Friday was finally the Keeper’s turn to instruct the four protectors. They met him in the courtyard where he just gave them a curt nod.
“Take out the materials for the basic Energy-providing formation. Try to set it up,” saying so, the Keeper left the courtyard entirely.
The four women were stunned. Clearly, the Keeper did not have the desire to instruct them through anything today. He did not even think that any of the four could set up a formation by today.
However, the Keeper did not know that not just one, but two of them could set up a basic Energy-providing formation already. The four women were quite pissed with his attitude and decided to plot against their ignorant instructor a little.
“I’ll go get my art pieces. Maybe the two of you could learn how to make formations that way. After all, Yuri and I managed to do so,” Lunete said as she began leaving the courtyard.
Lunete made a show of going back to the room to take out the chopstick and the dragon art pieces that she had made. She passed them on to Kiara and Aanjay upon her return to study. Hopefully, they would be able to start creating their first formation. Kiara and Aanjay studied the intricate details of the chopstick and dragon carefully. Slowly, as the minutes ticked by, they began to somehow make a connect the dots for the basic theory of formation creation.
Aanjay was the first among the two to create her formation. She had been studying the dragon’s scales when she had an idea and tried making the basic formation. Rewarded with success, Aanjay did a little happy dance with the other girls giggling at her antics.
There were 500 scales on the dragon that Lunete created. Each set of hundred scales increased each status excluding Energy. Each scale could only increase a stat by 1%. The cumulative overall status bonus was an increase of 100%. This doubled Aanjay’s perception and allowed her to study the designs on the scales in greater detail.
However, that was not the only thing that allowed Aanjay to quickly discover how to create her first formation. Engravings were similar to formations. Alone, it will give absolutely no clue to the study of formations. However, each scale had additional designs to them. The designs brought about a sense of balance to each scale. There were 500 different designs on each scale. However, while they were different, they all radiated that sense of balance.
It was this balance that Aanjay and Kiara were missing from their understanding of formations. Kiara studied the dragon after Aanjay did, and managed to create her first formation. There were hooray’s and yay’s all around.
After that, came a small backbiting session at the Keeper’s attitude towards teaching them but that quickly died down because the four women did not know the Keeper all too well. It was Kiara who brought up the next topic.
“You know; I’ve been thinking…” Kiara began.
“Don’t hurt yourself,” Yuri interjected and earned a playful smack on her arm from Kiara as she giggled slightly.
“Geez, I’m being serious here,” Kiara said with a small grin on her face, “I was thinking that with Lunete’s artistry being so useful, maybe we should pick up a useful hobby too.”
Both Aanjay and Yuri broke into knowing smiles. Apparently they had been thinking about the matter too.
“The only hobby the three of us have here is having fun at night. I guess it’s high time we move on to something more intellectually stimulating, huh?” Aanjay mused.
“Yeah, I felt like my brain started rotting after coming to this world. I was about to finish my last year and get my doctorate degree too, if it wasn’t for the transfer!” Yuri added.
This earned gobsmacked from the other three girls. Certainly, Yuri was the oldest one of the four. However, she had only said that she was twenty-four years old, with Kiara at twenty-one and Aanjay at twenty-three. To have been so close to getting a doctorate at that age, while there have been instances of younger prodigies, was an impressive feat.
Despite knowing that shocking fact, the other three ladies quickly calmed down and merely praised Yuri for nearly getting there. Yuri was still Yuri to them and they had only found out that Yuri was a more studious Yuri than expected.
On the other hand, Yuri was inwardly relieved by her friends’ reactions. She did not know when to break this piece of information to them. Usually, people kept their distance her because of her accelerated learning speed back on Earth. There were many others who wanted to curry favor with her and leech from her under the guise of friends, particularly men. Therefore, Yuri kept her distance and sought comfort from other women who were strangers. She also never gave away the information that she was studying for a doctorate unless necessary.
The girls chatted their time away as Kiara and Aanjay slowly figured out how to dismantle their formations. After an hour, the four were happily discussing a variety of subjects while trying to make variations to their formations just to keep their hands busy.
Another hour passed and the Keeper still had not returned yet. The women then decided to revise some of the things that they had learnt this week. They sparred using purely basic techniques just to increase their familiarity with the actions. They had even tried doing a four-way spar for variety.
Time passed and when it was nearing lunch, the Keeper returned. The moment he came out from the palace, he stood stock still at the archway between the courtyard and palace. His eyes widened in shock at the four different basic energy-providing formations in the middle.
The women were still sparring and did not notice that he had returned. The Keeper shook off the brief surprise and moved towards the four. According to the true annals of history that he safeguarded for the Emperor, there were a few outliers among the summoned protectors every now and then. These people could lead their group to stand at the forefront of the protectors while being extremely strong themselves. It was very possible that there could be one among this group of young women. Considering the girls’ progress in cultivation, as he had heard from Naja, there may not just be one.
It was unheard of to be both talented in cultivation and formations. The gods are not kind, as the saying went. Two gifts were never bestowed upon one person. Furthermore, focus on the improvement in one specialty usually meant less time improving the other. Therefore, one can only hope to be good at either cultivation or formations since they were both long-term studies.
The Keeper cleared his throat as he neared the foursome, who stopped sparring when he interrupted them. Lunete and company looked at the Keeper, expecting some expression of surprise or shock. However, his face remained as bored and uninterested as ever.
