With our walk to one of the adventurers' guild training grounds, I had time to analyze the members of the night owl team, who are going to test me.
We have Vera, she has a clear hostility towards Katarina and I may not know what the hostility is about, but I'm on the same team. Although Hilda wouldn't admit it, she ended up coming to Katarina more often after she told me I couldn't participate in the Menfis family expeditions.
As far as I can see Vera and a nimble warrior, equipped with leather armor, a quality bow, and a pair of daggers. Maybe she can show me and give me some tips on arts associated with archery, I don't think I'll have much trouble convincing her to help me, any enemy or person that angered Katarina is a friend to her.
The only man of the trio and Martin, as well as all the members of the night owls they have the shadow element, he is a user of short spear and shield, he even has a short mature leather sword of his own with some added protections made from metal like mine. Aside from the obvious points that I can see looking at his equipment, I've achieved nothing.
Captain Raven gives me a sense of danger and risk she may not have done anything to threaten me, but I can't get comfortable around a person who is capable of sneaking behind my back without me realizing it. I see that she is equipped with heavy armor, if my armor is leather armor with some additions of metal parts to Raven's armor and the opposite she is and metal armor linked by leather armor.
It's not the first time I've seen this style of armor in reality and the third time, I've seen it for the first time when I saw my mom using her mature hers. A mature like that is quite expensive to have, it has a high defensive capability, but it also has a high mobility capability that plate matures don't.
Her weapon is obvious, she uses a two-handed sword with a very aggressive face, but what I notice is different about her is that she has two elements one and the shadow element and the second and the fire element. Her core and her orange mid-stage core, she is much stronger than I imagined she would be I thought all night owl members would have at most a maximum-stage green core.
It didn't take long for us to arrive at an empty field and not even a security guard, I know it's just an empty field with dirt and some grass, but there shouldn't be someone looking after a guild land, the only difference from this to a land wasteland and the magic barrier at the edge of the land to prevent the fence around the land from breaking.
"Well, from the bow he's carrying he must be an archer, but in this field, we can't test his bow skills, so let's focus on a close quarter fight with his swords. Martin and Raizel help me make a shadow cloak to test his ability to fight in the dark."
With Raven's commands, we all stayed in our positions, I and saw in mine, as the three of them released their shadow element to create a shadow element dome. In reality it is Raven who is building the dome, Martin is only supporting her while she is testing Raziel's control. This is an interesting and creative way to test two people at the same time.
"Prepared?"
"Of course, but I doubt I can beat you in direct combat."
"Relax, I won't get too hard on you, in the end I've already decided to accept you on our team so just try not to get crushed like a useless brat."
With the dome closed, Vera drew her daggers and lunged at me. And to my surprise she's not really pushing it, she's using a speed that compares to mine when I use my wind element, but of course the only reason she has such a low speed is because she's not using her aura to strengthen your body.
The difference between the two of us is bigger than I thought it would be, Vera is really an elite warrior of her level.
But since she's taking it easy on me, I'll do the exact opposite and I won't hold back. I summon my wind element and my aura and dart towards Vera, and attack with my sword charged with my aura and elemental energy.
I put Vera on the defensive, the offensive power of her daggers can only be shown with the combination of her shadow element and her aura, but she was just sweating her aura now. When Vera backed up, I pulled my sword in a horizontal direction releasing my aura against Vera, who by the way was suppressed with my aura blade.
I made my attacks in two waves, the physical attack being interspersed with my aura blades and my wind blade, unfortunately I can't merge the two blades yet.
I kept Vera on the defensive, but unfortunately, I can't maintain this level of aura consumption for long, but I managed to prove my abilities, not only showing that I can fight in the dark, I showed that I'm able to fight with enough power capacity. not to be dead weight.
It didn't take long for Vera to get used to my attacks, after the surprise and shock wore off, a predatory smile spread across her face and she began to take the test seriously. When she united her aura with her shadow element my offensive ended.
If she wasn't holding on a little bit, she would be creating teeth on my sword, but even when she was holding on my sword is still being scarred, my sharp blade was getting deformed.
With my situation complicated I could only risk one last move to gain an advantage, I made a risky move I used my aura on my sword to break Vera's offensive.
But when the force of the pack caused my sword to recoil, I simply released it and continued with an attack with my hands. I hit Vera in the stomach with a string of attacks, knocking all the air out of her lungs and then I knocked her down.
It didn't take long for me to pin Vera to the ground, Vera may have a stronger aura than mine, but her body isn't superior to mine, the time I spent strengthening my body wasn't a waste of time.
After she was immobilized, she started to squirm and try to free herself, but the dome is already being undone. I looked up and saw Raven smiling as if she'd found some kind of prize.
And that gave me a bad feeling, for some reason I felt like I just put myself in a bad and unpleasant situation.
"Very good, I didn't expect you to get from rookies with good potential, I didn't think you would be so successful in this task Martin. I think I should leave the recruiting to you in the future."
With that Raven leaves the training ground, but not before giving her last orders.
"You're going on an expedition tomorrow morning, you two should prepare to be in the dark lair with Martin, Vera and Dumah."
Well, it looks like we've passed Raven's test, I wonder how far we'll start and which one we'll finish tomorrow.
"Hey Ulric! You may have won me by luck, but congratulations and my condolences for joining our team, I feel sorry for your future if you need medical help, I know several good healers to recommend you."
"What does this mean Vera?"
"Well, you shouldn't have shown that you have an interest in fighting without a weapon, in front of Captain Raven. She and Dumah are always looking for more fighters for training and for their fighter club."
I think this must be the source of my last discomfort.
"Fighters Club?"
"It works like this, Raven, Mila and Uther founded a fighters club, the club is formed by warriors who like to fight without weapons, in the club and only allowed to use their body to fight and the monks cannot join that group. At the end of the day a warrior who loves the ability to fight unarmed is not for the monks who are generally fanatical and dedicate their entire lives to improving their bodies to the extreme."
"The club was founded more as a friendly competition venue than a battle to the death arena, but there are still some deaths in it. You're basically a member now Ulric, so congratulations the captain will probably train you a bit before taking you to the club."
"I don't even have a right to opine on this?"
"No, but you can try to run away but it will piss off the captain and your training will be more brutal, I wouldn't recommend you try that and you better concentrate on staying whole during training. But there are also good points."
"Like what?"
"The various members of the group, and basically everyone is nice people, the captain and Uther are very selective and generally bar any idiot from participating, and even if an idiot manages to get in it usually doesn't last long. But the club is not just for exercising and competing and a great place for you to hold other groups of adventurers and a great place to train and earn money."
"Earn money? Betting on fights is allowed?"
"Yes, but generally it's not money, it's valued items or opportunities, the various ways to place a bet is mostly done by groups rather than individuals so you don't have to worry about that."
"You will have time to learn more about the club, but now and better prepare for tomorrow's expedition, the group will be small and the speed of exploration will be frantic. I'll take Vera now; we'll meet at the inn tomorrow morning."
"Okay, Martin. I'm glad Raziel and I can get into the night owls."
After everyone says goodbye I go back to the institute, but I didn't expect that having learned to fight unarmed could help me to join a club with several high-level adventurers.
I just hope I don't have to spend a lot of time training my unarmed combat skills, but I doubt I won't gain anything useful training with an orange core adventurer.