Quick Duel
Jane stared at Osho without trying to hide her gaze. She was still paying attention to the other students and decided that she'd let them try and figure things out on their own for a while before stepping in. Though she had already noticed more than a few flaws that could be corrected, she let them try and figure things out by themselves for a little bit.
The majority of her attention was fixed on Osho and Ellie. Unsurprisingly, Ellie seemed to have gotten a good grasp of controlling Sugil, and she was making her attack the metal dummy.
The snake was creating purple crystals from thin air. Well, not thin air, but Mana, since Mana was invisible most of the time, it looked like it was from thin air.
The shards weren't particularly fast, but judging by the loud thuds each one produced as well as the debts that formed in the dummy, it wasn't odd to assume that they carried a lot of power. After all, the dummies weren't hollow.
This fell within Jane's expectations, but so far, Osho was just standing there with a thoughtful look on his face, and Gale seemed content to perch on his shoulder.
'What is he doing?' She wondered, more curious than impatient.
However, the seconds turned to minutes, and despite her usually collected demeanor, she couldn't help but tap her foot impatiently.
'How long is this gonna take?' She let out a light huff as she stared at him with an intense look.
That's when he nodded to himself and seemed to make a decision, then Jane's eyes widened a little bit.
***
Osho was going over a new move he'd taught Gale and was making sure the bird remembered it well.
The night before when they trained in the park, Osho assumed the practical classes would involve their beasts attacking in some way or the other, so he decided to try and teach Gale other ways to use his wind.
As it turned out, trying to teach a bird how to use magic was... like trying to teach a bird how to use magic.
Granted, it wasn't exactly that difficult. Again, Gale was intelligent, just young. Moreover, he had a natural talent when it came to manipulating wind, so it wasn't like Osho had nowhere to start from.
Still, after more than an hour of trial and error, he was inevitably getting frustrated. Then he remembered he was stupid.
After all, he had his bond with Gale, and while he could make his intentions known to the bird, who said that was the only form of information he could transmit?
As such, he imagined what he wanted Gale to do and sent that image directly to the bird's mind through their bond.
That solved the issue immediately as when Osho told Gale to replicate the image, the bird did it with flawless precision and proceeded to do it even better than what Osho had envisioned.
Fast forward to right now, Osho was trying to consider how to make Gale use this new move as quickly as possible while also not sacrificing its strength and efficiency. Essentially, the perfect balance.
The dummy seemed like a good target, so after reviewing what he wanted Gale to do in his mind, he sent the precise instructions to the bird and told him to carry them out immediately.
The moment Osho gave the order, Gale shot off his shoulder like a bullet, though it was surprisingly unharmed.
Gale didn't fly too high, but his agility was simply too absurd.
Due to having four wings, not only was his flapping strength much higher than that of a normal bird, but they also allowed Gale to perform maneuvers that would have been impossible otherwise. Then with his control over the wind, well, it's safe to say that his agility was simply unreasonable.
However, Osho wasn't trying to show off, so that wasn't the focal point. Essentially, Gale could do a lot with his physical body and the bare minimum of wind control.
However, when Gale used his wind at a higher degree, well...
Gale focused on the dummy and flapped its wings once. Then sharp and almost invisible blades of razor-sharp wind shot out at incredible speeds.
More than a few people were paying attention to Osho besides Mrs Jane and Ellie. As such, everyone saw how the wind blades suddenly passed the dummy, then lines appeared on its limbs as well as neck before it fell apart, each cut being extremely precise.
All this took a little less than a second.
The students that had been paying attention had their jaws drop to the ground when they saw this. Forget damaging the dummy, just getting their beasts to attack it was an issue, and even Sugil was only able to leave a few dents in its surface.
Yet Gale had effortlessly cleaved through all its limbs and beheaded it in a move most of them weren't even able to see.
'Heh, so that's what a beast with Master rank potential can do.' Ellie smiled as she also noticed what Gale had done.
However, she didn't feel discouraged or threatened. Instead, she felt a sudden drive to not be outdone.
'I see, it seems my expectations weren't just reasonable, they weren't enough.' Jane's expression didn't change, but there was a certain quiet gleam in her eyes.
'Each dummy is durable enough to survive a .50 caliber round. Yet it was cut through like butter by his beast. Moreover, it seems like that was only slightly above casual effort for it.' She mused as she observed Gale who didn't seem like he had pushed himself to unleash those attacks.
'The attack potency aside, how he was able to get his beast to unleash that sort of attack, has he already figured out image transfer? That's something only Adept rank beast tamers can do, granted, I could be wrong and the bird is just very smart, but it's barely a few days old.' She tilted her head ever so slightly.
'Moreover, it's obvious the bird wasn't acting on its own. It seemed like Osho was giving it a series of commands before it attacked the dummy.' The more she thought, the more impressed she became.
It was one thing for Gale to have a high attack potency, that was expected, even if she underestimated it a little bit. But Osho seemed just as competent as well.
'Being able to control Gale so well suggested a high compatibility rate, that alone could simply be attributed to luck, but it's clear that Osho has been consciously training the feedback rate between them. It's impressive.' She nodded to herself as she started drafting out plans in her mind for how she wanted to continue training Osho.
