"Should we continue to the next floor or you need some rest?" Teacher Muku asked his students.
"Actually, we should be asking you that, all we did was enjoy the benefits of your labour...wait are you trying to be our sugarda..." As always, when talking to Muku, Jade always goes of topic. This time she even exaggeratedly held her modest chest as she stepped away from Muku.
"By asking that, I assume you're still okay to go?". And as always, Layla is there to interrupt her if it's not the time for such things.
"Huff...Yeah, that only took like a quarter of my power, the situation wasn't dire like yesterday so I didn't have to put a little more effort into it." Muku took a deep breath before answering as he was about to explode on Jade. At the back of his head though he swore to spank her one of these days.
He couldn't help but look at her with narrowed eyes as he thought it. Jade suddenly felt like she was being stared at by a deadly predator. When she looked around she was only met with the gaze of her teacher who had a harmless smile on his face, but she felt like it was anything but harmless.
"L-lets continue then, I can't wait to reach Rank One". She couldn't help but stutter under his gaze, she only spoke out to get his attention from her, luckily for her it worked.
"Okay, but on the fifth floor I'm not going to cripple all of them, I'm going to leave one for each of you, with your current kill counts, you should be strong enough to fight one of them and win if you're careful.". Muku said as he led the way. He didn't want them to just have high battle strength without any skill or experience to back it up as that could lead to many problems in the future.
The girls all nodded, but only Jade was truly excited after hearing it. The little girl seemed to be a budding battle maniac that's surely to give Muku headaches in the future.
On the stairs down, they met the dogs that were coming up, definitely having smelled the blood. This time though, for some reason, as soon as the dogs saw Muku they all turned around and ran away.
"Oh no you don't!". Muku seeing them fleeing, got into action and a few minutes later twenty legless dogs were howling in pain on the hallway floor, not too different from the scene on the previous floor after Muku was done.
And also like the previous floor, all the doors to the classrooms were broken down. Anyone who might have hidden in them, consumed. Though it seemed that some people also thought to use the axes, as a few bloodied ones could be seen here and there. But it seemed unlike Muku's group that only had to deal with a few, the strugglers there were overwhelmed by the larger number of days dogs.
"Odd how they would run away from you like that". Emily said remembering how these dogs didn't even pretend to put up a fight when they saw Muku. Which was really odd since all they did was attack before when they saw humans.
"Maybe it's your aura?, even we can faintly feel like we shouldn't mess with you since you woke up. Them being animals they can probably sense it better than us. The previous dogs probably got taken out before they could react.". Layla said, putting the pieces together.
"Oh, so I really wasn't the only one who felt a bit suppressed standing next to him, but I have to say, Layla, aren't you a bit too observant?" Jade said, while the other two girls nodded in agreement.
"The feeling is even vaguely getting stronger the more time that passes by too". Emily added, this time the other girls looked at her in suprise since they couldn't sense it that deeply.
"Hmm, seems Emily is more sensitive to mana than the rest. And you should have told me about the feeling earlier on, it could be because I can't properly control my mana yet and it's aura is leaking out. As for it getting stronger like Emily said, maybe it's for the same reason, I still can't properly use it, so the more I get better at it, the stronger I'll become. Anyway enough of that for now, kill the dogs so we can move on.". Teacher Muku spoke out, thinking up possible answers before focusing back on the task at hand.
A few seconds later... none of the girls moved. They all just looked at the howling dogs with slightly fearful expression.
"What are you all waiting fo...oh, you little chickens. Even you Jade, after all the talk about wanting to be strong". Muku was first confused by why they weren't moving. But then remembered how they witnessed his awakening. Which really would make anyone hesitate to do the same.
"Argh, I'll go first". Taunted by her teacher's words, Jade couldn't take any more and bit the bullet. In less than two minutes, three dogs were dead. Then her body froze, luckily she didn't straight up faint like Muku, she did close her eyes though. The others, including Muku looked at her with nervous expressions on their faces.
[Kill count met. Evolution Commencing. Initializing Specialisation].
It seemed the only person who got extra rewards was the first guy, or maybe there was a quota and she sadly didn't make the cut.
Unlike the numb feeling from before, this time Jade felt a tingling feeling all over her body (not in a sexual way, get your mind out of the gutter). Although she felt extremely uncomfortable, it was at least a lot better what Muku went through. Though she felt the same sensation and sudden thought that her mana core was forming.
[Mana core formation complete. Extremely High affinity for Beast element detected. Requirements for Pseudo-Legendary Specialisation met. Pseudo-Legendary Class, Beast Empress awakening....]
With that message in her head. Jade was hit by pain like she had never felt before. Cold sweat trickled down her cheeks...her head cheeks. Although the pain was only around 80% the pain Muku felt, it was still nothing to scoff at, she wanted to scream out, but couldn't.
Although all this when narrated seems to take a while, it only took around 3 minutes. Though to Jade it felt like forever.
After the pain, she finally could open her eyes again, and unlike Muku she could already walk. A faint beastly aura being released from her that only Muku could sense. Though asking her to fight would be too much for her at the moment. Having heard of Muku's experience, she immediately walked into a relatively clean classroom and sat down on the floor, letting the mana enter her body. She didn't even look or talk to anyone.
"Well..seems it went well enough, though her attitude appears to have gotten worse. Anyway, now the rest of you, go ahead. Now we already know that I was just unlucky and it's not that bad". Muku said to the others after seeing that Jade seemed to be fine. He was a bit jealous that she could already move so soon but as a mature teacher, he didn't let it bring him down.
The others hesitated for a second before resolutely pouncing on the dogs.
[Kill count met. Evolution Commencing. Initializing Specialisation] × 3