training and endurance

We are outside of the main gate where many other adventurers stood by chatting and getting revved up for training it seemed. Xyle and I stand near the edge of the group as Maul and Brights go to the front. Maul pulls out a large bag from literally nothing and opens it for Brights to send a bunch of small element orbs to everyone. Two per person. They explain the orbs to everyone that they wanted to test what elements everyone has so we needed to let it chose for us first before we choose our own. Naturally those with weak elements or none will step forward and select an element to control and learn and naturally a few people didn't have one which made me feel like a weirdo for one reason. An element showed up. And a very bad one too. Lightening. This obviously caught everyone's attention.

"Halliway..." Maul says.

"I don't know what to tell you." I instantly reply.

He sighed in response and calls me forward. "Stay here until we're done with everyone."

"... Yes sir." Fuck now I'm in trouble.

I stand by Brights who eyes me worriedly, then smiles reassuring me I wasn't in trouble for anything. I look done from him still nervous then look to Xyle who, for some reason, is staring daggers at me with a more unnerved look that made me worry more. Just what is he thinking over there?

Everyone goes through the element training while I was made to stay out of it and wait till the end to go train with Xyle, Maul and Brights. Xyle is sent off elsewhere with Brights while I was with Maul. Kinda curious what Xyle has to do. Maul suddenly starts stripping his coat off and catches me off guard. I am now faced with an extraordinary sight of his upper body as he ties his hair back into a ponytail and walks over to me and offers his hand.

"Bracelet please." He demands and I quickly follow, taking off the bracelet with the insignia and handing it to him. He takes it and puts it on then walks back to his things and turns to face me, standing like a soldier. "Well, now that we are alone. Tessa." He pulls two orbs from his pocket and throws them to me. One was big the other small. "Can you show me exactly what that was you did during the status check with Master Vitacus?"

The black thing? I hold the orbs at my chest, one in each hand, and look at them. They instantly resonate and turn black. The small one started to shine a bit until it started sparking like there was a lot of friction. The other orb stays black and doesn't crack and there's no other reaction to the color like last time.

"... What is this?" He asks, suddenly standing right in front of me. His fuzzy, hulking chest right in my face as he stands upright looking down at the orbs in my hands stroking his beard. Obviously startled, I fall back with an ugly shriek. He looks at me weird and grabs my arm to help me back up. I am avoiding eye contact and looking in his direction all together. The fucking abs!! "What are you doing?"

"Give a girl a warning before you strip, man!! Christ! You nearly gave me a heart attack!" I shout at him. It felt weird saying it with a male voice but that's how I feel.

He lets go of me with a shutter and backs off a bit, then clears his throat. I look at him and see his cheeks were slightly pink and his ears were twitching. Oh god, he had to add the cute. "Anyways. Why do you have an element and a new blessing so suddenly?"

"I-I don't know... It happened few night ago while I was getting ready to slee."

"... Fine. Let's just get you started and deal with that later after I know for sure what that is. Maybe I can get you to use it at some point to study farther." I don't like that he said that. "Lets begin."

Without a second to spare he jumps me.

[Reflex] activated: commencing combat response in 3

2

1

I fall back matrix style and barely miss a graze to my cheek. I turn to face him and put my guard up as high as the stratosphere. HOLY SHIT, HE ALMOST TOOK MY DAMN HEAD!!! He looks back at me then stands straight again to look at his hand. It was open in a way he could grab my throat. So he was aiming to choke me!?

"My goodness." He says with an odd perk in his voice. "I didn't actually think you'd react that well..."

Alert: threat level has increased in speed and power.

Preparing defense actions.

Raising guard to max capacity.

He rushes at me and suddenly my surroundings slow down a small bit. It was enough to jump out of his line of sight. He skids across the ground and tries again. Over and over he tries to pounce me and each time I move away to avoid getting hit. That alert just told me he was trying to break something and I was not having any of that. He finally stops and looks at me curiously.

