Cory's spirit was fending off an attack from the other grasshopper and couldn't reach him in time. He shut his eyes in preparation for the pain, but none came. The stones panged off of metal as Jasper's shield darted around.
As the last stone was blocked, Jasper reached his hand back and pulled Cory out of the crack. "Thanks. That would've hurt. The footing here is shit." He said angrily.
"You're good." Jasper said before he returned to the grasshopper he was fighting originally. It still wanted to attack him, even with a seriously injured body. Its jumps were a little skewed, but it was tenacious.
Jasper's feet passed over gaps with precision and allowed him to reach the grasshopper. It hopped away from Jasper, now scared for itself. Jasper was hot on its tail, and before it could even land, Jasper's sword smashed into it.
A decent part of the grasshopper had been broken fully. It no longer had the structure to move its body effectively. Cory watched Jasper chase the elusive spirit down. "Whoa," He looked to the side and ducked as a volley of stones was thrown at him.
Jasper came to a sliding stop and looked back at his two other group mates. Hitch surprised Jasper greatly. He avoided the attacks that three different grasshoppers were throwing at him. Although he was short, he seemed to be quite athletic as well as in touch with his body. His feet lightly danced across the boulders.
Instead of confidently avoiding the attacks, his face remained panicked. He yelped occasionally when something came close. His attitude was telling Jasper he couldn't keep up, but his body was showing Jasper everything but that. There seemed to be more than one reason this team wasn't operating at maximum ability.
Finally, Jasper's eyes looked to Oliver. He expertly used his staff to smash the grasshopper to the side. The air whistled as it swung in complex patterns around Oliver. As his eyes darted around and analyzed the battle, his movements changed. Jasper narrowed his eyes as he watched Oliver fight.
At first, it looked like Oliver was in full control of the fight. His confidence and constant neutral face gave the impression he wasn't struggling, but Jasper's eyes saw the little things. Oliver could process and react exceptionally quickly with a well-suited solution, but his body lagged behind.
His feet moved too slowly. It was as if he were struggling to keep up at the speed his mind was pushing for. His body couldn't keep up with his intended movements. Jasper's eyes watched Oliver closely as he realized his weakness.
The boy had no difficulty battling the weak spirit, but he was unable to dominate it in the way he wanted to. Jasper could see it in his movements. Plans that were started before they could be realized by the body, and failing to be realized miserably.
There was often backtracking of attacks as Oliver realized he wouldn't be able to do what he wanted to. Suddenly, a volley of rocks fell upon Jasper as the heavily damaged one he'd hurt earlier used the last of its strength to throw speeding stones at him.
A few golf-ball-sized stones pelted him before he could dive out of the way. He hissed in pain as he dashed toward the spirit. It jumped away once, but didn't have time to jump again before Jasper ruined the rest of its legs.
Next to Jasper, the necrotic spirit was on top of a twitching earth spirit. Its pincers clicked at Jasper for approval. Jasper shook off the pain from the stones and rubbed his hand on what he thought was the forehead of the caterpillar. It made a noise as it nuzzled his hand before returning to his spirit.
Jasper rolled his shoulder as he watched his groupmates finish off their prey. He guessed he was 30 seconds ahead of them in defeating his targets. He was tempted to reach down and tame one of the crickets, but it was better for Oliver to try and tame it with his affinity.
It was more than two times likely for him to succeed, according to the statistics. The first of his group mates to subdue his spirits was actually Hitch. Although the whole time Jasper watched him, he seemed almost like he was losing, despite his body being fully in control of the situation.
One thing that really stood out, aside from his physical adaptability, was that his spirit usage was close to perfect. The communication between him and his spirits had to have been quite good.
Jasper hadn't seen Hitch and his spirits get in each other's way once the whole fight. Jasper knew him and his caterpillar wouldn't be able to accomplish this consistently. There were times when one of their actions got slightly in the way of the other. It wasn't always significant to the fight, but it was telling of a bigger picture when Hitch and his spirits never got in each other's way.
Cory had similar strengths but lacked body power like Oliver. Jasper smiled as he watched each of them defeat their opponents. They were all developable. None of them struggled greatly with the earth spirits, though Cory would've been bruised by that volley had Jasper not helped out.
Oliver tried to tame his initial target but failed and had to finish off the spirit. He then went to his spirit's prey and tried to tame it. It twitched inside the bullfrog-otters slimy mouth. As Oliver's fingers touched the brown bug, there was a small flash.
The spirit disappeared into Oliver's body, being tamed. Oliver quickly ran around to the rest of the spirits that were immobilized by the group. The next 5 spirits were unable to be tamed by Oliver. Of course, he could risk force taming them, but that was something that could kill him.
Tamers had generally categorized the stages of taming into a few main categories. The first kind was called probe taming. This is the most basic and natural way for a tamer to tame a spirit.
This is how Jasper's been doing it so far. It happened when a human touched a spirit with the inclination to tame it. In the moments they're touching, the spirit and the human's spirit make contact.
This is where the spirit either finds itself attracted to the human's spirit or rejects the connection. After this, the spirit becomes more defensive natured and may consider fighting to its death. The next kind of taming is generally called force taming.
After a probe tame fails, the tamer can decide to contact the spirit again. This will put the human's spirit in direct contact with the spirit's spirit, like the probe taming, but this time, the spirit isn't as restricted. Most times, the connecting spirits will have an all-out clash, where one caves in the end.
Tamers who are famous for force taming are rarely older than 30. If the tamer comes out victorious, the spirit is tamed with extra authority and tends to be more domestic and loyal. The last kind is a type of pseudo-taming.
It requires the full capture of a spirit to work. It's called exposure taming. This was uncommon with most people and was an expensive option. It essentially was exposing the spirit to a person for such an extended period of time that the spirit will eventually cave to a probing tame.
Spirits naturally attune to other spirits in their proximity, which explains a lot of how groups of spirits seem similar. This was the choice of wealthier people when they found a spirit they were really interested in but failed to tame it with their first probe.
As Oliver touched the second-to-last cricket, a group of tamers began approaching them quickly from across the boulder landscape. Surprisingly, Oliver tamed that spirit, but failed the next one. Jasper and the crew began quickly finishing off the rest of the spirits that Oliver couldn't tame.
Jasper had thought about trying to tame some himself, but they were too worried about this other group right now. There's a specific rule that will have their group get into an avoidable duel. Any person could challenge another group to a duel if any spoils are visible to the challenging side.
For example, the bodies of the 7 dead spirits were plain to their view, and if they were close enough to talk to them, they could issue a challenge for each of the cores and corpses if they chose. Duels took form in anything from a 1v1 to an 8v8.
Before Jasper could finish thinking about duels, the other group arrived. They were a full group of eight. Jasper could see the whites in all of their eyes as they jumped from boulder to boulder.
"We challenge you for the cores of those 7 spirits!" A man in the front shouted at the four of them.