The beast was hindered, but only slightly. It still managed to fend them off with ease, but Dallas managed to cause a little damage before being swatted away. The team scrambled to regroup after pushing the beast back once again.
"Haha, see? It worked!" Dallas exclaimed enthusiastically "Now, we just wear it down like normal."
However, their jubilation was short-lived.
The beast lurched into a handstand before bending its body to the left and swinging it back to its right. Much of the ice covering its rear end shattered as its hip slammed into the ground. After clawing at the remaining ice and a light shake, it was completely free of the burden.
"Tsk, damn."
"No big deal, we will just keep freezing it until it's dead."
Kade sighed as he formed another ball of ice. 'If only it was that easy.' He couldn't cast these spells for free, and though his pool of altaris had been growing steadily, he would run out of altaris before it died.
Not to mention that this beast had shown far more intelligence than the rest. He had the feeling that it wouldn't allow his spells to land so easily.
And as expected, the moment the ball of ice appeared, the beast acted to dodge. Using its ridiculous flexibility, it evaded by a hair's breadth. The ball of ice disappeared under the surface of the river.
"You missed?!" Paul roared
"It dodged, you idiot." Kade scoffed "It's not going to let me land a spell, so it needs to be distracted when I cast."
Before he finished replying, the beast had already engaged. Like a furry storm, its body whirled and its claws struck out. Kade watched his teammates being easily repelled over and over again.
The engagement was so short that he didn't have time to complete his spell, but now he had one ready.
Standing up, Dallas shouted "Me and Vic will distract it, so freeze it then Paul and Julian can follow up."
They ran in. Victor charged in and blocked the first attack with his sword while Dallas flanked right and swung at it. The moment the beast acted to negate his swing, Kade fired his spell. The ball of ice hit the front right shoulder of the beast and spreading across the front half of its body.
Paul and Julian had already approached and performed a pincer attack, both succeeding in drawing blood. Kade immediately prepared another spell before noticing an issue.
The fur on the rear end of the creature wasn't wet anymore. The water had turned to ice and the beast had shattered it.
Reluctantly, he finished casting the Freeze while he had the chance. It struck the beast's back legs, but as expected, the result was far less impressive.
"What the, why is it so weak?" Cash asked as he spectated with a white halo in his hand.
"It's not wet anymore. The water was helping the ice form." Kade replied absentmindedly as he thought of ways to restrict it. After a few seconds, he realized the best choice was to use Entangle to prevent it from breaking the ice that had already formed.
"Guy's, push it into the water. The ice sucks unless it's wet." Cash shouted
Kade shot him a glare while preparing his spell. He had thought of that too, but there was a reason he didn't voice it. They couldn't fight it if it escaped into the water.
Regardless, there was nothing he could do about it now except watch his teammates slowly force it toward the water. The beast was bigger than a bear, but four altaris boosted champions were enough to cause it to stumble. Not to mention Chelsea, who was timing her shots to cause it pain.
It took less than thirty seconds for them to force its paws into the water. By this time, Kade had formed the ball of ice and cast it at the first chance.
The beast, which had been attempting to resist their ramming, changed its tune. Instead of resisting their strength, it used it to assist its retreat as it scrambled toward the water.
Kade's eyes narrowed as he watched both the beast and his spell disappear under the surface. From the distance he was at he couldn't tell if his spell struck. He could only hope that the ice still covering it had limited its mobility enough that his spell landed.
"Damn, what do we do now?"
"Following it would lead to our deaths." Dallas said "I guess we will have to give this one up."
They reluctantly stepped away and turned to leave when the beast poked its head out of the water and squeaked at them repeatedly, causing their faces to turn red with anger.
It had escaped into the water and now it was taunting them as if it was the other way around. They were forced to swallow their pride and continued leaving.
Even so, the beast didn't give up. It even swam back to the bank and splashed water in their direction.
"This..." Even Julian, the most level-headed of the group, was annoyed by it.
"hehe, it's underestimating us." Paul chuckled before turning to face it "I'll distract it, so don't miss coward." He yelled as he charged it.
