Twig had woken up the girls and make a golem kick around Daz, which had not even noticed the bickering goblins in his meditative state. “Goooood Morning. The sun is shining, you are all here. It’s time to train!” Twig grinned at them, revealing his needle like teeth. “Whoa. What's up with all these goblins?” Marcella was clearly disturbed by them. “These are your training. You will fight them.” Mira raised a brow. “Fight them all? The three of us?” Twig nodded. “Yes, but you can tell me how many at the same time you want to fight. They will come at you with every intention of killing you though.”

Daz frowned. “We have to kill them?” Twig sighted. It was just like him to refrain from killing. He might be the strongest one of his humans, but also far too friendly and forgiving. His golem had kicked him around a lot, but he never even had retaliated either. “Yes. The bodies are for the tree.” His disciples were not looking happy. Apparently they weren’t so keen on fighting goblins. Shrugging he asked them to explain why they did not want to fight them.

“Well, goblins are weak and stupid. Wouldn’t they be too easy to kill? I mean… I can just use my spells and burn like...about fifty of them at a time. As long as I have mana they don’t stand a chance.” Marcella seemed bored by the idea. Mira jumped in as well. “I doubt they would be very hard to beat, I can also just bind them and use force spells on them. I could not defeat them as fast as Marcella, but I wouldn’t loose.”

Daz looked at them with a slightly open mouth, apparently baffled that the two girls were much more confident than he was. “Uhm. I don’t know, I can’t use magic… Can I take of my armor or do I have to fight with it?” Twig crossed his arms before his chest. “With it. And girls: What if you had no crystal filled with mana. Could you still win?” They also frowned. “I guess not. There are a lot.” Marcella was looking around. Mira also raised a question. “If we can not use much magic then it would be harder.”

Twig accepted their concerns. “Then, we do this without crystal use, you can keep one on you just in case, but using it means surrendering. If you are in trouble I will order them to stop. Light injuries we can heal with the our healing pond. You can also try to just fight them without magic, for training? Whatever you want to try out.” Marcella nodded. “Fine. Who starts?”

Twig already knew who he wanted to fight first. “Daz. Come. Do you want a weapon? Or fight with your bare hands?” His disciple looked unhappy and shrugged. “Bare hands are fine. I don’t hurt myself punching as long as it’s not any sharp weapon.” Twig nodded. He would have to make him a pair of gloves later to protect his hands. If someone skilled used a spear or sword again him, he wouldn’t be able to block any attacks. “Good. How many do you want to fight for a start?”

Daz hesitated for a moment, then he said: “Ten?” Twig reached out to his monsters, and ordered them to assume battle formation. The others were ordered to back further away and leave enough space. While Twig was able to control the goblins with orders as well, he feared them to run in fear after they noticed the strength of their opponents. So he used his a hobgoblin and and two trolls to order them before he gave the order mentally. He made it very clear that they would be killed should they run or give up.

Confidently the goblins huddled up and prepared to rush Daz. Since Twig found them a little too weak he ordered his skeletons that still had some weapons to equip the goblins with them. It was not really all that frightening to see goblins hold wooden clubs, but they would at least hit very much harder if they ever got the chance. Twig unfolded his wings and flew up to the roof of the pavillion. A golem helped the girls move up a few seconds later as well. Apparently they were also eager to see the boy fight.

Daz readied himself for the little battle he had chosen. He was not sure how strong or sturdy a goblin was, but he knew that with this weights on, he would have a much harder time. While he was able to move around and even perform a light jog, quick and precise movements would surely have him in slow motion. Especially against many enemies this would be hard.

But more so than that he was concerned about killing. As far as he was able to remember he had never killed anyone, even at his trial he had managed to stop the dragon inside him from killing the officers. The Dun’lei Rindan that he taught him would be useful though. It enhanced his physical powers, granting strength and speed far beyond what Daz was capable off. The drawback was simple. Using it without a strong enough physical body, would hurt him for every second he used it. There were different stages of this ability too, but so far Daz had not been able to activate it even for a second. Although he had gotten closer to it while meditating.

It would have been a cool thing to try out here though. The little creatures grinned shouted curse words at him. The insults were rather simple minded, most of which did not even make any sense. They were silly, maybe even funny, but hardly threatening. That changed immediately as they were ordered to charge at him. Four of them were smart enough to circle around him to attack from all sides while six just rushed straight at Daz. Now that they got closer the wall of flesh made it hard for him to prioritize a target. If he just smashed one the others would be able to attack him easily in the opening it would create.

Daz just figured to attack all six at the same time would work best, so he dashed forward and slid with his foot forward at them. Sadly the weights slowed his dash down significantly and the creatures took the opportunity to jump in the air. As he slid past, they wasted no time to attack. A club hit Daz on his shoulder while the others just attacked claws first. Two had even thrown away their wooden weapons and just relied on their naturally sharp claws. Daz realised that he had messed up.

