The First Legendary Beast Master

Chapter 893: Choose Your Adventure

Once the weapons were done, Karl just had to locate everyone to pass them out.

Some were easy to find. Ophelia was training guard candidates out in the yard, and Karl could bring her the axe whenever he wanted.

Remi was in her alchemy lab in the library space, but he just put her staff in the Naga Queenʼs space, against a bookshelf on her altar.

The hard ones were tracking down Lotus, who had vanished as soon as he had finished talking to her, and Tessa, who had run off with Thor and Nachtia.

Actually, that made it easier.

[Thor, pass this to the black dragon, would you?]

[Done. Oh, sheʼs delighted with her new stick.] Thor agreed.

Karl went out to the yard with Opheliaʼs axe in hand, and the whole training group stopped to see what was going on that involved weapons being drawn.

”Ophelia, test this and see how it feels in your hands. I had Ashbringer make this with you in mind, and enhanced it to complement your fighting style.” Karl called as he walked over.

The big Werebear grabbed the two-handed axe from Karl and hefted it easily, then gave it a spin around her hand to check the balance.

”Not bad, though I wouldnʼt expect anything that comes from Ashbringerʼs forge to be less than amazing.”

Then she transformed into a Dire Bear and made a casual swipe of her paw at the air before transforming back to a Werebear.

”It bonded perfectly, and works properly with the Dire Bear transformation. Having two smaller weapons gives a wider variety of buffs, but this is a much more powerful weapon, and it should add much more to my attacks than the others did.

Thank you, Karl. And Ashbringer, who I know is listening from in the forge.”

Karl laughed as the sound of hammering paused for a moment, then gave two ringing taps, clearly of the hammer directly on the anvil, before returning to an intermittent working pattern.

Now they should all be ready for the next battle, with Overlord Ranked armour and weapons. Karl couldnʼt say how long it would take them to advance in battle, but they had won some significant battles in the recent past, and the System recognized them as a party, so they were presumably sharing bonuses.

There was some sort of standard to the advancements, but Karl didnʼt know if it was deliberately unclear how long it took to move up a Rank, or if the method to judge it had simply been lost to time.

Most likely, there was supposed to be a progress meter of some sort in the System Interface, and they had all just forgotten how to turn it back on.

Once someone did, that would be a turning point for training methods. Being able to clearly see what was working, what was not, and what only worked a few times before stopping, would revolutionize training for everything.

But there was not going to be a lot of time to be training for anything this week, as true to his word, Prince Steven sent them a battle update at the end of the day.

There had been six possible engagements located for the next day, and they had all been forwarded to the City Guard as well, to be put on the morningʼs sheet.

Some of the battles would begin early, some later in the day, but those six were the ones that the military were the most confident were going to happen.

Karl waited until they had finished eating to bring up the information.

”We have six locations identified for battle tomorrow. There are two that look like they might be above our pay grade, with multiple Totems and hundreds of Overlords, but there are four that should be at our rank or easier.

One of them is just Awakened and Ascended Rank skeletons, so we can likely skip that, unless someone wants to go charging through them for fun.

These three are the most likely choices. None has a reported Totem Rank leader. One is a group of Lich Lords with their summoned undead. One is zombies, and one is a mixture of Wights and skeletal hounds.

Does anyone have a preference?” He asked, then waited for the others to think about the answer.

Rae was obviously going to go for the zombies, as they were the only non-skeletal option. Her new skills worked best on the living, but zombies should be close enough that her blood destruction skill would destroy them with ease.

But fighting against new types of enemies was good as well.

There was no summoned type of monster specified with the group of Overlord Ranked Lich Lords, so it could be something unknown, and perhaps worth fighting.

She knew that she could destroy most types of things, but what if they came up with something new that would put up a real fight?

Wouldnʼt that be great?

After careful consideration, Nachtia pointed to the Lich Lords.

”You and Cara specialize in nullifying magic. I know that it might not be the most glamorous fight when you donʼt let them do much of anything, but going where we are the most able leaves others free to deal with the rest of the challenges, where they might also be the most able.

So, we should take out the Lich Lords as quickly as possible in the morning, and then wait for other magic users to present themselves for culling.” She explained.

Tessa shrugged. The undead were undead, and they were at war with them all. The Red Dragon didnʼt care which target they chose, only that it was strategically important, and against the enemy, not civilians.

”Alright then, if there are no objections, we can take on the Lich Lord horde in the morning, and then either camp out near the border, or return here again for the evening.”

Dana smiled. ”Why donʼt we have Lady Rae make us a tree fort again? We havenʼt done one of those in a while now, and it would keep us near the border, where we would be on hand if there were unexpected enemies.”