[SP-F21] A New Bonding <<Training your Friend>>

[Itzal 0]

Mega Slime Farm (+2 SP);  Attic +5% col from chests

Itzal had finally managed to find a new familiar recently. A black feathered raven named Aldion who rested on his left shoulder. The scout/rogue was fairly certain that Aldion was a rare mob, as it's feathers had a blush/green sapphire sheen to them. Of course appearance didn't really increase any stats or make it any more powerful, as most games typically did. Instead SAO just gave players some cool looking familiars and that was about it. He didn't mind it, at least he could find the really cool ones. As for today, he wasn't going to be searching for anything. Today he was going to be training his familiar. Once he'd finished training him, then maybe he'd search for a chest or two. He wasn't sure. For now however he would just focus on the main task at hand. The two had a lot of training to get done and there wasn't very much time at all. The boss raid meeting was close, so he'd need to hurry up. That's why, the second he was done sparing in the slime field, he took a shower, double checked his attic storage, and ate breakfast, they came up to this floor to train in the dark sections of the floor.

Spoiler

General
Level: 83
HP: 1,660.  1,690 with Acrobatics.
Energy: 166
DMG: 17 (base 1 damage + 9 dmg (Velnia) +5 sword skill +1 Athletics +1 Ferocity)
Stealth Rating:  +5
SP Available:  1
Total SP:  481

Combat Setup
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Slot 1:  +3 EVA / +1 EVA +2 MIT
Slot 2:  +2 BLD/PLZ +1 Keen 
Slot 3:  +3 ACC
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Looting Setup
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Slot 1:  +3 ACC
Slot 2:  +3 LD
Slot 3:  +3 EVA
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Skills: 
Rank 5 one handed straight sword (+5 DMG) <50 sp>
Rank 5 light armor (+25 MIT) <50 sp>
Rank 5 Search and Detect  (+5 LD) <50 sp>
Gatherer (turns each material found into the ammount of 4) <10 sp>
Picking (+3 LD when opening chests) <15 sp>
Rank 5 Charge (+5 dmg first attack) <50 sp>
Rank 5 Battle Healing (+5% total health per combat post) <50 sp>
Rank 5 Hiding (+5 Stealth Rating) <50 sp>
Rank 2 Exceed Mod Limit (+2 Mods allowed)  <5 sp>
Expert Martial Arts (+3 unarmed damage) <23 sp>

Mods:
Reveal (+2LD when searching for dungeons or players.  Dungeons rolled for every 15 posts rather than 20.  Labyrinths search cooldown reduced to 3 personal posts) <9 sp>
Detect (+1 to dungeon searching, +3 to player, npc, mob searching, all player stealth bonuses are negated) <9>
Night Vision (Ignores any penalties from low light or darkness, as well as negating others stealth bonuses from it) <5>
Dismantling (+2 LD for picking chests)  <8 sp>
Tracking: Allows the player to track another player or monster down by entering their name if the name is known to the player. This negates the targets hiding bonuses and when hunting monsters, guarantees a hit regardless of BD roll, though still requires to roll for a critical. Tracking takes a post action. <12>
Athletics: +1 dmg +10 * tier HP.  <9>
Spring & Acrobatics +1 Evasion while wearing light armor <15>
Ferocity:  +1 DMG <15>
Untraceable: Players cannot Track Itzal <9>
Surprise Attack (Assassin): Attacks made from stealth cannot miss. Attacking from stealth grants +1 * player's tier DMG. Stuns and other status effects (Bleed, Paralysis, Burn, etc) cannot trigger. Cannot posses both Surprise Attack (Assassin) and Surprise Attack (Trickster).

Extra/locked Skills: 
Meditation:  Increase meditation recovery to 5*Tier energy if uninterrupted.  And 3*Tier energy if interrupted.  Has a 3 turn cooldown. <0 sp>
Survival <3 sp>
Disguise:  +1 EVA for a full round.  3 Turn Cooldown.

