Reep blasted arrows of lightning, three at a time, at her targets. She skirted the outside lane of the forest, firing through the trees and curving her attacks like homing missiles. Bolt after bolt, monsters fell, some big, some small. Slowly, the number of enemies dwindled, leaving the clearing vacant and lonesome.

Reep didn’t stop, she sprinted towards the next target, augmenting her muscles with the power of her class and element. Each step pulsed blood through her body and drew long breaths into her lungs. Electricity coursed along her bones, hardening them with mana and causing her to cast away any self-doubt.

She had a goal, to win. The next clearing approached and she got her first glimpse of the monsters native to this territory. Long, scaley legged beings with thick horns and even longer teeth. The added hide would cause her arrows to bounce off, that was, if she didn’t hit the vital spots.

Arrows began to fly as Reep let loose a storm of attacks. Draw, electrify, fire! She commanded herself. Draw, electrify, fire! Hit after hit, the monsters didn’t quite know where the attacks were coming from.

They were dumb, big and strong, but dumb. Like most monsters, there were always drawbacks to evolution on Nava. A monster could be physically weak, but smarter than a Gnome. Stronger than a bull, but dumber than a child.

Reep aimed for the eyes, blinding, bleeding, and letting her damage over time shocking passive end the kill. She would leave two or three behind, trusting her gift from the Goddess of Storms to end the fight for her. This way she could maximize her time, after all this was a race.

And she was winning. And she was having fun.

A smile had never left the [Archers] lips from the moment Bishop had said “Go!” From that moment on, real life slipped away and all that was left was battle and hard work. Two things Reep excelled at, and two things Reep very much enjoyed.

The next pack of monsters had wandered out of their territory slightly, obviously curious at the noise. Reep took the odd movement as a blessing and attacked while in full sprint. Her arrows were less accurate this way, but each straggling monster allowed her to chain attacks one after the other. By the time she reached the nest, most of the monsters had already died. She only had to stick around for a few moments killing off the stragglers.

Normally Reep would be appalled by the blatant massacre of monsters and beast. Most of the time, monsters were simply left alone. They were either not worthwhile to kill, too far away, or simply non dangerous. But after the events of Lesterwood battling against a mind controlling fungus, monsters had been left in the nearby lands.

Part of the new contract the fungus had to abide by was that the monsters under its control had to be returned to their original nests. Some came back, however, causing a boom of adventurers in the neighboring area.

Clammy and Reep were two such adventurers.

With the last pack in sight, Reep pulled out all of the stops. She pushed her leg muscles to the limits, enhancing her speed with more magic, more mana, than she had ever before. She was nearing Bishop’s lowest comfortably high speed, which was quite the accomplishment. Bishop had been fighting for years, honing his magic to its upper bounds. It was only natural for his apprentice to reach his plain before even grasping tier two.

But, after today, tier two would no longer be the goal. It would be a reality.

A solid green puma collapsed out of a tree, landing with a dull thud and large seizure. It let out a last cry, calling its kin to aid. A claw swiped out of a tree, glancing Reep across the arm.

She spun on her heal, formed an arrow in her hand, and stabbed the beast through the chest. Another paw appeared in her periphery, causing her to roll and ready her bow. Three arrows blasted out, one catching the close puma, another pinning one stalking behind a bush, and a third camouflaged against leaves of the canopy.

With the last of the big cats dead, Reep ended her sprint at the preening Bishop. He was some distance away from the pumas, but close enough to have been monitoring the battle. He had seen her expertly weave through the trees, often using their cover to fire out an attack seemingly out of nowhere. Drawing back the bowstring was always telegraphing an attack, being able to hind the pull-back only minimized enemy reaction time.

“Good job!” The Drake said. “Clammy is a little behind.”

“What?” Reep spit out through labored breath. “Did the monsters give her trouble?”

“No. You are just that much faster than her. Being able to attack on a full sprint is very efficient.”

“Clammy can swing while sprinting.”

“She can, and she does. But she has to run to the monsters. She’s not as ranged as you, and firing off pebbles only gets her so far against beasts with thick hide.”

“Oh.” Reep said, feeling a bit proud of herself. She didn’t realize her teammate was lagging behind. In fact, she only had eyes for the finish line and wasting as little arrows as possible.

