It was a few days of objective ti, but a few weeks of subjective ti for them as they leveled. Despite a bit of a slower pace, Beth and Sera and Blood had caught up with Neph and then surpassed her, though they had helped pull her level up quite a bit in the anti. Beth left Neph with the gate, as she had done before, while the three of them went looking for training. Well, they didn't really go looking, per se, as they were just going to get so coaching from Baelvyr.
"What, girlie?" he asked her when they found him on the arena floor.
"We need training," Beth said simply.
"And I'm old. Say sothin' more obvious," he retorted sarcastically.
Beth peered at him closely, looking around the floor for a mont. "The hell ya doin', girlie?" he grumbled.
"The way you replied, I'm pretty sure you're Jaq, but I don't see Baelvyr anywhere," Beth answered.
"Knock it off," he rumbled, cuffing her hard enough to kill a lesser being.
"So, can we get so training, or not?" Beth demanded.
"Please say not," Blood grumbled.
"Blood," Beth chided in a growling voice.
"That's ," the lupine woman grumbled.
"Enough, you lot," Baelvyr commanded. "John!"
"What's wrong now?" the rogue asked, appearing next to Baelvyr.
"Get one of those new Gold Emblems here on trainin’ to go to the front desk and replace Tazeen," he said. "I need him for these three."
"You what now?" John asked, looking at the three. He stared at Beth for a minute and his eyes lit up for a second before he said, "Ah, built a really strong one there, kiddo. I see. I'll go get him."
John disappeared, quite literally, and Tazeen appeared a second later, just suddenly standing next to Baelvyr. The stoic elf hadn't made a sound or disturbed the air at all when he appeared, and he silently looked at the three girls. Unlike the others, there was no indication to Beth that he was using his eye power in any way, but she was absolutely certain he had scanned them. Likely more thoroughly than John, or even Baelvyr, based on what she knew about Tazeen at this point.
"How can I help?" he asked then, glancing at Baelvyr.
"We gotta walk 'em through their paces," he responded. "Let's head down or out sowhere. What's yer preference?"
"I do not care. If they want to go outside, we can," Tazeen replied.
"Let's just use a training room," Beth said.
"Okay. At least yer not quite strong enough to actually damage anythin' in there yet," Baelvyr said, leading the way out of the arena.
They made their way downstairs into the underworks, heading for one of the larger training rooms. It was, in fact, the largest room their Hall had available, with a size of about half of the arena floor, putting it at a good few thousand square feet. The room was large enough that it could be configured into two large stages if the occupants wanted to have two entirely separate drills happening at the sa ti. They wouldn't be using that feature today, as they were all going to be training at the sa ti. Beth knew that Baelvyr could fight with basically any weapon or style, but she only knew that people said Tazeen was very good with the sword. She assud, like Baelvyr and Jaq and the others, that he knew at least sothing of other weapons, so he would likely be able to help several of them and not just her.
"So, what've we got?" Baelvyr grumbled at them.
"Unard and sword," Beth pointed at herself.
"Unard using claws," Blood said, pointing at herself.
"Spears," said Sera, pointing at herself.
"How's yer Unard?" Baelvyr asked Tazeen.
"Grandmaster," the stoic elf replied.
"And yer Spears?" Baelvyr continued.
"Sage," Tazeen replied blandly.
"You are the most blasé person I have ever heard about achieving Sage-hood," Sera said, surprise clearly coloring her voice.
"It's not a big deal," Tazeen said very nonchalantly, Beth watching as Sera just gaped at him.
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"For anybody else, that'd be braggin' a bit much, but it ain't for him," Baelvyr said with a shake of his head. "Anyway, the tall one with the tail is yers, and I got these other two damn louts."
"What got your nuts in a twist today?" Beth asked.
"Havin' to watch all them clowns flail 'bout on the floor all damn day and all damn night drives batty," he growled in response. "If I gotta watch one more of them kids hit themselves in the face cuz they don't know how to swing a mace, I'm gonna show 'em how. The hard way."
