Eritance - Chapter 43

The time had come to arrive to participate in my first advanced mission. We all met in one of the meeting halls at the relic user academy. There we met up with Commander Aegis. She wore a brilliant gold armor with red griffin insignia on the front of her breastplate. She carried a round shield with the same insignia and a sword at her side. Commander Aegis gave off quite the imposing aura.

“Ross show me commander Aegis’ stats” I said.

Commander Aegis Strength 25 Stamina 19 Speed 15 Magic Power 8

She was absolutely incredible! She could kill spine bears as if they were flies. Her stats were much more impressive than the rest of ours, I was sure of it. I hoped that I would one day be as powerful as she was.

“Ross, show me the range of stats for people in the group besides Commander Aegis” I said again.

Group Strength 9-12 Stamina 4-7 Speed 3-6 Magic power 3-7

I was disappointed in myself. I thought I had finally become strong, but my stats were lower than the average person’s here. There were mainly silver ranks here, and two gold ranked users. I hadn’t expected to be the strongest person in the group, but I didn’t think that I would end up being the weakest either!

I felt that life was unfair in that moment. The only silver lining was that I was able to learn a few techniques that would boost my ability to survive. I also had focus punch and had been recently trying to figure out a way to blast my energy out when I swung my fist. The only problem was that this focused energy didn’t have a large range, and it also could only be done once. This is because it took a lot of energy to continue moving the blast outside of the body. I had no idea how to increase efficiency of the attack.

As long as my stamina held up, I could make the others believe that I was on the same level as them. Commander Aegis explained the mission to us and led us through one of the exits into the forest nearby the academy.

Although I had the lowest stamina in the group, I didn’t have the lowest speed. So, I was able to conserve energy while running to the target area. This is because the group moved together at the fastest speed of the slowest member.

It was still difficult for me to maintain the speed for a long period of time. All of us were running around as fast as a galloping horse. After running for roughly one hour, we found a cave within a ravine. This cave was well hidden, it was no wonder it was only recently discovered. Before entering we were allowed to rest for 30 minutes.

“Listen up everyone. The underground ruin has many dangers. We know that spine bears have infested the ruin, but it is unknown what other creatures lie in the cave. If you stumble upon artifacts and treasure, you are to report it immediately to me. Is that understood?” Commander Aegis barked at us.

“Yes ma’am!” we all replied in unison. Nobody wanted to get on her bad side, we all knew that, even if the entire group attacked her, we probably wouldn’t be able to win. So, it was a good idea to not get on her bad side.

After resting for the allotted time, it we quietly entered the cave. At the back of the cave behind some stalagmites, there was a hole in the ground. The hole was large enough for one of us to fit through it at a time. However, the hole was pitch black. Commander Aegis chanted some words and a small orb of light appeared before her. It glowed a soft light that illuminated a circumference of 5 meters around her.

“Those of you who know the spell of illumination step forward”. Although I had started my basic magic course, I hadn’t yet learned any spells. Right now, we were just learning how to access and control our magic, but most of the others stepped forward.

“Right then, we’re going to organize our party into five teams. Each team will have three members, except for the team led by me, this team will have four members”. Commander Aegis then organized the teams by rank and separated us all. I was put into her party.

“The underground ruin is quite large, once we get inside we will split up and hunt the spine bears. Alright then, let the operation commence!”. With that she jumped into the hole and we heard a thud as she landed. One by one we all jumped into the hole, it wasn’t actually that far below, only ten meters.

After reaching the bottom we reorganized ourselves into our teams and split up. The mission had begun. I was just happy to be able to observe commander Aegis. I’m sure that I would be able to learn something by observing her battle skills.

It wasn’t long before we came across a spine bear. To be exact, we found two of them together. Commander Aegis instantly burst forth and struck one so hard that it flew into the wall with a loud thud. The bones in its body could be heard shattering under the impact of her fist. It was an instant kill. We thought she would kill the other one, but she did a series of backwards jumps until she landed behind us.

“You didn’t expect me to do everything did you? I’ll prevent you from dying, but you all must kill the normal spine bears from here on out” she said with a yawn.

We were stunned for a moment, but the enraged roar of a spine bear caused us all to snap back to attention. The three of us dodged in different directions as it came running at us. It tried to attack commander Aegis too, but she just danced away with ease.