 

[Itzal 0]

Now then. Training. He totally had this all figured out. It wasn't like he hadn't done this from scratch for so long that he lost the hang of this thing or anything. Yeah that TOTALLY wasn't it. He hummed in thought as they made their way out from the teleporter of the twenty first settlement. Aldion's gaze wandered everywhere as he tried to catch every detail of this strange new world. As a raven, he'd likely be confused since it was an incredibly open area for an underground cavern, so Itzal didn't say anything at first. Just letting him adjust to the massive world naturally. While he did that, the rogue/scout would ponder on how he was going to proceed with Aldion's training. There were several factors he'd need to teach him. Specifically, three areas. How to evade would be the first, since he really didn't want him dying like Velnia had... Twice... The second would be how to attack. And then the third would be how to attack in sync with Itzal, or in other words, successfully create their first combo move together.

ID# 154931  LD: 6+8=14

[Itzal 0]

Evasion was going to be the first task, but the question was: How would he teach Aldion how to evade properly? While he thought about this, the Raven leaped from his shoulder, glided over to a cluster of crystals and began wrestling with them trying to pry some free. While he did so Itzal thought of Aldion's capabilities. He could hop but it wasn't small. He could glide which reduced the use of energy, and then of course he could FLY. He thought about how Velnia flew, how she'd pull her wings in to speed up during a dive to reach unimaginable speeds. However, being a dragon she was using her weight to increase her momentum. Aldion would need to use different tactics to speed himself up since he was lightweight and had hollow bones. Itzal looked up as Aldion returned with two of the crystals and Itzal smiled and nodded before stroking his forehead. "Good job Aldion. You're getting better at that." Aldion cawed once which Itzal was starting to guess meant yes.

ID# 154932  CD: 3  LD: 15+8=23  +2 MAT

2 MAT Total

[Itzal 0]

Eventually Itzal found a good spot for them to start doing their training. It looked like a clearing of sorts surrounded by giant glowstones and glowstone clusters, as well as glow shrooms in the middle so that nothing was kept in darkness. Now that they were here... He had to start talking. Aldion had figured out most of what his words meant by now. He'd spent most of the night showing pictures of nouns and verbs and speaking the words accordingly. They weren't kidding when they said Raven's were smart either. "Alright Aldion, we'll start training now. First we'll want to work on your evasion." Aldion recognized the word 'evasion' really well. It was important in this game after all, so Itzal made sure to stress it's importance. "You're lightweight and fast, so you can use that to your advantage. So, I'll be teaching you aerial maneuvers, and you'll practice them. Once you've got a few tries in, I'll attempt to strike you and you evade me. Make sense?" Aldion cawed once. Alright then. Now came the hard part he thought as he reached down and pulled out three glowstones before they started.

ID# 154933  CD: 6  LD: 13+8=20  +3 MAT

5 MAT Total

[Itzal 0]

So then. Maneuvers. Itzal began to work with Aldion and help him understand different maneuvers he could use that he didn't know about. Because, well, he never needed them. Overall though, he seemed to know most of them before Itzal could come up with them, so he decided an alternate way to train him. He told him to go ahead and take flight, and Itzal would attempt to strike him. Turns out that Aldion was already a pro at dodging and evading. Did players throw stuff at him in the past? Or did he have to run away from larger predators? There was one thing he needed adjustment in however. Since the familiar was linked to his tier, it's stats jumped by a ridiculous margin. Because of this, Itzal had to help his familiar adjust to it's newfound speed, agility, endurance, etc. It didn't take very long, since it just meant adjusting it's calculations in it's AI mind... Wow, he forgot sometimes that these animals weren't even real. Definitely didn't seem like it.

ID# 154934  CD: 10

5 MAT Total

[Itzal 0]

He went ahead and 'sparred' with Aldion a bit more, trying out as many maneuvers as they could until his imagination was worn out and hurting his brain. Going ahead and calling for a stop, he let Aldion land on his shoulder to rest while Itzal sat down on a large boulder to think some more. Ok, so he could maneuver with incredible ease. He even did things he never thought possible, though that was with the mindset of Velnia's weight, shape and her focus on speed than agility. He wasn't as speedy as her, but his agility was almost better than it. If he fought against a speedy familiar, he bet it would end in a stalemate as he wouldn't catch up with them, but they wouldn't be able to land a hit on him. Especially with the freaking reaction time Aldion seemed to possess. His reactions were sharp enough to convince anyone else that he could almost read your mind and predict your actions. You know, the way birds seem to be able to do. Of course this wasn't the case as Aldion was simply really observant as most birds were.

