It has been an entire week since they started training and things have been going quite smoothly. They were all currently relaxing near the monolith and chatting. The chats were of little importance than just to lighten the mood. Yoruichi had grown more comfortable with Jason and Alsvid so she was also speaking smoother.
"Ok, you three have done an excellent job. So for your next stage of training, you are going to try and hit me with your precision skills while I take on the role Nightsky was playing." Kage said to them.
The three were surprised as they thought they would continue what they were doing.
"To make things more interesting, I am going to try and hit both your body and your projectiles. Don't worry, I'll lower my essence output so I don't kill you because the shadow field doesn't work on me." Kage said.
The three of them got up and prepared. Alsvid summoned his two dark orbs, Jason summoned all his ten blood disks and Yoruichi Created her ten smoke blobs around her but didn't send them out yet. Yoruichi would have been better at using the skill than Alsvid if it wasn't for the time limit of her projectiles. Kage's shadow formed a small circle under his feet and started expanding until it was three meters wide with Kage at the center. From the shadow emerged multiple shadow tentacles that were just below fifty in number.
"Begin." Kage yelled.
They all scattered as the tentacles slammed into the ground at the location they were just at. The tentacles then scattered as well going far and wide.
Jason had very little trouble cutting the tentacles with his disks. The problem was he couldn't attack Kage while dealing with the tentacles.
Yoruichi suffered a little bit more but was doing fine. Her projectiles caused potions of the tentacles to disappear which would lead to them being destroyed. The problem was the time limit, she would have to get closer to Kage if she wanted to hit him.
Alsvid was suffering. Everything he learned during his training with the others was inapplicable in this situation. There was too little space for him to execute his technique and he was forced to move his body while simultaneously controlling the orbs. He could destroy the tentacles with his orbs but he only had two orbs and if the tentacles pierced the orbs he would have to create them again.
They training had thrown both Yoruichi and Alsvid back to square one as they needed to adapt to this new training method. Jason was having trouble not with the tentacles but with hitting Kage. Kage hadn't moved from his spot but he had ten sharp tentacles rotating around him in a cylindrical form at all times. The spacing was very small so the attack had to be precise or it wouldn't be able to bypass the defense. Another treaky problem was that if he wasted too much time on the shield the tentacles would come for him.
A few minutes into the new training and Alsvid was hit. One hour later, Yoruichi was hit. When they were hit by the tentacles they would drag them to the monolith and leave them there to spectate. With no more distractions all fifty tentacles aimed for Jason. He was doing extremely better than the rest. He was fast, fast enough to dodge some of the tentacles, he had his blood disks cut down the ones he couldn't dodge and while doing all that he would occasionally send a disk or two to try and bypass Kage's defense. Sadly his stamina wasn't infinite and three hours later he two was hit and dragged back.
"You all did a great job but Monarch, you are too focused on your new technique, start focusing more on improving your mental strength so you can control more orbs at once. Sienna, you need to improve your essence control better so your blobs can last longer. Nightsky, you just need to improve upon your stamina. For now, you guys should rest and then return to your normal training. You'll get the chance to battle me again when you improve. Since you all know what to do, I don't need to supervise you as much anymore. The shadow field is still active but am going to clear the dungeon." Kage said as he walked over to the monolith and entered the instance dungeon.
The group relaxed and chatted a bit more before getting back to training. This time a few things had changed. Jason took the role of Kage to help the others more. He started aiming for both their projectiles and their body. He was going to train them to survive Kage's training. He also wanted to improve his progress, he thought if he put himself in Kage's position maybe he can notice an opening he hadn't noticed before.
The training continued as normal for a whole month. During this month they had only seen Kage a few times. The first time was after he cleared the dungeon and then he went into the forest for a reason they didn't know. He would then occasionally return to check up on training.
When it came to improvements of the students. Jason hadn't improved much in terms of stamina since the others never came close to hitting him. He already had good precision and they others had ran out of tricks to pull so he was not improving at all. Yoruichi had not been able to improve the lifetime of her projectiles because they were too slow and would end up being destroyed by Jason way before they ran out of smoke. Alsvid on the other hand had not aimed to improve his control so he wasn't really doing well in precision or control rather he had improved his mental strength enough to control three orbs from the start. This time he had a good idea, a devious plan that will shock Kage. Since no one was improving properly they decided to wait for Kage to return and then challenge him again.