Jason was fed up with Izzy and was about to use the token to leave, abandoning Izzy in the Adventures Guild. But then Izzy ran through the door.
"What the f*ck took you so long!" Anna yelled at Izzy.
I had to go to the restroom. Is it any of your concern? And do I have to follow your orders anyways?" Izzy responded with contempt in his voice.
"You may not need to follow her orders but you have no choice but to follow mine. I have also been informed that if you step out of line I have the authority to beat a lesson into you. As for you needing to use the restroom you should have informed us so we didn't need to wait on you." Jason said with steel in his voice.
Izzy shivered remembering the feeling of being suppressed by Jason's bloodlust. It had felt almost as powerful as the royal guards. He couldn't understand how such a weak cultivator had established such a powerful bloodlust, bloodlust only increased from killing those of a similar power level.
"Jason we need to head out. you have the Seed Challenge the day after tomorrow. You are going to need that day of rest after the year we will spend in the mysterios realm. " Thomas said trying to calm everyone down.
Jason took a deep breath before nodding in acknowledgement. Taking out a medallion with a black apes head emblazoned on it jason sent some mana into it. A gold portal appeared in front of the team who gripped their weapons before heading in. Jason, Jasmine, and Thomas went first followed by William and lastly the mages.
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As soon as they appeared everyone they immediately got into a rough battle formation. While jason had been informed that the transfer location was usually safe, after his time in the military he was used to bad intel and he didn't want to take the risk.
It was a good thing they got ready immediately as less than fifteen meters away three flame salamanders where eating a water rhino. "Thomas take the one on the right and keep it busy. Jasmine block the one on the left, just block, let the mages kill it. William help Thomas with the one on the right. When you kill yours move to help me on the center one. " Jason called out before beginning a cast of spell.
This was one of the new pure mana lvl 1 trump spells he had crafted. He called it 'Cthulhu', it made twelve mana vines shoot from the ground and latch onto a target. each vine was covered in suction cups that would bite the beast and try to drink the blood from them. Unfortunately the scales were to hard to breach but it did manage to capture the salamander. Jason covered himself in a mana shield to protect himself from the flames off the beast. Leaping forward jason attacked the left front leg, trying to cut its tendon before it can move again.
Jasmine used a skill called "bulwark" which increased her weight by two hundred percent and increased her shield arm strength by four hundred percent. The salamanders was headed towards were jason was engaged to the first salamander. "Don't you have a taunt skill?" Anna screamed
"Of course I have a taunt skill! it is a family secret." Jasmine replied with fire in her voice. "Hey you ugly sonofabitch, don't you have any balls? Come fight me if you dare!" Jasmine yelled at the salamander she was in charge of before throwing a short javelin towards its rear.
The javelin failed to penetrate far but the salamander was pissed and turned around running and then ramming into Jasmine's shield. "That's not a taunt skill" William said while firing arrows at the salamander Thomas has just engaged.
"Yes it is I insulted and it is know focused on me" Jasmine said with fervour. William just shook his head in resignation while continuing to fire upon the salamander.
Izzy cast spells from a staffnin his left hand while using a whip in his right. trying to whittle down the health of the beast. Anna had been learning to cast healing spells as well as damage. she would cast a few mana darts that jason had taught her at the salamander before sending a mend flesh spell at either Thomas or Jasmine.
Jason had managed to maim the left front leg before the salamander broke the cthulhu spell. With its front leg injured the salamander was slowed down giving jason plenty of time to dodge it's blows. After dodging around and occasionally landing a strike Jason suddenly sped up, launching a fast strike at the right eye of the beast before lunging back. The beast caught of gaurd but the sudden acceleration failed to dodge and even though it managed to land a grazing blow in counterattack Jason's mana shield blocked the damage.
With its strong side blind and the side it could see from maimed Jason had an even easier time landing blows. The main thing he had to watch out from was the tail, but as long as he staid in front of the beast the tail couldnt reach him. Jason would occasionally send a few mana darts at the salamander but he only did so rarely. He had used seven hundred and fifty mana for the cthulhu spell, and while he had plenty more mana he found that instantly using so much mana caused his mana veins to crack. Tobias had taught them that if a mage broke his shattered his mana veins he would die from mana poisoning.
Jason realized that his future plans for trump cards were very dangerous, making him considered if he should alter them After a momentary hesitation he decided to go forward with his plan. A true trump card was to be used during a sure death fight to try to give a chance at life. that was why he didn't use his two trump cards during the trials before the king and instead exhausted himself and risked losing the chance to be a baron. If instead he had used cthulhu he could have bound the opponent before decapitating him, he would have won far more easily but he'd have exposed his true bottom line and would no longer have hidden aces.
He chose to expose himself now as he was about to rank up to mage acolyte allowing him to use completely new spells and trump cards. While Jason was going through all this he never stopped fighting the salamander in front of him. Charging forward he rammed his sword into the only remaining eye of the salamander, but just as his sword began to pierce the eye the salamander swiped at Jason with the limb he had maimed, apparently it had healed enough to move again abeit slowly, jason not expecting such high regen, was nocked on his back. Jason immediately used his second trump, bio-dome, which formed a half sphere around jason connected to the ground.
The salamander's head lunged forward and tried to eat Jason but the spell held, even though it took away nearly half the charge. Jason was in terrible condition, unable to move due to the damage caused by the second trump card. looking inside himself he saw long gruesome cracks on his mana veins. Jason feared that even casting a single basic spell with five mana would cause them to shatter leading to certain death.
The mouth lunged at him again taking out another large chunk of energy. Less than five percent of the charge was left. One more hit and jason was dead for sure The salamander turned so it could use its tail to crush this annoying pest. As the tail swung down Jason said goodbye to Jess, said that he would be losing her after only knowing her for such a short time.
As Jess was about to reply both her and Jess saw a shafow fly over the bio-dome. Jasmine stood there with her feet planted hunched behind the coffin shield. as the tail slammed down on the shield a whip lashed out tying it to the shield followed by Jasmine activating a skill called 'planted', causing the shield to be one with the ground for one minute. This effectively trapped the beast so it could neith use its tail nor turn around far enough to have its teeth pose a danger.
"Jason hold on I got you" Anna cast, meand wound, mend flesh, and very spell she could think of that might helpand as soon as the bio-dome spell was canceled due to time running out she grabbed jason and began to pull him backwards as quick as she can.
Fifteen minutes later the fighting was over. Thomas had a few somewhat derp cuts but nothing major and everyone else except Jason recieved no injuries from the beasts.
"What kind of idiot lets a salamander hit them? Why didn't you dodge it?"" Izzy yelled at Jason as soon as the fighting was over.
"Who the....."Anna began to yell back at him but Jason interrupted, "No he's right I wasn't monitoring his left leg well enough. I had already crippled it and didn't think it would heal that quickly."
"You know that salamanders have quicker regen than normal right? if you don't sever the tender or shatter the bone it only takes a few minutes to heal" William responded with respect although je began to wonder about the forethought their king had in assigning a newb to be their leader.
"I am aware of that. that is why I severed the tendon and even removed a small piece of it" jason said removing said piece from his storage device. Every one was shocked for a moment, before Izzy turned and ran towards the corpse of the salamander Jason had just fought. He returned a few second later holding a glasslike orb that appeared like it was full of trusting flames. Once again the group was shocked when the realized what Izzy held. This was a beast core, something only a third star beast and up would have.
After a moment both Izzy and William apologized for assuming that jason was injured do to being inadequate or careless. The group came to the conclusion that the huge increase in heavenly energy is what had allowed a level four two star beast to form it's core, as that was the only tgibg they could think of.