The group sat in the grass and watched Thor charge the barrier over and over, while Rae laughed at him and Hawk lazily circled in the air over the field.
Once they had realized that the monsters were with the Elites in the field, the local citizens’ panic had subsided. The Elites had seen stranger things in their time than a few tame beasts, so although they were deadly, the townsfolk quickly realized that they weren’t a threat.
Once it started to get dark, Rae finally came down from the tree, blending into the grass as well as she could until she was hidden behind Karl’s back where he sat at the edge of the field. That let her observe the humans from much closer, while Hawk and Thor returned to their spaces to rest.
“We now know what allows the Bloodbath Spider to be so deadly. Lovely Miss Rae here can adapt her attacks to whatever she is targeting, so it’s the most efficient option for destroying it.” Karl was explaining to the others.
[Hey, why are you telling them that.] She protested.
[So they can come up with a way to help you make it even stronger.] Karl replied.
She had to think about that for a while, as did the other Elites.
“Can you do it, since you’re bonded with her?” Alice asked.
“I can, but not as well as she can.” Karl agreed. He couldn’t modify his gloves or even his fingernails with the ability like she could her claws and mandibles, but the energy from Rend could be altered to some degree when it was held in a layer over them.
Alice brought up another barrier, and Karl focused for a second before throwing a full strength [Shred] at it.
The spell changed from red to golden as it hit the barrier, and the field filled with golden light as the spell was dissipated.
Pain lanced through Karl’s skull, and he cradled his head in his hands.
“It looks like I’m not quite at full recovery yet. The energy draw still makes my head hurt after a single attack. Once the spaces are in better shape, I think that it should be fine. A week, maybe two.” He explained.
The others sighed in resignation. They would have to explain that he was injured during a training mishap if he wouldn’t be healed before they returned, and they really didn’t want to have to fill out the paperwork involved in returning an injured student to the Academy.
“Why don’t we give it another day here, and you can meditate with the lightning barrier up the entire time except for meals? Then we can judge whether it will take the full two weeks to completely recover.” Daniel suggested.
“That’s not a bad idea. I will start as soon as we get back. I understand now how to hold the barrier tight to my body so it doesn’t burn things through my clothes.” Karl agreed.
Daniel gestured for him to try, and then grabbed Karl’s shirt and nodded in satisfaction when he didn’t get shocked.
“That works for me. I will go buy a good cushion or a beanbag chair for you. If you’re going to meditate that long, comfort is important.” The warrior informed the group.
Karl ushered everyone into the space, against Thor’s protests. He was tired, but he wasn’t done with the barrier game yet.
“You can play again later. There are more mages at the Academy who can create them, and Miss Alice will be at most of my classes to make them while I work.” Karl explained.
Thor was excited, but Rae wasn’t much less eager to test that barrier again. She would take some time to figure out how it worked, and grow a little more, then she was certain she could find a way to destroy it. If it existed, she could eventually find a way to tear it apart to get to the good bits inside.
Maybe that was it, she might just be lacking motivation. She would ask Karl to put food inside the barrier when she was ready to try again. That should help. Or she could practice on Thor’s barrier, and try to break it right before he could ram it. That would be fun too.
The fact that Alice was a Commander Rank mage made no difference to Rae. It was just a matter of time in her mind before she would be able to smash that barrier with a single strike.
Karl had two goals that night. First, he would create a nice shady set of low trees for Rae to rest and make her web in, and he would make a training field for Thor to run around. That would be enough to keep the two of them happy for a little while, and the standard of having decent plant life corresponded to the level of beast space development that Hawk needed when he first advanced to Awakened Rank power.
Karl was assuming that the development of the space that was needed would be the same for all beasts at the same power level, and he would just have to keep up while they went through their initial growth phase, so the space didn’t fall behind and cause him this same mental pain again.
Being unable to use the abilities that he had was a huge step backward for his personal power, even bigger than the degradation of his body that had yet to recover.
Jodi returned not long after they reached the hotel with a large beanbag chair and a smile on his face.
“This one is perfect. It is filled with glass beads. They’re an electrical insulator, so the shock shouldn’t travel anywhere, even if it leaks from Karl,” he announced.
That wasn’t quite how magical lightning worked, it would melt the beads, but nobody bothered to mention that, as a beanbag chair was precisely what they needed, and even if the lightning leaked and melted the beads, it should form a more comfortable seat for Karl tonight.
Once the recovery process was complete, Karl wouldn’t have to split his energy into healing himself, and the development of the Beast Spaces would improve, but for now, the teams were more worried about avoiding a lingering injury report and light duty training modification appeal to go with the incident report that they were already going to have to do.
