" Well that was another unexpected match. Id assumed the Earth Bound Ankulosaurus would've won hands down but your control of your Dire Wolf was flawless until the end of the match. I'm only going to give you five gold because you lost control of your Dire Wolf towards the end there, I know this because of the panicked look on your face when your Dire Wolf started shaking its head to lodge its teeth deeper into the Ankylo. I know it can be hard to control a Dire Wolf once it uses Frenzy which is why I recommend you deepen your bond with your souldbound which will allow you to control it better once you use the skill." Richard says.
Rebecca then steps forward to heal the two injured beasts, though the Dire Wolf was definitely the one who needed the most healing. By the time she was done Trevors Dire Wolf had even regrown the ear that it was missing which left the onlookers in awe.
The match's after Trevors were not nearly as exciting and before long everyone had finished their match's and they all turned to Richard to receive their orders on what was to come next.
"Okay now that all the match's are finished me and my subordinates have a good idea on where your beast controlling abilities lie. From now on during this part of the day instead of all of you having match's against each other we will be giving one on one training to those we think need to hone their controlling abilities. These match's will go at a slower pace and will be against instructors. For those of you who we believe already have adequate control abilities you will be facing off against beasts we have captured. During these fights you will be allowed to kill these beasts if you're able to and earn levels towards yourself and your beasts. Also you will need to disband your parties otherwise the experience you earn will be negligible. As for right now you all can go to lunch. The mess hall is labeled "mess", you'll find both food for your beasts as well as yourselves, dismissed." Richard says to everyone.
After Richard says that everyone begins putting their beasts inside their soulspace. Everyone that is except for Oliver because Loki is currently smacking Oliver in the face with its paws because he felt that Oliver was about to do the same. While Loki is smacking Oliver, Loki is telling him that he better not put him in his soulspace because if he does the next time Brutus lets out his Armored Boar he was going to take a bite out off it. Loki continues to tell Oliver that he had already held himself back from taking a bite of the boar after it came back to the group smelling like bacon earlier. Oliver just gets an exasperated look on his face and leaves Loki out. They were about to feed their soulbounds anyway so it wasn't a big deal to keep him out. Loki seems satisfied with Olivers mindset and lays back down on Olivers shoulders.
Oliver and company make their way to the long house labeled "mess" and walk inside. At the back of the long house is one person serving food to the recruits. Along the right wall of the long house is a series of feeding troughs were most of them are filled with fresh meat while other contain some kind of grass like food. These troughs are clearly for the beasts to feed themselves.
Everyone releases their soulbounds and lets them eat at the troughs, you would think that all of these soulbounds being let out inside of a building would make the inside cramped but that wasn't the case, this long house was longer and wider than the residential long houses and seemed to have been designed to fit one unit of recruits soulbounds at a time.
Oliver walks over to one of the troughs that has meat in it and takes Loki down off his shoulder and puts the Shadow Weasel in front of the feeding trough. Loki perches up on it hind legs and looks in the trough, he gives the meat a sniff before turning to Oliver to let out a series of chirps saying that he refuses to eat out of a trough like some common beast! Furthermore he tells Oliver that after feasting on human food at Oliver's birthday party he no longer likes raw meat and that he will have whatever the humans are eating, plus he expects desert for winning his match in such a spectacular way!
Loki then runs to the back of the line with the recruits who are waiting to grab their food. He lets Oliver know that he needs to hurry up because he's hungry and that the stupid humans cant understand what he says so Oliver will have to translate for him.
Oliver just shakes his head and walks over to where Loki is waiting line, he then picks up the hungry Shadow Weasel and puts him on his shoulder.
Ten minutes later Oliver and his party are sitting at a table together where Loki has his own chair and is eating voraciously, one of the only things on his plate is cooked meat. Oliver had tried to give him some vegetables but Loki just smacked him and told him to stop being an idiot. The only other thing on Loki's plate was a large serving of vanilla pudding which the Shadow Weasel insisted wasn't a big enough serving and said he'd just eat Oliver's pudding too.
Oliver had to admit that Loki is strong and that if this is what it takes to keep Loki happy he was glad to pay the price. His teammates were less than willing to give up their pudding though when Loki had finished both his own serving and Oliver's and still wanted more. Loki didn't give them any choice though because he jumped on the table and began eating each of their puddings one by one. Brutus tried to save his pudding by shoving the hungry Shadow Weasel away to which Loki just turned into a shadow and then appeared at Brutus's tray with his face already in his pudding. Loki finished it all in a matter of seconds and then let out a satisfied burp in the dumbfounded Brutus's face. The whole table just chuckled at his antics, especially when he tried to curl up on Oliver's head again saying he was going to take a nap. Oliver just put the weasel back on his shoulders and continued eating his food, surprisingly Loki was okay with that and just went to sleep.
They only had a half an hour lunch and before long they all found themselves back in the field in the middle of the long houses where Richard was waiting for them. Everyone had their soulbounds back in their soulspace besides Oliver, who had a sleeping Loki on his shoulders, to make it worse the Shadow Weasel was snoring. Richard gives Oliver a funny look but doesn't say anything.
"Okay now that you are all here we'll begin your first lesson in battle tactics. During these lessons we will be discussing how to work as a party and how your party will also be incorporated into a larger group when the need arises. Some of you probably already know how to work in a party but we have to go over it anyway." Richard says.
"Okay let me start by saying that every party needs a Tank. A Tank can be either a beast or person, ideally your party would have both, but having one or the other would be fine too. A Tank is someone who is usually in heavy armor and can take a beating. Their job is to keep the attention of your opponents on them and to protect their back line. The back line consists of ranged classes such as archers and healers. A tank's job is to protect their back line at all costs."
"While the Tanks main job is to protect the back line, they really are there to protect their DPS(damage per second) too. I say this because some DPS will also be front line fighters as well as the tank. The DPS role is the role that any class whose main focus is on doing damage is tagged with. Now a front line DPS will typically be able to handle one or two adversaries but it's still the Tanks job to make sure they don't get overwhelmed."
"Now another important role in a party is the Healer. The Healer job is pretty self explanatory. It's their job to keep your party healthy and keep them fighting which means they have to heal the parties injuries either during or after battle. A healer will also have Control skills. We call them Control skills because they can control a battle field. These skills range from buffs that will improve a facet of their party's abilities/stats or to summoning earthen walls to divide your enemies. So it's also the Healers job to not only keep their party alive but to also control the battlefield in a way to make it easier for your party to overcome your adversaries."
"After this lesson will be your free time where those of you that don't have Classes will be able to decide on which classes you want to acquire. Use this lesson to find out what your party needs and pick a class accordingly. Remember to discuss this with your party so that way you don't have overlaps in roles. Right now you are all in four person parties. Every party should consist of one tank, one healer, and two DPS. At least as far as the people in your party.. You'll have an overlap in roles because of your soulbounds but that's ok. as long as you have at least one Tank and one Healer you'll be fine." Richard explains.