It was early in the morning, around 6am or so, the fresh morning breeze and the elegant sound of natures music filled the air, gentle and subtle footsteps could be heard ever so slightly as Earl walked about the shop, he had a broom in hand, and other cleaning tools by his side. With light yet vigorous strokes of his hand, and a sweet humming melody, Earl cleaned the entire shop, from dusting the shelves, to mopping the floor, the presence of a speck of dirt was unfathomable, and what's more, the graceful dance that went with the cleaning motions were nothing short of euphoric. eventually another set of footsteps could be heard coming down the stairs. although not as elegant and gentle, they too had a blissful rhythm accompany it, Earl turned his head ever so slightly towards the stairs as that was where the second set of footsteps originated from, the light red bandana he had tied up to his forehead waved slightly as his neatly packed hair had their own set of mo
Earl stared down at his shattered blade in disbelief, "What the-" Earl tried to say before his senses once again shot up, and he sensed danger coming. Earl quickly dived left, avoiding the strange beast, it rolled like a bowling ball at blazing fast speed, before destroying the tree that Earl once stood against. "This beast… my sword… I have to…" Earl stuttered to himself as he glued his gaze to the beast. "Did… did that b-beast… just" Earl muttered as he watched the unthinkable, he could clearly see metal razor sharp blades recede into its back as it got up from the tree. The beast then turned its attention over to Earl before snarling and growling at him, its twin tails rose up in the air, the blades Earl witnessed resurfaced, and its huge claws dug into the ground as it readied to pounce. The third eye skill then activated once more, alerting Earl of the coming attack, but Earl was frozen in place The beast stared down Earl in a menacing manner,
Earl, Jake and Norman all stood outside the shop out on the front porch, a gentle breeze blew past the three, with a warm fuzzy smile on Norman's face, he addressed the two young boys in front of him. "I'm gonna teach you guys something called Heka" Norman said with a smile on his face, both boys looked at eachother confused before looking back at Norman, "What's that?" Earl asked. "You see mana is used in performing alchemy, Ki is used in performing ki based attacks known as Hiori, Heka on the other hand is kind of like an in-between of both of these" Norman said maintaining the smile on his face. Jake looked rather confused, and Earl knew why, although both of them were well versed in Alchemy and mana, Ki was a concept only Earl and his club members had learned of so far, so he kind of knew why Jake was confused "Mana is the eternal energy of someone, it's what allows us to do alchemy" Earl said to Jake, Jake turned over with an annoyed look on his face"I kno
"Thank you and have a nice day" Earl said as he watched a customer walk out of the store, his eyes were droopy, and his movements were sluggish, it was obvious he was tired.'So this is the after effects of fulmination huh?' Earl thought to himself as he let out a huge yawn. once again, he heard the doorbell ring, and his body twitched at the sound, his eyes sunk as he awaited the next customer that would drain what little life force he had left. he was happy to watch his grandpa's shop, but the stress coupled with the after effects of the Heka technique was taking a toll on his body. he looked over at the door hoping for the worst but a slight smile climbed his face when he saw his grandpa walk through the front door"grandpa you're back" Earl said as he slumped over to his grandpa Ollie, "whoa, Earl you look exhausted" grandpa Ollie said as he walked towards Earl. "yeah papi, I'm so tired" Earl said before falling flat on his face on the floor, grandpa Ollie was
Earl took a stance and held his sword in his left hand, he took a defensive stance as the Saber fangs surrounded him, "I thought They're lone hunters unless moving in packs of three or four, why are they six of them?" Earl asked himself. during the training regimen, Earl found out that doing the exercises everyday also raised his stats, specifically strength, speed, stamina, agility and defense, they had all raised by four. he was significantly stronger than when he first fought a saber fang, but if there's one thing he had learned, it was that these things were one of the fastest intermediate beasts out there. ordinarily that wouldn't have been a problem, considering the fact that the third eye skill was able to increase both Speed and Agility by 10, but they were 5 of them. although the group effect of the third eye skill made time significantly longer, it doesn't exactly combine the time for each beasts, for example. when facing a single foe, time would
"What did you say?" Grandpa Ollie repeated as the look of shock resided on his face, "a tier jump?!" grandpa Ollie asked the man, he gave a slight nod in reply. a 'tier jump' was a phenomenon that was really uncommon amongst both beasts and humans, but although this is said, it almost never happens amongst humans, in fact only twelve people throughout history have experienced a tier jump, the most recent being King Hert IV, but although they weren't as uncommon amongst beasts, it was a very rare occurrence. a tier jump is described as when a beast or human's power suddenly increases resulting in a jump in the current tier of the beast, some causes may include ingestion of powerful artifacts, staying in an area of highly concentrated mana or even recovering from severe illness or injuries, often ones that would result in death on any normal occasion. but the true cause of it remains speculative, these are just all the various circumstances in which humans had received a tier jump,
It was really early in the morning, around 5am or so, and the ever eager Earl was standing outside by the front door to the shop, with a backpack in tow, phoenix was still asleep on top of Earl's head and his grumpy grandfather was standing at the shop's front door smoking his clay pipe. "You know, normally I wouldn't care and would've just stayed in bed, but if your really going to wait for the bus you should at least have breakfast first" said grandpa Ollie, but it seemed like his words fell on deaf ears as Earl sustained his enthusiasm and didn't even turn back to reply. "whatever floats your boat" said grandpa Ollie as he headed back inside, he stopped at the door and turned around before speaking once more, "you coming phoenix?", however the bird was still sleeping and couldn't even reply him, he then decided to head inside and prepare his shop. It took almost 5 hours for the bus to finally arrive and carry Earl, and just like before, they drove in a random route,
"Give me 50 more reps!!!" Annie yelled at Earl who was doing push ups on the floor, "Yes ma'am!!!" Earl yelled back as he increased the pace of his exercise, sweat dripped down the top of his forehead as exhaustion began kicking in. 'You know, I've fought an evolving scorching avian, got sneak attacked by a Saber fang, and fought a lot of beasts, but I never expected this' Earl thought to himself as he kept on doing reps. He hadn't expected what transpired this morning, only he and Annie were left alone in the room, and he didn't think much of it, but it turned out that Annie had given a lot more thought to the exhibition matches than Earl had. the reason may have been because of her inability to participate, or maybe it was just out of pure kindness, but the night before, she had prepared a three days training regimen especially for Earl, and her reason being that he hadn't had enough real life experience fighting against humans. and when he gave it some thou