"... Hm. I would have thought you'd react a bit differently after this much... Tell me, how are you dodging all of these with the least amount of effort yet you have no enhancement magic?"

"... Uh... Can't really say. I'm not too sure other than intuition."

"Intuition? That's more than intuition. It feels more like your being guided through your motions..." He pauses to think for a moment. "Do you have a separate skill similar to master Vitacus's status vision?"

... Is that what it is? I can't interact with it though. It just tells me what's going on that could potentially kill me. "Uh... I don't know what to tell you. Maybe? I do get this sudden ring in my head that tells me if I'm in danger but that's about it. So I'm just calling it intuition. Or instinct."

"... Ah that. That is intuition. I didn't think it would be strong enough to affect your reaction. Must be because you're a living golem. Well no matter. I just need to be faster than your reaction I guess."

Alert: unable to predict coming threat.

Commencing connection to [ultra] state.

[Ultra instinct] activated.

Warning: [ultra instinct] may not be high enough to react accurately. Proceed with caution.

Thank you. I feel the marks on my head warm up. My body feels hot as my heart starts to race then suddenly slow down to the point where I feel like I was sleeping. I relax and let the feeling take over. I just know this is gonna be rough. I suddenly feel a rhythm beating in my ears that creeps through out my body steadily.

He rushes me and I don't even notice I moved. We go on like this for a long while and I simply sit in the back of my mind watching until I felt something hit my stomach and chin, bringing me back to reality as I'm sent across the yard and tumble out of control. Aaaahahaa~oww~...

I look up struggling from the pain and see Maul walking towards me. My vision was a little messed up but I could see he was a bit out of breath himself.

"Hah~..." He sighs. "Now we know where you are in terms of endurance. I suppose all you need is muscle training. I see you know ultra mode and your green blessing seems to enhance your performance by nature. You're very fast, so I assume you did a lot of endurance and speed training growing up and your defences are astounding!" Getting a little excited here, aren't you? "... How?"

"E-eh?" I'm starting to feel the pain finally subside.

"How do you withhold so much so well?" He kneels down next to me with a lot of curiosity in his eyes. "How do you retain so much and still have the will to fight back? Not many goblins willingly throw themselves into a situation like this without giving up. In fact most goblins don't even bother coming back to train when their told they have fighting potential. But you were far more than willing."

I can finally sit up and move again so I sit and stretch the tension out of my body and lean back from the comfort of relief. How the hell do I explain that? Most of my current endurance is from dancing and singing like a mad man in the music room every other day... Duh. "Having a lot of spare time to myself." Is the best way I can explain that.

He looks at me more confused now rather than curious. "Huh?"

"I'm gonna have to show you that some other time. Those two seem to be done." I say as I look past him to see Xyle and Brights had returned. Well, Brights carrying a worn out Xyle on his shoulder like a sandbag. "Pfft!" Yes, I'm gonna laugh at that. Maul looks at them then at me for laughing.

"Oh you done too?" Brights asks. "She do any better than this one?"

"... I'd probably say better considering his conditions."

"Yeah... Kids got no guard or speed, and can barely hold up in a straightforward fight. Boy needs a lot of work."

"Really!?" I say in sync with Maul. Brights laughs at us. You'd think the pompous ass would do better since he's a black belt at the base dojo near my complex and a gold belt at the lightweight championship for juniors back on earth.

"I know right. With everything adding up in prowess in his status, you'd think the guy could win against ten direwolves." I wouldn't go that far but sure.

"Ha~... Really now?" Maul says. "The king is going to be one hell of a sour ball when he hears this. Some hero this turned out to be." Jesus. A complete 180 in respect. "Come, Halliway. We shall start again tomorrow morning. Be here before dawn. I have a lot to hear from you later."

"Yeah, ok." He helps me up to my feet and we headed back to the city. I decide to head back to the guild to change again then try to head to the goblin alley to meet the boys today and see how they want to do the schooling when someone taps my shoulder for my attention.