An Owl's Rise

Hearing Katrina's words of warning, Evelyn blinked several times in surprise.

Surely, she had not been holding herself back. As far as she could tell her wind magic had been at around the same level as it always was.

Yet as she thought about it, Evelyn could only feel that there might be some truth in what Katrina had just said.

'I remember mentally telling myself before every match in the ranking hall not to stand out too much. But at some point, did I slip into the trend of weakening my magic?'

Looking back on her matches, Evelyn could remember intently observing both Rehni and Bylur and making sure not to outshine them.

Despite what had happened with the two factions coming after her, she had done her best to try and stay under the radar for the most point.

She never took the lead in any battles and typically left the most noteworthy roles to her teammates.

Along the way her tendency to hold back her magic had actually led to her losing sight of what she was actually capable of.

Of course she had not noticed this until Katrina pointed it out, since even her restrained powers were still in line with those that were highly talented.

'I had thought I seemed weaker since I was not using my gravity magic or heavenly flame. Could it be that I really have just been holding back more than I thought this entire time?' Evelyn thought, a contemplative expression on her face.

Eventually she flew back up into he air and sent out a gust of wind with all her might.

She did this over and over again while focusing on her magical energy and found that reflexively she was only using about seventy percent of her actual power.

It was a subconscious mental block and it took her a bit of focus to undo it, but eventually she launched a blast of wind with her true power.

Excitement and surprise came over Evelyn's face, and she realized exactly what she had been doing.

Unlike other beasts she had a magic core along with her beast core, but she had without realizing it cut off the flow of magical energy from her magic core which was an abnormality created from being in a beast's body with a human soul.

Unfortunately, while she could use her full power if she focused, it no longer came naturally to her since she had been unconsciously holding herself back for so long.

"Looks like you managed to fine somewhat of an answer." Katrina said, flying up next to Evelyn.

"Yes, you were right. I have been focusing too hard on not sticking out that my magic has suffered. I think I will need some training to get used to what I can really do again." Evelyn said, a determined glint in her eyes.

Katrina allowed a slight smile to form on her face and she offered to help push Evelyn to the point where she could not allow herself to subconsciously hold back anymore.

"Now while your friends are still out, I have some other advice for you." Katrina said, fixing Evelyn with a serious look. "Losing this upcoming match is honestly not an option. I know that you have a backup plan with Melisandre, but things will be quite messy if it comes to that. If it seems you are going to lose the match at any point, do not hesitate to use all of your magic affinities. Attention is going to be drawn towards you one way or another, so it will be best if you do everything you can to win, even if you have to use every card at your disposal. At the very least, I think it would be best to start incorporating your gravity magic as you called. It is very powerful but discreate enough that audiences are unlikely to understand what happened and might just believe it an extension of your wind magic."

Nodding her head Evelyn accepted Katrina's words of wisdom and said that she would seriously think on them.

Not long after Evelyn finished her discussion with Katrina, Rehni and Bylur started to rouse.

Promptly Evelyn fed them both several potions to get them back up on their feet. Though Bylur took quite a bit longer since his body was reeling from being shot full of elctrictiy.

Once they had recovered a fair amount Anneli, who had been watching from an observation room the whole time can in and began asserting that it was her turn to train with Evelyn and her teammates.

Bylur and Rehni, however, already had hollow eyes at this point, and it was clear that any more training for the day would be wasted on them. Their sprits were simply too low and their bodies in no condition to keep going.

"Anneli, I believe that we are done for the day. We will be training again in three days and you can help us then." Evelyn said.

For some reason Anneli looked devastated to hear this and began mumbling that it was unfair that Katrina got to have all the fun.

Thankfully Katrina moved to console Anneli and rescued Bylur and Rehni from being dragged into another practice match that likely would have been even more intense.

'Anneli was always worse at holding back than Katrina is. I honestly am a little afraid for what is going to happen three days from now.' Evelyn thought.

With their session for the day over Evelyn escorted Bylur and Rehni to the exit of Melisandre's estate while updating them on their schedule.

"We will have training matches like this every three days until the match, and whenever the magic spring becomes active we will go and bathe in it. We need to raise our base abilities and refine our tactics as much as we can before the match with the Devurg faction's leaders. Losing is honestly not an option for us."

Wearing resolute expression, Bylur and Rehni nodded their heads and said that they would do their best.

After that the two of them returned home to rest and make what preparation they could on their own until the next training session.