An Owl's Rise

'Time to see what sort of requests I can pick up.' Evelyn thought as she entered the mission hall.

Yet this time she did not go to the lower level where most fiend beasts and low tier awakened beasts picked up requests, but instead the second level.

When she entered, she found that the entire place was populated by awakened beasts. With very few of them being in the low tier.

This was a place where the majority were mid to peak awakened beasts and Evelyn's presence garnered a few interested glances.

Still, it was not as if she was not allowed here now that she was at the awakened rank and was not the only low tier there as well.

'Looks like the same rules apply here as they do on the lower floor. The strongest owls are surrounding the boards that has the best missions, while the weaker ones have to take those that are less desirable.'

Once she was finished observing the state of the hall, Evelyn moved in towards one of the boards as she searched for requests that could be completed in the Elmot Gorge.

Along the way some of the other owls exerted a bit of pressure on her as a sort of test to see if she could even make it to the board without getting cold feet.

However, Evelyn only smirked at this. None of the owls bearing down on her were even close to Anneli or Katrina, and incredibly far from having a presence as powerful as Melisandre.

'Hm, that one should do.' Evelyn thought as she reached out to take a request.

But as she did, a far larger owl moved to grab the same request, and their foot gripped around Evelyn's while she had ahold of the magical wooden chip the request details were stored in.

"Oh, sorry about that. It seems we were after the same mission. I know you got it first, but you will not mind relinquishing it to your senior, would you?"

Looking towards the owl that had gotten in her way, Evelyn examined them to see if they were actually a threat.

'A high tier awakened beast. Though he seems weak for his level. I imagen that those that are actually stronger need not pull petty tricks like this.'

A rebellious smile on her face, Evelyn pulled back against the owl getting in her way. And slowly she overpowered him despite the fact he was nearly three times her size.

"I am afraid that I will be taking this. As you said, I got it first. And whether you are older than me, have been at the roost longer, or are a higher rank, I do not recognize such a weakling as my senior." Evelyn said as she ripped her foot out of her aggressor's.

A look of shook filled their face. He never excepted Evelyn to defy him, and especially not have enough strength to break free from him.

"You little- don't think that you will get away with this."

The other owl then moved to leave in frustration, but Evelyn stopped him.

"Oh, running away. I thought I was not going to get away from this. How about a duel if you are confident you are stronger?"

Turning around, the owl that had just tried to bully Evelyn looked her up and down.

"Fine! A recently evolved awakened beast has gotten on her high horse and does not know her place. You may have a great deal of physical strength, but I will show you the magical prowess of a high tier awakened beast."

The duel accepted, Evelyn followed behind the high tier awakened owl that had attempted to scare her off.

Soon they found themselves in a fairly large room that was used to settle matters such as this.

The Roost was perfectly fine with allowing spur of the moment duels in order to allow the strong to show off and the weak to learn from their loss and strive for greater power.

'Looks like we have a few spectators.'

Scanning her surroundings, Evelyn could see that some of the owls from the hall that had witnessed the altercation had come to watch. There were a few stands in which others could view these public duels, and around twenty owls had come to watch.

Of course, many of them expected Evelyn to get beat down, but others that had similarly been target by the same owl as Evelyn were hoping she would win.

"If you surrender now and bow down and apologize, I will let you off without a thrashing. This is your last chance to accept my good will."

Scoffing, Evelyn could not believe how full of himself this owl was. Especially wen he was nothing special.

"Sure, if you beat me, I will bow down and kiss your feet while begging for forgiveness. But if I win, you will make sure to leave me alone for the rest of your life."

In response her opponent glared at her, and said, "Sure. But you are not going to win. And do not think I will be letting you off easily. You are going to need a week to recover after I am done with you."

Holding up her identification cuff Evelyn sent out the request to duel and the antagonistic owl accepted it.

A thirty second countdown then began.

"Three, two, one, Start of the duel."

With an automated voice sounding off, the battle commenced.

To start both owls lifted up into the air and hovered as they waited for their adversary to make the first move.

In the end it was the rude owl that had started this fight with Evelyn that lost out in the battle of patience and launched an attack first.

'Oh, looks like he had a water affinity.'

Seeing a large, spiked ball of water appeared in front of her enemy, Evelyn now knew what type of magic he had.

Still as she watched him form the attack, she was completely underwhelmed.

'Is that really the best he can do. His control is pretty bad. It took him that long to amass only that much power.'

Calmly observing the other side, Evelyn became disappointed to see that he was actually pretty weak.

Of course, it was not that he was actually all that bad, being just a little below average for his rank. It was just that Evelyn was used to training with Anneli and Katrina who were considered at the level of prodigies.

The large spike ball of water soon came flying her way, and its size left little room to evade it in these closed off confides.

Nevertheless, Evelyn did not falter in the least, and shot froward while twisting her body around.

A torrent of wind began forming around her and she was quickly enveloped in her own personal twister.

This attack which was not even Evelyn's full power boasted a wind speed of two hundred miles per hour, and with it she easily pierced through the spiked ball of water.

Using this magic, she was like an unstoppable spear and she burst out the other side of her enemy's attack with ease, before slamming into him.

He was then violently caught up in the spiraling wind and tossed all around the duel room. Being slammed into the walls numerous times with only a hastily made barrier of magical energy to prevent him from being turned into a bloody pulp.

When Evelyn finally let up, her opponent was already rendered unconscious, and his wings were bent out of place.

'Guess he really was all bark and no bite. That was not even a good warm up. I was hoping to be able to test out how much stronger I was against him, but it seems he was just too weak.'

Her victory achieved, Evelyn left the room while the owls that had been watching were left stunned.

None of them had ever seen a low tier awakened beast unleash an attack of that level.

Swiftly news of Evelyn victory against a high tier awakened beast got spread around, and when she made it back to the mission board no other owls tried to get in her way.

'I think this one, that one, maybe this one…'

No longer having any impediments she easily picked out five more requests for a total of six that she planned to complete at the Elmot gorge and the nearby Velinis Desert.

She then moved to one of the receptionists who happily registered her missions and gave her compliments for crushing the owl that attempted to bully her.

Yet unbeknownst to Evelyn, there were other owls watching her from afar.

"So, she is the one that beat Declan? Seems a bit small. You sure it was her?"

"Yeah, that is her. One of my guys watched the fight. But I am surprised by her size as well. Not many awakened beasts that small."

"I see. You think we should offer her an invitation to join our faction. As a low tier she did beat a high tier."

"Sure, but that is still not that much of a measure of strength. Declan is not even ranked in the top five thousand awakened rank owls within the Roost. There are some other low tier awaken ranks that I can think that could beat him."

"Another test then. She appears to be going out for some missions. When she returns, we only need one of our members to antagonize her and get into a fight. We can test her true power then."

With that decision made by these two owls, Evelyn unknowingly got a target placed on her back.