-Navy Cloak-
[The First Rank of the Tsumi Clan Hunters.
Commonly referred to as the "Novice" or "Apprentice Cloak"]
When we got back to town, we separated at the street Oroske's house was on. "We'll be starting to do Hunts again tomorrow," Nadred said, raising his hand in farewell, "Perhaps we could bring you two along for one, but if you want me to come help with training and stuff let me know!"
"Thanks Nadred, for all the help," Oroske said, returning his farewell wave, "And I will probably take you up on the Hunt offer, gotta take Kuro out on a trial Hunt for his Navy Cloak as well."
"Let me know when you want to do it," Nadred said, "See ya later! And good luck, Kuro!" As the duo walked away, Jarou turned around to wave, a big smile on his face, and echoed the good luck wish. I returned the wave with a small smile, when Oroske lightly slapped my shoulder. "Alright, let's get home and get some dinner," he said.
When we returned to the house, we went directly to the kitchen. "Hmm," Oroske hummed while thinking, "what should we eat for dinner? I'm thinking burgers."
"Sure, sounds good to me," I responded, "Anything I can do to help?"
"Don't really need the help but I can teach you how to cook them," he said, grabbing the meat out of the freezer, a couple seasoning bottles and the buns out of the cupboard above the stove. He grabbed a pan out of one of the lower cupboards and put it on the stove. Suddenly he took it off, "Actually, this is a good opportunity."
He motioned for me to come closer, and pulled the front-right burner plate off of the stove, revealing an arrangement of small, red crystals. "Nadred knows a lot more about it than I do, but I at least know the basics," he said before pointing at the crystals, "these crystals are the basis for one of the more advanced forms of magic," he explained. "I don't know the full technical explanation for it, but these crystals hold Aether, charged to the foluk element. When you turn these knobs…" he grabbed the dial on the far right, and the crystals began to glow, emitting small flames, "they somehow activate the crystals and they begin a sustained flow of foluk," he put the burner plate back on, getting it close before dropping it in place, "which then heat up this metal plate, and in turn will heat up the pan you put on top of it. The Aeth'Mobiles we saw out at the city entrance apparently run on a very complicated application of this same technique, with some other elements as well." He then put the pan back on top as I voiced my understanding. I supposed I would have to ask Nadred about it sometime if I wanted to know more.
Oroske then took one of the meat slabs out of the little packaging and put it on the pan. "I like burgers because they taste good, and are super easy to cook yourself. There's a place in the City of Towers that Nadred, Kared, and I all really like. I don't know what it is about their burgers but they're far better than anything I can make here. If we ever get a chance I'll have to take you there," he began his lesson, "so first, you gotta have the stove on, and put the meat in the pan. I'll cook this first one, and you can cook the next. While it's cooking on the first side, I usually go ahead and put on my seasonings." He grabbed the first bottle, which was just labelled as salt and shook on a small amount, then grabbed the second one, labelled Balance R, and featured the Emblem of Balance with some intricate and elegant designs around it. "This is Balance R, as I'm sure you can see, it's actually made here in Tsumi'Din. Really adds to the savory flavor of the beef," he said, reaching his fingers in and pinching out a small amount, sprinkling it over the meat. "Then you just wait a little bit, once you see the edges of the top side getting red, you flip the meat," he told me, grabbing a spatula from a drawer. He scooped up the meat and softly flipped it. "Season this side as well for extra flavor," he said while doing exactly that. "Wait for the other side to cook, and that's basically it! Dress up your buns however you want, and if you like add some cheese, put the meat on and bam, you've got yourself a delicacy," he said with a smile as he watched it sizzle in the pan. "In order to tell when it's cooked, you just gotta flip it again, and see how it looks," he said, once again working while teaching, "You also shouldn't keep it on a single side too long, otherwise it might burn, so you may need to flip it a few times."
While waiting for it to cook, he quickly dressed his buns with some sauce, a bit of lettuce and pickles. By the time he was done, the meat was ready to take off. He put the meat on the buns and set the plate aside for now.
"And now, it's your turn!" He exclaimed, as he pushed me in front of the stove.
I was reciting the steps as I went, making sure I didn't forget anything. When it came to the seasonings, I accidentally put on way too much of the Balance R on the first side. Then I burnt the second side a little because I waited too long to flip it to check it. For my buns, I only had sauce last time, so I decided to try the things he put on this time. "Well done," Oroske said as I closed the buns together, "both the meat, and your cooking it." He chuckled a little as we walked to the table, sitting down at the same spots we usually sit.
I was a little hesitant to take the first bite of mine, the smell of the pickles was quite unpleasant in my opinion. But I did take it. The lettuce added a satisfying crunch, but in terms of taste it was just watery and I didn't really like it. As for the pickles, the way they felt in my mouth as well as their taste was gross. After that, I opened up the bun and took the pickles off, though the taste remained throughout the rest of the burger. Oroske laughed when he saw me do that.