ID# 154936  LD: 4+8=12

5 MAT Total

[Itzal 0]

Come to think of it, the bird was much like Itzal when he was in the middle of a fight. Whenever he fought against player killers, he always tried to be aware of what everyone was doing. While he was doing that, he also tried to imagine the fight from their perspective beforehand, and use logic and reasoning to determine what they were likely to try in response. This is why he performed recon on someone before he engaged them in combat. If he knew their personality, their emotional stability or instability, and any patterns of theirs, then he could predict what to do and how to react when he fought them all... And he'd know who to take out first. So when he was in combat, he'd have a general idea of how each of them would attack, and would be able to maneuver out of the way accordingly, as well as counter attack accordingly. In truth, the only difference between players and monsters/npcs were their ability to restrategize to one that wasn't pre programmed into their mind. He picked up another five crystals for his crafting later on.

ID# 154937  CD: 11  LD: 15+8=23  +5 MAT

10 MAT

[Itzal 0]

While fighting player killers often and sending them packing into prison was a daily job of his, he did get a thrill out of it. Player versus player had always been a fun concept for him when lives weren't on the line. And since he was a very very high level, and that he knew most about his targets before he fought them, and finally since he was surprise attacking them, his life wasn't in any real danger, and his morals in turn guaranteed their safety as well. So in the end, it just turned into a big game of player versus player traditional style. What was really ironic about this, was that Itzal was playing the role he usually played in most MMORPGs: A rogue who went about assaulting other players. Only the reasoning was far far different in this case. He chuckled as he thought about this, all while picking up another three crystals before the crystal cluster he'd been gathering from became an immortal object, run dry of resources. that was fine, there were plenty around him to collect.

ID# 154939  CD: 6  LD: 16+8=24  +3 MAT

13 MAT

[Itzal 0]

Actually, this made him think about his time outside SAO a bit more, which lead him to his old rival Fearx. The old rival of his who became a mortal enemy at some point. Itzal never would have believed that he'd run into that same man in the same video game either. In fact the very idea of it hadn't even crossed his mind. His old life became a memory the second the truth of this world was revealed. And yet he encountered Fearx and was forced to fight not only for himself, but his entire guild. Unfortunately, the guild was ultimately destroyed and torn to shreds by both Fearx and another player with their fourteen followers. The seven sins and the seven virtues. In the end there was some relief where Fearx turned out to be just a man facing depression. Nothing else to shoot for afterwards. Itzal grinned. Well, not anymore now that he was aware of a crush one of his followers had on him. He chuckled at the thought as he collected four more materials.

ID# 154940  CD: 10  LD: 16+8=24  +4 MAT

17 MAT

[Itzal 0]

Now then... Back to training now that Aldion had recovered. They had evasion down, in fact with flying colors. But now it was time to teach him how to fight. Not with Itzal yet, he needed to have the basics down first. As a raven he wasn't going to be used to fighting anything other than birds of the same size as him, and even then not more than a few pecks and scratches. Itzal was going to need to teach him how to utilize those parts of his body to the fullest. So he pulled out some wooden dummies from his inventory and placed them around the area for him to practice on. "Alright. You remember what I taught you regarding 'fighting'?" The raven cawed to let him know that he did. "Alright. Well since you're already a natural when it comes to evasion, I wanna go ahead and see how you handle with combat before I teach you. I'll give you advice and hints where I can or need to." Unfortunately for Itzal, he was gonna need to do a lot more than that...

ID# 154941  CD: 3 fail

17 MAT

[Itzal 0]

Aldion would fly towards the figures and, well. He wouldn't attack. He didn't hit anything the first fly by, nor the second, nor the third. Itzal watched with a frown as his familiar continued to fly at the dummies, zoom past them, and not attack. Fourth... Fifth... Sixth... Nothing. Not one single attack, nor even a hint of any sort of attack. And this, was causing Itzal a very great deal of confusion. He should be capable of any familiar classification right? All familiars could be, that's just how the system worked. So why was he not attacking them? Then something dawned on him: Aldion wasn't fighting them because he was using evasive maneuvers around the dummies. Itzal face palmed, realizing that he should have been more specific as to what he wanted Aldion to do. Saying 'fight them' was rather vague, and since Ravens didn't directly attack people without cause, it was likely that he'd never actually fight them unless Itzal specified how he wanted him to fight.

