She originally planned on evading all of Shadow's attacks but after seeing the new quest, she decided to go for it. She had to use every opportunity to get stronger, she didn't even know how far away the demigod level was but she knew that she wasn't anywhere close to it.
'system status'
Host: Maya Rodriguez
Race: Dragon shifter
Class: Novice shifter
Level: 1
Exp: 10/100
Attributes
Strength: 5
Speed: 10
Defence: 4
Intelligence: 0
Charm: 5
EP: 100
HP: 100
Dragon abilities
Partial transformation
Water whip -Rank F
Water spout -Rank F
Skills
Combat mastery (LV2)
Enhanced senses (LV1)
Glitch
Inventory
-Empty-
Seeing her stats, she was pleasantly surprised and she was excited to try out the new changes, she hadn't even noticed that her combat mastery had risen.
Word spread around fast about their duel and people had already started gathering around the two. Maya saw that Shadow had already shifted into his beast form so she also activated her partial transformation.
[speed+2]
[Strength+3]
[Defence+3]
Confident in his new found power, Shadow felt that winning this fight would be too easy. Once he fully transformed, he leapt up intending to catch Maya off-guard and win with one strike.
However Maya managed to evade the claw swipe and retaliated with a punch that only pushed Shadow a few steps away.
Shadow felt angered at her actions, how could a mere novice shifter manage to evade such a quick swipe from an apprentice shifter? Even though her attack didn't hurt him much, it still bruised his pride heavily!
He ferociously jumped at her intending to bite her neck, Maya couldn't evade like before so she opted to slap him away like she had done with the wolf boy. Unfortunately even though her speed was on par with Shadow, her strength was still lacking. She only managed to shift his target and he ended up biting her shoulder deeply.
"AAAAGH!!" Maya screamed.
In the face of excruciating pain Maya didn't hold back anymore, she used both of her claws to open Shadow's maw making her wince in pain. Shadow was biting down too fiercely!
Using all her might, Maya managed to get him off her, Shadow looked at her with a mocking grin on his bloody maw. A familiar rush of energy rushed up to the wound on her shoulder but Maya didn't pay it any heed, she felt pissed! While she was trying to avoid hurting him too much, Shadow was going for the kill!
She decided to use a different approach after knowing that the wound on her shoulder was going to impede her movements, when Shadow jumped at her again, this time she was ready.
'system, activate water spout!'
The system didn't respond but Maya could feel energy gathering at the centre of her palms. Following her instincts, she raised her hands and opened her palms in shadow's direction.
Shadow sneered at her useless effort to defend from his attack, but suddenly he could see the centre of Maya's palms glowing before a long jet of water hit him in the face. His head flung back and his whole body ricocheted off the ground before landing in the embrace of the spectating crowd.
[-5 EP]
Every one was stunned, but the battle didn't pause, Shadow picked himself up. Drenched and embarrassed, his emotions clouded his judgement as he went for the same attack and was met with the same result.
[-5 EP]
Shadow learnt his lesson after the second time but he was still rush. Although he didn't jump at her anymore to avoid being defenceless against her water spout, he still ended up being sent flying moments later.
Everyone looked at Maya with myriad of expressions like suprise, admiration, jealousy and some even looked at her as though she was a monster. Only the old man who couldn't stop clapping his hands showed joy on his face. The more he looked at her the more he thought she was befitting of the tittle 'Beast Empress', he decided to be a little shameless in letting the future empress fight for them!
Maya stood at the centre of the crowd alone, her eyes glowing blue and in her hand she held a stream of blue water shaped like an S in the air. That's what she had used to send Shadow flying, the water whip! It was really as it's name suggested, a whip made of water.
[-10 EP]
'system, why does the water whip cost more energy than water spout? Aren't they both F Ranked abilities?'
[Correct, but the water whip is more flexible and can be shaped into any shape making it stronger than water spout even at Rank F]
Maya nodded at the explanation, Shadow had just dragged his body back to the fighting circle when he witnessed Maya nodding in satisfaction, he was instantly angered!
He wanted to rush up to Maya to smack that 'arrogance' off her face but he was stopped by Smith "I think we have seen enough, Maya is exceptionally stronger than any novice shifter here, she deserves the tittle of our novice champion!"
Hearing this, Shadow was instantly displeased, he shifted back into his demi-human form before complaining "That's not fair! How can you choose an outsider to represent our clan!"
