Potential Beast Partners

In a large hall, a variety of kids fought strange metal men using Metal weapons, as they clashed a middle-aged man with long, well-groomed hair watched over the kids, giving advice as they clashed. The man's warm blue eyes danced in their sockets, flickering about as he watched over 10 different battles simultaneously. This man was Jack Renor, the teacher of the combat class. Strangely, the metal men, despite seemingly attacking the kids, would never actually injure them, their weapons bending around the skin of the kids.

As one could imagine, the kids fighting tired quickly, assembling at a round arena-like structure at the center of the hall. After the kids had assembled the man began speaking, his soft voice somehow filling the entire hall.

"You all have shown great progress today but it's not enough. How do you expect to beat Class B if this is all you can muster?" He questioned, clearly not happy despite the impressive spars the students had fought.

Egil was a little peeved, this man, the instructor for the basics of combat class had never once, no matter how much effort he put in, been happy with the class's performance. As for class B he mentioned, from what Egil understood they were the second elite class, something of a semi-elite class where those almost good enough to get into the elite class got a second, or for some, a third chance at the elusive goal. Personally, Egil felt like 2 chances were already more than enough, and the few dregs that couldn't get in simply didn't deserve the second chance.

It had already been a week since classes had started, and Egil, for the most part, had performed well. Something even more important in his mind, however, was his new friend, a feisty blonde by the name of Elyse, who had approached him at the cafeteria on the first day of classes.

Egil's schedule was pretty simple, [Basic Combat] first, followed by [Intro to Cultivation], [Literacy], [Intro to dual elements], and ending with Sound and Ice element courses. From what Egil had learned, later today, during the intro to duel elements, he would get to decide on a few beasts for his companion, and before he reached the peak of Body Tempering someone would acquire those beasts for him to contract with. This was a bonus of having dual elements, and Egil intended to take full advantage of it.

As Egil's thoughts trailed off his combat teacher loudly yelled at him "EGIL, ARE YOU LISTENING"

Being jolted out of his thoughts Egil looked around confused for a second before focusing on the teacher "Could you please repeat that Mr. Renor?" he barely managed to utter out.

"I said when facing a human opponent using a Warhammer what is the appropriate response?"

"Use speed to your advantage do dodge heavy blows while rushing forward into the handle of the weapon to put them at a disadvantage, sir" Egil responded fairly confident in his answer

"Absolutely Wrong!" Mr. Renor shouted. Egil was rightfully shocked at this, he was confident in his answer, especially thinking back to his father's combat lessons, where he learned all about different weapons and basic counters for them.

"The answer I was looking for…" Mr. Renor continued, "Was to KILL them, Understand?"

"It doesn't matter how strong the foe is if they're dead, understand?"

"Yes sir" Egil Responded, a little annoyed at the stupid answer his teacher expected him to give

…

This was how Egils combat class went, he would face a Metal man and receive advice from Mr. Renor. Then Mr. Renor would ask them a thousand questions based on what they had done that day. With Basic combat over, however, Egil and Elyse made their way to Intro to Cultivation, taught by Mr. Price.

"Have you Reached Basic Mastery over your weapon art? Elyse, Egil's only friend, asked

"I'm almost there, I'm just struggling to put all my strength into [Heavy Slash]"

"Well then Mr, guess I won our bet then"

"WHAT, you mastered [Snake Whip]?"

"Of course I did, I am a natural Whip Talent after all"

Grumbling quietly, Egil noticed they had arrived at their class. Quietly taking his seat, silently praying that Elyse wouldn't take all his food tonight, as per the terms of their bet Elyse had a claim to all of Egil's food tonight, and he had no doubt she could eat it all.

Intro to Cultivation was largely theoretical lessons on cultivation combined with short cultivation sessions so Mr.Price could evaluate their skill and where they were going wrong In their cultivation.

Class felt like it took forever today. The topic was on something called Enlightenment, which was essentially a cultivator suddenly gaining a greater understanding of their element, cultivation technique, or other techniques. Egil couldn't properly focus on the class though, as all he could think of was choosing a partner beast next class.