ID# 154999  LD: 1

17 MAT

[Itzal 0]

In other words he was going to need to train Aldion from scratch. That was, just... Just great. Cool, cool, he could work with this. He just needed to identify exactly how his raven could attack and damage anything wearing armor or made of stone, or even magma. The more he thought about it, the more difficult it sounded. Not unless Aldion had some way he could bypass normal physical limits, but so far he hadn't seen any signs of it. And it wasn't like he was a mythical creature like a griffon, a dragon or even a chimera. Hell even slimes were mystical creatures which might have unique abilities, but ravens? He wasn't sure... It had to have something though, something to give it an edge over other familiars, monsters, npcs and players. Something that would give it the strength or ability to pierce armor and mitigation, as well as crack stone and other stuff like that. But WHAT could he possibly come up with? This was really starting to frustrate Itzal, but even with this going on he was still able to find another material. Just one though, he had his mind occupied for the most part at this point...

ID# 155000  CD: 1  LD: 16+8=24  +1 MAT

18 MAT

[Itzal 0]

There had to be something. There HAD to be! What was he missing, he felt like he was missing something. Was it something he had noticed about his new familiar? Something that seemed off? Or was it just a gut feeling? Then again it could be both. Or it could be nothing. Dangit he was overanalyzing things again. He just had to think, step by step, what happened when he met and tamed his familiar. What might have caught his attention. The raven sat there for forever, only hopping closer every few minutes or so. It dived for the food and shot away to test him. Then it ate the food till it was full. Itzal held his hand out for it to jump on. It went to his shoulder. He started stroking it, then he scratched it under it's chin and- He face palmed at his own stupidity. How on earth could he have forgotten something so freaking obvious?! Why did he think it might have been his imagination in a game like this?! Of course that was it. It made sense. In fact it made so much sense he wondered how he hadn't figured this out even without the system giving him a freaking hint!

ID# 155001  LD: 1

18 MAT

[Itzal 0]

"Hey Aldion, come here a moment." Aldion complied and landed on his shoulder. Itzal started to stroke him again, which the raven enjoyed quite well. But his joy became ecstasy when he started scratching under his chin. He started slow and gradually sped up until Aldion began to ruffle his feathers, and then starting to flap his wings. When he ruffled his feathers, Itzal saw the glittering shimmering sheen of blue glow from the edges of his wings and tail, and when he started flapping he saw the glow turn into a... Well a legitimate glow. A blue glow of energy, almost that of a sword art. Itzal stopped and the glow faded away. "Aldion... You get stronger when you feel a strong surge of emotion right?" Aldion cawed once and Itzal nodded. "Alright then. With that knowledge in mind, we're going to give this another shot. And this time: I want you to try and reactivate that strength when I tell you to, and attack the dummy I point to. Got it?" Aldion hesitated as it took a moment to process the information but then cawed once again.

ID# 155002  CD: 12  LD: 16+8=24  +4 MAT

22 MAT

[Itzal 0]

With this newfound knowledge they continued on with their training. Itzal was so close now to completing it too. (about five posts to be precise) He wasn't going to let up any time soon. Since Aldion was going to be his damage familiar, they needed to perfect his damage skills as quickly as possible. And then of course, after that, was teamwork and coordination. Once that was done, they could retire and head home for the day. When they did, Itzal was going to introduce Aldion to the world of human cooking. He started by having Aldion target certain dummies, telling him to activate his ability the second he moved to attack. He then had Aldion activate his ability the millisecond before his claws hit the target. He had him do this multiple times to determine how long the ability could stay activated, as well as how quickly it could activate. After several forms of experimentation he had determined that the ability needed at least 0.5 to 1 second to activate, and could last for about one full minute.

ID#  155003  CD: 9  Success #2!

