Divine Beast Ascension

The clans and tribes were all amazed by how much effort the Iron-body Gorilla clan had invested in Iron Academy. They knew it was a good idea, but everyone was amazed to see how much growth was coming from all of their youth.

And the students who were in either of the advanced classes were making shocking improvements.

It became very obvious really quickly that in the future, the average cultivation level in the Iron Territory would eventually be the elder plane.

With such promising growth, the clans and tribes whole-heartedly agreed to the field trip. Since two perennials would be going with the students, there wasn’t anything for the parents to worry about.

The next morning, all the students hurried to the school. Those who were lacking a battle art had already selected one the day before after getting out early. All that was left was practicing.

When everyone arrived, they were surprised to see twenty dummies set up around the room, embedded into the concrete floor. They followed the walls but weren’t right up against them, otherwise, residual damage would hit the walls.

.....

Ania soon entered the classroom with a smile to find everyone inspecting the many different dummies.

“I’m glad you’re all here early,” Ania chuckled at the curious young cultivators. “Everyone, gather in the center of the room so I can explain some things and choose a few volunteers to help demonstrate some things.”

Immediately, everyone stopped what they were doing and followed orders. They were all anxious to test the dummies and see how strong they were.

“Good, now... I need a lynx volunteer.”

“I’ll do it!” The lynx who had challenged Oli a few moons back stepped up and stood proudly.

Ania nodded and pointed to one of the many dummies. “Good, now attack that dummy with your strongest lightning.”

“My strongest?”

“Yes, don’t you dare hold back! This is the example for the whole class, so make sure to give it your all.”

Agreeing, the lynx coated his entire body in lightning essence and dashed toward the black dummy. He lashed out and struck the fake torso with everything he had. As he backed away, the lynx was startled to see that he hadn’t even left a scratch.

“That’s enough, you can go back,” stated Ania, looking to the surprised students. “They may not look it, but each of these is an adept grade dummy that was crafted specifically to counter your essences. That one is made of something called rubber and this particular rubber can survive lightning attacks from most adept cultivators, let alone you novice cultivators.”

“And for those of you who were curious, Headmaster Vloz had them commissioned from a few human artisans. Every classroom has twenty of these dummies, four of which are designed for you lynxes specifically.”

“Teacher,” Karos stepped forward, “Can I try?”

“Sure, go for it.”

Without a second thought, Karos charged ahead at full speed. His essence didn’t cover his body, but only a single claw. And though it wasn’t as flashy, all the students could sense that Karos’ essence was much more concentrated and deadly than the other lynx’s.

His claw slashed across the dummy, dazzling everyone with the amount of lightning essence released on contact. Yet, again the dummy was left unharmed.

Karos shrugged and walked back. “They really are adept grade...”

“Now I need a frog to volunteer and attack that one.” She pointed to a gelatinous looking dummy tightly wrapped in leather.

A frog hurried out and launched a bullet-like ball of water at the dummy, but it seemed to absorb the blow and contour to the ripples of the water attack.

“As you can see there are also four dummies designed to handle the attacks of you frogs,” added Ania. “For the foxes, we’ve paid extra to get some dummies made with shadow silk. Netra, can you please give it a try?”

Netra nodded and vanished without a word, startling the crowd of students. They had never seen her attack anything and only heard rumors, so they all wanted to see the first seat in action.

Soon, she reappeared behind the scarecrow-like dummy and lashed out with a claw covered in dark essence.

Like the other dummies, that one took the attack without any issues, seemingly absorbing and distributing the dark essence across its entire fake torso and head.

“Those three types of dummies make up twelve of the twenty we’ve had prepared for the class. As for the last eight, all of them are designed to handle the earth essence attacks of the stallions, wildebeests, and gorillas,” explained Ania. “Oli, go ahead and hit it with everything you’ve got.”

“Okay...” Oli shrugged and stepped up.

A massive hammer formed from his earth essence, taking the class’ breath away. It was even bigger than the one he used against Karos in the finals.

When Karos saw that fourth version of Oli’s hammer, he was taken aback. He didn’t know that Oli only recently made this version, but it still made him feel that he wouldn’t be able to defeat Oli just yet, even if he was close.

Oli dashed toward the dummy and swung his hammer down on top of the dummy’s fake head. But rather than pound the head in or cause any dents, Oli’s giant hammer bounced off and forced Oli’s hands back.

The dummy was made of a metal that looked like steel, but Oli knew that it was far tougher than any steel he had ever seen.

“So, does anyone have any questions about the dummies?” asked Ania.

Since no one said anything, she continued, “Unlike the normal class, we’re lucky and only have sixteen students in our advanced class at the moment, you’ll each get your own dummy to practice on. I’ll be watching everyone and might give you some tips from time to time.”

“For now, I want you all to just focus on a single battle art. So today, if you have more than one battle art and haven’t decided which one to focus on, you’ll be testing them all and choosing one by the end of the day,” explained Ania. “For this entire moon, we’ll focusing on that one battle art, so make sure and choose correctly. I’m here to help if you have any questions.”

“Teacher, is it possible to have a dummy installed into our cultivation rooms?” asked Oli.

“It’s possible, just go and talk to Headmaster Vloz about it. If he agrees, then he’ll have them installed overnight. So for today, just use these ones and talk to him after class,” answered Ania.

“Thank you.”

“Anything else?”

Yeter was the next to shout out a question. “Teacher, can two students share a dummy and compare attacks?”

“You’re only allowed to attack the dummy that counters your essence. Otherwise, we’ll have wasted our money. So, as long as you’re only attacking the appropriate dummies, I would actually encourage you to get the opinions of your classmates about your attacks,” replied Ania.

“Are there any more questions?” asked Ania. “If not, then get started!”

Essence started flying everywhere! Most of the students launched their attacks with the most essence they could muster. They all wanted to try and break the supposedly unbreakable dummies, and they all failed to even damage them.

Some of the students in higher seats only used controlled attack, focusing on precise amounts of essence, varying with each attack.

Karos used the same Lighting Claw attack as before, but the lightning essence wasn’t as wild. It was much calmer and there wasn’t quite as much either.

Soon, Karos realized that he could tell which of the attacks weer stronger based on the resistance of the rubber. He discovered that attacks with less essence were just as damaging if he could focus it and keep the essence from going wild. This also had something to do with the essence nature he was creating.

Netra discovered something similar. Her dark essence would be distributed on contact, but she could still feel the amount of pressure she caused by how far into the scarecrow her paw managed to go.

The same concepts were slowly being discovered by the rest of the class, but those top seated students were the first to figure it out.

For Oli and Yeter, they could tell which attach would be more devastating based on the recoil of there hits.

The metal had a strange absorption property that caused attacks to bounce off instead of physically harming itself.

Since they had to choose a single battle art to practice, Oli chose the Infinite Compression technique.

He wanted to improve greatly and the Infinite Compression battle art would bring the most benefit than any other single battle art he had.

Since he was in front of the entire class, he didn’t directly activate the battle art and instead used the principles he was learning from it in punches on the dummy. It helped him gradually hone in on small things that he could do better, strengthening his earth essence in general.

Ania was happy to see all the excited students hammering away at the dummies. She knew that with the help of those dummies, the students would improve at an even faster rate.