"How is the training coming along Kage?" A calm and ancient voice asked.
"It's coming along smoothly father. I shall teach them the technique when they master control of their essence." Kage replied.
"I trust your judgement Kage. It is rather unfortunate that Adam is dead. I really wished to speak with him. I won't hold you Kage, your students might be wondering where you've been going to." The voice said.
"Not at all father, I am at your service and I will always be available when you need me." Kage said.
"Thank you Kage. Now get back to your students, train them to the appropriate level and you can finally bring them home. I want to meet them, they sound like a promising bunch. Be safe kage." The voice said.
"Ok father." Kage said.
After the conversation Kage placed a small stone tablet with weird simbles inscribed in it into his shadow. That was what he used to communicate with father. Over the last month he had been doing missions for father and now his duties were done, he could return to his students.
Although they hadn't improved much since Kage left, they did learn a few things from each other. Jason really had nothing to learn but Yoruichi learned how to split her blobs in ten different directions for the ten seconds of their lifespan, she couldn't do that consecutively so the direction would change once and then what happened next was out of her control. Alsvid had learned how to create and control three orbs at a time and his technique could still be used to summon a fourth. He had also learnt a new trick.
Kage returned in the afternoon to the students doing some training. As soon as they saw him they stopped as Jason went over.
"Kage sir, we would like to challenge you again." Jason said.
"Did you guys improve Nightsky?" Kage asked.
"Yes sir." Jason replied.
"Ok." Kage said.
He walked over as the three got ready to face him.
"I forgot to say this before but the test changes everytime you challenge me." Kage said.
Before the others could process his words his shadow formed the circle beneath his feet that was three meters wide and out came shadow gremlins.
Black humanoid hunchbacked creatures with very sharp looking claws and teeth along with glowing red eyes emerged from the shadow in large numbers only stoping at a hundred.
"Deal with them, the test is to see who can kill the most. This might be a task but I want to see how well you've improved. One hit is still a knockout." Kage said.
The gremlins swarmed towards the three as they got ready. Jason ran forward towards the gremlins with his disks on full display. He was not going to lose another challenge. After reaching the horde he sent out his disks and started slicing and dicing the gremlins. He alone had split the horde in three, those going for Alsvid, those going for Yoruichi and those he's killing. They didn't survive long enough to try and attack him.
Yoruichi realized that what she learned could be very useful for this situation. She started by spawning a column of black smoke which was actually just the ten blobs circling each other. It took down five gremlins as they started parting was as to not interact with the smoke. That was when something unexpected happened. The column burst into multiple pieces, ten to be precise and flew in random directions killing ten more gremlins. She then summoned the ten blobs scattered and not in synch and sent them out.
Alsvid summoned his original two orbs and sent it out, as soon as it interacted with a gremlin it disappeared and the gremlin died. Alsvid then got creative. He summoned ten orbs in a single direction knowing he can't control them. After he killed fifteen gremlins, fifteen more were respawned along with Kage's voice.
"Only the skills you learned can help you kill the gremlins. If you can't control the projectile more will respawn." Kage said.
Alsvid was the first to lose the first challenge and he wasn't going to go out like that again. He summoned three orbs which were filled with more essence than he normally summoned and sent them out. The three pierced through three gremlins and were still flying. He was surprised but overcame it a second later dragging the orbs back to kill more gremlins.
Jason was having a field day. He was tasked to improve his stamina, he hadn't been able to but right here right now he could. He had killed almost thirty gremlins in the five minutes this test started and was still going strong. He was spinning his disks with effeciency to kill gremlins that even looked at him wrongly.
As the gremlins started going down in numbers it seemed the students would finish this one unscathed. However that wasn't the case as a few minutes later, Yoruichi was thrown to the monolith by a gremlin. She was out. As soon as that happened a small dark explosion occurred at another part of the gremlin field. Unlike what Kage expected, no gremlins respawned from his shadow. Standing in the middle of the open area was Alsvid.
Alsvid had been dealing with the gremlins easier than he expected. He realized the more essence he put into an orb the more gremlins he could kill with it, however it came with a catch which was that the orb was harder to control. He had a splendid idea and it was quite simple. He summoned two orbs and filled them with as much essence as he could control which boosted their size from a mear golf ball to the size of a basketball. He then had them spinning around his body as he tried something. He ran his essence directly through his arms and started charging up an orb. The orb slowly but steadily grew bigger as the others started shaking. He then dragged the others into the third orb as it quickly became very unstable and then.
boom...