First Training Session I
Osho woke up with a start.
He stared at his ceiling for a while, his eyes dazed, then he sat up and stretched, and to his surprise and delight, his body felt great.
Not only did it not feel sore from his cultivation session the previous day, but it also felt lighter and was devoid of any aches.
He got out of bed and stretched. No aches or hidden pains whatsoever.
'I need to cultivate more.' He instantly decided before looking at Gale who slept soundly on his bed.
Without much thought, he shook the bird awake much to its dissatisfaction. Which grew when it realized that it was gonna be showered again.
After showering himself and Gale, Osho fed the bird and got dressed before eating his breakfast.
With all of this done, he didn't waste much time and exited his apartment, got on his bicycle, and headed out with Gale on his shoulder.
As he rode, he did his best to have a 'conversation' with Gale. It was pretty difficult as even though their bond had been strengthened and Gale was definitely intelligent, he was still a child that had hatched a few days ago, so expecting him to do something like form proper words was asking a bit much.
But that wasn't Osho's intention. Instead, he was trying to train their ability to communicate, as even though they had a decent bond, it still depended on them to comprehend and act out each other's intentions.
About halfway to the school, Osho instructed Gale to take flight. Not too high, just a few meters above his head. He then made Gale treat various tall objects like lampposts and powerlines as obstacles to be avoided.
At the same time, he'd periodically tell Gale to do something random. Like a barrel roll or to swoop down and fly level with his bicycle.
This earned him a few stares on his way to the school, but only a few as it was still fairly early, so there weren't too many people out. Moreover, it made the ride to school far more fun.
Eventually, though, they arrived, and Gale found himself on Osho's shoulder once more.
Like yesterday, Osho rode past the gates. However, he didn't go to his class building, instead, he went to an area devoid of buildings, a large field that was devoid of grass.
Mrs Jane informed them that from now on, they would reduce their theoretical classes to the bare minimum. Since they had about a month to prepare for the college entrance exam, they would make use of it as much as they could.
Outside the outings, they would train within the school grounds as well.
Osho pulled up near the field, and he was surprised by the amount of students that were there already. It wasn't everyone, but it seemed like most people had turned up early.
Naturally, Osho's class wasn't the only class of final years. There were ten classes in total, and his class was class 7.
One might have expected to see a lot fewer students considering the words of their teacher yesterday and how things were bound to turn dangerous, so they had the option to drop out.
But one should remember that despite its declining reputation, Bright Spark Academy was still a top-class school within the Blossom Citadel, and its tuition fees weren't cheap. As such, the parents of most of the students were well off at the very least, so they could afford to buy a few more eggs for their children to sift through.
As such, their numbers were bound to remain relatively stable as most students would still go through the training, and those who wouldn't were most probably those whose parents were scared for their lives and didn't want them to take any risks.
He quickly spotted the part of the field where his classmates gathered and changed direction to head there, but as soon as he spotted them, they also spotted him.
As soon as he got close, they quickly crowded him.
"Uh, hey guys?" Osho was immediately put off as everyone stared at him, or more specifically, they stared at Gale with burning eyes.
"I forgot to ask you yesterday, what's its name?"
"What kind of bird is that?"
"Does it eat a lot?"
"How is it so well-behaved? My Lemur can barely stay in one spot."
"Its color scheme is pretty cool! Are all beasts with high potential like that?"
Osho was hit with a barrage of questions and his mind went blank. For someone like him who was quite introverted, this could only be described as I nightmare.
'Ah, I forgot that I don't like people.' The thought was fleeting as he struggled to come up with responses to the barrage of questions.
Sensing his distress, Gale chirped with indignation, however, those who noticed simply thought it was basking in the attention and started fawning even more.
Irritated, Gale chirped very loudly before spreading his four wings and flapping them hard.
Osho was spared of any consequences, but a powerful gust of wind erupted from Gale and swept over the crowd. Most of them were pushed back, and many of them were knocked down by the force.
When the commotion ended, silence fell over the crowd as everyone stared at Gale with shock.
'Ah, this won't end well.' Osho pursed his lips, he doubted that such a thing would lead to good results.
He was right, unfortunately.
But just before the fallout could happen...
"Osho!" A yell caught his attention and he turned his head to see Ellie running over while wearing a purple tracksuit, Sugil wrapped around her neck as always.
She completely ignored the glares the crowd directed at Osho and stopped in front of him, her expression bright as always.
"Heh, how was it? Did you like my gift?" She said with a teasing smile and poked his cheeks.
Osho: ( ￣-￣)
"What's with that look?!" She gritted her teeth when Osho stared at her with that strange gaze.
"Well, without context, someone might not know what you really mean..." He tried to explain, but the moment the words left his mouth, a vein popped on Ellie's head.
"Oh, please explain." She said with a sweet tone, but Osho had the feeling that things were rapidly devolving. Yet he was scared of what would happen if he didn't answer.
"Well you see, if someone didn't understand what you meant, then they might misunderstand your words for something else..." Immediately he said this, she got right up in his face, her chest pressed against his. Unfortunately(or not) she was shorter than him, so he had a great view from above. NOT that he had the luxury to appreciate that right now.