Kade wanted to facepalm, but he had to concentrate on the spell. He watched Paul swing repeatedly to no effect as all of the attacks were deflected easily. When he saw an opening, he fired the spell.
Suddenly, the beast jumped backward, climbing at least five meters into the air. Its cheeks puffed before it fired a ball of water out of its mouth at incredible speeds.
Like a bullet, the water ball the size of a softball slammed into Paul's chest and sent him crashing to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
Kade's eyes widened, not because of the water bullet, but because the beast was already looking in his direction as its cheeks puffed again. Wasting no time, he lurched forward and dropped to the ground as the water bullet ripped the bark off the tree he had been standing beside.
Scrambling to his feet and preparing to run, he saw the splash created by the beast hitting the water.
"Paul!" Dallas shouted as the three made it to the motionless man. They quickly pulled him away from the water and carried him to the treeline where Cash met them and immediately began healing him.
"It's bad, real bad." Cash mumbled as he prepared another spell.
"He's gonna live though, right?"
"Maybe. I'll do everything I can."
"What was is that hit him?" Victor asked with furrowed brows.
"I-I think it was a ball of water." Julian stammered.
Kade kept his eyes on the water while listening with a barrier spell prepared. He didn't feel comfortable staying so close to the water.
"Why didn't it use that water ball earlier?"
"I don't think it could, or maybe it was just toying with us."
"It doesn't matter what or why, so shut up and let Cash focus!" Dallas yelled angrily.
Everyone remained silent after his outburst. After five minutes, Cash plopped down
"Phew, I'm out of energy, but he will live."
Dallas sighed "Is he still in danger?"
"He isn't out of the woods yet, but I can continue healing him when my altaris regenerates. Just be careful when moving him."
"Alright. then let's get the hell out of here."
They laid him on the sled carefully and left with their tails between their legs.
...
Kade closed his book and stretched his back while taking a glance at his teammates grouped by the fire. He couldn't help but frown.
Two days had passed, and tension had been high. The others were often short when speaking to him and glared at him more often than not. Paul's dislike of him, he could understand. Perhaps Chelsea's too.
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They had both blundered embarrassingly and likely felt some resentment of the fact that he reminded them of it when they didn't learn their lesson.
However, The glares and attitude from the other three seemed unfounded. Only Julian was indifferent to the atmosphere and still interacted with him normally.
Though he liked to be left alone while training, he didn't appreciate their attitudes. Thankfully, they would return to Earth tomorrow. Quality rest and relaxation would likely do wonders for improving the situation.
He finished his break and returned to studying until everyone went to sleep. He had the first shift on night watch and couldn't afford to get lost in a book, so he swapped to training his control of altaris.
If there was any benefit to the situation it was the fact that his training had improved greatly without interruptions.
He channeled his altaris and it shrouded his hand. With a thought he made it moved down his arm and then back to his hand. It swirled around his hand like a tornado before he reabsorbed it.
He couldn't help but be amazed at how much he had improved. The speed of channeling increased, while the amount of focus and delay in controlling it was reduced.
Of course, this helped during spell casting but only so much for now. He would need to increase his understanding and familiarity with trace design.
He knew that traces had many purposes. From facilitating the particle conversion to dictating the shape of the spell, and countless smaller functions. They were essentially templates for spell casting. Recently, he had realized that this wasn't the only way to assist in using spells.
He had witnessed Cash chanting while casting his heal. Graakas hadn't taught his group about chanting, but he had found information about it in the back of his spellbook. It served the memory like singing the ABCs to remember which letter came next. Forming traces became slightly easier because the caster only needed to remember the chant rather than the complex pattern of the trace.
However, the technique seemed like training wheels in his eyes. He didn't want to use it as a crutch and become dependant as that would just make his long-term goals more difficult.
After all, he wasn't content with being mediocre for the rest of his life. He didn't want to go down as an average mage, but rather as the best. One that had pioneered revolutionary techniques and created legendary spells.
