Th Obstacle Course III
Everyone watched slack-jawed and Ellie slid across the tightrope, its strange lack of friction becoming a massive advantage for her at this moment as she crossed the Tightrope at an alarming speed.
However, she had no way of stopping, so when she was about to hit the other side, she turned her head to the side and braced her body. Indeed, she smacked into the edge of the next side quite hard and many people winced, Osho included.
However, she didn't seem particularly perturbed as she pulled herself over the ledge and exhaled before getting up. However, the moment she did so.
"Your time is up Ellie!" Mrs Jane called out and Ellie went rigid as she turned to their teacher with wide eyes.
"Huh?"
"You heard me, your 5 minutes is up." Hearing this, Ellie grit her teeth.
"Son of a—!"
"HEY!" Before Ellie could complete her curse, Mrs Jane barked.
"What have I said about cursing? Get down here or else I'll drag you back myself!" No one doubted the threat, Ellie included. So with a huff, she came down with a pouty expression.
Mrs Jane just snorted, but Osho could see the approval in her eyes. Clearly, Ellie's maneuver just then impressed the teacher.
With a nod, she called out the names of the following students.
What followed was... actually quite interesting.
Everyone seemed to realize that they were going about it wrong with Ellie's display and as such, they began to use their beasts to aid them in the obstacle course. Granted, they weren't as proficient in making use of their beast's abilities to aid them. Some even felt like it was pointless as their beasts didn't seem to have abilities that would be useful in such a situation.
However, Osho saw it as a lack of competence. The application of a beast's abilities, at least in the early stages, depended strongly on the mentality of the tamer. If they felt like something wasn't possible, then they were subconsciously placing a limit on themselves.
Take Mrs Jane for example. When one thought about metal and the abilities that came with it, they'd imagine that it was rigid and hard to change the shapes of already created metal. However, not only is Mrs. Jane capable of changing the shapes of the metal on a whim, but she has no issues changing its properties either, as shown by how she was able to make the drops in the obstacle course soft or how she made the metal flexible enough to act as muscles but still retain their durability.
Then again, she most likely wasn't able to do such a thing when she started out, but the fact she can do it now and with such proficiency means that it is something she worked on in the past and became good at later.
The same applies here, many of his classmates have this subconscious 'I can't' preventing them from trying different things. He was sure Mrs Jane knew the same and planned to address it, but for now, she seemed to be content in letting them figure things out on their own.
The following students had varying success when it came to the obstacle course after realizing that using their beasts was the smarter option. There were even a few people who almost completed the first obstacle but were defeated by the clock.
As Osho watched, his hand idly played with Gale who happily nibbled at his fingers with his beak and flapped his wings. He seemed to be treating Osho's hand as some sort of opponent. But obviously, if he wanted to, he could rip Osho's fingers, but he wouldn't do that.
Eventually, it was their turn.
"Otto, Osho, Owen, Oswald, get ready." Mrs Jane called out and the four boys went to their respective areas.
Osho would be lying if he said the obstacle course wasn't more than a bit intimidating. But he trusted that nothing bad would happen to him even if something went wrong. He trusted Mrs Jane as much as he feared her.
He planned on getting as far as possible, so he immediately drowned everything out. Gale hovered just above his head as Mrs Jane gave the command
"Go." Osho immediately ran forward, however, he intended to get through the obstacles as fast as possible.
When he reached the edge, he pushed off as hard as possible.
'Gale.' He urged through their bond and a torrent of wind suddenly lifted him far higher and further than he should have been capable of.
He was vaguely aware of his classmates staring at him, but he couldn't care less about that as he was focused solely on finishing, or at least getting as far through the obstacle course as possible.
He went about 13 meters high before he started plummeting, conveniently, toward one of the platforms. By then, he had already crossed the halfway mark.
As he descended, Gale was about to use gusto wind to slow him down but was surprised when Osho told him not to. This sparked the bird's curiosity, but he obeyed nonetheless.
On the flip side, Osho exhaled as he channeled his Mana. It wasn't a surprise that he was significantly worse at manipulating the wind compared to Gale, and the chances were that it would stay that way. However, while he acknowledged he wouldn't be as good as Gale, that didn't mean he couldn't improve as much as he could.
