Kyrion spent a month adjusting to his new abilities as the guard captain helped train Tiffany. While Gamodren taught her how to fight strategically and defensively to outlast any opponent and slowly wear down their defenses.

When Kyrion wasn’t training, he was healing the guards with his abilities, although he did feel bad about keeping the full extent a secret as that would reveal his full power. However, he became quite adept in this facet of his abilities the more he used them. After all, the guards were healed. Kyrion began helping those who were hurt nearby and even had a corner in the bar where he was called on to heal someone up when barfights got a bit too rough.

When Tiffany reached rank two, Gamodren broached the topic of having Kyrion and Tiffany enter Gremlin town to train and gain experience fighting monsters. He and the captain would chaperone, stepping in should things get too bad.

Adrian accepted the proposal as he knew the path his daughter would be walking on now was filled with danger. Gremlins could be killed by an unawakened wielding a shovel with relative ease. Spirit masters rarely have trouble with them in a fair fight.

Though initially weak, some gremlins gained abilities to suit their environment. There are three types of Gremlins in the underground town that were referred to as a dungeon. Stone Gremlins, Bag Gremlins, and Shadow Gremlins. Should a Gremlin inter the practitioner ranks, their name is updated accordingly.

Should they encounter the rarer breed of Gremlins, then the teachers would step in and provide support. The teachers wouldn’t kill any creatures unless the children proved incapable of finishing the job.

Kyrion debated bringing his wooden disc when he recalled that they couldn’t kill anything. Instead, he decided to bring his walking stick along as a staff-like weapon. He wasn’t training to fight with a weapon yet, so this would have to do. From what he was told, his brute strength would be enough to take care of most of them. His abilities would be limited to healing until it proved necessary to use something else as well.

The two children walked down a staircase that led down into the dungeon. Torches lined the walls, providing a weak light source throughout the environment. As they went further, faint whispers and chittering could be heard.

“I really don’t like this place” Tiffany adjusted her buckler and gripped her rapier.

“It is quite disturbing.” Kyrion held his walking stick at the ready.

Upon making it to the end of the staircase, the space opened up to reveal the remains of a large underground town. Buildings lay demolished, bones litter the area, and most importantly, gremlins could be seen roaming about.

Kyrion decided that plant growth would be necessary here. He held out a few seeds and tossed them into the entrance. A line of vines, grew from the seeds and began to wrap around buildings through cracks. Had they had the time, then he would have let them grow as they wished, but right now, he needed some way to ward off the absurd amount of creatures and restrict their movements.

Tiffany looked at him.” What did you do?”

“Slowed them down so that we could fight fewer at once.” Kyrion was breathing hard. Although it was an act, he knew that the amount of mana used exceeded the amount a normal second rank could use at once, but still within the norm. Before when he did something like this, it would pull from his core directly, and excess mana was lost in the invoking of this power. Now the ability only took what it needed to work.

Tiffany let him catch his breath before they ran into the first group of gremlins. Then, she thrust her rapier into a gremlin with rocks protruding from its body. The sword seeped in through the creature’s body like a hot knife in butter.

The first gremlin died with ease, but Tiffany had more trouble removing the sword than she did thrusting it, leaving her wide open to a claw attack from a frenzied shadow gremlin that came for her side.

Kyrion brought down his walking stick on that one cracking it wide open like a watermelon. Only shadows seeped from the skull when the weapon hit. There was no blood in the creature’s body. Kyrion noted how the stone gremlin seemed to bleed a sticky stone-like substance.

“Tiffany focuses on the ones without stones!” Kyrion told her. As he moved forward with his walking stick.

Tiffany stabbed into a shadow gremlin and the thing dissolved into nothingness. She ended up over-extended and open to a claw from another stone gremlin.

She blocked the attack with her buckler, but it seemed to knock her off her feet.

Kyrion bludgeoned the stone gremlin that hit his friend, the stick killing the gremlin, but the vibrations sent the stick out of his hands and into a gremlin holding a sack. That gremlin extended their bag, catching the murder weapon inside. That gremlin then proceeds to run away.

Unarmed Kyrion didn’t have the reach to catch the gremlin prepping to stab her where she fell. He began to wave his hand and leave the creature in half when he saw Tiffany turn that fall into a flip evading the attack and lining up in a position to pierce the gremlin from behind.

With that, the gremlins that started off in the area were either dead or ran away. Kyrion vowed to find the gremlin who stole his stick and get his revenge.

“That was a nice flip. Didn’t know you could move like that.”

“My mother is a gymnast, flips, tumbles, among other things were drilled into me when I was younger.” Tiffany explained.

“Reminds me of a friend of mine. His parents were performers, he was a bit shy when I first met him. I’m sure you’d get along.”

“Is he nine like you and around as tall as a thirteen year old?”

“No, I bet I’m a bit taller than him now. He should be ten or so now.”

“Is that friend of yours a spirit master?”

“Yes. Even got into a school for basic training.”

“I’d like to meet this friend of yours.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

The two checked for potential wounds, and Kyrion provided some basic healing. As they decompressed.

“Are you alright?” Kyrion asked Tiffany.

“Yes, it was easier than I thought it would be.”

“Killing monsters?”

“Yes, I always thought it would be an uphill battle that involved a lot more injury. Those gremlins were pretty weak even with their strategy.”

“Possibly, I don’t have much experience killing monsters so I can’t say I understand.” Kyrion nodded along.