He spent the rest of the night watch cultivating, practicing, and imagining what could be while occasionally scanning the perimeter until it was time to change shifts and he could finally get to sleep.
He stoked the fire before waking Julian to take over and falling asleep the moment he laid down.
-
"You can't be serious!" Julian exclaimed quietly as he glared at Paul.
"Yeah man, that's. Well, it's scummy. He is still our teammate." Dallas said with apprehension coating his face.
"Why are you guys so against this? We barely know him, it's not like he is a part of the group." Paul explained his reasoning "He has literally no offensive spells, and his restricting spells suck."
"Yeah, and he is always complaining about how risky our plans are!" Chelsea added.
They spoke in hushed tones, often turning their heads to make sure he was still sleeping.
"Not to mention that he brings up past mistakes to mock us. You'll understand when you make a slight misstep."
Julian shook his head fiercely "It doesn't matter that he doesn't have offensive spells because we have three pure damage dealers! Besides, his crowd control has been vital. It has saved all of us multiple times and without it, we wouldn't have killed any of the beasts."
"Sure, the ice and vines have helped a bit until now, but you were there the other day too. His spells couldn't do shit without water." Paul said indignantly "I nearly died because he failed."
"That's true." Cash joined while shaking his head "He said to push it to the water. I knew it was a bad idea but he insisted that I tell you all so that he didn't expose his position."
"See!" Paul hissed "Not only did he screw up the fight and risked my life, but he also risked Cash's by asking him to expose himself because of his own cowardice."
"I think you three are blowing this out of proportion." Dallas chimed in again "It's not like any of us were very effective against that beast either, and he has proven himself as an asset to the team. I'm not sure we can succeed without his crowd control."
"Yeah, also, he isn't a coward. He warned us that he had a bad feeling about the fight beforehand. He is a smart guy, telling us to get the beast to the water doesn't sound like a mistake he would make." Julian explained, doing his best to defend Kade.
"Are you serious right now, Julian?!" Paul's face turned red as he clenched his fists "You're going to call Cash a liar? Don't forget that it's him who keeps us alive!"
Calming himself slightly, he turned to Dallas "And I think we can. We might suffer a few more wounds, but with Cash here they will be healed up in no time."
"Okay, okay. I get it. But kicking him off the team without giving him a split? That's..."
"It's not like he deserves a split, like Paul said, ever since Cash joined we haven't needed his ineffective spells. And the one-seventh split is a lot of money. Just with one core, that's over two grand!"
The tension of Dallas's face eased a bit as if he was slowly being convinced.
"I don't agree with any of this. Refusing to give him the split he deserves is scummy, and talking about him like this without letting him defend himself is too."
"Look. It's either him that goes or me." Paul snarled "I can't make nice with him any longer and I can't trust him to have my back." He focused on Julian "Why are you so against this? We've been friends for years man, are you really going to throw that away for someone you met a few weeks ago?"
"I-I..." Julian stammered "I just feel like it would be a mistake. I know him best and I've seen how smart and talented he is, not to mention his discipline in training is unreal." he sighed "And I just don't like how it feels to do that to someone."
"I get it, man. But it's him or me. You can choose if you'd rather give up his friendship, or if you'd rather throw away three years of our friendship."
The group became silent for a few minutes. Dallas was to first to speak again.
"Okay, we will kick him off the team when we get back."
"Thanks, brother." Paul grinned.
"Don't." Dallas frowned "I'm taking our friendship into account here, but if you ever give me another ultimatum like this, our friendship is over."
"Right, sorry." Paul said sheepishly, but he couldn't hide his happiness.
"I'm going to wake him up, then we will get moving."
-
Kade couldn't help but marvel at the gate. The top was visible even from miles out. Though the other side was slightly blurry, he could see the blue sky which contrasted with the pink-orange sky of the new world.
However, the wonderous sight could only distract him for a moment before his brows furrowed again as his gaze moved to his teammates in front of him.
Something had changed. The glares were gone, replaced with a mixture of expressions. Normally, this would be welcomed, but it was too sudden and extreme. Even Julian was acting a bit different.