…

Egil sat nervously in his seat, silently staring at a large book in front of him. The book was titled, [Ice and Sound Dual Element Bestiary]. He could already hear some of the other kids flipping through their own Bestiaries, but he also saw some kids that hesitated like him. He was hesitating for a pretty stupid reason, Egil felt that if he picked up the book he was abandoning Skalfell, but he also knew that there was no way he could become strong enough without this.

With slow movements, Egil slowly began to flip through the bestiary. The book was fairly thick considering everything, but he quickly learned that of the 54 pages, 42 of them contained Sea beasts, leaving only 12 beasts for him to choose from. Egil's options were as shown, along with the basic description of the beast:

[Glacial Bat]: An Icey Blue Bat found throughout the Arctic Ocean.

[8-tailed Sonic Freeze Fox]: An 8-tailed Kitsune with 4 Ice and 4 Sound tails, Largely found in the Kalana Archipelago.

[Polar Centaur]: A half Human half Polar Bear Species, Known to exhibit Basic Intelligence rare in beasts.

[Ice & Sound Twin Elemental]: A Variant Elemental Species with 2 elements instead of one

[Mutated Ophiopolarus]: A Half Snake, Half Polar Bear creature that has mutated to utilize the sound element

[Screeching Ice Worm]: A common species of Worm found inside Icebergs

[Arctic Siren]: A rare species of wing-armed humanoids with powerful Sound element attacks

[Bone-Chilling Behemoth]: An Seldom seen species of gargantuan lizard-like beasts with immense physical prowess

[Glacial Bee Queen]: The Queen of a hive of Glacial Bees, found in forests throughout the arctic ocean

[Boreal Howler Monkey]: A species of small white monkey, Myth says the first of this species created the Boreal Aurora

[Raging Glacial Mammoth]: A Species of Perpetually angry Mammoth with powerful sonic attacks and adept Ice manipulation

[Antarctic Beever Hive King]: The King of A Hive of Antarctic Beevers, is known to give orders through long-range sound waves

Of these 12 only a few interested him but he wouldn't eliminate any without fully understanding each species. Luckily, the dual element class had been given 3 hours to make their choices, so he had more than enough time to read every little detail about all the beasts before him. On the other hand, Professor Night, who was the teacher of [Intro to Dual Elements] alongside teaching homeroom for the elite class, had no clue about the beasts found in their books and therefore couldn't help them out, which was the reason they had 3 hours, some would say that's unfair but it is what it is.

In a simple real-life example of unfairness, the Dual Element class, whether they were part of the elite class or not, got this time months before they would contract their beasts because dual element beasts were super hard to find and it was even rarer to find a young beast among them.

After almost 2 and a half hours Egil finally decided on the 3 beasts that he wanted. With his Nerves flaring Egil made his way to the front of the class and handed in his selections to Professor Night.

"You Sure Kid?"

Egil slowly nodded, determination on his face.

"Well alright I'll give it to the team you have the rest of the day off so use it well"

Egil once again nodded, thinking back to the choices he had made. Egil had decided on 3 beasts. First was the [Mutated Ophiopolarus], Which was an incredible beast that featured the body of a polar bear and the head of a snake, the mutated part of its name came from the sound elemental snake head the beast incredibly possessed.

Egil's second choice was the [Raging Glacial Mammoth]. This Beast Possessed incredible physical prowess while being able to use its powerful trunk to launch sonic attacks and create armor of ice. Egil Chose this because he valued the physical prowess of the beast, and the potential size it could grow to.

Finally, and most important to Egil, he chose the [Bone-Chilling Behemoth]. A beast of such sheer size and physical prowess that its attacks innately created powerful sonic attacks, while the Ice Element that made its body home froze everything it touched into nothing more than a Statue of pure ice. For good reason, Egil had set this beast as his most important pick and specifically urged on the note for the team to focus on finding this beast, at any cost. While Egil knew that the team wouldn't risk their lives for him, he was so encapsulated by the beast that he didn't even care.

Egil slowly returned to his room, fantasizing about riding a mountain-sized beast and freezing over the entire ocean. For the first time in a while, Egil had a peaceful sleep.