Risen World

Joshua stood on the side of the open field next to Celia and Grace waiting for the test to begin for Thomas. For the testing process Joshua decided to do some one on one fighting first to see if they had enough skill even if they were under leveled to join their group. It was pretty much a formality since Joshua had already gone against both of them during the tournament, but this would give them a chance to show off any of the skills they weren't able to use since the matches went by so quickly. In Thomas's case Joshua already felt that he was ready for the next stage of testing and this was just a waste of time, but for some reason Lily really wanted to go up against the poor kid. Apparently she wanted to burn off some steam from how much he had been badgering her since the tournament whenever they ran into each other.

So now Joshua was just a spectator as he watched Lily stand across from Thomas who already had both of his beast companions out ready for the battle. His fox who Joshua found out was named Tails, which he thought was the most unoriginal name, was already out and ready to fight. Its pair of tails were swishing back and forth with a harsh heat already forming around the creature. It was around the same size it had been during the tournament, but Joshua highly doubted that was its largest form since it was a highly level intelligent beast. It had not gained the ability to speak as of yet, but it wouldn't surprise Joshua if it could in the future.

Thomas' other beast companion was sitting on his shoulder. The little squirrel with the unfortunate name of Nuts was currently ready to fight as well. Now all they were waiting for was to see which beast Lily would be bringing out to fight. Joshua had already told her not to bring out any of her three most powerful beast because they were all too high level and too overbearing for the current Thomas to even stand a chance. So instead Lily summoned her newest friend Momo who was bigger than Tails at almost twice the size at the moment. Thomas looked to Tails for a second and the fox responded by growing in size to where he was only slightly smaller than Momo. The aura of the fox now matched its body size so Joshua assumed this was Tails current max size.

Lily apparently only planned to use one beast companion for the fight since she had the level advantage, but the way she was currently looking at Thomas didn't quite feel right to Joshua. She didn't seem like she just wanted to test him and that could be clearly seen the moment she started to link with Momo and the two went on the attack. Momo didn't hold back anything in her assault as she used her bigger size and nimble nature to keep Thomas and Tails on their back foot to start off the match. Although Tails was incredibly evasive he wasn't any faster than Momo do to the glaring level difference and was constantly spending all of its energy avoiding her assault so that the match wouldn't come to an end so quickly.

Thomas tried to help out by going after Lily while the two beast fought, but that was a horrible decision to make. Throughout the tournament many people had seen fighter after fighter try to go after Lily to end the match, but in all of those cases where the strategy actually stood a chance of working those fighters were close combat experts that could actually thrive in a fight against Lily. Thomas however wasn't all that much better a fighter than Lily and that slight advantage in skill completely disappeared with the level difference and the fact that Lily currently had her stats linked up to Momo. A close combat match would not end in Thomas's favor.

Once Thomas pulled out his daggers and went on the attack Lily just glared at him as she brought out her staff and started beating the crap out of him. With her link to Momo Lily's strength, speed, and vitality were all greatly strengthened to the point where she could easily dance around Thomas. At first it looked like a serious fight, but it quickly started devolving into Lily just avoiding one of Thomas's stabs and hitting him in any spot that she found most painful without knocking him out.

"Uh, do you think we should stop the match?" Grace asked she turned to look at Joshua. She had stopped inspecting the garden just before the matches started and was now here to watch the show. Joshua thought he might test her own fighting strength, but after seeing that she was just on the cusp of reaching level forty at this point he knew that she had a long way to go before she joined the main group as a combat doctor of sorts.

"No, Lily's just blowing off some steam. She isn't even trying to injure him, but she definitely has no idea how to teach with the way she's going about this…well test I guess." Joshua said while rubbing his neck. He had a hard time calling the entire match a test with the way it was going.

"Will I have to fight one of her beast as well?" Celia asked. Joshua was happy to see there wasn't a hint of fear in her voice at the idea but instead there seemed to be only curiosity.

"No your match will be with me. When we fought in the tournament I was trying to end the match as quickly as possible so I didn't get to see all of your skills. Now I'll give you an opportunity to show off a bit so be prepared." Joshua responded getting a nod and silence in return.

The match had gotten to the point where Thomas finally decided he stood no chance of taking down Lily in a one on one close combat scenario. He backed off battered and bruised before using a movement skill to get next to Tails who had also moved away from Momo. He then jumped up on to Tails' back and started using his bestial fusion skill as the squirrel Nuts disappeared from his shoulder. The skill was powerful and gave Tails more of a fighting chance against Momo as his speed and strength shot up to levels that were just a notch below hers, but in the end Lily showed Thomas the major flaw with the bestial fusion ability he had.

Lily had Momo strike directly towards Thomas up on Tails' back, which forced the fox to try to stop the blow with its pair of tails. However this allowed Lily to jump on to his back and strike at Thomas swiftly. The moment Thomas lost his concentration from being hit by Lily the bestial fusion broke down. With that the battle was effectively over as Momo pinned down Tails while Lily held her staff at Thomas's throat.

"Alright that's enough." Joshua said as he walked over to the pair. "It's easy to see both your strengths and weaknesses Thomas. Right now your ability to provide help with more beast companions to fight alongside us is more than enough, but you yourself have a long way to go if you want to help out in an actual fighting aspect."

"He's easy to read." Lily simply said with a nod before stepping away from him.

"Exactly and that will get a dagger user that specializes in feints to create openings killed. I'll have to have Marcus help teach you more of the basics. He's our best dagger user outside of Madalyn and I don't think you'd learn much from her style that is well out of your reach for now." Joshua said as he offered a hand to help pull Thomas up off the ground.

"Sounds about right." Thomas said with a smile. "My beast and I have a long way to go, but I'll be happy to take that journey with you guys." Joshua simply nodded in return before waving Celia over so that they could begin there test. Lily walked off with Thomas following after asking all sorts of questions along the way. She simply responded by bonking him in the head with her staff to get him to calm down.

"Well do I have to worry about getting toyed with like Thomas?" Celia asked with a small hint of a smile that could be seen on her lips.

"No I'll be taking this a bit more seriously." Joshua said as he took out his Scale blade and watched Celia put on her helmet while bringing out her shield and sword. "As a tank you will be required to take the front lines from time to time which means you must be able to not only defend yourself, but defend what's beyond you. Your goal in this test is to do your best to try to keep me from getting past you."

Celia nodded in response before Joshua took off blinking right in front of her and cleaving down his scale blade with reckless abandon. Celia responded nicely as she used her shield to absorb most of the blow while lowering her stance and firmly keeping her balance. Joshua wasn't using his aura, but even so the giant gap in level caused his strength to be overwhelming as she was sent sliding backwards. She got right back up and kept Joshua from being able to rush past her by striking out with her sword to keep him out in front.

The match between the two dragged on for a while as Joshua shifted between two styles of fighting. The first was a rampaging reckless style that most beast they would face on explorations would imitate. Celia responded to this style perfectly as her ability to sense danger helped her reaction time to powerful blows that could cleave through her armor if she didn't block properly. She knew when to block with her shield and deflect with her sword which showed all the proper skills of a knight. The other style that Joshua attacked her with was more precision based with several fake outs. Once again her ability to sense danger helped her sense which attack she could ignore and which were actually dangerous, but she had more trouble keeping Joshua in front of her with the way he danced around her. In the end Joshua ended the match with a powerful energy slash infused strike that she blocked with her concentrated energy wall on her shield. It was strong enough to survive such a blow which was all Joshua needed to see.

With the testing done Joshua decided it would be more than worthwhile to bring the pair of new recruits up to speed before the next expedition, but first he had a meeting to go to..