Having shown my current abilities and strength to everyone, we moved onto Gareth.
Gareth: so, I've got one enhancement. A demonic shade bloodline.
Holding out his hand, the black mist around Gareth's body condensed on his arm.
Gareth: it lets me use this demonic energy. With this, I can do two things. The first is strengthening my body.
He then turned to a solid wooden training dummy nearby. With a single punch, he tore a hole in the centre of it. With the momentum, it was sent flying almost 10 meters away.
Tony: isn't this a bit lacklustre.
With a grin, Gareth continued explaining.
Gareth: and the other thing is this.
Closing his eyes, Gareth's body was covered by the mist. After 3 or so seconds, he emerged from the cocoon. He had turned into his demonic form, growing greatly as well as shrouding himself in mist.
Nicholas: wow, that's terrifying.
Tony: you don't say. Compared to Solomon's wolf form, this is ten times creepier.
Looking at Gareth's appearance compared to mine, he was indeed much scarier.
Gareth: I'm not that scary. It's only a little dark.
Looking at himself Gareth complained that he wasn't that bad.
Solomon: It is, but that's a good thing. Looking at us you appear more dangerous than I do.
Of course, If any normal person saw either of us, they would completely freeze with fear. But in Domain, this sort of appearance was not unusual. If you were to ask the average contestant in Domain, then between us Gareth was much more striking.
Gareth: argh whatever. In this form, my strength is more than doubled. However, I can only remain like this for 14 minutes.
From when he first received his enhancement, his strength had almost reached 1.5x what it was. It was a notable improvement, allowing his strength in this form, as well as it's duration to increase significantly.
Gareth: other than that, I have this gun.
Pulling out his gun, Gareth aimed it at another nearby target dummy. With a shot, the bullet had ripped the target in half.
Nicholas: wow, that's got to cost a lot to use, right?
Gareth: at this level, I just have to use normal bullets. But if I want the shot to be stronger, I can add energy to it.
Once again aiming at another dummy, he used energy to fire this time. The bullet seemed to instantly hit the nearby target. With the extra strength, the target was instantly obliterated. After the mist-like energy had gone, only the stand of the target remained.
Tony: that weapon seems very strong. Is it a G rank weapon.
Gareth: it is, a higher end one too.
Placing the gun back in its holster, Gareth answered Tony's question. I had already told him it was fine to give out this information. Though it was odd for new G rank guilds to have G rank weapons, it wasn't unbelievable.
Gareth: that's me done then.
Looking over at Alice and Pluvia we waited for one of them to volunteer.
Pluvia: I'll go next.
Standing up, Pluvia spoke.
Pluvia: I have only one enhancement, a weak dragon bloodline.
I had previously given Pluvia details on what to say.
Pluvia: this enhancement gives me a strong body, as well as one skill.
To demonstrate her bodies strength, she hit a dummy. Under the stress of a person with at least 300 strength, the weak dummy broke apart. Falling into a few splintered pieces.
Nicholas: so it's a strength based enhancement?
Pluvia: mostly. Other than my body, I have this skill.
Saying a name I made up, Pluvia reverted into her dragon form.
Pluvia: Dragonification.
With a flash of light, Pluvia appeared as a dragon. Since the last time I saw this form, it had grown a lot. The original size of a horse was now 1 and a half time larger. The murky brown scales now held tints of whiteness, and the deep blue eyes now exuded a powerful energy.
Alice: wow, you’ve gotten a lot stronger since I last saw you like this.
As I had been improving, so had Pluvia. And though her energy could not surpass mine, I'm sure she had ways to improve her strength differently.
Pluvia: since the last time, my overall strength has grown to about double.
It was astonishing that in the time it took me to improve my strength by 1.75x she had doubled hers. Especially when she could not use any of the benefits of dragon's fire.
Stolen story; please report.
Solomon: wow, if I don't put a lot of effort in, you'll leave me way behind.
Pluvia: haha, I doubt that. Anyway, in this form, I am many times physically stronger. But even better than that, I can do this.
Turning to the nearby dummy's, Pluvia opened her mouth. As I watched her, the scales on her neck began to light up. it started at the base and worked it's way to the head. When the scales on her chin lit up, a red light emitted from her mouth. Then, with a sudden speed, a torrent of flame spewed out of her mouth, covering a cone-shaped area of 20 or so meters.
When the flames had cleared, all of the dummy in the area were burnt to cinders.
Solomon: wow, that's awesome.
Without much thought, I gave my honest opinion.
Gareth: you can say that again. So, how much can you do that?
Pluvia: well, as it's part of my inborn nature it doesn't cost anything. It does, however, have a cooldown of a minute or so.
Just when I was beginning to think that my methods were op, Pluvia showed me how wrong I was.
Solomon: it seems like we'll be relying on you a lot.
Pluvia: don't worry about it.
With a flash of light, Pluvia returned to her human form.
Solomon: all right then, that just leaves you, Alice.
Standing up, Alice walked a few meters from us.
Alice: okay, so I have two enhancements. The first is called card master.
With a flick of her hand, one of her cards slipped out of her sleeve. She had been training to store her cards up her sleeves. that way, she could quickly use them.
Alice: it allows me to bring out effects from cards.
Nicholas: effects?
Holding out the card in her hand, she continued to explain.