"So," Oroske began after he had finished his burger, though I was still eating mine, "I'm pretty sure we're in the end stretch for you to be able to get your Navy Cloak. I can only really think of one major thing that still needs to be done before you take the test, and aside from that, just a little more training, physical, magic, and combat in all, and I think you're ready."
He seemed like he suddenly remembered something, and he got up and went into the front room. "I forgot, Danfis wants me to actually go through and fill this out with you," he said as he came back, a blue binder with the emblem of balance embossed in white on the spine in hand. He sat back down and opened it on the table, flipping the pages till he got to the back. When he did, he flipped the book around to me. The page had a moderate sized checklist on it. "Go through that checklist and see if there's anything on there we haven't done yet," he instructed.
I began looking at the list, and noticed something was weird about it after the first item;
"Has successfully completed 30 official Hunts ____ ____"
The two lines seemed to be spots for both mentor and apprentice to sign, but 30 Hunts was definitely more than what I'd heard anything about. I turned it around to Oroske and asked him about it. "Oh, that's weird, this is the Black Cloak checklist, don't know how that found its way in here," he said, flipping through the rest of the pages again, "Doesn't seem like the Navy Cloak one's in here… let me go check the other binder."
He left once again, coming back with a matching binder, but this time black instead of blue. He flipped through the pages again, finding the checklist near the back. He verified it was the right one this time, restating he has no idea how the two got switched, before passing it to me.
Navy Cloak Checklist
Has received physical training to the standards in this book ____ _____
Has received magic training to the standards in this book ____ ____
Has demonstrated competency in combat through sparring ____ ____
Has completed at least one (1) "Training Hunt" ____ ____
Has received teaching about the different Cloak tiers ____ ____
Has received teaching about the jobs and responsibilities of Hunters ____ ____
Has demonstrated understanding of the jobs and responsibilities of Hunters ____ ____
Mentor only:
Has demonstrated overall competency and has received your approval that this Apprentice is ready to receive their Navy Cloak ____
I finished reading through the list, and reported to Oroske, "The only one I can see that we haven't done is the 'Training Hunt.'"
"Perfect," he said, getting up to grab a pen from one of the drawers in the kitchen, then handing it to me, "Go ahead and write your name on the ones we've done, specifically on the line to the right. When you're done, pass it to me and I'll pass them off as well."
I did as he said, marking everything except the Mentor only section and the one about the Training Hunt, and passed the book and pen to him. He began writing his name on the first line then suddenly stopped, and quickly reread the entire checklist. "Hmmm, actually, I'll go ahead and sign them off anyway," he said, seemingly talking to himself. He wrote his name on all the same lines pretty quickly, before explaining what he was talking about. "I don't remember exactly what the standards are in this book, and I honestly can't be bothered to read through it all, but I think you'll be plenty strong by the time we schedule your test, and meet all the requirements."
"Oh yeah, what even are these books?" I asked, I had a general idea but figured I'd ask.
"These are the official training binders for Navy Cloaks and Black Cloaks," he began his explanation, "They have detailed road maps for getting new Hunters their cloaks quickly, but they're mostly for new mentors who haven't trained anyone yet. For some reason, Danfis recently started to want us to show him the completed checklists before we can even schedule the exams.
"I've trained a few other people before you, so I'm mostly familiar with the requirements for each cloak, so I'd completely forgotten about it until tonight. I will probably need to actually read the Black Cloak checklist though…"
"How many people have you trained?" I questioned further, interested to learn a bit more about him.
He took a moment to think, "I think four? Before you, that is, so you'd be number five. The first one was all the way from the start of training to Black Cloak, and is also an interesting story, but that's for another time. The second one I think was just from Navy to Black Cloak, then the other two were just up till they got their Navy Cloaks, since they already had mentors for Navy to Black," he explained. He seemed to reminisce on the past for a minute, before snapping out of his trance.
"Well, we're getting really close now. I think we'll do a little more training for the next few days, and I'll talk with Nadred about getting us going on a Training Hunt, and we'll plan to get your exam scheduled for, let's say… 2 weeks from now? I think that should be plenty of time," He said, pride in his voice, "What do you think?"
I nodded enthusiastically, "Yeah! I think that'll be good."
"Any questions or anything like that?"
"Hmm," I thought for a moment, "I'm curious to see what a Training Hunt is, but other than that not really."
"Ah, a good question," he began his answer, "all a Training Hunt really is, is just a Hunt that's setup by White Cloaks and sometimes Red Cloaks, meant to provide practice and training for different things. For the most part, they're pretty easy but if you ask for one, they can make them super hard. You'll probably end up doing a lot of them in your time as a Hunter."
"So they're just practice Hunts basically?"
"Yep! Nothing too crazy. Your first one will basically just be a trial Hunt to teach you the basics of actual field work," he finished his explanation, "So, tonight, let's maybe do a little bit of training, then head to bed! Final steps towards your Navy Cloak start tomorrow!"