Joshua found himself in a rather familiar place that he had meant to visit sense he got back from earth a couple of days ago. This place was the memory of his grandparent's old farm that seemed to constitute his soul realm. The last time he had come there through meditation was the first time he was able to meet his soul beast Buster. The place looked the same, but when he saw Buster come bounding around the fence of the farm in a rush to see him he could tell the little Fenrir pup most definitely had changed a bit over the past month. The little guy was now twice the size of the last time he had seen them and was around the same size as a donkey in comparison to the dog that he seemed to be last time he had been there.
Even with the change in size Buster was still his excited goofy self as he charged over to Joshua and leaped into his arms sending them both barreling over onto the tall grass. Joshua was just as happy to see his partner as he scratched him behind the ears causing his large tail to wag back and forth frantically. Buster made sure to show his appreciation by licking him excitedly all over the face which was hard to avoid in the position Joshua was in. He merely laughed at the overzealous actions of the young pup and continued to play with him for a while. After a while Buster tired himself out and laid peacefully across Joshua's lap with his belly up in the air and all six of his legs stretched out. Clearly he was telling Joshua to continue to rub his belly even in his sleep.
The connection between Joshua and Buster was growing stronger every day and Joshua could sense it even when he wasn't in a meditative state. It became even clearer whenever he used his aura as if he could sense the feelings of his soul beast and most likely vice versa as well. Although at this point he couldn't actually talk to Buster since the little guy was not mentally mature enough to use his aura in that way, he was sure that would come soon enough as he got stronger and the connection between them continued to develop. For now being able to tell each other's feelings was more than enough to prove how deep the connection was quickly becoming.
After a while Joshua closed his eyes and let the meditative state go so that he could feel the world around him once again. He opened his eyes and looked at his surroundings. This time he was in the training grounds that Marlow had left him with everything intact. He still had the weighted bands on to train his endurance even when he was meditating and he stood up to take in the scene before him. A little ways away from him in a clearing he could see Lilly going through the motions of what he had taught her to do over the past couple of weeks. At this point he maxed out on stats for the both of them, but Joshua still had to train Lilly in certain things so that she could better protect herself in a tough spot.
The first thing he focused on was training her in being able to use the different stat abilities of her pets whenever she synchronized with them. So in the end she needed to learn how to use four different stat configurations to a decent degree, but primarily she needed to learn how to handle herself when using Tanks stats. The other pets were only synchronized for using their abilities at the moment since their stats weren't all that special. Mr. Hoppy stats were fairly basic and he was just a bit faster than Tank, but otherwise his stats were balanced which made fighting with his stats rather easy to learn. The lizard on the other hand was more based on speed and dexterity so, it was a good way to train Lilly in a different style sense in the future she would most likely have to synchronize with a greater variety of pets.
This process wouldn't be solved in one training session, but it was a good start and would definitely help her out in the long run. The second thing that Joshua focused training Lilly in was a weapon to use. Up to this point all she had used was a basic healing staff that could increase her spell work a bit, but otherwise was quite useless. This would be just fine if Lilly was just your everyday healer, but with all the other capabilities she had at her disposal it would only hold her back in the end. That's why Joshua decided to train her in the use of a long staff. It would be similar to what she had gotten use to lugging around while fighting alongside Joshua, but it would be far more versatile. It could be used for defense and help create space from opponents that tried to get into her comfort zone.
The last thing he was teaching her was a fighting style that relied on her use of a staff and spacing. In the end she was going to thrive from attacking from afar and defending long enough to get those attacks off or letting her pets do it for her. Thus Joshua made sure to teach her proper footwork and helped her get to the point where she was no longer smacking herself with the staff whenever she twirled it around a bit. In fact watching her at the moment Joshua could tell she had come a long way from where she had started and was already on the road to becoming adept at using a staff for battle. In the past it would take people more than a couple of weeks to become decent at a weapon, in fact it would usually take months before they could even avoid hurting themselves in a real fight, but with the system everybody's learning curve seemed to have increased drastically. Now Joshua was sure she could handle herself to some extent while fighting, but he would still be on the front lines for the most part while she fought from afar.
Joshua stood up and stretched a bit before walking over to the clearly tired out girl and patted her on the shoulder. "That's enough for today, you've clearly improved a lot over the past couple of weeks. I only wish things would have gone so smoothly in my training before everything changed." Joshua said getting an exhausted smile in return from Lilly. He handed her a bottle of water as they both set down and looked at the view of the waterfall upstream from where they had been training.