"Hush! You didn't let me finish. Since you are no longer a novice shifter you naturally don't qualify to fight for that position. However, you can still fight our chosen apprentice shifter for his position" Smith explained.
Even after hearing this, Shadow wasn't happy, he glared at Maya one more time before crouching down and shifting into his panther form and ran off.
After Shadow disappeared Void came out of the crowd and approached Maya excitedly.
"wow Maya, you are really amazing! I have never seen anyone capable of producing water out of thin air before. Can you teach me please" he looked at her expectantly.
"Of course you have never seen anyone do that before, that's because only mythical shifters are supposed to be able to access their innate abilities. This little female is just one of the few rare cases, or maybe it's because of her dragon bloodline...am not sure..either way, she is a rare talent" the old man intervened.
"What a powerful female, I never thought l would see the day when a female of a lower rank would defeat a high ranking shifter!" One of the males in the crowd exclaimed.
Many people agreed with him but Maya wasn't even paying attention, her focus was on the sweet notifications in front of her.
[Quest complete]
[You have received the Water Dragon's ability: Regeneration -Rank F]
[+30Exp]
[+2 stats]
[Host can now evolve the rank of one ability]
Maya didn't care about anything else, she really hated feeling pain and she wanted to feel better as soon as possible. She rashly activated her new regeneration ability, even though the pain lessened, she still felt like it was lacking. Without putting much thought in it, she quickly used up the chance of evolving an ability.
[Regeneration -Rank F has evolved to regeneration -Rank E]
Feeling that the pain was lessening, Maya felt relieved.
"Congratulations little female, you are now our clan's novice shifter champion!" The old man said enthusiastically.
Seeing that the little female didn't feel happy about his congratulatory statement he asked "what's wrong? Does the wound hurt badly?"
"No it doesn't hurt" Maya said.
The old man looked at her wound but noticed that it hand already stopped bleeding, he was stunned at her fast healing abilities but he didn't say anything.
"I was wondering... Do you now where l can find a blacksmith?" She asked with hesitation since she wasn't sure if beast shifters would even be interested in smelting iron in the first place.
"Why would you need a blacksmith?" He asked in confusion.
Maya was relieved to know that he was familiar with the word "the battle with Shadow has made me realise that my defence is really shallow. All of you shifters have your tough beast hides to protect you, but l can only cover my hands in scales leaving the rest of my body defenceless. It's very easy for me to get killed if l remain like this."
The old man nodded in agreement "I understand your concern and l approve of it, your life is more important than pride"
"Chief what is he saying? Are you really going to allow the female to equip herself? Our clan will become a laughing stock!" One of the men from the crowd exclaimed.
"I agree with my brother. With Maya's talent, she's bound to be extraordinary in the future, she needs protection if she's going to fight for us" Smith explained calmly.
"Madness! This is all madness! It's already embarrassing enough that one of our champions is a female. Letting her hide behind a wall of metal will make all the other clans think our males are so weak that we had to send a female wearing armour!" Another male said in dissatisfaction.
"That's right, didn't you just say that she's very strong? If she's really that strong then let her use her water magic to protect herself if her beast form is too weak!" A female who had been jealous of Maya's Dragon abilities a while ago said sarcastically, surprisingly many agreed with her.
"Silence! If you think that you are ready to give up your life for the sake of our clan's pride then please replace Maya. Do l need to remind you that every year at the great hunt a few beast shifters die?" Smith roared in anger.
After that, no one said anything but many of them were still not happy, they could only look at Maya with discontentment before slowly dispersing.
Maya understood that these beast shifters viewed weapon wielding as a sign of weakness and her decision of wearing armour was going to shame the whole clan. She felt bad for them but her desire to protect herself was stronger.
"Village chief, I don't suppose you have a blacksmith here, so you?" She asked doubtfully.
Smith shook his head "you will have to make a trip to the Valtori tribe am afraid"
"Valtori tribe? I remember you mentioned it, is it bad?" She asked curiously since they had previously mentioned it as though it was a bad place.
Smith nodded again "it is the place where the weak are discarded to, it is also the most chaotic since there is no order and leadership."
"And because there's no leadership, there are also no rules which means if you kill there are no consequences. The death rate there is really high!" the old man added with a stern expression.