'Maybe it's because we are so close to home?' He thought. Human emotion was too fickle and would change at the slightest influence. He didn't want to make assumptions as he wasn't an expert in the human psyche.
He decided to push it to the back of his mind and think of the positives. Soon, he would be back on the Earth and would receive at least 500 credits, potentially more.
He didn't plan on converting it to USD as he had thousands saved up already. Instead, he wanted to buy more resources from the factions. 500 credits might not be enough, but even the cheapest resources would be sufficient. Worst case scenario, he would just save up.
The more he thought of the prospects, the most joyful he became. He felt like a kid on Christmas morning. The last mile was excruciatingly slow due to his anticipation.
After passing through the gate, they were subject to an inspection and their return was documented by the guards before they were released.
Kade, impatient for information, immediately made a call to the base while following the team.
"This is former Sergeant King. Is the apostle Graakas still on base?"
"Yes, sir. Would you like me to connect you?"
"Yes."
After a few moments, a gravelly voice answered
"This is apostle Graakas."
"Graakas, It's Kade."
"Ah, yes. You've returned. How was the new world?"
"Uh, it's difficult to put into words." Kade tilted his head back and thought for a moment "Beautiful, but odd. Most importantly, exciting."
"Haha, yes, I imagine it was. Now, why have you called? To sell information? Or, perhaps you'd like to join the faction?"
"No, my answer is still the same. Actually, I'd like some information and advice. I'd like to buy more resources but I don't know the cost, or what I should get."
"Oho, I admire your enthusiasm. Have you already finished the two I provided you?"
"Not yet. I'm almost halfway through the altaris manual. As for the spells, not many fit my needs and though I plan to learn them all, I'd like to find spells to improve my strength sooner."
"I see. You have the spark of a champion and mage, always seeking improvement and knowledge. Tell me, how many credits do you have?"
"Soon, I should have around 500 credits. Maybe more, as we have--"
"Kade, wait. We need to have a discussion." Dallas interrupted.
Kade raised a brow "Graakas, it seems that I'll have to call you back."
"Alright, but I'm a busy man. If you cannot reach me, then I'm likely at the Yonkel faction's base. Feel free to visit."
Kade ended the call "Alright. I'm listening."
"Ahem." Dallas cleared his throat before adopting a solemn expression "The team has decided that you're not a good fit for us. So, we would like to part ways here."
Kade furrowed his brow as a frown spread across his lips. The oddities in their attitudes made sense now, so though this seemed sudden, the signs were there.
"Okay..." Kade moved his gaze from person to person "Why, exactly?"
"Multiple reasons. You have created tension between multiple teammates, you're a little cowardly, and your skills aren't very useful."
Kade recoiled slightly. "You keep saying that I'm cowardly, but I've always followed and fought. All I did was voice my opinion concerning the risk we were taking twice. Both times, we suffered because I was ignored."
"And my skills aren't useful?" He couldn't help but raise his voice "My crowd control was the only reason we were able to kill anything. Without it, none of you could land an attack, much less kill a beast. In fact, someone would have probably died in every encounter."
Rage and indignation were growing in his heart. He wouldn't deny that his spells were weaker against stronger beasts, but they were still vital. Even a half of a second difference could mean the difference between life and death.
"Besides, you're acting like you all were effective. Your swords could barely wound the beasts."
"I did, easily." Chelsea said scornfully
"Oh sure." Kade scoffed "You put small holes in them, but you have absolutely no lethality. You would run out of ammo before killing a single beast if you had to do all the damage yourself."
"Are you any better?" Surprisingly, it was Victor that spoke up "Your fireball is the only damage spell you have, but it's useless for anything other than starting fires to cook on."
"That's true. I guess I just assumed that three damage dealers would be enough." Kade's voice was thick with disdain "Rather than increasing my firepower, I've filled a role that is important, which none of you can do."
"You're right." Dallas sighed "But that doesn't make you irreplaceable if that's what you thought."