"So you can understand if someone can misunderstand what I say, but you YOU can't understand what I say? HUH?!" She looked genuinely pissed.
"What are you even talking about?" He asked with genuine confusion.
"Dense MF!" Someone shouted from the crowd.
"I HEARD THAT!" Osho roared but a hand grasped his ear and stopped him from acting out.
"Now listen here you little-"
"Okay, okay. That's enough." The voice of their teacher made everyone flinch and the attention shifted from Osho, much to his relief.
Everyone turned to face Mrs Jane who walked towards them with a confident stride, but instead of her usual business suit, she wore a pair of baggy pants and a tight-fitting long-sleeved black shirt. Moreover, she had tied her flowing red hair into a ponytail. Giving her an overall youthful and beautiful appearance.
The boys inevitably ogled her a little bit, but Osho stared for a different reason.
Those familiar with her knew that this was her go-to attire whenever she wanted to do anything related to beasts, the class was a part of these people.
Osho stared because he knew that a beast tamer of her caliber wouldn't wear simple clothes and suspected that what she was wearing was either enchanted in some way or was made with special materials that were very durable. Or both.
Once she was sure he had gotten their attention, she started speaking.
"Good to see that most of you are here. I'm not in any mood to waste time so we'll get right to it." As she said this, she looked at each of them, her gaze didn't even linger on Osho.
She then muttered softly.
"Nora, come out." When she spoke, a black gateway suddenly appeared next to her and everyone watched with awe as a metallic grey armadillo stepped out of the gateway. The thing was about 2 meters long and its body was covered in scutes that looked like they were tougher than steel.
It seemed quite menacing, especially when one remembered that the creature was at the Expert rank.
Jane didn't say anything, but the armadillo, Nora acted.
With a strange grunt, the ground started to ripple, and in front of everyone's eyes, strange metal constructs started to emerge from the ground in front of Nora. As this was happening, Mrs Jane once again started to speak.
"As Beast Tamers, while having a strong beast is ideal, it's also important to be able to control and communicate with them effectively to achieve the desired result. If I'm not wrong, with the little time you lot have had since hatching your beasts, you've only learned how to give verbal orders, right?" It was phrased as a question but her tone was a matter-of-fact tone.
She was mostly correct, judging by how everyone averted their gazes. But to her surprise, Osho and Ellie were staring right at her. Though while Ellie looked confident, Osho looked attentive.
This piqued Jane's interest, but she didn't comment on it.
"Whether in the wilderness or when you're fighting against another beast tamer, things like command speed are a necessity. Your opponent won't wait for you to shout out whatever command you want your beast to obey. Moreover, even if they did,.if your opponent is smart enough, they can easily find ways to counter the command you're so blatantly shouting for all to hear. This isn't a show or a movie, this is real life. Screaming your moves only makes you look dumb and gives your opponents an easier time in defending or countering you." Her words were blunt and more than a few students blushed with embarrassment.
Osho couldn't help but nod in agreement. While he didn't get along with most of his classmates the same way he did with Ellie, it's not like he was on bad terms with them. As such, he more than once heard them talk about how cool it would be to yell out some powerful technique they taught their beast and how they would look cool standing behind it.
It sounded cool but was impractical and actively detrimental. It seemed that Mrs. Jane was aware of these fantasies and was determined to root them out of her students.
When she finished speaking, several metal dummies had emerged from the ground. They didn't look the cleanest, but they certainly looked durable.
"Everyone spread out. Each of you will have a dummy to train with. What I want you to do is to command your beast and hit it. Destruction isn't necessary, and what I want are non-verbal commands. If I catch any of you shouting or telling your beast to do something manually, you will be punished. You have your bonds for a reason, use them." When she said this, the dummies spread out and stood 5 meters apart from each other.
The field was quite large so they didn't need to worry about accidentally taking up the space of another class.
Osho walked in front of his dummy and stood about ten meters away from it with Gale on his shoulder.
'I'm assuming it's easier for her beast to create constructs like these since metal is more tangible. As opposed to wind. Would Gale be able to create constructs with wind at a higher rank?' He mused but decided not to think too deeply about that, right now what he wanted was to improve the speed at which he could give Gale orders.
Due to their bond, Gale was quite obedient, but the bird was still young, so sometimes, he'd pause due to his curiosity about some of Osho's orders.
It wouldn't be an issue now, but as they progressed further, such hesitation might cause problems. As such, Osho was determined to make Gale trust him to the point of carrying out his orders without hesitation.
'Granted, if Gale communicates with me and points out something I might have missed, I'm also obligated to see if it would apply in our situation. After l, I may be the beast tamer, but it is a two-way street. I can't be sending Gale to fight dangerous opponents and not even listen to him when the time comes.' With that thought in mind, Osho nodded to himself.
He could hear some frustrated grunts from his classmates and turned to see them groaning in frustration. It seemed like they were trying and failing to make their beasts do anything with non-verbal commands. Though Ellie seemed to be having much better success.
He also felt the gaze of Mrs Jane on him. She wasn't bothering to hide it this time.
'Well, better get started.' He thought.