“Good work, protectors. We will move on to more advanced formations after lunch. I have done preparations for the materials this morning. I hope you have enjoyed your break,” the Keeper made up the excuse on the spot and informed the quartet.
The ladies were irked by the Keeper’s nonchalance, but finding out that the Keeper had been “preparing” for future formations, their anger abated a bit. The four were dismissed for lunch as the Keeper set off to have his own and bring the reusable materials for the slightly more difficult formations.
***
Lunch was a delicious affair as usual. The girls had time to lounge about and they discussed what kinds of hobbies that doubled as a study that they could attempt in this world. Lunete stated what she found in the general skills section of the Emperor’s martial repository.
The other three listened attentively, before pondering over what would help them when they had to go for war. Lunete suggested that they consult Alleyah for her input as there may be some differences between Earth’s interpretation and this world’s. The trio agreed to that and they set off for the afternoon formation training session.
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***
“Protectors, these are the materials for a basic formation to gather heat. It’s a pre-fire formation, so to speak. While it does not seem helpful, out on the battlefield when you need to have meals while staying hidden, it would allow you to at least warm up your food a little without giving away your location with fire or smoke. Food is important for morale and the other soldiers will greatly appreciate a warm meal in the midst of the war,” the Keeper explained carefully.
Although not the best teacher, the Keeper wanted the girls not to underestimate the impacts that the most basic of formations can make in a war. Simple actions like this can affect the outcomes of battle greatly. The Keeper wanted to impart more than just knowledge of formations. He wanted to give them small tidbits to carry allies through the strife of war as well. After all, even though the 12 would be powerful enough to change the tides of battle, they were still only 12 people. This was a war that involved several nations.
The Keeper set up a heat formation of his own to let the girls study. The quartet began to earnestly try to analyze and form their own. With the motivation the four displayed, the Keeper felt a sense of security settle in his heart. Having four protectors that were willing to work as hard as they did, perhaps the Human race would get more than a few decades to recover from their losses with this batch of protectors. It was not always easy getting the protectors competent enough for the battlefield.
***
It was halfway through the afternoon when Lunete successfully created the heat formation. She was the first of the lot to do so. Aanjay, Kiara and Yuri did not look surprised and gave Lunete a look like they had expected it all along.
The Keeper did not miss this moment. He came to the conclusion that it was Lunete who had created the first formation among the four. Inwardly, he noted to pay special attention to Lunete regarding formations. It was a sheer coincidence that it was her who had picked the formation skill while having exceptional luck and talent with formations. After all, understanding in which part of formation making you are lacking to make your very first formation is an important part of the fortunes of formation study.
An hour after Lunete created her formation, Yuri quickly followed suit. It was only until dinner time neared when Kiara and Aanjay managed to form theirs.
“Good work today, protectors. All of you seem talented in formations. I look forward to your growths,” the Keeper closed off the training session and said in a begrudging tone as he scarcely praised anyone.
Right after those words left the Keeper’s mouth, he turned around and left, leaving the foursome to return to their room for dinner.
***
The quartet were beside themselves with joy when they had returned to their room. The frustrations of failing to create formations were rewarded by an extremely refreshing feeling from finally being able to successfully create them. This made the women quite emotionally exhausted that day. However, the cherry on top for the day was hearing the begrudging praise that the Keeper gave.
He clearly hardly praised others. That also meant that he was being very truthful when he mentioned that the four had talent. The four were looking forward excitedly for the future. While it was war that they had to participate in, their growth was much more important right now. Even the smallest of factors that they could bring to battle could tip the scales in their favor for survival.
As usual, Lunete went to de-stress with her art through “image training”. While she was doing that, the three others discussed what they wanted to pick up as a hobby to develop like Lunete.
When Lunete was done, the four had an early bath and started to celebrate their happy day with an early round of sexy time.
As the girls panted heavily from being to vigorous, they slowly began to drift towards dreamland. Lunete and Kiara rubbed their wonderful bodies against each other as they came down from their high to extend the pleasant feelings as they fell asleep.
Before falling asleep, Lunete looked at her status, skills and compared them with the sleepy trio before her. The last feeling that she had before sleeping was one of fulfilment.
===
Author’s notes:
Last part of the training week. Time for a time skip next chapter and more interesting situations! I will try to develop Kiara, Yuri and Aanjay to be more than just nymphy characters. I will slowly reveal parts of their pasts and develop their characters more. I also have plans to make the characters grow much closer and attached to one another.
Thanks for reading, and hope you enjoyed the chapter!
Edit: Oh my cats. I can't believe I had forgotten to add Chapter 7 as the title to this post. The horror I felt when I just saw "Training Week (Part 3)" as the chapter title.
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Statuses and Skills:
Lunete Argall
NameLunete ArgallStatusStrength7Endurance17Agility15Dexterity24Perception20Energy2Additonal InformationLevel 11Age: 20FemaleStatus Points Remaining: 50
SkillsSkill NameMastery<
Kiara Callaghan
NameKiara CallaghanStatusStrength25Endurance14Agility23Dexterity17Perception7Energy2
Akiyama Yuri (Yuri Akiyama)
NameAkiyama YuriStatusStrength16Endurance17Agility20Dexterity17Perception14Energy2
Aanjay Aamin Joshi
NameAanjay Aamin JoshiStatusStrength23Endurance26Agility13Dexterity14Perception7Energy2