"Of course not." Kade shook his head "I focused on crowd control because it's useful and would benefit the team and I trusted you all to handle the damage, not to ensure that I was irreplaceable."
He sighed at his own naivety. He had made a grave mistake by trusting these people. They consistently made bad decisions and never made an effort to improve themselves. Just because they were soldiers, didn't mean that they were trustworthy.
"I see. You're right. You're not the only one lacking, but as I said, there are multiple reasons for our decision. You don't need to agree with them, and it's pointless to attempt to change my decision."
Kade took a moment to process everything before nodding "Okay, fine. Give me my split from this trip and we can part ways."
Dallas was right, trying to change their minds was pointless.
"About that. I agree with you that we are also lacking, but we can't read books to get stronger like you. We need gear, which costs money."
Kade tilted his head slightly as he glared at Dallas "That sounds like your problem, so why are you telling me?"
"Well, we have to outfit six people with gear. We won't have enough money as is, much less to give you a split."
Kade ground his teeth, it was exactly as he thought. They were trying to scam him out of his share.
"That's not for you to decide. I contributed just as much as the rest of you, if not more. I earned my share, and I deserve it."
"As if!" Paul shouted "Your weak ass spells barely did anything. You never suffered a wound, and your body isn't scarred. You didn't suffer like the rest of us!"
"Your scars are from being a dumbass." Kade sneered "Just because I didn't get my face melted off doesn't mean that I didn't contribute. Without me, the team would have left empty-handed, plain and simple."
"You son of a bitch!" Paul roared while drawing his sword "Say that again, I dare you!"
"Paul, calm down!" Dallas intervened "We aren't on the new world anymore. Killing here has consequences."
Paul struggled for a moment before glaring at Kade hatefully. "You can go to hell! You're not getting our money, and you better hope we don't meet again after today!" He hissed.
Kade glared back for a moment before turning to Dallas "Are you going to do the honorable thing and give me my rightful share?"
Dallas's expression hardened "No. You're not a part of this team anymore, and aren't entitled to a share of the team's spoils."
"Alright." Kade nodded, his voice calm "I'll remember this betrayal. I wonder if you will come to regret it someday."
"Is that a threat?" Dallas asked as his hand came to rest on the hilt of his sword.
"No, just a thought." Kade moved his gaze to Julian "I'm most surprised by you. I thought you were a respectable person and worth being friends with. I guess I was naive."
"I-I'm sorry." Julian replied sheepishly "I didn't want any of this."
"Grow a spine already, J." Paul sneered.
Kade took one last look at them before turning around and walking back toward the gate. He pulled out his phone and called the base.
"Graakas, plans have changed."
"Why, did something happen?"
"Yeah. My team kicked me out and refuse to give me my split, so I don't have the money to buy resources."
"Hm, that's not uncommon, as power rules. However, many do frown upon breaking contracts."
"I expected more from them. Regardless, I will do what I have to. How many credits will I need to buy the resources you would recommend?"
"It depends. textbooks on altaris and other energies become more expensive as you progress, it's the same for spells. For example, first-level spell manuals range between 1,000 to 10,000 for a single spell. However, the books I gave you are of the lowest level, so the next tier shouldn't be too costly."
"I figured as much. I'd like to get the next book on altaris, and a few spells. at least one offensive, one utility, and one defensive."
"I'll help you pick and try to find the cheapest ones. I'd say a baseline of 10,000 credits would be enough for all four."
"Thank's, Graakas. How much will I owe you for your help?"
"Hm, let's say five hundred credits. Or, you can consider it a favor and repay me later."
"Got it. I'll be gone for a while. I'll contact you when I return."
"Alright. By the way, what's the name of the team?"
"Moonlight squad, why?"
"Just curious. Be sure to remember this, Kade, it's a valuable lesson. What matters the most in the world of champions is power. Without it, you're at the mercy of others."
"Oh, I will, believe me."
Kade ended the call and returned to the gate. He received awkward stares as he underwent inspection, but ignored them. After a few minutes, he stepped into the new world.