vanished, and a large flaming sword appeared in his hands.
“This is… wow.”
Karl nodded in agreement. “That is pretty astonishing. I don’t know what you’re going to do about the safety measures needed to carry a giant flaming sword everywhere, though.”
The boy smiled, and the sword vanished. “The chest says that it is bonded to me, I can use it at will and dismiss it when it is not in use. That will be so useful later, being able to have a blade in reserve on occasions when carrying a weapon is forbidden.”
“You’ve got a point. Especially after you graduate and take up a job of some sort. If you’re in an office somewhere, you’re not going to be able to keep weapons handy all the time, and if you get an emergency call, it would take quite a while to go to your car, or run to the nearest armoury to get them.
Plus, it’s a giant flaming sword. How cool is that?” Karl agreed.
A few minutes later, another student came back, one of the mages, and she was clearly nursing a sore head. She must have over exerted herself in the rush to get a gain before the trial ended, and had to leave early.
She tripped over the small silver box in front of her, as Karl nearly had with his golden one, and landed on the ground holding her head.
The warrior was only a few steps away, not quite fast enough to catch her, but he was there a split second after.
“Are you alright? You tripped over the reward from the trial. Pick it up and open it when your head feels better.” The boy told her, eager to see what she would get.
If he got a sword, then the mages might get a spell, or a wand or something equally amazing.
It took her a few minutes to recover, but she picked up the box with curious reverence, as if it might crumble in her hands, but she simply had to see what was in it. The box was tiny, and nearly fit in the palm of one hand, but when she opened it, a large book appeared in its place.
For a few seconds, she was silent, likely listening to the trial inform her of what she had been granted, and then she began to squeal and dance around happily.
“I got a spellbook. An actual spellbook.” She cheered as she dismissed the book and pulled the warrior into a swinging happy dance.
“That is remarkable. So, you can just cast all those spells by looking at the book?” He asked.
“Even better. I can just cast all those spells because I know them now. But if I hold the book, I get a bonus to my magical damage and mana recovery rate.” She explained.
Then the influx of students began, as the trial forced them all from the stairs as the sun went down.
[You will be ejected from this space in twelve hours. The trial is now complete.] The crystal Golems announced, while all the students were still staring in wonder at the small boxes in their hands.
Some looked like jewellery boxes, some were small treasure chests, and a few of them seemed to be poorly wrapped holiday presents. There was likely some method to the madness, Karl assumed.
Then he noticed the colours. Almost all of them were silver, but Dana’s was a small gold chest as his had been, and the worst wrapped of the lot were all in bronze paper.
It might be based on their accomplishment while here in the trial, as Karl and Dana were the most advanced and best prepared to begin with, but Karl suspected that it had something to do with their power levels, or some outstanding student who had been a bit slow at the start of the school year likely would have gotten a gold box as well.
