World of Alvarra: Rise of the Vampire Lord

Chapter 97 Return to the Forest

Van spent the next few months training, studying, and repeating all that over and over again until his birthday when he turned nineteen. During that time Van had learned the sixth form of blood weaving while Luna had mastered all eight forms of it.

The sixth form allowed her to attack pressure points, the seventh allowed her to create strings of blood from wounds she created enabling her to somewhat puppeteer her opponent, and finally, the eighth form temporarily unlocked her body's limit, effectively a limit breaker that increased her physical abilities for a short time. With all that she finally got to start learning the first form of shadow weaving, shadow layer. Which was a barely visible layer of shadow on her body, which was used to confuse opponents since it can be independently moved, making it appear like a shadow of a fist either before it connects or after. Done so quickly that even trained experts could confuse which was the real attack to dodge.

Luna also learned some better bowmanship, allowing her to rapid-fire arrows at great speeds and accuracy, evening going so far as to imbue them with aura to either explode on contact or swerve to hit its target.

During this time, Van learned more swordsmanship from his father, learning the technique to unleash a wave of aura from his sword at an opponent. Luna also joined in from time to time, though her swordsmanship was not the best, she was a quick learner.

Van was finally able to get Isa to evolve into a greater hobgoblin, and then made sure to hatch all the eggs and start working on turning the goblins into greater goblins or hobgoblins. Altogether he had about fifteen hobgoblins from his original ten and sixty goblins, half of which were now greater goblins, for a troop total of seventy-five.

As for the harpies, he hatched the three eggs given to him, but it will still be a while before they can start to properly train.

He also got over his concerns and started to breed with Isa again. Slowly growing a clutch of eggs to be hatched later. He also started doing the same with the harpies since there were so few of them, though he still didn't feel like naming them yet, though it probably soon would be inevitable that he would one day.

More importantly, after learning everything he could and begging his parent's permission, Van finally got the go-ahead to travel to the forest and train. Without the parents, of course, his excuse? He wanted to hunt for resources for himself and his goblins and make them stronger, emphasizing how much he would be able to grow and how much stronger he could make his goblins troop if he properly trained them, the need to have proper experience leading them and so much more. With the promise that Kella would be there with him.

After much debating, it was agreed that he and his small army would leave, alongside his Annas and surprisingly, Luna. who he was not expecting to come with him at first. But Van couldn't really turn Luna down, even if he feared for her, after all, she felt the same, and considering how much she had grown, it would have been looking down on her if he turned her down from coming with him.

So with that in mind, Van and his group started to work on gathering a few supplies which were stored all inside him. It was also generally agreed that all his goblins and harpies will also be stored inside him as they traveled since it would save costs and they would only have to take one carriage. It would also be eye-drawing to see a large group of goblins passing through the castle town.

"Are you sure you got everything you need?" Thea asked worriedly from outside the carriage, peering in and looking at her daughter. "Food rations? Extra pair of clothes? Potions for health and disease?" she continued, concern clear in her voice and face.

"I'm fine mom," Luna said, trying not to roll her eyes, "I have everything I need right here." patting Van's pants where his crotch was, who then turned to give her an incredulous look.