Chapter 140 Rae’s Game

Chapter 140 Rae's Game

Rae sent out a maze of webs as she darted around the room, terrifying the students whose eyesight was good enough to keep track of her.

"That should do it. She built an obstacle course around your existing course, made of sticky spider silk. If they catch one strand, it will ring the bell in the middle of the room, and if they catch a bunch, they will just end up tangled." Karl explained, with a gesture toward the bell, which was now the focal point of dozens of strands of silk.

"How much light do you need to track movement?" The teacher asked.

"Zero. I can detect movement decently well even with absolutely no light, but in this room, and in their uniforms, it would be nearly impossible for me not to detect them unless they were truly invisible." Karl explained.

"Jeff, activate your stealth skill." The teacher instructed, and one of the boys seemed to simply vanish into the shadows.

Even thermal vision seemed to have a hard time finding him, so the skill was magical and not just a simple trick.

Karl nodded. "I should be able to track him, but not easily. Rae might do a bit better because she's got the superior senses."

"Alright, Jeff, you're up first through the obstacle course. Everyone in the class has a button, they press it when the student in question activates the button at an obstacle. If they get it right, it means they have seen through the skill. It's how we work on our stealth." The teacher explained.

The dark-haired boy began to creep through the obstacle course, focused on keeping his stealth skill active as he approached the first obstacle with a button. But his eyesight wasn't as good as Karl's and just before his hand reached the platform, a soft jingle echoed in the room as his leg bumped one of the web strands.

He had to resist the urge to cuss and give his position away, but the effort he was putting into his skill was giving Karl high hopes that his [Skill Master] technique would allow Rae to learn it by watching it fairly quickly.

With visible relief, Jeff made it past the first buzzer, then immediately turned and stepped without looking and found himself stuck immobile in the spider web. The boy cursed as he struggled to get free, and only got himself more stuck. That made his stealth skill fail, and now the whole class could clearly see his predicament.

"Alright, I will cut him free, and we will keep going. Remember, there are spider webs, and you have to watch for them, not just run the route by memory." The teacher admonished his stealth class. n0ve(l)bi(n.)co/m

"I suggest that you do not move for this part, of you will end up having your uniform cut off you along with the webbing." Karl warned her, and the student went completely still in Rae's grasp.

The other students also fell silent as they realized that Karl was serious, and that this was an actual Bloodbath Spider, fully capable of cutting through them and not just the sticky silk they had all gotten caught in today.

But once the student was immobile, Rae easily slit the silk and let it fall down around her legs, before returning the student to her professor, carried on the armoured front legs like a gift package.

"Thank you, Rae. You did a fine job." The teacher laughed as he accepted the delivery and lifted the girl out of the spider's embrace.

With the class finished, they took a break for lunch, where Sergeant Rita looked expectantly at Karl, who had called Rae back into his mental space, to keep her from teasing the students.

Karl shook his head. "I don't think that they're good enough with the skills for Rae to learn them that fast. The better the teacher, the faster the results. I have a much better than usual grasp of Rend, and I could barely teach it to the Nekomata. So, I think we will either need the advanced class to teach her, or one of the professionals."

[The problem is that they're not better at hiding than I am. What am I supposed to learn from them? They can't even properly blend into the surroundings, just cloak themselves with magic, which I can smell.] Rae complained, making sure Karl knew this was not her fault.

"Alright, we can work on something else. There isn't any particular rush to get them improved, but in a way there is. The Bureau is looking forward to a return on investment, and that essentially means proof that your class can advance a magical beast beyond what it would normally be capable of.

Not just by feeding it resources, but through some innate part of your class skills." Rita explained, while Alice nodded in agreement.

The mage smiled at them both as she began to explain. "The results are already excellent, and the beasts have already proven themselves superior to Golems, as well as proving their rapid growth speed. But in order to reclassify your marking, they want proof that it can do the exceptional, like the handful of off brand class markings that have led to Overlord Rank Elites in the past."

That sounded like a big goal to Karl. There were only a handful of Elites above Royal Rank, and even the Royal Rank Elites who were out to the public were celebrities. Just suggesting that they would want him to make it to that level put a lot of pressure on Karl, but for some reason, Rae and Thor didn't seem all that concerned.

Hawk knew he was already well beyond what most Windspeed Hawks would reach, it was just difficult to prove that wasn't the result of the resources they had gotten. But with so little available for the other two, it would soon be clear that they were going to be greater than any other of their kind.