Jason watched as scaly wings appeared out of thin air on Humphrey’s back. He brought them towards the ground, pushing him into the air. The dragon wings sent him surging away at a rapid pace. Humphrey’s familiar, which had been sitting on his shoulder in the form of a bird, flew after him.

“Wow,” Jason said.

Jason and Humphrey had trained together several times over the last month. They had focused on martial technique, so each was yet to see all the other’s essence abilities. Humphrey’s martial art was called the Surging Storm style, an explosive and unrelenting combat art that was completely at odds with Humphrey’s personality. Thus far, Jason’s skill-book-derived technique hadn't come close to matching it.

The group watched Humphrey climb higher into the air as he grew smaller with distance. Suddenly he plunged out of the sky and all eyes snapped to the magnified image in front of Vincent. They saw Humphrey crash into the monsters like a meteor, a huge sword in the shape of a dragon’s wing appearing in his hands. He came down like a meteor, his boots landing on one monster and his sword on another. They died in a single, gruesome instant.

The other ratlings let out panicked screeches while Humphrey swung the huge sword in a low, horizontal arc. It ploughed through the monsters as if they weren’t there, severing three clean in half with a single swing.

The ratlings scattered, but instead of chasing, Humphrey dropped his sword, which vanished into the air. He took a deep breath, then a stream of fire sprayed out of his mouth like a human flamethrower. He walked the burning line over the fleeing ratlings, torching crops and monsters alike. Three ratlings escaped the flames, having run at different angles to the main cluster. One was being harried by Humphrey’s familiar, which had turned into some kind of predatory cat, around the same size as the ratling. The other two were sprinting away in different directions.

Humphrey’s wings had vanished after he landed, but they reappeared briefly to fling him forwards through the air. They only appeared for a moment, in which they hurled him faster than he had been flying earlier. Another sword appeared in his hand, this one smaller, with a blade made up of metal feathers. He brought it down on a fleeing ratling as he landed, cutting it down with one strike. He vanished from the spot he was standing, reappearing in the path of the final ratling. His sword was held out in front of him and the startled ratling ran straight onto it. Humphrey yanked the blade up, spraying blood as the monster fell dead.

“He got teleport,” one of the candidates next to Jason said as they watched Humphrey through the magnified image. “I bet they paid a lot for that awakening stone.”