Chapter 10 - Ivan's Evaluation

After the bland voice declaring the victor of the fight rang in the area, and Eve disappeared for a brief second, before reappearing next to Jamie, minus the injuries acquired in the fight. Jamie smiled and said "So, how was it?"

Eve shivered and transmitted back "painful. Scary."

Jamie bent down to stroke Eve before saying "I'll give you five minutes, then we will go again. The next one will be harder."

With that, Jamie set the next match to a Life ad Death (Ambush), the location a forest, with the same stage 1 cat. A flash of light appeared, and Jamie and Eve were standing in a forest, with a large amount of small tress clumped together and a variety of large tress spread out. Looking up, Jamie could barely make out the sun above due to the foliage of the trees. Mentally sighing, Jamie could not help second guess the choice in location, because there were simply too many hiding spots for the cat to hide. He eventually decided to go through with it because he might encounter such a situation in the portal. After five minutes had passed, Jamie said "Eve are you ready?"

"Let's do this."

Jamie started the match. A flash of light appeared, but Eve and Jamie found themselves in the same location. A countdown rang "3,2,1, Start."

Jamie started looking around, mentally telling Eve, "look around carefully, and stay alert."

Jamie and Eve spent 5 minutes in the same location while occasionally turning, carefully scrutinizing the surroundings. After finding nothing, they both slowly looked around while carefully looking around.

"Eve, can you smell it?"

"No"

As they walked forwards, with Eve in front of Jamie, Jaime heard something to his left. He stepped back, but not before some claws scratched his throat as a black object sailed past. His eyes widened in surprise and shock as he instinctively clutched his throat, and he immediately sent a transmission to Eve.

"Eve, behind you, to the right."

Upon landing, the cat ran forwards, trying to hide in the foliage. Eve managed to catch sight of the cat and dashed of after it, disappearing from Jamie's sight. Cursing mentally, Jamie tried to calm himself and slow his breathing, not sure about the damage done to his throat. Jamie could not help but curse mentally "This f**king hurts. And to think the pain feedback is turned to low."

He took his hand off his throat, and saw a small amount of blood on his hand. Suddenly, he heard a whimpering sound coming from the distance before cutting off. His heart tightened as he recognized it came from Eve. He then sent a transmission to Eve.

"Eve, how are you?"

He got no response. Dismayed, he slowly walked towards the sound. When he reached the area, he could see nothing, nor hear any rustling, as he scanned the surroundings. Suddenly, he spotted a black object beneath one of the clumps of small trees. He walked forwards slowly, cautiously, until he could see what was under the tree, and his heart sank when he recognized the object.

It was Eve's stiff corpse.

Near instantaneously after he recognized the body, something sharp landed on his back, just beneath his right shoulder, with it's claws digging in. It bit into his neck. Jamie cursed, raising his right hand to try swat it away, but the cat just caught the hand in its mouth, biting down, tearing off a chunk of Jamie's hand. It then continued to gnaw at Jamie's neck, while Jaime just screamed, until he collapsed, dying.

After his corpse dropped to the ground, a bland voice sounded.

Match over, Tamers loss.

A flash of light burst in the surroundings, and Jamie and Eve were standing int the forest, alive, and fully healed. Jamie and Eve could not help but look at each other with fear. That was not a situation they wanted to repeat again.

Jamie closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to put what happened at the end out of his mind. Finally, after five minutes, he opened his eyes and looked at Eve.

'So, how are you feeling?"

Eve was laying on the ground, curled up. Her ears were down and she was shaking slightly. She transmitted back "I think I want to take a break. That experience at the end was too much."

Jamie sighed. He wanted to try it again, but he couldn't push Eve right now, as she looked in no shape to fight again. Jamie turned his eyes to the dragon, hoping that it hadn't seen too much of the last fight at the end and he could coax it into a fight. It's scaly skin, wings and ember skill would would allow it to fight more effectively then Eve. He saw the Dragon curled up, just watching them. He then transmitted images of it fighting in the stadium against the cat. After receiving the images, the dragon started visibly shivering. Jamie could not help but curse out loud.

Jamie spent five minutes reassuring the Dragon that it did not need to fight, and trying to calm it down. He then exited the Virtual Beast Taming, and spent 5 minutes stroking and reassuring his beasts.

After walking outside the Virtual Training room, his gaze fell upon a man with a grizzled face, wearing a loose black shirt and jeans in the room approaching the Virtual Training Room. The man, Beastamer Ivan, nodded to him as he exited.

"Hey Jamie. How did you go?"

"Three matches. Won one in the stadium format and life and death frontal encounter, died in the ambush encounter."

Ivan paused at that, then asked "did you pick the basic stage 1 cat to fight against?"

"Yes"

Ivan nodded. "It's good for practicing against, but it doesn't have any abilities. Most Beasts have at least one ability, even at stage 1."

With that, Ivan turned his gaze towards Jamie's two beasts, studying them intently. After a moment had passed, he continued "Afterwards, you should probably continue fighting that cat. You need to build up their confidence again before you start challenging tougher things. If you need to make it harder for them, try to push them into killing the cat quicker without using abilities while sticking to the frontal life and death encounters. Only try the ambush encounter when they get used to fighting the cat, and try to get them to fight against the black crow as well."

"Okay, thanks."

Ivan smiled, and his eyes passing over the dragon briefly. He then continued walking to the Virtual Training Room and said "I'll see you tomorrow. And you might want to get home quickly. That Dragon should increase it's stage soon."

>>>>>

Jamie first traveled to Bob's place, collecting the meat in the outside freezer before double checking that everything was locked up. He then headed home. When he arrived home, and got out of the van with his beasts, the Dragon started to get slightly restless. Noticing this, Jamie frowned and led it to the middle of the lawn out front, and took off it's collar and leash, sending it an image to relax on the lawn. He then sat down at the edge of the lawn facing the dragon, excited. Jamie thought to himself "This was it. The dragons breakthrough will increase my soul size."

Jamie took a deep breath. He then tried to calm himself down and meditated, preparing for the moment his soul size would increase.

Five minutes later, Jamie could hear the cracking sounds coming from dragon. The dragon started roar in pain, and Jamie tried to to calm it down while keeping his eyes closed by sending it images of it relaxing, to no avail, as it roars started to increase in volume. Gradually, the roars gradually died down, and Jamie started to sense changes to his soul.

Looking inwards, he could see his soul started to flash, before it started expanding rapidly, doubling in size, before it's growth stopped abruptly. After inspecting the changes to his soul, Jamie focused outwards to his body, and opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was the dragon, which had doubled in size. Before, it was halfway up to his knees, standing, Now, it had reached his knees. It's length had increased from 4 feet to 8 feet long. The dragon looked at Jaime, and raised it's head proudly before letting out a roar. Jamie smiled, and walked forwards to rub it's head. Jamie transmitted to the dragon the happiness he felt at the dragon increasing it's size, then sent it images of it smashing the hateful stage 1 cat to a pulp with one swing of it's tail. The dragon roared in response, and said to Jamie in a transmission "I. Fight. It. Tomorrow."

Jamie's eyes widened in shock. He could not help but wonder to himself "In addition to increasing the dragons size, did the dragons intelligence increase?"

Dismissing the thought from his mind, he walked towards the door of the house, grinning from ear to ear. Finally, he qualified as a Battlepet Master Trainee.