An Owl's Rise

With the opening of Evelyn's new shop on the second floor of the Alchemy Hall she began bringing a large number of credits.

Her store was more successful than she had expected and after the first day her business had steadily increased and now, she had plenty of regular customers that came to buy her wares.

After only two months she had moved from the corner of the hall closer to the center where more prominent stores were located.

This helped increase her exposure even more and at the end of the day she found herself being sold out of about half of the items she offered with only the more niche things like tar she had created on the recently discovered continent not being bought out.

Overall, this gave her an explosion of credits. Though it slowed down a bit when she ran out of the initial ingredients she had gathered, and she had to start purchasing what she needed to contour brewing.

Along with her shop doing well she had certainly grown closer to Bylur and Rehni and the three of them had climbed up the ranks and were now at rank five thousand three hundred fifty-six.

However, tomorrow they had a match against a team that was ranked in the top five thousand and would finally cement them among those that were considered the top teams.

Of course, it was still a long way from the actual top of the rankings but the top five thousand were where the Roost started recognizing the team's potential.

'Damn it. Closing down took a bit longer than I thought it would.'

Hastily Evelyn shut up her store which was now instead of a stall, a proper building with four walls and a roof.

Once she had finished doing so, she flew towards the exit of the Roost and flew directly towards the ranking hall.

There she moved through the massive building to a certain location and using her identification cuff like a key card entered a certain room.

Inside was Rehni and Bylur waiting for her.

"Sorry I am late. I had customers up until the last the moment and it took a little while to close down." Evelyn said to her teammates.

Luckily the two of them did not seem all that bothered as Evelyn was only a few minutes late and seemed more wound up about it than they were.

"It is not a big deal. We have not been waiting long and picked out our first practice field in the meantime anyway. But still, I think you should consider hiring a helper as I have said before. Your shop has simply become to popular to run alone. Between training with us, participating in matches, making the items you sell, and doing all the management of your shop yourself you seem to barely have enough time to even sleep." Rehni said, worried about Evelyn's wellbeing.

She had been pushing herself pretty hard since overcoming her internal turmoil, and while she was making great progress, it was definitely starting to wear on her.

"Yeah, I know. I will consider it after our match tomorrow. It is just not easy for me to trust anyone new with my shop before getting to know them."

Sighing, both Bylur and Rehni knew this meant that Evelyn was brushing off the issue as she had said it before.

As she did not have the time to carefully inspect anyone, she could not so easily trust them with her shop. And thus, she had to do everything by herself.

Naturally Bylur and Rehni had offered to help but Evelyn had been obstinate in not having either of them work in her shop. She did not want to be the boss of her friends.

It was certainly a weird complex as she was the leader of their team, but since coming to terms with her wish to make close bonds Evelyn had done her best to treat Bylur and Rehni like equals.

"Anyway, we can worry about things like that later. We need to practice our strategy for tomorrow and get used to the possible terrains that we might be fighting in." Evelyn said moving over to the control panel in the training room they had rented.

The facility was expensive, but it was able to generate separate dimensions like the ones the rank battles took place in and gave them a secluded and safe place to practice their magic.

Quickly Evelyn activated the warp portal that would bring them to a separate dimension and they appeared in the middle of a heavy rainstorm in a thick jungle.

"Are you sure that this is one of the likely terrains and weather conditions we are going to face? It is a little extreme." Bylur said as they all crowded around Evelyn who created a wind barrier.

"I believe it is. Since we are the challenges, the other team gets to pick the field we will be fighting in. Two of their members have water affinities while the other has wind. They know that this type of field is to their advantage and will make it more difficult for Bylur and me. My sound magic will not work as well in such conditions with so many trees around and the strong winds and rain getting in the way. Same with Bylur's ice magic. It will be hard for him to utilize his abilities in these conditions." Rehni said, acting as the team's strategist.

It was her job to gather information on the teams that they were challenging.

Now that they were at a higher rank random matches were not as easy to come by as higher ranked teams did not want to lose their spots by getting thrown into an unfavorable battle.

That was where challenges came in.

Teams that were within five hundred ranks of each other could issue challenges and if the other team had not fought in a match in the last five months they had to accept.

This system was put in place to prevent higher ranking teams from simply sitting on their spots and doing nothing while receiving rewards every month for their ranking.

Also, if they did not participate in a match at least once every eight months their teams rank would be reset back down to the bottom.

Finally, another difference between random and challenge matches was that each team had to add credits to a prize pool that differed based on the teams rank and the winning team would receive all the credits.

This was just another rule to incentivize that both teams do their best during any matches so that thrown battles were uncommon.

Naturally the Roost had no need for matches that were fixed and wanted the competition to be fierce to promote growth. Meaning they would crack down on any foul play.

"I suppose that if we do fight in such turbulent conditions, it will be best for us all to stick together and for me to use a wind barrier as I am now to keep things around us clear." Evelyn suggested.

Certainly, without her the conditions would make it much more difficult for Bylur and Rehni to just fly around. Let alone use their magic effectively.

"That is probably what the other team would want us to do in this situation, but you are right that we would be at an even greater disadvantage alone." Rehni said.

"It doesn't matter to me. Just tell me what to do and I will break through and beat our opponent's." Bylur said, having a more straightforward approach than Evelyn or Rehni.

"At the very least in these types of conditions we can utilize your wire strategy fairly effectively." Evelyn said looking at all of the trees around them.

With such tight spaces to move around in, setting up plenty of trap wires would further limit the mobility of their opponents and bring the battlefield to their advantage.

They often used this strategy whenever they were in a biome that was densely filled with cover like this one.

The world was filled with different environments and the Roost made sure that the owls that lived in it could practice fighting in diverse locations.

Certain affinities had advantages in specific areas and weather conditions and being prepared for these occasions could easily be the difference between life and death.

In caves and other enclosed areas using large amounts of fire magic could rapidly deplete the oxygen in the area and leave you or your allies lacking air. While in rain or near bodies of water, water magic could be used on grander scales and with less magical energy.

These were not always the biggest factors, but sometimes the smallest advantage could turn the tide of a battle.

"Now Bylur, see how you can do outside of Evelyn's barrier. We need to know how long you can last." Rehni said.

Nodding his head, he left the sphere of wind that was shielding them from the heavy rain and was immediately being soaked.

To prevent this, he activating a freezing aura around himself, and the rain quickly became ice.

He then was able to control them and push them away, but with how heavy the storm was coming down it soon became too much for him to keep up with and some of the frozen rain drops began hitting him and making it more difficult to fly.

Certainly, he was pretty resistant to the cold, but the mass of all the frozen raindrops hitting him was enough to slow him down and make him use more magical energy.

To effectively move through the rainstorm, he had to really exert himself.

"Looks like sticking together is probably for the best. We did at least come up with some countermeasures we can all take though." Rehni said once they had fished practicing in the stormy jungle area.

After that they did a few more simulations before calling it a day and heading back to their respective homes. Each of them wanted to be fully rested tomorrow for their match that would finally bring them into the top five thousand.