Alice: yeah, there's two different types. The first is creature cards.
With a flash of green light, the card in her hand broke into pieces. As the broken pieces turned into a green energy, a vague shape appeared within the energy. When the process had finished after 5 seconds, the figure had coalesced from the energy.
Taking the form of a tall sickly man dressed in armour and a cape, it was naturally necro.
Necro: necro greets master.
Tony: oh, so you’re a summoner?
Alice: not completely. This is only half of what the cards do.
Holding up her other hand, she held another card in her grasp. It broke into parts, becoming green energy just like before. This time though, it formed the shape of a large boulder. When it had finished forming, the rock was sent hurling at a nearby couple of dummies. When it collided, needless to say, the wooden people were crushed. Then, as the rock lost most of its momentum, it exploded into pieces. Sending shrapnel outwards. This shrapnel tore holes in almost 50 of the nearby dummies.
Nicholas: Jesus, that's even more deadly than the flame serpent art.
It was very true that my own attack could not be compared to this. Though I could create something as strong, the effect of sending shrapnel everywhere was unique to Alice.
Alice: I'm not so sure about that. Anyway, this is the other type, effect cards.
Tony: it's a very diverse enhancement.
Indeed it was, even more so than mine. If you were to ask who had the most expansive enhancement in our guild, it would go to Alice. The abilities to bring out the effect of any card allowed her to use an almost infinite amount of abilities. Even just the cards she had now were extremely unique.
Alice: it is. So let me show you all my cards.
holding out her right arm, she summoned Hackmon out. It appeared that she stored the creature cards in her right arm and the effect cards in her left.
Hackmon: Hackmon greets master.
Alice: so this is Necro and Hackmon. They're the only creature card I currently have.
Introducing her summons, both of then took a bow.
Hackmon: greetings.
Necro: it's a pleasure.
Sasha: wow.
Walking over to Hackmon, Sasha reached out to pet him. However, she stopped when she realised she was the centre of attention.
Solomon: you can pet him, he won't bite.
Walking over to her, I patted him on the head. Then following my actions, Sasha also petted him.
Alice: they each have their own abilities. Necro can summon creatures.
Giving him a nod, Alice indicated for Necro to demonstrate. With a raised hand, ten small magical circles appeared on the floor. Out of these holes came goblies. Since the first time I saw him summoning, Necro had improved. Now it took only 3 or so seconds to summon.
Alice: these are goblies. They have the strength of an average man as well as extraordinary speed.
With an order, the goblies attacked a nearby dummy. Within 5 seconds the wooden person was turned into firewood.
Since last time I saw them, they also seemed to have improved. Though it wasn't very noticeable, there was a 5 percent increase in their abilities. Even with my powerful instincts, it was hard to notice.
Solomon: seems like they got a little stronger.
Alice: I think they did, though not by much. I'm not sure why though.
When I thought about the possibilities, I could only see two explanations.
Solomon: maybe it's because you got your second enhancement. Or maybe it's just because you increased your energy.
Both were credible ideas.
Alice: yeah, it's probably one of them. But, I have no way to find out.
I'm sure we would find out in the future.
Alice: so, as good as these look, there are limits. To summon both of these means that I can't recover energy. So I have to limit using other cards if I summon both of them. Though that's not to say I'm severely limited. I can still use the meteor card ten times.
Nicholas: so, it just means you can't recover energy, but there is no loss of energy over time.
Alice: yeah.
Nicholas: that's quite surprising. From what I heard most summoners tend to lose energy when using summons. Then again you're not technically a summoner.
It was probably the unorthodox nature of how Alice summons that reduced the cost for summoning. But there would probably be pros and cons to it.
Alice: anyway, other than the meteor card I have two others. This one increases a persons agility.
Holding up her hand, Alice used Accelerate. When it hit Nicholas, his face filled with awe.
Nicholas: this is even better than Solomon's buff.
Doing a few punches, Nicholas tested how much his agility had increased.
Alice: and lastly I have this.
Using the last card she summoned the potion. catching it in her hand, she gave me a quick stare.
Alice: don't even think about it.
she said so referring to the time I cut my arm.
Alice: this lets me heal people. Though it's not the best, it can heal moderate wounds. Though don't expect it to save you from a knife in the heart.
With a final flash, she made the potion disappear.
Gareth: has the effect cards improved like you creature one's?
Alice: yeah, but like the creature cards, it's only a little.
Even though it was only a little, the increase would still be noticeable. Any increase in our strength would be helpful at the moment.
Alice: other than that, I have my other enhancement.
Nicholas: oh yeah, I forgot about that.
The shock of how impressive the cards were had overshadowed her other enhancement.
Alice: it's an earth spirit enhancement. At the moment I can only use it to create this armour.
Holding out her hand, rock began to materialise on it. After a 15 seconds, her whole body was covered in it.
Like I had guessed, It was weaker here than it had been In the guild plane. But, it still seemed very strong. It would probably take a fifth of my qi to break it.
Solomon: so, that's everything then. We are all acquainted with each other's abilities. We should all be prepared for tomorrow's mission. Till then you can do what you want.
As I wanted us at our best for the mission, I gave everyone a rest day.
Walking off to Alice and my bedroom, one thought kept repeating in my head.
"is it enough?"