The days that followed the showdown with Valex left Castus with too much to focus on. With his reawakened drive to better himself he discovered so much untapped potential in himself. Originally he believed himself too weak to utilize armor, but after reexamining himself he realized he just needed lighter armor. The material from the treants before came in handy. Being light weight and durable Castus was able to make armor for his arms and a chest plate. He made some shin guards as well, though all the material did end up taking a long time to make and shape. He also modified a large amount of his arsenal to fit the idea of singular massive blows.
The half hazard fighting attempts he had made before were enough to get him this far, but he believed with the limitations on himself he would need to diversify to be successful. Shi on the other hand appeared to have been blessed for combat. While the umbral may have taken some of her abilities the ability to constantly shift your combat style and utilize different attacks at all times allowed her to always be on top in battles. Castus looked to that style to copy for himself. While he didn't have the mana to constantly swap weapons and deal lethal blows, he would most likely have enough one day and the preparations would need to begin now.
For two days Castus rested and recovered while Shi battled and took breaks as she needed them. After every lose she would come back to Castus and talk with him asking if he saw her fights and what he thought of them.
During the time Castus was resting he took a look at the amount of time they had left before they would be enrolled into the academy with his sisters. Splitting up the year into segments Castus decided how to spend his time. Realizing that his handicap on experience gains prevented him from simply power leveling like Shi would he took a different approach. Reduced combat time, but with thoughtful goal oriented experimental fights with different equipment. Castus laid out his schedule for the next eleven months. The last month he would leave blank for the time being. After conferring with Choceny, Fulsin planned to train them in mannerisms and behavior before enrolling them, but he didn't know when he would begin that quite yet and how early he would remove them from the arena for that.
Castus' Schedule panned out to look like the following:
Month One: Refining. Castus realized that while he had started to accumulate materials, he hadn't explored their properties very well and needed to devote time to exploring his expanding library of materials. During this time, he would not fight in the arena except once per day.
Month Two: Shaping. Castus would spend this month creating all the weapons he could think of and fighting occasional battles to determine if they worked for their intended purposes. He would also refine the scrappy treant armor to better fit his defenses.
Month Three: Enchantments. While Castus had learned enchantments from the church during his enslavement thus far he hadn't put them to effective use and looking at the library of stockpiled enchantments it was time to learn and start using them. This month Castus would fight often to test the effectiveness of enchantments as well as look for good combinations of enchantments.
Month Four: Limit Testing. After three months of testing and making Castus devoted this month to testing everything he made and comparing it to himself before. From here he would develop combat benchmarks and continue to refine his arsenal to fit his needs.
Month Five: Experimental Weapons. During the shaping phase Castus planned to stick to rudimentary weapons and not stray into making anything extreme, but in an effort to better expand his options he planned to try to build some weapons that were not seen of this world. Similar to how guns were not a common weapon.
Month Six: Soul Experiments: By the sixth month Castus was confident that he would have healed his soul up enough to start probing around and trying to learn more about souls and the material he had refined. While Valex was gone Castus was concerned that he would return for revenge sooner than later.
Month Seven: Level Grinding: At this point Castus is confident that He will be at an level of combat experience good enough to fight in the arena effectively and while he leveled much slower than others he still needed to level.
Month Eight: Magic: While Castus knew he was unable to use offensive magic he knew he could use some forms of magic and Fulsin had graciously agreed to provide him with some magic books to teach him some spells he thought he could use.
Month Nine & Ten: Combat cohesion: With all of the new elements Castus would be adding into his fighting style and the new tools at his disposal Castus believed he would need significant time to adjust and be able to utilize all of the tools at his disposal now. He dedicated the most time to learned to adjust and adapt.
Month Eleven: Concealment: Arguably the most important time that Castus planned for. With all of his new options and tools he needed to integrate them to himself in a way that would conceal his powers and blessing to prevent him being hunted down by the church again.
Month Twelve: Dependent on Fulsin's plans.
With his plan in place Castus felt his injuries and stood up. Looking to the arena that Shi was fighting in. His expression was determined as he prepared himself for a grueling training period.
Deep under Afeerbah
Yevelian was deep under Afeerbah in tunnels that had been left untraveled for what looked like centuries. Behind him a sizable army of creatures swarmed around him, the ebb and flow of their bodies made to look like demonic shadows by the lonely light he carried. While he walked he murmured to himself while occasionally stopping to look at cryptic sigils that lined the walls of the tunnels. Suddenly he stopped and looked back.
From the shadows a more humanoid fungal brood mind entered the light.
"There was a party that entered the tunnels. The strongest of them have been killed. I found what I was looking for. My candidate. I will need 2 years before we can act." The fungal brood mind spoke.
Yevelian looked to it with a curious expression. "Interesting. I'm surprised you found your canidate. I did not sense any strong presences above us."
"She will need time to grow into what she will be, but I am confident in my choice." The fungal brood mind retorted.
"Very well. I will need your assistance when I start. 2 years should be fine. I'm still decrypting these writings anyway." Yevelian raised a hand and waved it, dismissing the fungal brood mind.
'There was someone strong enough for that thing to consider it for a candidate position. Interesting, perhaps I'm spending too much time down in these sewers looking for the remnants.' Yevelian thought to himself.
On the Surface of Afeerbah
Rys woke up first and made his way up front, greeting the elderly couple as he moved to the back to start working on inventory. It had been a few days since their adventures in the sewers and the calm quiet of the warehouse brought him comfort.
A little over and hour later Alyssa showed up to help him with taking inventory. For a while they were quiet, but Alissa broke the silence.
"Rys, do you think Cerone is going to be ok? I know she keeps saying she is going to be fine, but I'm worried about her and whatever that deal was." Alyssa paused while looking down to Rys.
Rys sighed for a moment contemplating. "I'm not sure if Cerone will be alright, but I'm more worried about what is going to happen after we leave. What of all these people? Of the town? I'm not sure I can bear to weight of those sins Alyssa." Rys somberly replied.
Alyssa looked to Rys with kindness in her eyes. "I know what you're worried about, but anyone one of these people would turn on us in an instant if they knew what we really were. I want to believe that there are exceptions to that, but I also don't want to risk my second life when there is such an easy escape. We can only hope that whatever is going to happen after we leave will not hurt to many people. Besides Rys, what could the three of us even do?" Alyssa smiled, trying to comfort Rys.
Upstairs Cerone was the last to get up. Since returning from the sewers the same memory played over and over in her head. When she cast her blessing it not only boosted her allies, but also the fungal rats. When did they become her allies, why did her blessing behave that way. She had always be able to maintain pinpoint control of her blessing in the various engagements she had been a part of with the church. She sighed, realizing she wouldn't find an answer moping around.
Cerone got dress, making sure to conceal the marking on her arm and headed down to the warehouse to help out with inventory. Once they finished up here, they would head out and check for other jobs they could do.
As the trio left the warehouse to go find more work each of them thought differently.
'We are too weak to protect ourselves and those around us and now an entire town will suffer.' Rys thought, reminiscing on the poor old wizard that had died trying to protect them.
'I need more strength for whatever the fungal brood mind has in mind for me and to finally get my revenge.' Cerone thought, flashes of anger appearing on her face remembering those that had helped her escape.
'We need to get out of this country soon if we want to live peacefully.' Alyssa thought, to her each goal was the only a step to focus on.