Risen World

The week of training flew by extremely fast for Joshua, but from the perspective of Celia and Thomas it might as well have been the longest week that they had endured in their lives. They were both too young to have been a part of the first phase so they didn't have to survive through that tragedy. Instead they were now wishing that they had gone through that instead of what Joshua had just finished pushing them through. The first day that was set up for clearing the spirit dungeon which was fairly challenging, but it felt like just the right pace in their opinion. The spirit beast inside were around their levels even if they came in large waves and in the end they had gained a level and a useful new skill.

It was after the spirit dungeon that Joshua started pushing to and far beyond their limits. He didn't stop to take a break the moment they cleared the dungeon and instead teleported them to another area that had giant powerful insects that were well above their level. It was a bit of a struggle at first, but Celia's sense of danger allowed her to survive against the much stronger praying mantis like beast. Even so her powerful blows weren't nearly enough to take the giant beast down quickly while at the same time Thomas was at a disadvantage as well since this was the first time outside of the tournament where Tails had been put in a situation where he was the weaker beast in the fight.

Tails was a unique and powerful being on a similar level as Jade, Light, or Momo who were all Lily's beast companions. He was intelligent, but hadn't yet reached the point where he was strong enough to speak. Joshua wouldn't be surprised if he evolved somewhere along the line with all the levels he'd be gaining but for now Tails was still a notch below beast companions like Tank, Cinder, and Titus. In a fight with the Praying Mantis Tails needed the boost from Thomas's other beast companion to keep up with the bigger creatures and eventually take them down with a bit of team work between him and Celia.

At first they'd take down one praying mantis at a time, but occasionally they'd be forced into a position where multiple of the beast would attack them at a time and whenever this occurred Amy would jump in and help out. She decided to be the one to do so since she was trying her best to catch up to Joshua in levels even if fighting these far weaker beast was meager experience to them at this point. They spent an entire day of none stop fighting these creatures before Joshua finally gave the pair a break as they were on the edge of collapse. They all teleported back to James Town and rested there. In that one day Joshua had already gotten Thomas to level sixty- eight and Celia to level sixty-seven. With such good results he decided level seventy would be the minimum target, but the closer he could get the pair to level seventy-five before the expedition the better.

The next day Joshua woke everyone up early and headed to the area they would be spending the rest of the week to train their two new recruits. He brought them to the entrance of the canyon. The place would be a step up in challenge for the two and this time around Joshua brought everyone into his party outside of Amy. Initially he didn't do it so that Thomas and Celia could gain as much experience as possible without spreading it across the party, but Joshua new that in the canyon those two alone weren't going to be enough to clear a path forward. The beast there were just far to numerous, so instead he alongside Lily would join their party so that they would still get some experience from the beast that Lily and Joshua would kill. Even if they were getting help they'd still have to fight the entire time and gain experience on their own alongside what they'd gain from the party. Amy on the other hand was free to go and get as much experience as she wanted to on her own without any hindrance.

The first day in the canyon was a nightmare for the two as they fought several beetles that seemed to keep coming from everywhere and were multiple levels above their own. Fighting level seventy plus creatures constantly was a challenge for them and the fact that they each gained a level just during the day proved that. It was night time when Joshua, Lily, and Amy had to join in to help out. The swarms of bats that came out at night were impossible for the two to deal with on their own, but having Amy dancing around taking out bat after bat with powerful blows to their insides, Joshua slinging waves of aura that could cut down multiple bats at a time, and last but not least Lily bringing out her three most powerful beast companions to light up the hordes of bats with all sorts of elemental attacks gave the two new recruits more than enough of a security blanket.