A few minutes later, Clammy arrived breathing white mist from her set and outstretched jaw. She took a moment to breathe and to let her Battle Trance fade. “You’re too fast!”

For a split second, Clammy saw two futures. One version Bishop threw an acorn at her, the other he did nothing. This had become a reoccurring training exercise the two had begun after Clammy explained seeing the immediate future while fighting the Vast Empire leader at Salae castle.

These bursts of Divination magic were wry and short, often times leaving the young [Gravity Mage] in bewilderment. She couldn’t fully control them, just like all of her future sight magic, but there seemed to be a pattern where it would activate. Usually she could see the immediate future while being physically exhausted.

Thus made Bishop throw plenty of things at her while she panted.

Clammy reacted to the vision, fumbling her hands to protect her face. But not in time. The wooden projectile hit her cheek and bounced to the mush and snow below. The ex-princess frowned, recalling the event like a child studying for an exam.

Could she have reacted faster? Yes, that was very obvious. Could she have seen the future sooner? Again, yes, but she didn’t strictly know how. Still, reacting, even if it was not in time, was better than not reacting at all.

“Drat.” Clammy said eyeing her mentor.

The Drake smiled. “Your speed was lacking. You have to go to the monsters, I know, but I’ve seen you move faster.”

“I know, but the trees were too interconnected. I should have pulled myself to the monsters and pulled them to me.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Besides it taking a lot of mental strain to do so, I wanted to try something written in my manual.”

Bishop knew what Clammy was referring to when she spoke of her manual. God of War Cral had given her a small booklet of practice exercises to train her Battle Trance. The book was somewhat similar to Reep’s Titan Gauntlet spell box – it couldn’t be shown to others. Bishop could see the manual, but he couldn’t read it as it was for its owner’s eyes only.

“And what were you trying to do?”

Clammy said… something, but neither Reep nor Bishop heard it. It seemed that the manual was only for owner’s ears as well.

“Sorry.” She said.

Bishop shrugged. “So you slowed yourself to do something you figured was important to train. Okay, I can live with that. Did it work?”

“Maybe? It’s more of a long term thing?”

With that, the race was officially complete. Both girls opened their notifications which boomed the air with golden light. Multiple level-ups for both of them extended far around, harmonizing the silent forest.

“Level fifty.” Reep said, a hint of pride across her lips.

“Congratulations!”

“Congrats!” Clammy said, before adding. “I think I need two more runs before I get there. Mind if we stay out until then? Then we can go to the stones together in the morning?”

Reep nodded. “Sounds fine to me. I do want to try something out, so run without me for the first one.”

Bishop eyed both of his students and grinned. “Okay, I’ll be right back.”

A moment later the Drake had blasted off, electricity boosting his speed to an almost insane amount. The elder adventurer had not used his full speed since defending Esmel, specifically against Buzluc, but with the girls progressing the way they had, he was honestly inspired.

Not to mention it was always good to stretch his scaled legs every once and a while.

“What did you want to try out?” Clammy asked her teammate.

“I’m going to see if I can use my gauntlets in tandem with my bow. If I can’t… well I’m unsure how much use the spell will get. I’m not exactly a melee fighter.”

“Could have fooled me during those spars yesterday.”

Reep pondered this, thinking of some sort of melee [Archer] type. But she ultimately decided against the idea of class-switching, mainly because archery had gotten her this far, switching away would go against all she knew.

“That’s just from practice.” She finally said. “I don’t get my class bonuses fighting in melee.”

Bishop arrived a moment later, his eyes slits and a slight hitch in his breath. The Drake had sprinted through the forest and to the closest village, marking target nests and wandering monsters. He instigated a sparkling set of mana which grew into a full-on blaze of electrical power. A moment later the spell took, and beams of lightning shot from the sky at the marked targets.

The lightning faded a second later, but a residual after image would linger for nearly an hour. It was an expensive spell, mainly because it needed a few alchemical ingredients to work, but Bishop felt it well worth. After all, knowing were all of the monsters were in a given area allowed for the quickest of power leveling.

“Go!” Bishop shouted causing Clammy to shift her gravity and fall towards the closest after image.

“Do we have to move?” Reep asked.

