He walked forward and extended his hand.

"Thank you for the spar, Sir Satou. It's been quite enlightening. I look forward to seeing how you grow from here."

Satou clasped the offered hand, feeling the vampire's strength in that grip. "Thank you for the pointers. I'll work on integrating my skills better."

"Good. And remember—you have time. You're what, a month old? And you've already accomplished things that take others decades. Don't rush. Build your foundation properly, and you'll become truly formidable."

Cassius turned to leave, then paused. "Oh, one more thing. Your shadow abilities are instinctive right now—you use them because you consumed Vegeta and gained his knowledge. But you don't truly understand them yet. Spend time in the Shadow Realm. Walk in darkness. Learn what shadows really are, not just how to use them as weapons. Trust me on this."

With that, he vanished into the shadows, demonstrating the kind of seamless shadow movement that Satou could only aspire to.

The training ground was silent for a moment.

Then Kelvin spoke up "That was... intense. You held your own against a vampire who was clearly much stronger."

"I got completely outclassed," Satou corrected. "He was teaching me the whole time, not actually trying to win. If that had been a real fight..." He didn't finish the sentence.

"But you learned," Urgak rumbled. "That's what matters. And now we all learned something too—we saw how a true master fights. How they combine techniques, plan multiple steps ahead, use every skill to its fullest potential."

"We've got a long way to go," Ragar added.

"We all do," Satou agreed. "But that's okay. We'll grow stronger together. One day at a time. One fight at a time."

He looked around at the assembled warriors, his people, his family.

"Tomorrow, we continue training. But for tonight, rest. You've all earned it."

As the group dispersed,, Satou remained in the training ground a moment longer.

He had so much still to learn. So much to improve.

—--------

Satou was so lost in training that he didn't notice when the sun was beginning its descent toward the horizon, painting the training ground in shades of orange and gold.

Satou stood in the center of the ring, his body drenched in sweat but feeling more alive than he had in weeks. His muscles burned with the pleasant ache of a hard workout, and his mind buzzed with all the techniques and corrections Cassius had shown him.

He rolled his shoulders, working out the last bits of tension, and noticed Kelvin approaching with a cup filled with water in it .

"Here," Kelvin offered, "You look like you need it."

Satou took the cup gratefully from Kelvin hands and took a long drink, the cool water soothing his parched throat. "Thanks. That was more intense than I expected."

"You did amazing though," Kelvin said, his eyes still bright with the excitement of watching the spar.

"The way you used those shadow techniques, combining them with your other skills... it was like watching a completely different person from the one who left for that scouting trip."

"Different, maybe. Better? That remains to be seen." Satou handed back the cup and looked around the training ground. Most of the warriors had dispersed, heading to clean up or attend to other duties. "Speaking of which, where's Jessica? I haven't seen her since I woke up this morning."

Kelvin's expression shifted to something between pride and exasperation. "Where do you think? The healing hall. She's been there practically non-stop since she awakened her Holy Maiden class."

"The healing hall?" Satou repeated.

"That's what everyone's calling it now," Kelvin explained, gesturing for Satou to follow as they left the training ground.

"It's one of the first buildings the elves helped reconstruct. Jessica basically claimed it the moment it was finished.

She's turned it into a clinic where anyone who's injured or sick can come for treatment."

As they walked through the settlement, Satou couldn't help but marvel at the transformation. The ruins he'd last seen burning were now a thriving village.

Buildings stood sturdy and well-crafted, showing the combined efforts of goblin earth magic, orcish construction, elven artistry, and dwarven engineering.

Goblins and orcs moved through the streets alongside elves and dwarves, the different species coexisting with surprising harmony.

He saw a group of young goblins playing with orcish children, their game involving a ball and an impressive amount of running and shouting.

An elf was teaching two orcs what looked like a weaving technique, their large hands surprisingly deft with the delicate threads. A dwarf was demonstrating proper metalworking to several fascinated goblins, his gruff voice carrying across the workshop.

"It's really come together, hasn't it?" Satou said quietly.

"It has," Kelvin agreed. "At first, there was a lot of tension. The elves looked down on us goblins, the dwarves thought the orcs were too crude, and everyone was suspicious of everyone else.

But then Jessica started healing anyone who needed it, regardless of race. And when people saw that a goblin could save an elf's life, or heal a dwarf's wounds... attitudes started changing."

They reached a building near the center of the settlement. It was larger than most of the others, with windows that let in plenty of natural light and a symbol carved above the door—a stylized hand radiating light.

"She designed that symbol herself," Kelvin said, noticing Satou's gaze. "Said it represents the healing touch of the Holy Maiden class."

Inside, the healing hall was surprisingly spacious and well-organized. Beds lined the walls, most of them empty but a few occupied by patients in various states of recovery.

The air smelled of herbs and something else—something clean and pure that Satou realized must be Jessica's holy magic at work.

And there she was, standing beside a bed where a young orc child lay with a bandaged leg. Her hands glowed with soft white light as she channeled her healing magic, and Satou could actually see the child's pained expression slowly relaxing into peaceful relief.

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