The teacher picks Greg up with a bubble of darkness to make travel easier and to stop him from finding the exit.
They travel an extremely long distant very quickly thanks to the teacher's expertise in dark world travel.
She releases him on the edge of a cliff overlooking a deserted and battle worn field. He didn't expect it as he runs immediately off the cliff.
She grabs him by the collar pulling him back onto the cliff.
"Did you really think you'd get away that easily?" She asks jokingly.
"No..." He says sulking.
He turns to look at her and sees the forest behind her that is lush with red and yellow trees.
'I thought trees were supposed to be green?' He asks Gareth.
'Yeah I forgot they do this seasonally.' He says nonchalantly.
He looks back towards were he was going to fall and sees a harrowing sight.
A arid desert that stretched out for as far as he could see. The ground has chasms so large the resemble canyons spreading out like a maze and plant life lies scarcely strung about.
The sun in the sky looking like an evil eye emitting monstrous heat waves.
Greg could see large beasts roaming around looking for their next meal or just laying about. Some small beasts digging into the chasms or being chased.
Large vulture-like creatures roam the sky waiting for their next meal.
"This is the beast territory, all the creatures here range from [rank-D] to [rank-B]. It's easy to lose your life here so take some time to prepare." The teacher tells Greg.
Greg decides the best way to prepare is to summon more creatures.
So he does just that.
He imbues his voice with mana and shouts. "Summon!"
The clouds begin to swirl above him turning into a lesser version of the black sea. Directly below the center of the swirl, in front of Greg, a dark spell circle appears with strange runes marking it's edge.
Boom*
A pulse of dark energy slams down onto the circle.
Suddenly The cawing of a bird can be heard accompanied with the sound of flapping wings.
As the darkness clears Greg sees a 2ft dark blue raven flying in around in a circle in front of him. It has long sharp talons and a beak filled with razor sharp teeth.
The spell circle below it breaks down into dark energy. The energy follows the raven quickly and starts to engulf it, until it makes a cocoon. Still the cocooned raven flies around happily as if nothing is happening.
After ten seconds the outside layer of the cocoon is absorbed into the bird. It's appearance taking on a new.
'That seems to be a whirlwind raven but its odd.' Gareth ponders while giving the bird a confused gaze.
"A raven." Greg says astonished. This is his first time seeing anything called a raven. He could sense the link to it, deciding to look into it's core.
~~~
[Dark whirlwind raven]{Rank-E, advanced stage}
Elements: Wind, Darkness
Skills: [Ariel mastery], [Feather shot], [Whirlwind blast], [Danger sense]
~~~
Greg looks at the bird's information with amazement.
'It has great abilities I believe and duel elements' Greg thinks.
A young feminine voice interrupts his thoughts.
'I didn't have the darkness element before you summoned me, master' The voice says while it tries to hold in its glee.
When she first appeared she was given bits of knowledge about her master. She knows his element, name and rank.
For her to be chosen by a creature a rank higher than her gave her the upmost admiration.
'Does that mean I gave you a second element?' Greg asks curiously.
'Most likely since your element... isn't the same as hers it absorbed into this bird to increase your connection.' Gareth chimes in.
'Okay then I'll summon another and see if the same thing happens.' Greg gets excited about having an army of duel element users.
'No don't summon another.' Gareth says quickly.
'your mana has been halved. If that much gets taken again then you won't have enough strength to complete this. We don't know what happens if you run out of mana in the middle of summoning so just wait until it refills.'
'Fine, but once my mana refills I will try again.' While Greg is planning to wait, he has another thought.
'Do you have a name?' Greg asks the raven.
'I do but I don't think it has a version in your language.' the raven says.
'Then I'll give you a name in my language. How about Quill?' Greg is not creative when it came to names so he looks at her feathers for inspiration and thought that would be best.
There is a gleam in the raven's eyes when she hears the name. 'Yes, I love that name, It seems so royal.' Quill says letting out a few happy caws.
Greg is slightly embarrassed hearing this since he based the name off of her feathers, and it was called royal.
After that he is ready to go hunting.
"I'm ready can I head off now, teacher?" Greg asks trying to be respectful to his cruel and vindictive teacher.
The teacher analyzes the before speaking. "Go ahead I'll be watching you from up here, you have 4 days."
Greg assumed she would go with him to make sure he doesn't run away, however he is glad the she devil decided not too.
He uses his shadow as portal moving it around his feet and descends into it.
When he reappears he is in the shadow of the cliff at the bottom. He activates his fusion and a choice appeared in front of him.
[Gareth Blackwell]
[Quill]
He senses it is asking him who he wants to fuse with so after a slight deliberation he chose Quill.
Not only because he wants to see what fusion is like with another creature besides Gareth but also so he can fly.
He feels his body become lighter. Feathers start growing all over his body. His feet grew sharp talons and his face turns into a raven's head a sharp toothed beak and beady black eyes.
The last thing to appear on him are wings sprouting from his back.
He now looks like humanoid raven.
Greg is curious to try out flying so with a few flaps of his wings he takes off into the sky.
He is unsteady at the beginning since he has never been higher than a jump before but after a little practice flying in a circle, he is comfortable and excited about this new ability.
He picks Gareth up into his arms and heads forward. the teacher doesn't wait to see where he goes before disappearing into the dark world.
He flies high into the sky and retracts his shadow into his body so anything below wouldn't notice him as much.
This was freedom like he has never felt before.
The feeling of the wind against his face is intoxicating. Along with feeling of being able to go where ever he wants.
'I'm truly free as a bird.' He thinks happily.
'Not quite yet, master' Quill says joyfully.
'You have to soar above the clouds to feel the true freedom of a bird's soul.'
'We will try that next time. For now we hunt our first prey.' Greg says as he looks below him. His bloodlust ignited.
Below him is large rhino with three horns like a triceratops and thick red skin. It has tree stump sized legs and a body 3 times as big. It also has another set of eyes adding up to four.
~~~
[Lava rhino]{rank-D, master stage}
Element: Lava
~~~
Although he is confused by the lack of skills he is already ready to attack.
He gathers dark energy into his fist and swoops down on this beast. He punches down on the beast's back and uses his talons to swipe at the rhino while taking off.
It's skin is extremely tough and his attacks only leave a few white marks.
The beast id enraged by this, lifting it's front legs and slamming them hard on the ground causing the earth to break open.
Lava erupts from the cracks and rushes towards Greg in globs.
He uses a combination of wind and darkness to create a shield around him while evading the rest.
The shield manages to block some of the lava but it heavily into his mana.
The rhino continues to shoot at him forcing him to retreat.
He channels wind and darkness energy around him to move faster.
He circles around the rhino and avoids the lava while consistently striking the Beast to look for a weak spot.
The rhino tries to impale him with its horns multiple times but it was unsuccessful.
Greg however is successful in finding a weakness on its body.
He focuses the darkness energy into his wings then shoots a barrage of sharp feathers at the beast.
Before they land he uses whirlwind to change their direction and send them into the left eyes of the beast.
The rhino roars out in pain and anger.