The Divine Wolf... or?

After a sumptuous breakfast and making sure that they had everything packed, Ark and the rest decided to leave for the nearby forest. After walking around and exploring the forest for around two or three hours, they finally found a nice glade to set up camp in. After they all talked for a while, they split up and went in different directions to train on their own.

Ark had a few different things that he wanted to focus on in this training camp.

The most important thing was to use his new skills and magic as much as possible. Both to better understand its power, but also to level up his various skills. He also realised that using magic such as spatial magic in his human form might be more convenient than his wolf form. The reason for that was pretty simple.

Since most of the mana came from his own body, the attack would be more powerful if he used a medium such as a sword or a spear to attack, since that would enhance the attack even more.

If he just sent out a spatial blade through the air, it wouldn't be as powerful as if he sent it out by slashing his sword, since that power would transfer over as well. Since that was the case, Ark decided to level up his spearmanship too, since he felt like it would work pretty well with spatial magic.

Other than that, Ark also wanted to level up his mana body, since having a more powerful body would always be good.

After summoning his holy spear, Ark started to train his spearmanship in the glade. Every now and then, he would incorporate spatial magic as he thrust out, and his spear managed to pierce through the very fabric of space itself. If such an attack were to hit an enemy, they would probably die in an instant.

Because it pierced through space, the attack itself was very unpredictable, as it could appear in front of an enemy in an instant even though Ark was far away.

As he got more accustomed to it, Ark's attacks grew faster and faster, and everywhere his spear swept by, space trembled. Every now and then, Ark would incorporate other magic elements too, and even though they didn't have the same destructive power, they cost less mana, and it never hurt to train his mana control.

After working up a sweat and exhausting his body, Ark sat down to meditate and absorb mana to enhance his mana body.

After he more or less recovered, Ark decided to spend some time experimenting with his new abilities, to see what kind of combos and attacks he could come up with. To Ark's pleasant surprise, he managed to find a way to use time magic in combat, without completely using up all of his mana.

By stimulating the minuscule amount of time mana in the atmosphere with his own mana, Ark could glance a few seconds into the future. This meant that he could basically predict what kind of attacks his opponent was gonna make before they even knew it themselves.

Although it might not sound the most impressive, Ark was very satisfied. This would make it a lot harder to surprise him in battle. The only downside was still that it cost him a decent amount of mana, and he wouldn't be able to use it too much. He would basically only be able to use it if he was facing a particularly strong foe where it was needed.

Against weaklings, suppressing them with absolute force was still the best move.

After this training camp was over, Ark made up his mind to level up as much as he could. He was noticing the true power of having a lot of mana, and as he got stronger and stronger skills, he would only need more of it.

Having experimented enough with his time magic for now, Ark decided to use his time to level up his [Chaos Magic]. After using different kinds of basic chaos spells for over an hour, Ark's [Chaos Magic] finally reached level 2, and he unlocked a variety of more complex and powerful spells as it did.

With that done, Ark activated his [Chaos Domain] in combination with his [Sovereign's Howl], effectively killing two birds with one stone. He also noticed that when the two skills were combined, the effects were basically multiplied.

Not only was the suppressive effect of the [Chaos Domain] stronger, but the strength buff of the [Sovereign's Howl] also became stronger. In a large-scale battle, the effect would be very substantial, and could easily tip the scales in Ark's favour, even though the mana expenditure wasn't too bad. As with his [Chaos Magic], Ark used the two skills until he had about 30% of his mana left.

Although neither skill levelled up, Ark wasn't too distraught. He hadn't used them as many times as his [Chaos Magic] after all, since they drained more of his mana.

Ark didn't feel very comfortable with having 30% of his mana left, but he didn't spend any more mana than that. He needed to have at least that much in reserve in case he ran into an unexpected enemy. Like before, Ark sat down again and started absorbing mana into his body, strengthening his mana body, as well as filling up his mana pool.

After he had recovered somewhat, Ark noticed that everyone else had already gathered up, and was waiting for him.

Realising it was time for lunch, Ark stood up and stretched, before going over to everyone else. After receiving his utensils, he started roasting a few Crimsonback Boars over a large bonfire. As they were roasting, he added all kinds of spices, and soon, a mouthwatering aroma spread throughout the small glade.

Atar couldn't stop some of his drool from escaping his mouth, looking quite silly. Thufrat couldn't help but laugh at the young boy, as his own drool escaped his own mouth too. Ark could only shake his head as he watched them, whilst Ephine patiently wiped away all the drool from Atar's mouth, making him a little embarrassed.

Soon, the food was ready, and they could all dig in. Ephine was as elegant as always as she ate, but the three guys couldn't hold themselves back and gorged themselves on the food. As they had just been training intensely, they were all especially hungry, and they soon finished all three boars that Ark had roasted. Since Atar was still hungry, Ark roasted another boar, and he was finally satiated.

After cleaning themselves up and chatting for a while, they all spread out again and returned to their own training.

Just like he had done earlier, Ark went through the same training routine two more times before the sun started to set. After all this training, Ark's [Chaos Domain] and [Sovereign's Howl] both reached level 2. Although this level-up had only brought about an extra 5% increase in both skills' effects, Ark was still satisfied.

If they levelled up a few more times, then the increase would become quite substantial, and he would gain another small increase in strength.