Thankfully I had some gym clothes in my locker, so after showering I was able to change. Cleaning out my shoes was a pain, but hey I reached level 2! Only 7 more to go and I'm done refining my body, period. Honestly, I can't wait because as fun as fighting hoards of beasts while under 10x gravity is, what comes after is so not worth it.
Alaric the Viking didn't even let me take a shower before he started to run all of us through what he likes to call, "A light workout." and what everyone not born a 17th Century warrior of rape and pillage calls, "torture". After that round of work outs, Beth broke through to the 2nd level.
Then, he enlisted the help of Mr. Harmon who taught us how to take a punch. Literally, he had us stand in front of him and he punched us... hard. Multiple broke bones, a few lost teeth and one kick to the nads for hitting on his wife later, I was ready to KILL HIM!!!!
Thankfully, Mrs. Harmon was around to heal us afterwards. Apparently effusive compliments and begging her to kill her husband is considered hitting on her, who knew. So, teeth regrown, nads somewhat working, and bones in place I was FINALLY allowed to take a glorious shower. By that point, almost 30 people had washed out.
Halfway through beating the shit out of us, Mr. Harmon had said, "If you don't want to be here then leave, there's plenty of people waiting for an opening." Honestly, I was tempted but Beth was having the time of her life, and the four of us stick together. Not to mention that if I dropped out for nothing more than a few broken bones, Storm's Refuge might just kill me. They don't strike me as a kindly, we accept quitters group.
Anyway, it's lunch time and finally clean I got a chance to talk to my friends while chowing down on this insanely good meal. I may stick around just to eat here, I've never had anything like it. That was when I felt the Elemental Energy rushing through my body, healing any latent damages and nourishing my body before heading to my mindscape. Never mind, I have eaten like this before and if the effects are even a third as good as the soup during the trial I'll never quit.
Probably because I'd eaten food like this before, I'd recovered from the ecstasy of it faster than Beth, Rick, or Connor which gave me the time to search out that redhead from before. She was sitting with the tattoo guy, I'm pretty sure he's a beginner level spirit caller. Walking over, I said, "Hi, I'm Sam." Holding my hand out to her.
The tattoo guy looked totally pissed at me, but I didn't care. "Hey Sam, I'm Sarah. I was wondering when you'd come talk to me."
"I recognize you from somewhere, but I just can't put my finger on it and it's been driving me nuts all day so I figured I'd ask." I smiled at her as nicely as I could while a giant tattoo'd barbarian was glaring at me from a foot away.
"Well, we've never met, but my last name is Demitrov." She said, smiling at me knowingly.
*Click*
It was almost audible, the sound of my mind coming to a conclusion. "Cousins?" I asked, wondering if Cynthia was her mom.
"Yeah, and no Cynthia isn't my mom." She looked revolted at the idea, and the barbarian went from pissed at me to interested in an instant.
'Someone's got a crush.' I thought, chuckling to myself.
"We should've met when you turned 18, but the whole implant thing happened and then you went and pass the Trial of the Storm..."
"What?!?!" The barbarian stood up in shock, getting everyone to look at us in question. I glared at him for getting so much attention, and he had the grace to at least look sheepish while sitting down.
'Nearly 7 foot barbarian looking sheepish, never thought I'd see that.' I thought to myself, then looking at him I figured I'd ignored him for long enough. Holding out my hand I said, "I'm Sam."
Taking it, he tried to crush it, but I made a barrier of air ontop of my skin and didn't feel a thing, "Gunthur." He said in a deep voice. "I'm surprised to hear you passed the trial, my understanding was that no one had passed it for over 1,000 years."
"I got lucky, only mindscapes with specific attributes can pass it, I'm sure if there was a larger pool of eligible candidates more people would pass."
Matt was sitting nearby, and couldn't help but interject. "You passed? Damn, I nearly died so many times that I gave up after 5 days in the forest, didn't want to deal with the soul damage for no reason. I managed to teleport to Shade City and joined the College Arcane instead."
Sitting down, I waved Matt over and introduced him to Gunthur and Sarah, "Matt took the trial at the same time as me, it's good to see you again." I said with a smile, then asked, "What's the College Arcane?"
"It's a group of mindscape cultivators that focus more on mental strength then battle strength, you know formations and spirit calling, that kind of thing."
"Got it, too bad you gave up though. Storm's Refuge is a really great place to learn."
Gunthur nodded, "My father always said that Storm's Refuge is one of the most powerful groups. Then again, College Arcane is always powerful. Just, they have more members so being a new member isn't the same status as being a true disciple of Storm's Refuge."
"Ohh, who's your father?" I asked, wondering who he was connected too.
"The King of Rafta." He said, looking proud. "Rafta's a bit different, the King is the most powerful barbarian warrior. I'd have loved to follow his footsteps, but my strengths lay on the path of the Shaman."
"Wait, how'd you get through the portal?" I asked, looking at him in shock. Beth sat down next to me, looking at Gunthur in interest as she listened to our conversation.
"Alaric stays in Rafta, he told my father that he'd met someone with potential and was coming to Earth. He sent me along because he'd heard about this place."
"You're from Rafta?" Beth asked.
"Yes." He said, looking at her questioningly.
"Lets fight! Tonight, in the Colleseum! I've only fought one other Shaman and I nearly lost, but you're stronger then he was."
Seeing his questioning look I answered for her, "She started in Rafta and went on a rampage in the Colosseum. How many times did you win in a row?" I asked her.
"I won three 100 person free for all's, 28 beast fights and 72 one on one's before I broke through. After breaking through to body refining you move to a different division and I haven't had the chance to fight yet."
When she said that, Gunthur became more interested in her. "You're the one who lasted longer than me in the gravity formation." He said, examining her closely, "For such a small woman, your strength is fierce."
Beth snorted at his small comment, "I'm tall enough to cut your dick off, always been tall enough for me."
"OK, enough of that." I said, my left hand covering my privates in an automatic reaction. All the guys at the table looked a bit pale, and Matt shifted like he was going to take off. "Gunthur, Mike, Sarah, this is my good friend Beth. She's a bit bloodthirsty, but we love her anyway."
While Gunthur and Sarah started talking with Beth, Matt and I started talking about our experiences in the forest trial, "Well, I was fine starting off. Killed a wolf pack and found a place to rest, but every time I cultivated beasts would find me. It was fine at first, but then a commotion broke out near a cliff and this massive Storm Tiger appeared and waving his hand blades of wind shot out and killed everything. I ran for it after that, and use a teleport item my dad gave me in case I was in danger. Of course, using it automatically failed the trial and made it so I can never take it again."
"Yeah, I saw that tiger too. I decided to go over the cliff, there were these outcroppings you could drop too if you were careful enough. I found a cave and went exploring..." Telling him my whole story about the trial, he was amazed by what happened.
"A true adventure." Gunthur looked impressed, apparently he'd been paying attention.
I just laughed his comment off, and spent the rest of lunch enjoying my time with some new friends and my best friends. At least, I was until I saw Beth and Sarah put their heads together. They were glancing at me, giggling. 'Sigh, Beth's up to her old tricks again.' I thought, knowing something embarrassing and mortifying would happen to me soon.