Tiffany clicked her tongue and led the way forward. While Kyrion followed, trying to figure out why she seemed mad all of a sudden.

They made it to the second group of gremlins three this time. Kyrion, unarmed, decided to engage in a battle of brute strength, grabbing two of the stone gremlins by the scruff of their necks and holding them out for Tiffany to finish off as she skewered the lone shadow gremlin.

Tiffany practiced her technique on the two stone gremlins and found that their blood seemed to harden when exposed to air. Which was why her rapier got stuck the first time.

A core fell from the second stone gremlin, and Tiffany looked at it in wonder.

“What is this?”

“A spirit core, I heard that they could be used to augment your powers at the practitioner rank.”

“From who?”

Kyrion tried to remember the first time he saw a core and remembered Leon.” There was this man called Leon. He was really strong, and knew how to increase the chances that a core drops.”

“I see, are they valuable?”

“Not sure. I think it depends on the core.” Kyrion picked it up and put it in a cloth sack which he then handed to her.

Kyrion looked around for a weapon and found a metal rod in the debris. It wasn’t a conventional weapon, but it would do against the gremlins.

“Ready to continue?” Tiffany asked Kyrion.

“Let’s go get my stick back.” Kyrion ran into the next room

They saw a few bag gremlins along with some stone gremlins, yet they couldn’t see any shadow gremlins, which meant...

“Ambush!” Kyrion yelled

Tiffany turned around, catching three shadow gremlins lunging at her.

She parried one and skewered the second but was hit by a third, leaving a black mark on her armor. The two gremlins forced her into a defensive battle as they fought her on two ends. Not allowing her to focus on a single enemy at once.

Kyrion was unable to help as hoards of gremlins charged towards him.

Kyrion filled his metal rod with wind mana and struck, sending forth a large blade of wind that cut their first two rows of gremlins in half and sending the next few flying back in confusion.

“Ahhh!” Kyrion heard a scream behind him and turned around to see that the gremlins Tiffany was fighting managed to cut open her shield arm, which was bleeding an eerie purple.

Kyrion felt a prod in his back as a gremlin tried to claw at him. However, the claws found themselves unable to pierce his flesh.

Kyrion grabbed that gremlins head and just squeezed it. Popping the gremlin open like an egg. He tossed it aside before he walled the remaining gremlins off with a wind wall. That stopped them temporarily.

“Gross.”

His wind mana was running out pretty fast, and it was wasteful, but this would probably be for the best. They needed to regroup.

Kyrion swung his rod at one of the two remaining gremlins, and it died on impact leaving behind a small core.

Tiffany skewered the final gremlin through its skull before falling to a knee.

Kyrion picked up Tiffany and retreated to the last few rooms to catch their breath as Kyrion worked on healing the wounds. The purple ichor was cleared, and then the damage was healed and then faded into nothing. Leaving nothing behind of the injury.

“Thanks.” Tiffany said.

“Should we leave for now and come back in a few days?” Kyrion asked.

Tiffany looked towards the area where all those gremlins were gathered. “I’m exhausted. Let’s head out and we can try this again another day. I need to train a bit more.”

Kyrion nodded, and the two left the dungeon returning to the surface.

Gamodren stared at the two kids’ arms crossed. “You did a few good things. But you made quite a few mistakes as well. So, Tiffany, you first, what mistakes did you make.”

Tiffany looked stricken and started to think over the fight. “I let myself fall into the enemy’s rhythm. I need to learn how to fight multiple people at once.”

“That’s something that can be trained with the guards we have here, while they’re here and working for your father I’m sure they’d love to help you train.” He looked over to Kyrion and scowled. “It was quite obvious what your mistakes were.” He then made eye contact with the captain.

The captain nodded and then looked at Kyrion with a raised eyebrow.

“I got cocky and it put us in danger?” Kyrion said.

“Close, but think bigger, Tiffany I’m sure you noticed it as well.”

Tiffany nodded.” Kyrion, you could be the best liar I know when it comes to speaking, but your movements made it clear when you were fighting. How strong are you really?”

Kyrion looked to his master and then to the captain, who stayed silent and then to Tiffany. “Around rank four, though I’m still getting used to it.”

“Nine and at rank 4, when did you start, at age six?”

“No, I was around eight in a half, though my getting here is more of an accident than natural.”

“Accident.” Tiffany crossed her arms.

“I got hurt to the point where I was unable to use mana. When we met I think my master was taking me there to get healed. Had I had my powers when the bandits attacked I could have healed those who were injured better.”

“That is regrettable.” The captain nodded.

The captain looked at Kyrion again. “So that’s why it seemed like you didn’t have a core. It was dormant. Didn’t know cores could be damaged like that. I will keep that in mind.”

“Why did you hold back then?” Tiffany asked.

“I didn’t want to take away from you too much. Your still new to this world and I thought that It would be best If we fought with equal amounts of strength.”

“Kyrion, you don’t have the strength to hold back yet. In the fledgling ranks anything could prove strong enough to beat you when you hold back. We will try this again in two weeks. Hopefully you’ll be better prepared. I’ll make sure that you’re able to use your abilities to the fullest the next time you go in.”

“Yes sir.” Kyrion and Tiffany replied.

“Tiffany is also close to hitting rank three, so we’ll have to have the foundation talk. She’s going to need to condense it a bit past the minimum, and then we’ll need to get her mana to flow through her body.”