"Okay, geeze, relax," Beth said, rolling her eyes. "You know where we're at."
"Yeah, don't I ever," he grumbled. "Co on, let's get you adjusted."
"What's that an?" Beth asked with a frown.
"Ya fight seriously with anythin' since ya built that Physique, girlie?" he asked seriously, a greatsword that looked like a knife in his massive mitt appearing in his hand.
"Well, no, not really," Beth said, her sword appearing in her hand while Blood's claws appeared on her hands. "It wasn't, uh, really necessary. I could kill shit a hundred levels higher than just by slapping it."
"Huh, ya really did build a good one," Baelvyr grumbled. "Anyway, that's why I'm here, to keep ya grounded. I'll knock ya back down a notch."
"Oh, thanks so much," Beth said with another eye roll.
"Any ti, girlie," Baelvyr said seriously. "Now, ti to actually use yer shit and get used to having graduated from the most basic of noobs."
"You just want to attack?" Beth asked, glancing over at Blood, only to catch Sera and Tazeen start from the corner of her eye. The tall elf was wielding a spear like a true expert, blocking or deflecting everything Sera was doing with nothing more than a twist of his wrist.
"I want ya both to try," Baelvyr rumbled, refocusing her attention.
"Well, if you say so," Beth said, lunging forward.
She still wasn't used to her newfound strength, and almost couldn't ti her swing properly as she slamd into Baelvyr. The huge ogre wasn't bothered in the least, easily deflecting her montum with his sword before returning a cut at her torso. Blood was there in that mont, the speedster having failed to really keep up with Beth and having to play catchup during the initial attack, sothing that had basically never happened. The lupine woman deflected the ogre's swing with a double slash of her claws, not using any other skills but her knowledge of Unard to perform the move.
Beth followed up with another slash, having quickly righted herself after Baelvyr's deflection, but she wasn't able to get even close to him. He easily swatted her hit away and returned a powerful thrust towards her chest. Beth Spatial Stepped away from the thrust, appearing beside Baelvyr and striking again, Blood coordinating a use of her new blood-based skill at the sa ti, but Baelvyr deflected it all with just the sword, not needing any skill to stop their attacks. He countered with a series of incredibly fast and precise slashes that had both girls on the back foot at the sa ti, knocking Blood away entirely, though Beth only slid back a small amount.
"Sloppy," he grunted then as they resud their attack. "I can't even teach ya anythin' today cuz ya can't move properly. Look at that swing yer doin' now; that ain't gonna hit. Yer so unused to yer new power and body that ya can't even move just the way an Expert should. All we're gonna do today, us three, is work on the two of ya both controllin' yer power, especially ya. Swords are supposed to be a weapon of finesse and skill; ya ain't wieldin' a hamr, girlie. Focus."
Beth just grunted in acknowledgent and continued attacking. She had been able to feel it herself; her skills were easily able to keep up with her power, but she wasn't. She needed ti, particularly fighting at her full strength, to get used to what a big change a Mana Physique brought to her body. Her power was off the charts, and that was without using any skills. If she kicked it into high gear and used a skill, her power output was unreal. Baelvyr could easily shrug off or negate anything she did with a literal shrug, but she had to be careful not to catch Blood in the crossfire or the wolf would be in serious trouble.
Using a skill like Spatial Step was so different it was like a different skill entirely. The mana moved through her body as naturally, and a hundred tis as quick, as breathing. She also had so much more mana that it would take forever to run out now. Building her Mana Physique had not only dramatically expanded her mana reservoir, but it had linked her entire body together as both storage and pathway. Compared to running her mana through her veins before, her entire body could be used as a path; if she cast Spatial Obliteration now, her entire arm would move the mana to her knuckles and fire it out. It was sothing very difficult to get used to, and Beth was glad Baelvyr was willing to spend the whole day with them working on it.