As such, he told Gale not to help him as he intended to break his fall by himself.
When he was just 3 meters away from hitting the platform, his Mana moved and the air around him became denser and harder to pass through, resulting in him slowing down rapidly.
He grimaced as he felt like he'd just smashed through water at an alarming speed, causing his body to hurt, but it wasn't something he couldn't ignore. More importantly, his speed had reduced enough for him to land safely, though he almost fell off due to losing his balance for a second.
As soon as he regained it though, he started leaping from platform to platform, using his wind and having Gale help him in intervals as the wind was used to push him forward or slow him down at opportune moments.
When he crossed to the other side, a little over a minute had elapsed.
Without wasting any time, he went to the wall and started climbing it. His climbing pace wasn't anything too crazy, just a small bit faster than Ellie. But as soon as he reached a point where the crevice was too high to reach, he grunted and pulled himself up with considerable force whole asking Gale to propel him upward.
As a result, it looked like he somehow pulled himself more than a meter upwards, and this only continued until he reached the top and went down the wall.
Taking a moment to catch his breath, Psho looked at the tightrope with narrowed eyes.
After a few seconds, he ran forward once more. As soon as he reached the tightrope, he turned his body to the side and began to slide across it. It seemed outlandish, but that's what was happening.
He was using the wind to keep himself balanced as he slid across the tightrope, and he propelled himself with small gusts of wind whenever he was about to slow down.
As for the spikes from the wall, Gale just created a wind barrier that deflected all of them, leaving Osho unharmed.
Eventually, he reached the other side of the tightrope and Osho couldn't help but click his tongue, his Mana was already getting low.
Still, he didn't intend to stop.
The next area was the slope that had metal balls rolling down it. The balls fell off the sides when they reached the end and seemed to sink into the drop below, which was an interesting phenomenon, but he had no time to dwell on that.
The slope was about 7 meters wide with 4 balls rolling down it each time, and each ball was 1 meter in diameter. They rolled with what seemed to be no pattern, so Osho didn't try to fry his brain cells and simply asked Gale to carry him over.
Once that was over, the next area was a Maze, and before he went in, he heard Mrs Jane.
"Your beast can't fly for this one." Osho was surprised by the instruction, but he guessed the maze was meant to simulate passing through a tunnel where flying too high to get an overhead view wasn't possible.
He rubbed his chin and asked Gale if he could find a way through the Maze and the bird just tilted his head at him cutely, clearly confused.
Ignoring the way his heart melted at the sight, Osho thought some more.
'Hm. Ah!' He closed his eyes as he tried to visualize what he wanted Gale to do.
In his mind, he made up a Maze. It wasn't too complicated since his brain wasn't able to generate a perfect Maze in a short amount of time, but it got the job done.
Next, he imagined that the Maze was filled with wind and placed himself at the beginning of the Maze and made Gale find the exit by sensing the wind from the entrance. He went over it a few times to make it as understandable to Gale as possible, then he sent the image to Gale through the bond.
The bird froze for a moment as his eyes glazed over, seeming to ruminate on the message it had just received. Then he chirped and turned his gaze to the entrance of the Maze.
He stared for a short while before suddenly flying forward, but slow enough for Osho to keep up.
Smiling, Osho ran after the bird.
On the ground, Mrs Jane was impressed more and more by what she saw.
'He's communicating with his beast with such ease it makes his seniors look like amateurs. Moreover, he's able to use the wind attribute better than I thought, and even Gale is surprisingly competent.' He resisted a small smile as she watched them navigate the Maze.
Well, she didn't actually 'watch' them per say. Instead, she was sensing them through the metal of the obstacle course, and with how they were moving, it was clear that they would reach the end of the Maze in no time.
Jane couldn't help but feel gratified. It's one thing to hatch a powerful beast, but being competent enough to properly make use of their abilities was another matter. She was impressed with Ellie's performance but the girl still had much room for improvement.
The same applied to Osho, but he was considerably better than her.
'Mhm, I'll make sure yo shape them into the best beast Tamers this Citadel has ever seen.'