She wasn't in the camp of 'bringing everyone along'. She'd train everyone as was required, but those who showed greater promise than others would receive greater attention to help them grow as much as possible.
She then suddenly turned to the side and narrowed her eyes.
"Frank! What did I say about using verbal commands?" Her tone was sharp and the boy that was addressed flinched. He had been trying to whisper what he wanted his beast to do, but Mrs Jane had caught him immediately.
"Um, Mrs Jane." Osho walked up to her and scratched the back of his head. The Dummy was destroyed so he didn't have anything else to do.
"What do I do now?" He asked and Mrs Jane looked between him and Gale, then she decided to ask.
"The time you spent standing there, were you detailing what you wanted your beast to do which is why you took so long? Or were you simply thinking about something?" The question caught Osho off-guard a little, but he still answered.
"I was running over how I wanted Gale to do what he did." He answered.
"So how long did it take to transmit that information to him and tell him to carry out the order?" She asked again. Osho had been keeping track since his goal was to improve the speed of this particular action, so he was able to answer.
"A little over half a second." He answered again and Mrs Jane nodded without an expression.
"That's very good. There's still room for improvement, but in the meantime, such a level is already beyond your rank." Hearing this, Osho wasn't particularly surprised, but it felt nice to be validated.
After saying this, she stretched her hand to the side, and Osho watched with amazement as she used her Mana to create a metal dummy, but this one was comparatively of a higher quality than Nora. Not that Nora couldn't make dummies of similar or higher quality, it's just that Jane instructed her to make crude ones.
This dummy had no facial features but seemed to be built like a proper human as it looked like it had muscles and its joints all looked properly functional.
"Obviously, a stationary target won't do you much good, so you can play with this thing for a while. Your goal is simple, try to destroy it." She tilted her head.
"By the way, it's not just gonna be focused on enduring attacks from you, it will also fight back. So be careful." Osho blinked and looked at the dummy again.
Besides being more defined, he was certain it was made of tougher stuff than the other dummies. Add that to its weight, and Osho was certain that if it was going to fight back, he didn't want to get hit by it.
'Then again, if this thing can pressure us then it's most likely what we need right now. After all, there's only so much free training can do for us.' He mused before nodding.
Seeing that Osho had no issues with the arrangement, she gestured to an empty area where the fight would take place.
The dummy moved toward the spot, and Osho was amazed by how fluid its movements were. He was certain that if the thing wore clothes and a mask, he probably wouldn't be able to differentiate it from a normal person.
Still, he followed after the dummy, and two of them reached their designated 'arena'.
Osho stood about ten meters away from the thing when it turned to face him and it entered a stance.
'Close combat is immediately out of the question.' He thought without hesitation and kept his eyes trained on the Dummy, he was committed to not underestimating it at all.
'Gale, get ready...' The moment he sent the message the dummy suddenly shot forward with a startling amount of speed.
Osho however, was surprisingly calm.
In fact, his entire demeanor seemed to change. His eyes which usually seemed unbothered suddenly gained a chilling coldness with a touch of calculative grace. His body also tensed unconsciously, but not from fear.
When the dummy was about halfway, he sent a command, and Gale while still on his shoulder sent forth multiple wind blades.
The dummy crossed its arms as it ran and the wind blades crashed into them, releasing ear-piercing noises as they left cuts in its arms, but that was about it.
But Osho wasn't perturbed. The attacks had slowed down its advance a little bit which served him well.
With another command to Gale, the bird released a torrent of wind into the ground and created a cloud of dust that engulfed them and the dummy while also obscuring the sights of anyone looking their way.
Within the dust cloud, the dummy had stopped moving as it waited for an attack, yet as it waited, nothing happened.
It wasn't capable of any complicated thoughts, its purpose was to fight and that was it. But if it couldn't see its opponent, what was it supposed to do?
However, it assumed its opponent was preparing something, so it was determined to find them before they could finish.
However, it suddenly heard something at its feet and looked down just in time to see Osho on his back with his hand raised toward the dummy's chin.
A wind blade shot forward and hit the underside of its chin causing its head to snap back. Compared to Gale, this wind blade was smaller and significantly weaker as it didn't even leave a scratch, but it served its purpose.
The dummy was temporarily stunned, and before it could properly regain its bearings, there was a brief sound of something moving at incredible speeds before crashing into the dummy's chest.
The force of the impact blew away the dust surrounding them which allowed everyone to see what was going on, and the result left them stunned.
Osho got up and dusted his clothes while Gale calmly returned to his shoulder, though he shook his head as if in discomfort and Osho gently rubbed his beak.
As for the dummy, it was on the ground with a massive hole in its chest.
Jane who had been able to see what happened in the dust due to her Mana Sense couldn't help but be amazed.
Immediately Gale created the dust cloud, he left Osho's shoulder and flew out of the dust cloud before flying in a circle and rapidly picking up speed. As for Osho, he used his meager control over wind to male his movements lighter to allow himself to get closer to the dummy.
He then went below it and stunned it with a weaker wind blade just as Gale finished picking up speed and flew into the dust cloud like a missile, smashing into the dummy and piercing a hole through it.
'... Incredible.'