"Thanks for all of this. I feel a lot more confident in myself when it comes to fighting now. You and Mr. Fujimoto have helped a lot." Lilly replied after she calmed down enough to the point where her breath evened out a bit and she could talk properly.
"Well now that we've gotten you up to snuff we can spend a little time coordinating with each other a bit over the next couple of days before heading out. I'm sure you want to get use to all the moves that your pets learned from the last dungeon." Joshua replied.
"Yeah, but for the most part they're rather simple. Flutter's got a poison move that should come in handy against big opponents or drawn out fights. Mr. and Mrs. Floppy can both now cure poisons to a certain extent so we're protected against those sort of things going forward now." Lilly said with a smile. "The only ability I really need to get use to is Tanks bubble traps, since I can use them too, we can control the battlefield if we use them together properly."
"It will be rather interesting in tight spaces, especially dungeon halls where our enemies will be forced to try to go through them to get to us. Anyways with how strong Tank is we should be able to train in a rather high level place this time around." Joshua said getting a curious look from Lilly.
"I thought we were going to go to the next level up of region. A twenty-five to thirty level area seems to be the normal way to go about things." She said while turning her head towards Joshua.
"That might be normal for most people, but when have I ever done my training the normal way." Joshua said with a confident grin. "Will be going to explore a level thirty to level thirty-five area this time around. Preferably somewhere that isn't too crowded. Then will train there until we reach level thirty five and come back."
"Any reason you seem to be in a rush, it might put us in a bad situation if we're not careful." Lilly asked a bit puzzled.
"Simple. We're going to be a part of the raid of a larger city at the end of the year and we need to be at a higher level to participate. Your pets could save several lives of people from the alliance if they can hold off the hoards or boss monsters from the haze. Then I'm the perfect front liner for such a situation, but if we don't get strong enough in time then things can go terribly wrong for not only us, but the rest of the guild. So I planned to get us up to at least level forty after these next couple of trips we make. That way we can Join with Adrian's group and fight against stronger opponents and level up faster. Hell we might even be able to get you some more interesting pets along the way." Joshua explained.
Lilly nodded her head at his reply and then smiled with a look of excitement. "Well I'm looking forward to being able to fight alongside more friends so I've got no problem with it." She responded before standing back up. Well I'm going to head back home and get some rest for tomorrow. I'll see you in the morning Josh." She said before getting up and leaving through a door opened by the system. Joshua simply waived at her before laying down on the grass and looking up to the sky. He opened his status screen before looking at his stats to check out how much his training over the past couple of weeks had improved him.
Level 25
Job – Aura User
Soul Beast – Fenrir
Stats (parenthesis number is the bonus stats from levels and Job) [Bracket numbers are skill modifiers]
Strength: 600 (54) = 654 x [1.3] = 850.2
Vitality: 600 (54) = 654 x [1.3] = 850.2 (1831.2 with aura hardening)
Dexterity: 600 (54) = 654 x [1.3] = 850.2
Intelligence: 600 (54) = 654 x [1.3] = 850.2
Wisdom: 600 (54) = 654 x [1.3] = 850.2
Will: 900 (84) = 984 x [1.3] = 1279.2
Luck 101 (0) = 101
Looking over his stats Joshua was pleased with how much stronger he was becoming. If he were to fight that large iguana now after maxing out on all of his stats he wouldn't have nearly as much trouble putting it down quickly. It was still probably stronger than him strength wise and maybe even had a higher vitality than him when he wasn't using aura hardening , but Joshua's balance in abilities along with his combat techniques would quickly overwhelm the overgrown lizard. Then when you considered whenever Joshua used his aura hardening his defense would nearly reach two thousand stats wise he was sure he would have no problem taking on the creature head on by himself.
His will stat was still clearly his greatest one and that made his aura even stronger which amplified everything that he could do. He was able to fight longer sense he had greater amount of aura and he was able to go crazy with the aura blast now that he could actually do several of them without tiring out and balancing his output. All in all he was becoming what Nathan would definitely consider a broken character, but he still had a long way to go to catch up to the others and be helpful in the future.
He laughed a bit at the one point gain in luck from the hidden dungeon quest completion, but every little thing helped and if he was lucky then so be it. After a while he got up from the ground and headed home to spend some time with his parents since his little sister was already back on earth with members of her guild. It was time to get a good home cooked meal before preparing to head out for their next expedition.