“Hmm? Oh, no. I set them in a circle. She will arrive back to us after the last nest.”

The [Archer] nodded and took a few steps away. She started with her hands, fully forming electricity in small arcs similar to lightning but of a much softer mana type. Reep had found creating the Titan Gauntlets like this gave her better control over the finished product. She could add extra protection around her wrist or pointed knuckles to add extra damage to her punches.

In this case, she adopted thicker padding around her fingerprints and palm.

The gauntlets flared to life with a low hum, buzzing against the world like a small generator. She inspected her lightning armor, making sure the spell was to her liking. This wouldn’t be the first time she ended an attempt at something early because her initial spell work was flawed.

A thin strand of orange-yellow lightning channeled against her open palm, twisting and coiling into a thick band. The band slowly expanded as Reep felt her control over the construct slipping. She redoubled her effects to keep her mana in place, focusing less on the final outcome and more on the here and now.

Soon a rod of lightning bent and stretched, creating the framework of a bow. She had done this thousands of times, but never before did her heart pump with such vigor. Titan Gauntlets effected the world in some bizarre inexplicable way, something she could slightly feel bleed over into her bow construct.

The thought of a Titan’s Chest or Titan’s Greaves had occurred to Reep before, but she had never gone out of her way to create such a spell… Titan’s Bow was not something she had ever considered before.

But now, as the electric string formed between the bow’s wings and as the world seemed to sing with its newfound toy, Reep knew it was possible.

An arrow formed and was fired off without fanfare or insight. It was simply a normal lightning arrow being fired from a normal lightning bow. The only out of the ordinary aspect of this particular firing was that Reep’s hand, wrist, and elbow were protected with lightning.

It was obvious to both her and Bishop that if she wanted to fire world twisting arrows, she would need to create a world controlling bow. The gauntlets didn’t augment her normal spells.

Clammy appeared a few minutes later, huffing and puffing. She suddenly flicked her arm out, blocking an acorn thrown at her from her side. She smiled animatedly.

“Good.” Bishop said. “You were faster as well. Tell me when you two are ready, I’ll mark the way again.”

Returning to Lesterwood was uneventful but oozing with pride and determination. Both Reep and Clammy had reached level fifty which was a major accomplishment in the eyes of Nava. Having the option to evolve and or combine classes was seen as a rite of passage for most fighter types. Similar to how a journeyman crafter could reach rank of expert or master, tier two combat classes showed a level of determination and structure.

Reep had been assured that her classes would most likely combine, as [Archer] and any augmenting secondary class were highly likely to have a pairing. That meant she had a whole new secondary class to worry about. Bishop offered her advice on the subject, stating that anything offered would be a separate subset of normal classes.

These sub-classes wouldn’t give her another school of magic to play with like fire or water, but rather they would assist her primary combined class. Meaning that she will get two boons, just like evolving two classes separately. After all, if one combined class were weaker than two individual evolved classes, the option would rarely be taken.

Clammy, on the other hand, didn’t expect her classes to combine. After all, what class could possibly be created from future site and control of gravity? No, she would have options similar to Max in that her classes would remain separate but gain in power.

She hoped for something that would boost her melee striking power along with easier gravity constructs. Dark Hole was just the beginning in her eyes, there were plenty of more spells to create with a bases of the once locked spell. Her Diviner class was a bit of an enigma. She had no clue what a class evolution for such niche magic could entail. Hopefully she’ll gain some control over her bloodline boosted class.

The group was on their way to the mansion when they were stopped by a single mana message addressed to the ex-princess of Salae.

The message fluttered into Clammy’s hand before a small burst of mana opened the handwritten scroll. It was elegant and formal, even signed with a noble’s seal. The message, while not unexpected, did put a damper on the celebratory mood of the party.

In all honesty, Clammy didn’t think she would be hearing back from [Matriarch] Frase Brontman so soon. She figured it would at least be a couple weeks. But, then again, when there were riots protesting at the gates to the castle and massive sums of money to be made, it was a no brainer to put an end to the issue at hand.

Clammy gave the letter a read over and passed it off. “It seems like we need to contact Max.”

Bishop, with a muted sigh, spoke. “I’ll prepare everything when you two are at the Stones.”