Spirit Taming

’Dream butterfly- rare

The dream butterfly is a rare species of butterfly that is raised in unique areas full of unique energies. They had the spiritual ability to enter dreams and even convince people they are day dreaming. They are considered masters of illusion in comparison to other spiritual beasts due to their abilities to manipulate people’s minds.

The dream butterfly can also use the strength of wind and its scales to create attacks that force its opponents in to a poor state. They will never fight a close combat battle if they can avoid it. But they will often use their illusions to bait another opponent in to fighting their targeted enemy.

They are raised from a spirit worm in to a spirit thread cocoon. It can take over ten years for them to break out of the cocoon after absorbing their tamer’s spiritual energy. They can not be left inside a taming space during this process. That single fact makes them incredibly rare but extremely impressive when raised properly.’

This was one of the beasts that Professor Wright had brought out when Clark had taken a position to fight her. She had seen that he focused on his battle styles well. His movement techniques were also very impressive. But she saw a huge flaw, his mind.

Whenever she saw Clark focused on battles or another topic, he was easily lost in it. That was the same for Ella but at least she remembered to focus on her surroundings due to the many lessons she had already taken through the years of academy learning. What Clark needed was time to be able to learn this before he was faced with an opponent that could take advantage of this.

What Professor Wright didn’t know was that when Clark spaced out, he was actually using the system analysis. He could have recovered and fought the illusions made the moment that the dream butterfly attacked. However, he found it better not to do that.

In Clark’s view, he was facing multiple opponents. Beasts of different shapes and sizes along with tamers without faces. They were attacking with different weapons and different styles that forced him to attack and defend constantly. The movements were all a perfect way for him to train both his mind and also his body.

Naturally, Clark had called out Devi and Shy to fight as well. Devi was in the air seeing the same illusion while Shy was on Clark’s shoulder. The reason that Shy was kept closer was because she was weaker. Also because she could use the shadow threads through Clark.

The idea that the two of them had come up with was simple. Shy was weak and could not control many beasts completely unless they were very weak like the white rabbits. But she was able to slightly manipulate those stronger than here. That was what she could do. Whenever anyone or anything was too close to Clark, she would throw threads out to interrupt their flow.

This entire method helped Clark maintain his pace. He could force the battle to flow in the way that he desired without too much worry. He could also make the entire situation change at the drop of a hat. In moments where he was about to get hit with a fatal blow, he was able to stop it and dodge or only take a grazing hit.

Was Clark actually taking these hits and getting damaged? No, he was not. But in his mind he was and the body felt that pain. It put Clark in to countless states of panic and fear. The natural instincts to survive and fight were constantly stimulated while he battled. It left Professor Wright in awe that someone so tenacious had been right beside her the entire time. Even her colleagues who had faced countless life and death situations might not be so indomitable.

"Ah, Maria. Welcome back. Take a seat with the others. They are resting as well. As for you little dragon slime, join your family and battle against my partner." Professor Wright was not giving Crim a choice. Neither did Maria when she had just returned.

"How long has he been fighting that butterfly? It looks kind of like an owl when it opens its wings..." Maria was amazed by the intricate feather and eye patterns on the dream butterfly.

’They have been doing it since the moment we got back. By the line of the sun and the rising moon...maybe four and a half or five hours. Pretty crazy, right? Clark’s a monster." Isa was fairly blunt. But even she had finished the majority of her planning for selling materials by now. But Clark was still fighting along even though he was soaked through in sweat.

"I tried the same training as him and I was done in an hour. I think he has a cheat or something to keep going. That’s the only way." Ralph had boldly asked the same of Professor Wright. But the illusions from the dream butterfly had put him and his molten boar down rather quickly. It was still much more than the others who had taken a shot though.

Ella and Isa had been the most unhappy after they had attempted this. The single reason being that they assumed they were tougher than Ralph. But Ralph was a truly hard working person. His endurance had come from nothing else but hard training. This was why he was able to battle the illusions longer than them. He didn’t stop until he had dropped.

Luckily, Clark seemed to be nearing the end. His moves had become sloppy over the past half hour. His spearmanship showing openings that he had not realized he even had. But with the sense of Crim nearby, Clark called him close.

The moment that crim leaped and touched Clark’s body, the sharing of energy and changes appeared. The translucent red wings grew behind Clark and his movements changed. He used a leaping and gliding style of movement that paired with his ghostly steps. This sudden change brought a larger smile to professor Wright’s face.

"He is still working through things, but he has a lot of potential. The weakest beast he has is retired, for now, his little dragon slime can only maintain him for a short while. But his first beast, that is a mystery. It has even taken some of my butterfly’s energy as its own whenever it breaks out of the new illusion."

Any tamer would sense the energy of their beast being stolen. Devi had slowly been doing this to force the dream butterfly to intensify the training for them. Clark had told Devi to do just this. It may have seemed odd but for him, it was perfect. The true anger from the dream butterfly brought about more vicious illusions.

What anyone would have understood if they paid more attention was that the illusions were past images. Things the dream butterfly had seen. Beasts it knew and tamer’s styles it had witnessed. The collection of memories made the illusions that Clark faced until he fell flat to the ground with no beast able to remain with him.

As Devi and Crim also returned to the taming space, Clark mumbled something that shocked Professor Wright. "Stupid illusions...need to make them...harder...." She couldn’t believe that he had been able to break it the entire time. She couldn’t believe that he wanted his training to be even harsher. This made her firmly support that Clark was a vicious person who was even harder on himself than anyone else.

"Now you all see what true work looks like. What do you all want to achieve? Can you push yourself to absolute exhaustion? Every one of you will break your limits tonight." Professor Wright loomed over all of them. Maria had just come back from agility training, yet here she was being thrown in to an illusion battle for however long she could hold on.

This didn’t match the worries of the others who already felt that had paid their dues. But they were not weak and unconscious like Calrk was. They had fallen and given up before their limits. Clark had pushed beyond limits and kept going. It was the difference between training like mad and training. Only a genius could train like a mad man possessed by the will to get stronger and nothing more.

Byt the time everyone had been exhausted, Professor Wright understood every aspect of the team put together here. She knew that Ella was not necessarily a member of the first years, but she was still a core reason for the group becoming stronger. Otherwise, her fellow third years were all uniquely strong alone as well.

What worried her most was Jerold. He had gone off and she had been away from her beast for a while. She knew he was safe and that no trouble had come to him, but was he going to make it to the northern city without them? Would he even be able to fight? These things plagued her as she breathed in the cool night air and took watch over her students.