By the time morning had come around and the bats had gone back to their caves Thomas and Celia were exhausted and covered in blood, dirt, and grime from fighting all night long. The two had gained another level with Thomas already reaching level seventy and Celia just about to reach that point as well. Usually at this point the leveling speed would start to decline, but Joshua wasn't going to stop this momentum. Instead of sticking around to take down more bats and beetles he pushed the group forwards towards where he knew the spiders and snakes were mostly located at the center area of the canyon. For the most part he ignored the goats, but they did stop and help Thomas tame one of the stronger goats so that he'd have a mount to move around on while Tails was fighting if needed.

Throughout the day Joshua would lead the group towards spiders and snakes to fight and he made sure not to be the person to attract their attention. He left that job to Celia. Taking on the massive beast were a real struggle for the pair. Celia had issues dealing with long legged spiders' speed and twitchy motions, but eventually she was able to get used to their movements with her decent reflexes and her sense of danger. She couldn't just block the powerful blows with her shield and had to use it to deflect the strikes. She would use the moment that she deflected the blows to cut up the legs to slow the creature down while Thomas and Tails went on the attack with their bestial fusion and powerful flames to its main body.

When it came to the snakes Joshua made sure to help out if they got overwhelmed by the size and strength of the most powerful creature in the canyon, but for the most part they were able to handle it on their own. Joshua made sure not to lead the group in the direction of where the giant intelligent snake was still lurking and waiting for Madalyn to come and meet her. Although Joshua didn't think the powerful beast would attack them there was no reason to risk it. By the end of the day both Thomas and Celia were level seventy-two thanks to the massive amount of experience that could be gained from killing those powerful creatures and Joshua let them rest before they were made to enter the dungeon.

Over the next couple of days Joshua lead them throughout the dungeon and didn't force them to clear the place on their own. It had taken the entire main group with most of them being around level seventy-five or higher to clear out the place the first time around and there was no way these two new recruits were going to be able to do something like that on their own. The dungeon was actually the easiest portion of training for the two since it was mainly used as a training session to show them how they were supposed to fit in with the main group.

Joshua took up the main tanking role throughout the expedition while Celia was a sub tank that would hold off specific beast or occasionally sub in when Joshua was busy dealing with bigger problems. Thomas had Tails acted as more of a long ranged mage that shot fire at any beast they came across them while protecting the back line of himself and Lily. On the other hand Amy, Cinder, and Titus were all rampaging against any beast they came across as the main offensive fire power. They stuck with this strategy for most of the dungeon only changing it a bit depending on which boss they ended up fighting.

At one point during the dungeon dive they had lucked out and Thomas had found a new beast familiar. Although he had tamed the goat earlier those beast weren't especially powerful and were more mounts than anything else. Joshua also noticed that Thomas didn't seem to have any affinity with spiders or snakes since even when on death door none of them would allow Thomas to tame them. This showed just how lucky Lily was to have such high affinity with almost any beast due to her soul beast. The familiar that Thomas eventually ended up taming was a young mutated bat that they had found in the darkened area of the dungeon were all the bats lived. It was still young in the same way that Cinder had been when Lily had first found her, but it had been sleeping when they found it.

It glowed briefly when Thomas approached it and seemed to form a connection immediately before disappearing into his soul realm. They didn't even get a good look at the creature at the time, but they figured it wouldn't wake up immediately. In the end they cleared the dungeon and gained a couple of skills for Thomas and Celia. For Thomas he gained a skill that allowed him to completely share his senses with his beast companions. While Celia gained a new sword along with a skill that allowed her to place a barrier on someone else from a distance for a five minute period of time.

Once they left the dungeon Joshua lead them all back to James Town with the week coming to an end and the big expedition being scheduled to kick off in a couple of days. He was going to let them go through the dungeon back in James Town so they could gain some skills from it as well before they would be allowed to rest and train on their own to get accustomed to all the levels they had gained. It was a shame that when they arrived in James Town Joshua received a system message stating a territory war had been started with James Town and there was a two hour countdown until it would begin. There was only one person dumb enough to do this right now after the tournament and Joshua sighed knowing full well that Kyle had come knocking at his door..