New members

After my talk with the Count, I'm going to train, I still think it would be best to join the mercenaries, but I can't yet. When I have more strength, I will do it.

After arriving at the courtyard, I sit down and start meditating and refining my core.

When I finish, I continue practicing my weapon creation spell. I need to start reducing the creation window and the amount of essence it consumes. I haven't had any problems so far because I haven't used it much, but I noticed in combat that the amount it uses is very high.

In the next solo missions I do, I want to experiment with possession as well. The intrusive thoughts of the minds I possess can affect me in combat. Losing concentration in combat is like yelling "hey, stab me in the chest".

And so I continue my days until Ingrid and Elijah return with 2 subjects.

They came looking for me in the courtyard where I was practicing my weapon switching skills.

"Young master, we are back. We brought 2 of the 3 people we were looking for. They are young but talented and have decided to join us," Elijah said in a good mood.

Ingrid at his side nods at me with a small smile.

Her skin is practically clean now, like that of an elf, only gray. I've read about it, it may evolve soon.

"Elijah, good to have you back," I say as I walk towards him. "Who did you bring with you?"

"Young master, allow me to introduce Layla and Seth," he says as he moves to show me 2 people. One a pureblood elf and the other a dark elf.

"Hello Marcus. Elijah has told me a lot about you, my name is Seth and I am 25 years old," the dark elf said first.

Seth is 25 years old but looks like he is 20. He is about 6'2" tall and has black hair tied back in a low ponytail. He has a plain face, with battle-hungry black eyes, a crooked smile, and a red scar that runs from his cheek to his neck.

He looks like a simple but dangerous man. Anyone would say he is a warrior, but the bow on his back begs to differ.

He wears leather armor with boots and a green cloak over his shoulders.

"Nice to meet you Seth, can I call you a Ranger?" I asked with a cordial smile.

"Exactly, sir, and if I may, I would like to challenge you to a duel," Seth said as his crooked smile grew wider.

It's really violent.

"Later, now I would like to meet the other one, Elijah," I said as I moved around and looked at the pureblood elf.

She took a step forward with a sweet smile, "Nice to meet you Mr. Marcus, I am Layla and I am a pure mage, this year I will be 28 years old."

Everyone is older than me...

She is a beautiful elf, with big brown eyes, a round face with full lips and brown hair. She is almost 5'6" tall and is covered in a tunic with parts reinforced with steel.

The steel covers the important areas, like her chest, stomach and thighs, but it can't hide her body.

She has an hourglass figure, with a flat stomach, wide hips, and a nice big ass. Her thighs are fleshy without being disproportionate. Although her chest is a bit lacking. The rest of her is stunning.

She has a wooden stick that looks like a branch on her back. I can tell from her posture that she doesn't do much hand-to-hand combat.

She's a pure mage, so it makes sense.

"Hello, Layla. The pleasure is mine, do you want to fight too?" I ask with my usual smile.

"No sir. No need," she says with a sweet voice.

I frown at his words, "How am I supposed to know the strength of both without fighting?" I said in a monotone voice.

"I can tell you that my core is blue just like Seth's, but I have almost reached light blue," he said proudly, straightening his back.

"Anyway, you're going to fight. Seth and you will fight with me now, you have to test your abilities to assign and understand how you will play your roles."

I walk toward the courtyard, the two following me, one reluctantly, the other excitedly.

I stand on one corner and they on the other.

We are now in the training yard where Elijah is training me. An area large enough to fight in and also with protection to prevent its destruction.

It can handle us easily.

Standing in front of them, I adjust my stance and draw my sword.

I hope you won't disappoint me, because Elijah spoke very highly of you.

I take a deep breath, gather energy in my legs and shoot forward.

Obviously, Leyla is much less experienced, so she attacks first.

With my sword raised, I approach her, who looks at me with a serious expression on her face as she raises her hand, creating a bolt of lightning that comes at me.

I quickly raise my sword to block and take the full blow. As I stagger, I see Seth move as he fires several arrows at me in quick succession.

The trajectory is predictable, so it's easy to dodge the arrows.

As I dodge, Leyla prepares another arrow, but I'm already prepared.

When she fires it, I raise a wall of earth to block it and use the wall as a foothold to launch myself at Seth.

Seth remains calm as I approach, but begins to charge his bow with energy.

I continue to dodge arrows and as I approach Seth to cut him down, he uses his steel bow to block.

Pushing him a bit, I move my sword and make 4 quick slashes to his legs and arms, but he blocks with my same speed.

What kind of Ranger fights like that?

Leyla doesn't stand still as this happens, summoning dark clouds that channel essence and shoot lightning from the sky at my position. Seth sees this and puts pressure on me by attacking me with his bow to immobilize me.

It's a dangerous situation, but not that dangerous. Thinking so, I throw my sword at Seth while shooting gusts of air with essence to move backwards.

I begin to conjure new weapons. Some needles and another sword.

Narrowly dodging the lightning as Seth's pressure drops, I decide to turn around and look for Leyla again.

She sees me and conjures a water shield that surrounds her, isolating her from the battle. I continue to run towards her as my weapons are conjured and with a quick spin I aim my needles at Seth to prevent him from recovering.

I summon a fireball and throw it at Leyla's water shield.

Her shield begins to shatter as I move to her side and conjure another fire, this time spinning like a drill.

With a strong blow the fire easily penetrates his shield and burns his arm a little. Now with the shield broken, I move towards her and put my sword to her neck and she raises her hand indicating surrender.

Now Seth. He more or less recovered when I destroyed Layla's shield and let me make her surrender because in a normal battle I would have burned her alive instead of cutting my spell.

Seth stares at me, a frown on his face.

I drop my sword and conjure a spear, lunging towards Seth.

He raises his bow and starts shooting at me again, but now his arrows have fire in them.

Dodging I move towards him and start attacking with my spear.

Quick stabs that he starts blocking with his bow, where we start exchanging many blows.

Deciding that enough is enough, I attack with my spear to suddenly throw it and when Seth blocks, I conjure up a dagger and stab it into his ribs.

"You guys are good, but you have a lot of mistakes and didn't coordinate on anything."