Karl smiled at Sergeant Rita. “Well, Rae does specialize in bleeding attacks, so perhaps it’s better to have the dummy that shows off the bleed effect? But if there isn’t one nearby, we can use the regular plating.”
Rita sighed, and the warrior class professor shook his head. “We don’t have one here. There are only a few in the indoor training area. So we will have to just test the actual attack power and then note the additional bleeding afterwards. What skill does she know that causes bleeding?”
Karl smirked, and Daniel answered the question for him. “She learned to use Lacerate after seeing one of the senior year students using it in training. The bleeding damage will be significant, but I think that the damage to the training plates should be enough to show off her destructive nature.”
Then Alice perked up and raised her hand. “I have an idea. Do we still have one of those dummy training vehicles for the artillery mages? We can let her shred an armoured car. Just put different plates on each zone and see how long she takes to get through.”
Terrifying the students with a giant spider tearing apart an armoured car was what Rita was trying to avoid, but both the warrior class professor and the students seemed even more enthusiastic about the idea than Alice was, and a pair were sent to pull the dummy vehicle over.
“It is already set up with three grades of plating, for the upcoming exams. I won’t tell Rae which are which, but she should be able to tell once she starts.” The warrior explained.
The vehicle was just a shell with detachable plates, and didn’t quite look like a functional vehicle, but it was close enough for the purposes of training, and they had even put a test mannequin in the driver’s seat.
The vehicle was blocked in place with tire chocks, and the teacher gestured toward it. “If you can call Rae out, we will be able to test impact force from the sensors on the back of the plates, and cutting force from the damage done to the plates themselves.”
Hawk thought that sounded pretty good as well. He wouldn’t mind chopping up an armoured vehicle, so he would go after Rae and finish off the damaged target.
[Don’t destroy it too badly. The chassis needs to be reused for the testing of others. We will have to let them replace the plates or find another target before you can play with it.] Karl warned him.
[You’re no fun. Why does everyone else get to show off?] Hawk complained.
[You will get your turn, just probably not to turn the armoured car into scrap, since the warriors still need that one.] Karl tried to calm him.
[I won’t forget. If I can’t eat the target, it should at least be fun.]
Rae faded from her normal matte black with red lower legs to the mottled green and brown of the armoured car, matching herself to the camouflage pattern on the vehicle. The effect made the students smile, but when the teacher gave her the nod of readiness, and Rae launched herself at it, tearing the hood off immediately and discarding it to punch an armoured foreleg through the windshield and bite a chunk of roof plating off, the amusement turned to horror.
Within seconds, most of the plating was destroyed, the doors had been torn off their hinges, and even the Ascended Rank plating was dented and bent far enough for her tear it off the vehicle.
Rae hopped off the armoured car with the driver dummy in her mandibles as a sign of victory, and the students cheered.
“That was insane. I used to have a cat that went crazy when the food was brought out. This was a bit like that, except Rae actually peeled the can open to get to the food inside.” One of the warriors noted.
One of the others shuddered. “That wasn’t a mental image that I needed. Did you know that spiders usually eat their prey alive?”
Rae nodded happily, and a number of the other students backed away.
“It’s their instinct. Fresh food is best, and you can’t get any more fresh than that.” Karl explained.
[And if you start while they’re alive, they will sing for you as you eat.] Rae added.
[I’m not telling them that.]
The warrior class teacher gave a rueful look at the mangled vehicle. Some of those armour plates weighed over a hundred kilos, and they had been tossed around like bits of tin as Rae looked for the best way into the vehicle.
“Maximum combined attack power is exactly fifteen hundred points. That is well into Ascended Rank attack power. I did notice that the attack force increased as the assault went on. Does she need time to build up her attack power?” The teacher asked after a moment to check the numbers.
“Only the first time. One of her skills is adaptive, so after she has learned the most effective way to destroy a target, she won’t have to do it again. But this is the first time she has faced an armoured car.” Karl explained.
“So, we just taught her to tear apart an armoured car, and the next time she does, she will start where she finished this time?” The professor asked.
In response, Rae shot out one armoured forelimb, and the whole vehicle rocked up on two wheels as she punched a hole in one of the remaining plates.
“I will take that as a yes. Fourteen hundred and fifty-three points.” The warrior laughed.
Then the professor turned to the crowd. “Can anyone suggest a more effective method of getting the driver out of the vehicle?”
Thor flicked his head and stomped his feet, earning a pat from the teacher.
“That is one way. If you flip it over and attack from the underside, you can get in more easily, as the floor pan is only one plate.” He agreed.
“Or you could start with cutting the hinges and pulling the door off instead of destroying the armour.” One of the students asked.
“That’s another possibility.”
Hawk exited the space and took flight overhead, then sprayed a plume of flame at the vehicle, letting it stop short of actually making contact, as Karl had told him not to destroy it.
The teacher shook his head. “Well, I suppose that is right as well. If you set the car on fire, he will come out of his own free will.”
One of the warriors in this group had been with Karl on the away mission, and he took out the flaming sword he had gotten as a reward.
“That would do it, but first you need to penetrate the vehicle, unless you are going to attack the fuel tank through its armour plating.” The teacher reminded him.
One of the warriors walked over to the armoured car and pulled up the front. Even with half the plates laying on the ground around the vehicle, he still couldn’t lift it.
“Can even Thor flip this thing at a dead stop?” He asked.
Thor put his upper pair of horns under the floor and lifted it until the wheels came off the ground, then stepped back.
“Point taken. Warrior strength and monster strength are not the same thing.”
Alice waited for the boy to step back, and then cast layered barriers over the armoured car.
“Hawk, how about we see how long it takes you to get to the car? Some of the sensors are still set up to record your attack power, so you can show off for us.” The petite mage suggested.
Hawk crowed, and seemed to shimmer in the air as if surrounded by immense heat.
Then [Shred] smashed through the first three layers of barrier in a single volley, and another barrage was close behind it.
The fourth and fifth barriers went down as Hawk dove and spit out a fireball that engulfed the area, taking out the sixth barrier with ease.
The seventh was covered in flames from the attack, and when Hawk hit it with a twin barrage of Rend, the barrier broke and the last of the six rend slashes hit the truck.
“Top attack power recorded as Twelve hundred and ninety. Ascended Rank energy, and from the damage to the barriers, I will say that it was comfortably over the Ascended Rank combined attack power.” The warriors’ professor noted.
“It was. The multiple Ascended Rank attacks at once are truly impressive in their total output.” Alice agreed.
Then Alice let out a stream of water that put out the burning grass, and Hawk cast her a suspicious look.
“Oh, don’t glare at me like that. I’m a Wind Mage, I just happen to know both basic water and fire spells.” She informed the bird.
Hawk grumbled as he continued to fly, then glided over to where the mages were practising to take out his annoyance on the water mages in that class.
“Inside joke?” The warrior Professor asked.
“Hawk has a vendetta against water magic for flowing around Rend attacks.” Karl explained to the warriors’ teacher.
“He’s a unique one, for sure. But it looks like he has the tools to deal with them now.
Alright, everyone, enough gawking. Get back to work, you’re already behind the friendly Cerro, and you’re not going to catch up without hard work.” The Professor insisted, chasing his students back to their training stations.
Karl gestured toward the berserker area. “Thor, you can go practice Earthquake as well. We will work on a plan to build up your lightning soon, don’t worry about it and just keep working on your skills.”
One of the students frowned at them as Karl sent the other two pets away.
“If you say that Rae will be testing our Guard skills, I am going to suffer a sudden illness that requires me to recover in my room for the day.” He insisted.