Blood took far less ti to get used to her new power and skills, as she had mainly just bumped one skill up and needed so practice incorporating it into her combat style. Sera, as well, was mainly solid on her current combat capabilities, just relishing the chance to train against soone who had already reached Sage in her preferred weapon. Tazeen was very stoic about everything, but maybe only one in a hundred would ever reach Grandmaster in a weapon. Out of those, only one in a thousand of them would find the spark and experiences necessary to breach the bounds and enter the realm of Sage. Saying that Sages were one-in-a-hundred-thousand might even be rather generous, and that was considering that many Wayfarers either quit long before that point or died without being able to reach those heights, not even ntioning all the people who leveled a handful of tis and then decided to live a 'normal' life afterwards.
Beth spent the entire day training, her single-minded focus kicking in long after Blood and Sera had called it a day. Tazeen had, surprisingly to her, stuck around for quite a while, offering a small tip or trick occasionally to help her cope with her new power. She had continued long past the point Blood and Sera had left, and eventually Baelvyr told her to go and relax. She needed ti resting and thinking to understand her body and process everything she had learned during the day.
Beth still wasn't that tired, returning to her suite to relax with the others, but first, a shower. She washed off and left the shower cubicle to find Sera waiting for her, with Blood having drawn a bath while she was washing off. The dragon girl picked Beth up and carried her to the tub, settling down across from Blood with the brawler in her lap. Neph joined them a few minutes later, slling rather interesting, what Beth assud to be the aftermath of a day practicing alchemy. The bee was shooed over to the shower first to wash most of that off before joining them in the rather large tub, though she insisted on sitting on Blood's lap.
Once they were at the point of pruning, they exited the tub and saw about getting so food, Beth finding that her appetite had certainly increased. Even taking into account the entire day of practicing with two skilled masters at or above the Sage level, she was still eating more, likely due to her Mana Physique. Not that she was matching Sera when the dragon used her gluttonous skill, but she put up a healthy showing, nonetheless.
They relaxed on the couch after dinner in the early night, Neph happily chatting about alchemy and everything she had done that day. Beth made the gate, which she had left up in the room, disappear for now. They could take Neph out leveling in situ in the coming days, with plenty of places around that she could push herself without being too unsafe about it. The area with the kobolds and cave brutes would be quite good for her current level and allow her to experience what an actual dangerous zone was like compared to the uniformity of Beth's gate.
They turned in a bit late that night, Sera carrying Beth back to one of the bedrooms to engage in so fun activities. She also kept up her promise to put Beth's vastly increased stamina to use, or to the test, as it seed she was determined to go all night long. Beth definitely wasn't going to complain, especially considering the dragon girl took a very active role that night, leaving Beth in a very blissful state by the early morning. Sera was a bit tired, but she could go for days without sleep, and a quick nap of a couple hours before it was fully light was more than enough to recover her from their nightly endeavors.
They spent five days training, working very closely with Baelvyr and a little bit with Tazeen. Neph was still under John's tutelage, the crafty rogue teaching her about both alchemy and using her daggers, seemingly a bit impressed with her natural skills in stabbing people who weren't paying attention. Beth still needed to have a talk with him at so point about what he was teaching soone who was essentially still a child, but it was lower on the priority list. She would rather Neph be dangerous and a little callous about poisoning soone than her being too squeamish and winding up with a knife in her own back.
Once Beth had had a handle on her powers, and the others had had plenty of coaching, they all made a gain in one way or the other. Beth's Unard improved first, even with her focusing on the sword, but that skill soon followed. Sera saw a rapid increase to her Spears skill, having already been on the cusp of a level-up, and then training with a Sage for several days pushing her to a second level very rapidly. The dragon girl was very talented, it was just she hadn't put a lot of effort into her weapon, preferring to wear her enemies down or use her advantage in stats and equipnt to tear through what or whoever she was fighting.
Little needed to be said about Blood, as the wolf was very skilled in all respects. While she was a genius when it ca to humanization, her other aptitudes didn't fall far behind. Given dozens of hours of concentrated training from so of the most skilled people in the entire galaxy, her weapon skill improved, along with a surprising level in Blood Queen's Claws, which even impressed the jaded ogre, to a certain degree.
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