Eight hands grabbed his shoulder and arms, the claws scratching him open quite a bit, while another goblin with a club ran around to attack his feet. Daz recovered by kicking him in the side and sent him flying a few meters. They were rather light. He hadn’t kicked all that hard. Quickly he grabbed the arm of a goblin with his right and pulled with all his power. Swirling him around in the air he hit four goblins and made them back up. Then he threw his newly found weapon at another goblin charging at him from the side. Both of them went down, but started to slowly get up, whining. They were sturdier than they looked.

Daz decided to punch harder from now on. Again six goblins stood around him. As one tackled him from behind, the others ran forward as well. This time Daz stood his ground. Dashing away at his current speed would have only brought him into trouble anyway. He kicked one goblin in the stomach with all his power, while he bashed out strikes at a few others. Then the goblin that had tackled him from behind jumped his back, claws ripping into his leather outfit. Immediately Daz let himself fall backwards, squashing the creature between his body and the ground. Another mistake.

While five goblins where knocked out, dead or trying to get up with broken bones five still jumped at the opportunity of him lying on the ground. Daz rolled away, got up in the rolling motion and punched the first two goblins to reach him. He clearly felt his fist crushing their skulls and felt bad for a moment. He hesitated to punch a second later when he should have punched another one. A semi-hard fist hit his face and Daz head-butted the goblin to its doom. Then he chased down a fleeing goblin and broke its neck. Three were still alive, but they ran away towards the hobgoblin in hope for salvation.

Sadly their prayers were not heard. Two were stepped on by the trolls and one was raised in the air and got it’s throat ripped out by the hobgoblin. He showed the corpse around to the other goblins to tell them what would happen if they did not fight. Daz was really out of breath. The weights just took so much energy off of him, and the hits he took did take a toll. On more than one occasion the claws had drawn blood too. The whole fight had barely taken five minutes, but he was more tired than when he was running laps for an hour.

Marcella jumped down off the pavillion roof swiftly and dashed towards Daz. “My turn.” She was grinning. Apparently she was confident to be better than Daz. “I will take twenty!”, she shouted towards Twig. Immediately goblins went to gather up the corpses and piled them up around the little tree. It was disturbing to see roots crawling from underground towards the corpses. They pulled the goblins closer, tore into their flesh and released their blood. Daz frowned. Such a creepy tree. [Leave the tree alone, go heal.]

Daz did as the dark dragon told him. He had asked his name before, but he was only getting one answer. He was apparently called Death. But he would not call him that, no matter what. It was creepy enough as it is. Drinking the red liquid his scratches slowly healed and he felt revitalized. This might just be the best thing his master had summoned so far. Everything else was either repelling or frightening. And his ideas scared Daz as well. He was truly a scary teacher.

He then proceeded to watch Marcella’s fight. She seemed confident in herself. Twenty goblins would be hard. Daz was unsure if he would have won against so many. If they piled on they would just find so many small attacks onto his flesh and wear him down quickly, so he would most likely loose. Maybe he was able to learn something from the way Marcella fought. She stretched her arms a bit, drawing Daz’s gaze towards her body. She was slender, but well trained. His eyes lingered on her behind quite some time before he was able to focus on the impending battle again.

Then it started. Twenty goblins attacked her in the same fashion that they used to attack him. Just their numbers seemed much more intimidating. For a second Daz wanted to help her, protect her. But then he was put in his place mentally. “[Flaming Twinswords]!” Marcella cast a spell, drawing two swords made of pure flames out of nowhere. Immediately she stepped forward, the tip of her blades barely reaching the first line of her enemies, cutting open two bodies. The flaming swords immediately cauterized the wounds and the goblins barely bled at all. Still they go trampled a second later as her attack did not stop them.

She turned her body, stepping back and performing another slash towards their lines as she turned around 360 degrees. This time four goblins fell. She then jumped back slightly, killing two more with upwards strikes before doing the same with downward motion. Ten goblins already died. Only three in the main group remained and seven were circling around her. She dashed through the remaining three cutting their arms off and bodies open in seconds. Then she proceeded to use another spell. “[Throw Weapon III]!” Her two swords swirled towards the approaching goblins cutting them down vertically, killing three more. The remaining goblins were swiftly finished off with fireballs.

Grinning she turned towards Daz beaming at him. Then she smirked and winked. It was a charming smile, Daz realized in this moment, just how beautiful her face actually was. “Show off.”, he commented, smiling himself. She showed him his tongue with a amused face and walked towards him. Just a moment later Mira was next to them and interrupted their little flirt.

Twig had observed his two disciples fighting. While Daz was a little disappointing in his performance, he would get better with experience. Killing did not make him feel guilty much as it seemed which was a huge relief to Twig. Marcella however was really impressive. She showed a lot of control with her abilities and her fighting experience was on point as well. No wonder she was one of the rookies that passed the trial.

Twig ordered the bodies to be piled up over by the tree again, waiting for Mira to tell him her number of goblins. Controlling their fear had been easier than he expected, since he focused directly onto them they obeyed even after fear set in. Most likely it would have not been that easy if he left them to hobgoblin orders. Then Mira called for her numbers.

“I will take one hundred, please!”