An Owl's Rise

After signing the contract by stamping a bit of their blood, Evelyn, Bylur, and Rehni promptly left the mission hall.

The date for their match had been decided on, and they had until then to get ready.

Currently their chances of winning against their opponents were pretty low.

In terms of level, they were all outmatched, and Evelyn was likely the only one that could currently go toe to toe with any of their opponents.

Nevertheless, they did have one advantage.

Their enemies were already at the peak of the awakened rank and were stuck at a tough ceiling to pass, while Evelyn, Bylur, and Rehni still had plenty of room to grow.

"Our goal in the next five months it for all of us to reach the high tier of the awakened rank. If we can accomplish this, we should be able to win without too much trouble." Evelyn said as they flew to their next destination.

Time was already ticking, and they needed to use all of what they had to the best of their ability to increase their odds as high as possible.

Of course, even if they lost Evelyn had a contingency plan, she had worked out with Melisandre beforehand, but it was certainly quite extreme.

If her team was to lose then Melisandre, to prevent the magic contract from going into effect, would have to wipe out the Devurg Faction for Evelyn.

Once the faction was gone there would no longer be anyone to bind her to the contract.

This was only a last resort and not something to be done lightly though, which was why Evelyn wanted to win no matter what.

'I have already accepted a lot of Melisandre's help. If I cannot at least win the main battle on my own, it will only show how inept I am.'

Soon Evelyn, with Bylur and Rehni in tow, arrived at Melisandre's estate and promptly headed towards the training room.

Awaiting them there was Anneli and Katrina.

"So, you two are the friends that Evelyn had made. It is nice to meet you, I am Anneli, one of Lady Melisandre's attendants."

Flying right up to Bylur and Rehni, Anneli greeted them both with a bright smile on her face. Yet the two owls on the receiving end shuddered and nearly fell over.

While Anneli was acting like her normal friendly self, having a tyrant rank beast fly right up to them had put Bylur and Rehni on edge.

"Anneli, can you not see that you are scaring them. You need a better grasp on your status now. Being at the tyrant rank puts us in a whole other league from awakened ranks now." Katrina chided

With a forceful yank she pulled Anneli farther back and then introduced herself.

"Now these two are going to be our sparring partners going forward. If we get used to fighting them, taking on peak awakened rank beast should be nothing." Evelyn said proudly.

This was one of the major ideas she had come up with and was quite pleased with herself for doing so.

On the other hand, Bylur's and Rehni's beaks hung open in shock, and they looked at Evelyn like she was crazy.

There was a big difference between a tyrant and an awakened rank beast. Especially ones like Anneli and Katrina who had both attained very powerful evolutions.

They would be lucky to put a scratch on either of them, and there was no chance that they could win.

"Evelyn, we think you should reconsider. Most of your ideas are impeccable, but all of us could get seriously injured fighting them." Bylur said in between sending nervous glances towards Anneli and Katrina.

This just went to show how outlandish Evelyn's proposal was since normally Bylur was behind her one hundred percent.

"With that kind of attitude, you two are never going to get stronger. I used to fight them when I was still at the fined beast rank. Granted they were both only peaked awakened rank back then, but I can assure you that they are good enough to hold back from killing any of us. We need to fight with those stronger than us when we can in order to learn how to fight more powerful enemies. There is more to winning a battle than simply having more magical energy than your opponent." Evelyn said confidently.

However, that did not ease Bylur and Rehni's worries.

"Evelyn we could get seriously injured while fighting and end up crippled. It is far too risky for us to fight against tyrant rank beasts even if it is only training." Rehni said, trying to be the voice of reason.

Unfortunately, Evelyn just shook her head and pulled out a vial of crimson liquid.

"Don't worry, I have prepared plenty of potions to heal any of our injuries that are too serious for Bylur's current magic skills to handle. I also made plenty of constitution enhancement and stamina restoration potions so that we can fight for longer. We have come up with strategies to incorporate as a team, but we do not have very much experience trying to implement these strategies while fighting others. I can tell you now that I would not be even half as strong as I am right now without the mock battles that I had with Anneli and Katrina."

Seeing that Evelyn was not going to budge, Bylur and Rehni resigned themselves to train against Katrina and Anneli.

"To start how about all three of you face off against me." Katrina said, once it was obvious that Bylur and Rehni would participate.

Enthusiastically Evelyn flew up into the air, while Rehni and Bylur followed her reluctantly.

"Now Evelyn, I know you are used to going all out against me, but since this is training for your match in the ranking hall make sure to only use your wind magic. If you activated either of your other magic affinities, I will launch an attack you, that you cannot block." Katrina warned.

Nodding her head Evelyn had intended to only use her wind magic anyway.

"Let us get started then, I will allow you three the first move."