After Theo was done with the dinner, he went back to his room and contemplated things.
The concept of the wisp was good, but now he had to come back to his own stuff again.
His usual training started from then, where the mantis focused on improving its skills to have a chance against something four levels higher than it.
Theo focused on his swordsmanship. He didn’t really focus ’specifically’ on the sword, but his position and footwork. According to Rhys and now the other knights that told him one stuff or another, he got to know how important perfecting the footwork was.
It had to become second nature.
Days went by with the same routine every day.
After Clara was discharged and had some time with her family, she started going to the forest with Theo and Elias.
Elias seemed to be a little intimidated at first, but then things started becoming comfortable. Everyone had their own role in protecting Theo and progressing at the same time.
The pup was also a bigger size now, although it was still small.
As for the noble family that had complained against Rhys, Theo got to know that the case might just drag on for a while.
The baron had already taken a report on the matter, and just by a single mention of the noble family’s name, he knew this was nothing more than that family trying to get against the Merricks again.
Since his father was already involved in this matter, Theo decided to only focus on his training.
All other matters that did not relate to him evolving his beast and him reaching level 5, Theo sidelined them for a while.
A month later, his footwork was a lot more stable now, and both Clara and Elias’s beasts were also progressing better.
The mantis’s skills leveled up once, and Theo felt like it was progressing well until he realized that his father and brothers would be gone inside the gate in 2 months.
For some reason, he wanted to show his growth to them before they left. And to complete this goal, he started taking even more daring decisions.
Going deeper inside the boar territory, fighting level 6 boars but only finishing them off with the help of either the boar, ape, or the pup so as to not get the full EXP.
He needed the mantis to be the same level while also growing stronger in order to defeat a level 7 beast on his own for the first time.
Yet this goal was a lot tougher than anyone would have thought; it took Theo another month just to get a few of the mantis’s skills to level up.
By then, the pup was finally level 4, too. Theo was quite happy to see Clara trying to grow as fast as him, not like the first time when she only tried protecting him.
Her goal of opening a business and retiring early was still there, but there was this new craving of not only protecting Theo but also reaching a level of strength that could help keep herself safe too.
If the baron or even Lucien had been pushed by the boar like that, chances were that they wouldn’t even budge.
Theo didn’t like to think of it like that, but there was a slight skill issue there, which was not even her mistake. But to go as far as he wanted to do, his people needed to be a lot more motivated than the norm.
By the end of the 2nd month, the mantis’s metallic strike was at level 4, the spore lash at level 3, while the regenerative moss finally came to level 3.
The progression was going quite nicely, and Theo did his best to do everything before he reached the real world that was outside his family’s protection.
Theo finally decided to look at the star stone, too. It was something that helped beasts get a small power-up. But these power-ups were important for everyone.
He decided to give it to Clara, as she was the one who suffered so much from the altercation. Yet, to no surprise, she decided to decline.
After a while, Theo decided to give it to the mantis, who was ecstatic while eating it. Right after eating it, the mantis went to sleep, so Theo couldn’t know if there were any changes. Its status was the same too.
But in the morning when he woke up, Theo saw the size increase of the mantis. Where before it was as big as his whole palm and fingers together, and still a little longer toward the arm,
Now it had increased in broadness, making its legs find it hard to stay on Theo’s palm as usual.
While the star stone didn’t give any partial evolution or new evolution chance, it still was a fruitful resource that Theo decided to order more.
This was one very big advantage of being a noble; some of these resources and stuff were so accessible to the nobles, as after procuring something like this, the sellers always looked to have a deal with the nobles rather than the mass market in order to procure extra coins.
The end of the two months went well, and for the last month before his father and brothers left, Theo finally got to get some little training from Rhys again.
According to the sleepy knight, Theo had significantly improved his footwork and position with the constant and repetitive daily training sessions.
There was still room for more improvement, yet much to Theo’s delight, he was finally able to learn the next few techniques and training regimen.
Everyone around Theo couldn’t help but feel the same craving to become a better version of themselves.
The knights, guards, and even some siblings started doing their best to become better too, making the motivation quite contagious.
Due to the nature of the gates, the attendees from the Merrick family all stayed outside the castle for long periods of time for gate training.
Until finally,
It was time to leave.