Another week went by as Xavier practice using his summons in combat. Sometimes he would fight one or the other of his parents and sometimes he would fight them both. They said he had to start training his battlefield awareness.
On the last day of his new training his mother held him back after he was done. She nodded her head in approval. "Your training has progressed well. Your father and I think it's time for you to have some real combat experience. We've decided that it's time for you hunt your first demon creature."
Xavier was stunned for a moment. It was really unusual for his parents to want to accelerate his training. "Are you really sure about this?"
"We are." Xavier's mother nodded at him, "In the city there's a city hunter squad that deals specifically with threats within its limits. They deal with anything from oddly mutated vegetation to rogue demon creatures who wander into the city."
Xavier sharply raised his head in shock. "Demon creatures in the city? Does that happen often?"
His mother shook her head. "Demon creatures don't wander into the city from the wilds too often but there is one place that they do commonly exist."
Xavier raised his eyebrows in curiosity. His mother seeing that didn't say anything but raised her eyebrows in return. It was her version of the, your being stupid and not thinking things through before asking someone else for the answer, look. Xavier stopped and tried his best to think it through. After a few moments he came to a realization. "The sewers. They're rarely patrolled and there's access to them from the river."
His mother nodded her head. "Exactly so. Twice a month our family lends our support to the city hunter squad to clean out the sewers. Where the sewers exit into the river, we have barricades but they can't be maintained well enough. Something always manages to find its way through."
"Why can't we just build better barricades at the sewer exits?" Xavier tried to puzzle through it.
His mother didn't give him the time to reason through it. "We could build barricades that withstand assaults from servant and warrior class creatures but commander level creatures tend to break them down just to let the servant and warrior creatures in."
"But that makes it seem like the commander creatures have intelligence. How is that possible?" Xavier was stupefied by the implication.
"Your thoughts are right. Once creatures begin to get to the commander level, they begin to develop higher intelligence. It's one of the reasons that humans still struggle against the demon creatures so much. Though they can't all have enough though to understand speech many of them have enough intelligence to ignore their instincts if it means overcoming a problem." She continued, "I've seen demon creatures under the lead of a commander creature test a barrier created by a formation in sequence, testing each area of the formation, moving around it, attacking in sequence, and even trying to tunnel under the barrier."
Xavier's mouth was agape at the possibility of such a thing. "Is that true? Can demon creatures really do something like that?"
His mother nodded her head solemnly. "The smarter commander level creatures can pull that sort of thing off easily. What's really scary are the monarch level creatures. The really powerful ones amongst them can even change shape, take human form and blend into crowds. More than once we've had instances where cities were severely compromised by them."
"If that's really true then why would the demon creatures keep coming into conflict with us? Surely, it's better to live and develop in peace." Xavier couldn't understand it.
"I'll ask you a question in return. If you were to play checkers and had a thousand pieces for every one of your opponents, would you let that opponent use a smaller board that would limit how many pieces you could play or would you go big and surround them so they had no chance."
Xavier shook his head in disbelief. "A thousand to one? Even if that's true we have magic giving us the edge over them, right? There is no way numbers can overcome that advantage."
"You're being very stupid right now Xavier. You're assuming facts that you've no experience of." His mother's tone was sharp.
Xavier frowned as he tried to sort out the information he must be missing. "What am I missing then? I really don't understand how the demon creatures can overcome our magical prowess."
"You're not informed of the situation. Under the demon creature's leadership caste, they have tactics equal to our own. They also have another advantage. Their bodies are considerably stronger than ours. In an equal situation a demon creature will run roughshod over a mage."
Xavier frowned. "I don't understand."
"Putting it simply, a servant level creature is of the same grade as a basic mage. Warrior level creatures are equal to intermediate level mages and so on and so forth." His mother's expression turned serious, "In most situations an average servant level creature can equally fight five to eight average basic mages. Sometimes the disparity can get even worse at the higher levels of creatures. There are some monarch level beings that whole companies of ascendant mages can't beat."
Xavier was stunned by the implications of this. "If that's true, with the demons outnumbering us, then how are humans still even around?"
His mother's answer was perfunctory. "Knowledge. Though the demons are intelligent enough to equal us in many ways their creativity is nearly non-existent. We can develop things like formations, alchemy, and of course weapons."
She continued. "They might outnumber us but it's mostly due to servant and warrior level creatures. With technology even the members of our species who aren't mages can fight on some level. It somewhat evens the numbers game and also gives us a lot more versatility in a fight."
"So that's why we can maintain our foothold? If that's the case then why haven't we reclaimed any land we lost since the spacial cracks caused us to lose so much?" Xavier was enraptured by this more practical version of history.
She answered right away. "Resources. The resources needed to cultivate a capable mage are huge and current technology is worthless once you reach the commander level of demon creatures."
Xavier nodded his head in understanding. "So basically, we're outmatched in numbers and quality when it comes to high level combat."
His mother nodded her head. "That's exactly right. This is also why those of us in this family still use the oldest cultivation method."
"What do you mean by that?" Xavier was curious.
"You know how your father explained how scarce soul essences are? Well, the only way we can support that is by harvesting the soul essences ourselves. It gives us something that not a lot of mages raised in the cities really get." His mother tilted her head, "Experience. Not many mages have the stones to go out and really put their lives on the line against the demons. They'd rather stay in the cities and hope that they're never called to service in defense of the city. Our family is very different. We cultivate in a way that forces us to have ample combat experience. It's why our mages have nearly the same efficiency as the demon creatures do when fighting against other mages. Usually, one of us can fight anywhere from three to five mages who have average fighting experience."
"If that's the case then why are we based in Saint Joseph. It's a city with less than one hundred thousand people. If our average mage can kick the crap out of any other average mage then why aren't we based in one the larger cities?" Xavier was trying to understand.
"It's simple really. Our family doesn't have an ascendant mage. The ancestor was already older when magic crashed into our world. He died before he could achieve such heights. Your grandfather was killed in action during a demon invasion of Kansas City." She sighed, "Your father is talented but he had to take over when he was so young and didn't really have all the time he needed to cultivate."
"Ascendent mages come after advanced mages. Most people think the difference is small but in fact the gulf between the two is immense. However, your father, who's at the peak of the advanced stage and cultivates in the old way can fight an ascendent mage who has only recently become one. It's allowed us to compete thus far." His mother waved her hand in dismissal.
"This isn't what I wanted to talk to you about. We were going to talk about your first hunt. Now you know the reason why it's so important to our family." She nodded in satisfaction at Xavier's sign that he understood. "Good, then you should prepare yourself for your first hunt tomorrow."