Mantle of the Gods [LitRPG / Slow Burn / FTB Harem]

The Shooters had no idea what was going on.

I could tell by the confused look on Zel's face and the curious one on Astrid's. The look in Trent's eye told me that he was enjoying the suspense he was creating, while shattering their expectation of what being on the team would be like.

"We'll start with the Temple. Blue team said to bring air elemental skills, blunt weapons for the Hitter, and to utilize Soften to make the bosses easier to damage. The burrowing aspect of the Rock Wurm they proposed using water to flush it out. For the Rock Lizard, they didn't come up with anything to counter its gravel breath. They also didn't have a counter for the Rock Climber's charge or its item eating ability." Trent looked in my direction as he spoke. Once he finished, he turned towards Aelin and Justia.

Astrid raised her hand right as he started to speak.

"Yes, Astrid?"

"This is obviously a test with a grade that is going to be assigned to the team. I would like to look at my team's answers before they're graded." She looked to her left towards Aelin.

"A reasonable request." Trent shook his head. "But no. Not everyone is fortunate enough to find groups they can consistently go into the Dungeon with. When that happens, the Dispatchers will put you on a team that is down a person for some reason or other. There was a lot of that, in particular that happened last year with the plague. Many teams found themselves with sick members who couldn't go into the Dungeon, but they still needed to work." He slowly scanned the room. "If you're one person, joining a group of five, then you might not know what their strategies are until you're in front of the boss room. We'll use this to simulate that situation."

"My family wouldn't…"

"Your family..." Trent cut Astrid off. His glare completely silenced any argument that she was going to voice, but he wasn't content with keeping it off her tongue for the moment. "Both of your families didn't submit either one of you as initial candidates for the Cathedral. Do you know what that means?" He waited for a moment, but neither spoke. "That means that they didn't think either of you were worth splitting resources away from Rals, who they were putting all their support behind." He waited for a moment for that to sink in. "If you can't gain their support against only your year's students, why do you expect that they are going to allocate resources against generations of Adventurers?"

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I could see shame on Zel's face. She already knew where she stood, but there was almost a desperation there as well when I saw her look over at me.

Astrid was leaking off so much rage, that there wasn't room for anything else. I'd felt that bloodlust from Rix many times, right before she attacked something. Trent picked up on it too, because he focused on her.

"Neither of you are heirs to your families." He paused as he looked around the room. "This goes for the rest of you as well, because Justia is the only one here who is an heir…" He paused, then motioned at Gesai. "Tell them what most Noble families will do to the non-heirs when they need a sacrificial pawn to build up the family."

Gesai took a deep breath and began pulling off her elbow length white gloves. The newest four members of our group collectively gasped at her item burns that had charred her silver skin black and required extensive healing magic to get her fingers usable.

""I was pulled off of my Adventuring team and made a wall to stop what the patriarch viewed as a rival from progressing." She swallowed. "When the bounty hunter he hired to kidnap Justia and Oz decided to make some extra All by taking me as well, my uncle decided that I wasn't worth the ransom and left me to that monster's mercy." Gesai zeroed in on Astrid. "I was lucky that this was all I was left with."

A lot of the fire started to die down in Astrid, while it seemed like it only made the desperation sink in more with Zel.

Trent put his hand on Gesai's shoulder. She stepped back and started putting her gloves back on. He gestured at Astrid as she tried to get up, locking her in her chair with an invisible force.

"Running away will only delay this meeting, which hurts your team." My teacher walked over to the struggling woman and squatted so that he was on eye-level with her. "You already knew that Rals was the favorite and probably hoped that things would be different once he graduated." Trent shook his head. "They won't be different, so you have to be. Learn how to use what you have and don't wait for those who see you as a pawn to tell you how they will spend you."

Tears were flowing down her cheeks as Astrid was finally able to lock eyes with him. "My mother isn't like that." She had to force the words through clenched teeth.

"Maybe not." Trent stood up and walked back to where he'd been standing. "But even though she's the heir, how much power does she have?" He let the question hang in the air as he turned to look at Zel. Her eyes immediately moved to me as she silently pleaded for an intervention to keep him from evaluating her.

But one wasn't needed. Trent cleared his throat and looked back towards Aelin and Justia.

"Let's continue."