22 MAT

[Itzal 0]

Itzal also noticed that when Aldion used his skill, it had a cooldown equal to the amount of time it lasted, with a minimum cooldown rate of 1 second. In other words, if Aldion kept his ability active for thirty seconds, the cooldown would then become thirty seconds. This of course was vital information if he was going to be timing his attacks accordingly. After determining the statistics of his ability, Itzal marked specific areas on the dummy and had Aldion practice hitting the smaller areas. Eventually after Aldion got the hang of it, Itzal made it more advanced by giving him a target more quickly, almost immediately after the other. After that Itzal began giving him random areas to hit until Aldion started attacking the dummy on his own. When he hit that point, Itzal smiled as the bird became a blur as it struck the vital points of the would be npc so fast and accurate, he almost looked like a phantom. Eventually Itzal called for a break and the raven landed on Itzal's shoulder, panting heavily.

ID# 155004  CD: 6  LD: 19+8=17  +3 MAT

25 MAT

[Itzal 0]

Seeing his poor familiar panting so hard, the rogue opened up his menu and began navigating it until he found and pulled out a large bowl, and a water bottle which he opened and poured into it. He set it down for Aldion who began to drink from it longingly. Itzal let the bottle shatter from his hands and returned to his thoughts. Aldion's progress was amazing. He was definitely a born fighter, and would likely come up with his own unique attack strategies and techniques in no time. But the hard part, would be applying those same techniques he came up with, to Itzal's own strategies, and come up with an attack strategy that worked for the both of them. They'd need one for fighting mindless monsters, one for fighting floor and event bosses, and one for fighting player killers. Well there'd actually be several strategies regarding pkers due to them being far more intelligent and with less recognizable patterns, but for now they'd just stick with one for each. The only question was.... What strategies would they use for now?

ID#  155005  CD: 1  LD: 20+8=28  +1 MAT

26 MAT

[Itzal 0]

No no wait, he was getting ahead of himself. Before they came up with any actual strategies in which they practiced their timing and coordination, they had to practice fighting together first. They had to come to understand how one another moved and thought and reacted. How they handled situations, how quickly they analyzed and could change directions. They needed to come to acknowledge and understand one anothers thinking to such a depth that they couldn't possibly miss what they were thinking or planning. So before they planned out their fighting strategies, they had to perfect their teamwork first. That of course, was easier said than done. Itzal could teach him the basic concept of what they needed to master, but he would not be able to master it with Aldion overnight. This would be a process the two of them would be working on together for the next month or so. Only then would they be ready to take on the next floor boss with Zandra. Only then would they be ready.

ID#  155006  LD: 2+8=10

26 MAT

[Itzal 0]

With the plan in place he looked over to Aldion, who seemed to be still taking a breather. He wasn't panting heavily anymore, and wasn't guzzling down water, but he was resting his muscles just a little bit longer. He needed to perform these exercises every day until he could do it for twice the length of a long hard fight, if at all possible. He didn't doubt he could do it either. Itzal had a knack for picking out the more special familiars. Maybe it was his searching skill and all the mods he collected? He wasn't exactly sure to be completely honest. But for whatever reason, he got a familiar that was just perfect for Itzal. He showed enough personality, which might develop over time, and clearly had intelligence. To be honest it felt like Itzal was training a human being. A human with natural flying talent and couldn't really talk all that well, but the relation was there in his mind. Once today was over his familiar would have the damage buff needed for the floor boss. While they still needed to practice working together, at least with this they could provide the frontlines assistance.

ID#  155007  CD: 4  LD: 15+8=23  +2 MAT

28 MAT

[Itzal 0]

And so they got started. On seeing Aldion hop back onto his shoulder, rested and restored, Itzal decided to explain the situation to him. "Alright, so you can fight on your own now. But now we have to fight together, which is gonna take some time. In short you need to know how and when and why I attack and-" He stopped when he saw the confusion in Aldion's eyes. "Alright change of plans, I'll show you not tell you. Aldion, when I say go, attack the dummy until it falls." Aldion cawed once to show he understood. Itzal opened his inventory and pulled out one of his training swords. A wooden sword that was sharpened so that it would pass through as a bladed weapon, but only dealt one damage. He managed to get it from the first floor, which would prove very useful. He took a stance and gave Aldion the signal. The raven rushed into the sky and dive bombed to attack it's throat. Itzal rushed forward and aimed for the chest, but in doing so cut off Aldion's descent. Aldion cawed as he freaked out, pulling back just before he hit his target.

ID#  155008  CD: 9  Success #3!!

28 MAT