The First Legendary Beast Master novel Chapter 385

Chapter 385 Formalities

Once the chaos of the battle had subsided, Karl realized that a significant amount of time had passed while they were inside the trials, and the night shift was about to start their rotation on the line.

It was strange to think that so much time had elapsed since the start of the trial, when the second group had only taken a few hours at the most, but the sun's position didn't lie.

Karl was waiting and watching, to ensure that the Hill Giants didn't try to push their luck and return, when a friendly hand patted him on the shoulder. "You can return to camp for dinner. The next shift is here. I think that the Administration Staff are going to want to talk to you as well after that incident with the trial. It appears that your team got some pretty serious rewards, and they are all excited." The soldier informed him.

Karl chuckled at the man's gift for understatement, and nodded his head. "I will return to the line once I have upgraded shields for the pike line. As soon as they switch, I will give them a layer of Earth Shield, then call it a night." Karl explained.

The soldiers lined up and raised the large rectangular shields of the shield wall, which remained on the line until they were damaged. "Earth Shield Incoming." Karl shouted as he cast the spell, then moved down the line again, as he had earlier in the day.

That should keep them through the night, or at least through the first few hits of an engagement if there was something happening during the night shift.

The Hill Giants didn't normally attack at night, but they had been particularly upset today with the abbreviated Trial, where both sides had only gotten two teams through. The Giants were going to want to punish the humans for taking two of the available four slots and not even using half of them to try for a Royal Rank fighter, but instead stacking their number of Commanders instead.

But what the Academy knew was that the faster you progressed while you were young, the further an Elite could go before they hit the limits of their potential. It seemed to decline with time, and readministering the serum didn't help refresh it.

So, pushing students to Commander still made it more likely that they would get to Royal Rank, and it was a better deal for the Academy if those opportunities were given to students than to teachers, whose peak growth years had already passed.

But they had another issue today, and that was that one of the students really did make it to Royal Rank. Namely, Karl.

They should have known better than to think that the news of Rae advancing wouldn't bring an immediate response from the higher powers. The Academy, the Bureau of Elite Development, the Church and the Army all had ranking members stationed here, but that wasn't enough for this unprecedented situation.

Rumours were already flying that his assigned group had produced two other unregistered Commanders plus two High Priestesses, but the power that Morgana and Bob were showing when they returned to the lines after the Trial had everyone wondering how long it would be before they also made Royal Rank.

So, more influential members had been sent from every possible facet of Golden Dragon Nation society, including reporters and a government Press Officer. They had all arrived in the last hour, while the second team was in the trials, with the hope that they would have an entire team of Commanders added to the Academy's population, in addition to the confused reports of Karl and Rae's advancement.

Karl followed the camp workers' directions to a secondary dining hall, where he found his expanded group, along with the other ten Elites who had been sent as the second group.

"I would like to say that nobody expects the Holy Inquisition, but this time their presence was entirely predictable." Karl greeted the group at the table beside his as he took a seat.

"Brother Karl, it's good to see you advanced again." A Royal Rank Inquisitor replied with a smile.

Karl looked over at the other group and realized that there was a white robed Priest and an annoyed looking blue dragon cleric with them. Why they had a cleric from the god of Knowledge seemed fairly obvious to Karl, as everyone wanted to know what the anomaly was, but they normally didn't specialize in healing or group buffs, so they were rarely sent to combat. _{freeweɓnovēl.coɱ}