The First Legendary Beast Master

Chapter 629  Gut Laps

Thor was not nearly that uninspired. There were no laps around the training area for the acolytes under his training regimen.

Instead, he brought out a number of weighted vests, made of Rae's silk, and had the trainees do sprints up and down the bleachers while he kept a milder version of [Refreshing Lightning] active so that the muscles had time to strain, heal and repeat.

If he kept too powerful of a spell active, they didn't suffer the strain needed to grow the muscles, but this way they should get the gains in a single morning that would otherwise have taken them months.

Thor was very proud of the plan, but Karl noticed that he put a stronger version of the regenerative spell on the Cerro Hatchlings, who were happily chasing everyone up and down the stairs.

They didn't need the work to grow up big and strong, they needed higher quality feed and a good smashing post to practice their skills. Chasing the herd was just fun.

Thor had prepared both for them, and he was happy to ignore the hateful glares that he was getting from ten of the eleven trainees.

Four laps in, Sybil was too exhausted to even glare at him anymore.

But that was quickly solved with an adjustment to her protective spells, and Rae was happy to keep her running. No disciple of hers would be lazy.

One of the training Sergeants came over to coordinate assistants for Karl's acolytes today and paused when he saw their physical training.

"Did they do something personal to you? Weighted gut laps up the bleachers is pretty extreme for rookies." He asked.

"Nope. We have a healing and stamina regeneration spell on them. In theory, this should build muscle at a rate that no steroid could compete with. We have limited time to train, so we're pushing them as hard as humanly possible without damaging their potential.

It's the core of what the Church asked us to do when they assigned us these lucky recruits. My group has a number of training specialty skills, and they were hoping that we could push up a fresh group of Elites, then teach others the method.

It's only day two, but I already see progress.

Take a look at that Monk, what do you see?" Karl replied.

"Just a Monk running up the stairs with everyone else." Then the Sergeant paused, then noticed one more detail.

"Much more easily than she should be with that much weight on her back. How monstrous is her strength?"

Karl chuckled. "If I am right, it's not about her strength, which is actually monstrous. I believe that she has learned a movement skill to reduce her weight."

"A new skill learned on the second day of training? How ridiculous is your method?"

Behind them, Dana laughed. "The Monk isn't the only one. The mage is using a barrier under his weighted vest so that he doesn't have to carry the weight himself. He's still dying trying to run up the stairs, but that's expected."

"Oh, you taught him the barrier spell yesterday?" Karl asked.

"No, apparently he got a skill point from yesterday's training, and he used it to buy the barrier spell once he found out that the day was going to start with weighted laps up the bleachers."

Having a fully active system was going to be a huge advantage, and if Karl wasn't proactive with his own growth, there was a chance that the average overachiever in this next intake might actually shatter his growth speed records.

If he told the Academy that, they would likely laugh at him. But Karl was fairly certain it was an actual possibility. The lack of System access was what was dragging everyone down in the past, and with these new students being close to fully active, they should grow steadily, and they would be able to just buy access to new skills to improve their abilities.

Thor let the students run for two full hours before he called a stop to it and had them come down to eat. At this point, even the Cerro Hatchlings were looking exhausted, but once Thor put out the pile of feed for them and Remi passed out steaks for the pair of Moor Cat kittens, all of the beasts were regaining their enthusiasm for life.

"I can see that everyone's physical strength has improved in just one morning training session. Don't worry about your weight, you're going to burn off every single bit of energy that you can take in during your training. Just eat." Thor informed them.

Sybil read his lips and decided that escape might be the better option, but she was only gone for half a second before she returned with Rae's hand on her shoulder.

The Rogue slumped in defeat after realizing that it would not be so easy to get out of the hard parts of the day, even with [Shadow Step].

But then the volunteers from the Army came over, and she realized that they were on to combat training, which was way more fun than strength training, even if it was just as exhausting.

Or more exhausting, as she would be constantly using her improved physique to try to defeat the guards. Or so she thought.

Rae smiled at her. "The rest of the morning will be focused on ranged weapons training. I have fashioned or obtained three different types, and once you have one hundred percent accuracy with all of them at a reasonable range, we can add new ones."

She had obtained throwing stars and throwing knives, as well as a hand crossbow that was a common grade magic item and created its own basic bolts. It would only be a decent weapon if there was poison applied, or a skill added to the bolts, but it was perfect for training, as it took minimal energy to make the bolts.

Karl shuddered to think of the hit that his wallet was taking now that the beasts had learned about ordering shopping for delivery. But as long as they kept it reasonable, he shouldn't run out of spending money before they went on their next proper mission.

Karl clapped his hands. "Now that everyone is done eating, the beasts are with me, and the rest of you can head to the same trainers you had yesterday."

The Cerro herd was stoked to play with the beast master, but the Moor Cats looked skeptical.

"You two lovable furballs will be doing hunting training with my bodyguard here, while I set up a training ground for the herd." He explained as a summoned the Lamia.

The snake woman was fast, much faster than any human both in movement speed and reflexes, so the Moor Cat kittens would have their work cut out for them. For the Cerro, Karl was just going to set up a field of smashing posts made of Earth Barrier, and then draw a course for them. If they hit the posts hard enough, it would break their fledgling [Refreshing Lightning] barriers, and then they would have to refresh it for the next strike. It really was the best training that they could get until their partners were ready to start working together with the herd in combat.

The issue wasn't accidentally hitting the Cerro with an arrow. The Special Forces Cadets were better than that. But the Cerro were still very young and the bond needed time to develop so that both halves of the partnership were on the same page when it came time to fight.

Until they reached that standard, it would just be chaos.