Divine Beast Ascension

It wasn’t difficult to get everyone up in the morning, not when the sweet aroma of breakfast filled the entire campsite.

Once the students were gathered and enjoying her cooking, Ania spoke up, “Remember, today is the first of seven days to hunt. I’d recommend that you gradually go further into the jungle and learn just how far you’ll have to go to find your desired prey, so spend today in groups while you figure out the jungle.”

“And don’t worry, we’ll be here to help if you just shout,” added Klor with a mouth full of food.

With that, everyone started to plan out their day while finishing breakfast.

Oli looked at his three friends. “So, do you guys want to travel in pairs? Even if we aren’t getting the most beasts that way, we’ll be able to get better quality beasts. And I think facing adepts beasts would help us break through the adept plane fastest.”

“Makes sense.” Yeter nodded, excited to face beasts stronger than himself.

.....

“Also, they won’t have cultivation techniques or battle arts like us. So in a way, we’ll actually have an advantage,” added Karos.

Netra smiled. “Exactly, that’s why I agree. I’ll go with Oli while you two take care of each other.”

“How about we travel together today, the four of us?” asked Oli. “That way we can really test ourselves and figure out the territories here. We don’t want to run into low or mid adepts without a way of defending ourselves.”

“Yeah, let’s do that,” agreed Karos.

As Netra nodded, Yeter shouted, “Let’s go already! I can’t wait to win!”

Karos shook his head. “Let me finish my food first, and don’t be so loud when we’re actually hunting.”

“Oops...”

The others laughed at the anxious Yeter as they finished their meal.

After breakfast, all the students started to form teams in order to test the hunting grounds. Once they were ready, they started to slowly trickle into the jungle.

Oli’s group was the first to leave thanks to Yeter pushing the others to hurry.

Karos led the way, having the most experience hunting prey. He guided the others at a quick pace through at the beginning, getting slower the further in they went.

The group saw plenty of low and mid novice beasts, but they didn’t bother with them.

When they found mid and high novice beasts, they were surprised to find even more of those than low or mid novice beasts. It was tempting, but they still didn’t choose them as their prey.

A peak novice beast was the first to attack them, sensing that those in the group were just as strong as itself. Sensing a threat, it lunged after Karos.

But the beast was easily pushed aside and thrown into the trees by Karos.

After seeing that, they all agreed that Oli’s plan was best, to travel in duos to face adept plane beasts that could actually prove a challenge to them.

That peak novice beast retreated, glad that no one in the group bothered chasing it.

They continued further into the jungle, having walked for about half an hour from the campground and entering the area for adept plane beasts.

Karos’ squinted as he came to a gradual stop. “There should be a beast in that nearby tree. I can’t sense its level, so it should be at least an early adept.”

“Good, then let’s get closer. Any guess kind of beast it is?” asked Oli.

“It’s a bird, and it’s as big as you.”

Surprised, Oli chuckled, “Sounds like we’ll have some fun. Who wants to be the first one to test themselves against the bird?”

“Oh, let me!” Yeter stepped up and took the lead without waiting for a reply.

“Fine, just be careful. We’re only testing its strength, so we’ll step in if you need it.”

Glad to hear that, Yeter got closer to the tree Karos had pointed at, up until a loud screech sounded out. He looked up to see a giant, colorful bird come out of hiding and stare back at the stallion.

The moment Yeter took another step, the bird cawed and dove down at the stallion.

Everyone watched closely as both the bird and Yeter activated their essence. Yeter gathered it around his hoof while the bird gathered it around its beak. The two attacks clashed and pushed both of them back.

Yeter was shaken but kept standing.

That bird was thrown to the ground, but also stayed on its feet while eyeing Yeter and the others. Rather than backing down like the beasts from before, it cried out before again attacking Yeter, this time with even more essence.

They clashed and proved that Yeter was slightly at a disadvantage, albeit not by much.

Seeing that the fight was quite close, Yeter laughed and took the initiative to charge the proud bird. And since he was now using the battle art he’d been practicing the past month, the stallion managed to break through the bird’s defenses and cripple its wing.

Shocked, the bird’s gaze changed, showing a hint of fear. But now it couldn’t escape and was greatly slowed thanks to it underestimating Yeter.

Not backing down at all, Yeter charged again and again, until he whittled down the bird’s defenses. Lucky that the bird could no longer fly more than a couple of krin, the stallion was able to eventually win the battle.

The others watched it unfold from the sides, happy that their predictions were right.

Though he was pretty tired, Yeter was ecstatic to have bested an adept beast.

“Let’s stay here and let Yeter rest a while,” stated Oli. “This is why I think we should travel in pairs so that one person can fight and then rest while the other fights. And in the case where you’re overpowered, you’ll be able to work together and at least fend off any danger until on instructor arrives.”

“I’m not gonna lie, Oli, your strategy worked better than I expected to,” replied Karos. “The next beast is mine, and I’ll try not to waste as much time as Yeter.”

“Hey!”

“He’s just messing with you Yeter, like how you mess with him,” added Oli.

“Oh... that makes I guess.” Yeter shrugged, a little embarrassed as the others laughed at him.

“Today, we’ll test the area and try to figure out were we’ll find the low adepts. I don’t think we should face any while in pairs, but since we’re all together we should be fine,” explained Oli. “And it would be good to know where that area starts so we can best avoid it for the rest of the sun.”

“We’ll do that,” stated Netra with a smile. “I think that’s a good idea. Even though it seemed easy, Yeter only won without issue because he was underestimated. If we meet an early adept beast that goes all out from the beginning, it’ll be much harder.”

“I guess you’re right...” mumbled Yeter, still proud of his first kill.

“For now, I’ll store the corpse so we don’t have to worry about it,” added Oli as he put the bird’s dead body in his void ring. “Now, let’s give Yeter another half hour or so till we continue. It’s best to get proper rest than to push ourselves and get in trouble with something we can’t handle.”

Following Oli’s advice, they ended up giving Yeter almost a full hour of rest since he had used up all of his essence in the fight. After he was up and ready, they took their time to slowly explore that area instead of going further into the forest.

As they expected, the group soon found another adept beast. This time, it was a boar with four tusks. Unlike the bird that Yeter fought, the boar charged them immediately and released a lot of essence.

Karos smiled and dashed to meet the boar head-on.

Their attacks clashed, proving to equal each other out. But the boar was unfazed and only launched attack after attack, confident in its ability to win the fight.

Since the Karos was unable to overpower the boar and would lose in terms of essence quantity, the lynx used his brain.

As the boar’s charge met his claw attack, Karos’ essence coated tail whipped the boar’s leg, knocking it off balance. Forcing his momentum forward, Karos pushed the boar over and finally landed an attack on the same leg he had whipped.

From there, Karos gradually overwhelmed the crippled boar. After a few minutes of struggling, Karos drove his claw into the beast’s neck, finishing it off.

He dropped to the ground, catching his breath. “That... was tough...”

“Nice job,” complimented Oli as he stored the corpse. “Just rest. Today’s just to learn boundaries and with our quality of beasts, getting one or two a day is already enough for each of us.”

“If you say so.” Karos then closed his eyes and drifted off, relaxing and napping in the middle of the jungle.