Spirit Taming

Chapter 97: Pressured

The Needle boar charged right at Clark. It was not hard for Clark to use ghostly steps to dodge. However, Clark realized that the boar had not only gotten bigger, but faster. The speed of the charge was incredibly tough to dodge at his current body strength.

Knowing that he was being challenged in physical prowess over everything else while not being able to use a spear, Clark became more interested. He had easily ignored the boar the first time that he had battled Ralph, now it was a real threat.

Ralph was finding that It was much the same. Crim had an ability to ned and dodge without moving that he had not imagined. He thought that the dragon hatchling he saw would need to use large leaps to get away which would let him use his ax to strike. Unfortunately for Ralph, this was not the situation.

Crim was using his slime body to the best of his ability. He had heard the rules and felt that Clark expected him to use the chance to grow. It was non negotiable, Crim would not attack and only dodge. This was an important aspect that a dragon would normally ignite.

Dragons were proud beasts. They could take attacks head on without any issue. Dodging was normally an insult to them. Yet, Crim was not truly a dragon and was actually a slime. Being able to dodge was something that a slime wouldn't normally worry about due to their weak mental strength.

Therefore, Crim was going against two wills to ignore dodging. He was improving his mental battle strategy while also shaping the dragon essence within his body. Every single time that Ralph swung his ax at him, Crim changed the way he dodged. The show of Crim's sloppy movements becoming more and more controlled was clear to everyone watching.

Not many had witnessed the process of a beast developing their own movement techniques.

Before Ralph and Crim could continue their fight, Clark jumped and rolled between them. He had realized that he had another strategy he could use. He was not able to let Ralph's spiked boar hit him. But, he could let the spiked boar run in to Ralph.

This made Ralph and Crim separate and dodge as well. Professor Wright smiled with a brilliant approval. This was why she had the two battling separately in the same arena. They could learn to focus on the other battles around each other and expand their awareness.

"Watch you, you might just get beaten by your own beast." Clark's mocking pushed Ralph in to an angrier state. This caused Ralph to attack Crim with a fury. The attacks made Crim work harder to dodge but also get an even better handle of his body.

Feeling Ralph's anger, the needle boar started to stomp the ground in rage. It could not hit Clark either but had to deal with the possibility of hurting its own tamer. This rage was building making Clark take advantage. He had the perfect chance to attack.

The black needles appeared in Clark's hands and he whipped them out toward the needle boar's body. Surprisingly, they slightly went in to the skin hitting one of the pressure points Clark had aimed for. The reaction was instant. The boar caged in rage while the black needles stuck out of its back leg. The other two had fallen to the ground after the boar shook.

With hurried motion, Clark dodged and watched the boar charge off the arena completely. It had been spurred in to a rage. Clark felt something sharp on his foot and looked to see that some of the boar's hardened fur had fallen out. It had stuck in to his shoe but not all the way. "So this was what Professor Wright meant."

Seeing that the hair had fallen out, Clark would originally have thought that this was because the boar was under stress. However, because the professor had spoken about finding ways to attack at range for Ralph and his boar, Clark made a different theory. The needle boar could send the hardened hairs from its body at an enemy if it was trained properly.

While only a theory, Clark had a feeling that this was very plausible. So much so that if he did some digging in the library he might be able to find some beast development records of this exact situation.

While Clark realized this, the boar had found a new home on the side of the arena where professor Wright stood in front of it to stop it from returning. She had it leave the battle since it had left the arena. She was surprised to see that the black needle was no longer in its leg as well. She didn't know how or when Clark had taken it back. It was another small mystery to solve.

"You have one minute to finish your battle!" Ralph heard this and panicked.

The rush of attacks that Crim dodged were even more intense. It was testing the dodging ability that Crim was learning. Just when it appeared that Ralph had failed, he pulled his second one handed ax from his storage. He was not going to just sit aside. He had originally wanted to grow in to using two axes like this.

Unfortunately, he had to push himself here and would have to deal with the uncomfortable feeling that was outside his muscle memory.

The second ax coming at Crim made him frantic. He had to dodge carefully or else he would move right in to the incoming attack. "Ten seconds!" Professor Wright knew this was pressure. Yet, she knew that pressure was how precious gems were formed. She had to put pressure on Ralph or she would not see him grow.

"Damn it all!" Ralph swore and both of the axes in anger. It was a response he had not meant to do but one that proved to work. Crim had not expected Ralph to just toss the one handed axes at him. This caused a decisive hit on him as one lodged in to his side.

Without hesitation, Crim shook the ax out and repaired the scales that had been broken. But Ralph had somehow managed to win the battle under the requirements given.

"That was not necessarily the right way to do that, but you did learn. Next time, keep a weapon. Clark, you managed to bait your opponent out of the arena. A smart move to also use them against their own tamer. You also showed everyone here a possibility for attack improvement. Ralph, you will need to read the evaluations closely to have the proper understanding of what to do next."

The end of the battle felt less dramatic than Maria and Isa's battle. However, the students watching the battle were in harsh debate over what they had seen. Between the two battles they had seen many potential techniques that could be learned and used.

From the evaluations that Clark's fellow students were writing. He knew that he would have a lot to analyze. Before he could even sit down he heard the professors silencing everyone for them to debate properly. All Clark could do was take out a notebook and record what he heard for the next hour.