Continued training

He had on a blindfold that he'd lifted once the snake tried to strike at him, turning it into stone and causing it to drop to the ground... Okay so we are NOT facing him ourselves, was my inner thoughts as I started summoning some real elementals to fight him off. While my Summons went on the attack I had little choice but to hide myself away somewhere, I mean how do you defend from being turned to stone by someone's gaze?!

Monkey's, Wolves, Cobra's, Weasel's, even a few Crocodile's all made of stone in an attempt to keep themselves from being affected by this guy's gaze. Thankfully that idea helped, he couldn't petrify them if they were already stone, which caused him to draw his sword and fight them instead thankfully. He couldn't defend against so many different attacks coming at him, slowly he was getting overwhelmed so I turned a bit more focus back towards Jade and Shiva.

What I saw was them in a fight against another boss, some guy called Lord Deathstrike apparently. "You slew my father! DIE!" He was using some strange technology to fight them, shooting at them with strange bullets from a pair of handguns, bullets that homed in or blew up remotely when one of them dodged his shots, all while the guy ran along walls or phased through them no less! It would take them sometime to deal with him, but thankfully they weren't really being hurt, just having trouble dealing damage to him. My attention was pulled back to Gorgon as I noticed multiple summons being broken. He was about down to half health even as I summoned more to replace what were hurt or broken by his attacks. He didn't seem all that strong aside from his gaze honestly, I wondered why for a moment only to see a notification pop up right as his health was lowered down to a quarter.

WARNING: this boss becomes MUCH more powerful should it resurrect. DO NOT ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN.

Message received! I sent as many stone summons as I could at him, pulling him into the dirt, having them attack him even as a few others dug under his feet and started to sink him down into a rapidly deepening pit. He attempted to jump out only for one of the wolves to leap up and chomp into him mid air, a Crocodile biting and dragging him back towards the pit as the summons slowly chipped away at the last remains of his health bar. With him bitten, clawed and beaten into the pit his health bar broke and he collapsed as I sent dozens of stone snakes to curl around and bind his body, slowly filling the hole and burying him deep. With that finally taken care of I was able to turn my focus back towards Jade and Shiva, seeing them dealing the finishing blows to Lord Deathstrike as he was at last put down. "Zane? You safe out there?" I heard from Jade, responding back with "Yeah I'm fine... This boss is dealt with here, looks like you got that one taken care of too."

From there we continued on, Jade and Shiva slaughtering their way through the enemies rapidly while I returned to intel gathering and sharing. Despite how high my level was, despite how supposedly strong I was getting, my build didn't allow me to stand alongside anyone at the front, didn't let me FEEL helpful if others were hurt or anything of the like. I tried to put such thoughts out of my mind, but it wasn't easy, especially with watching them continue to slice and cut their way to the end of the temple. When the end was reached there were a few dozen ninja looking enemies waiting for them, one of which stepped forward with a look of anger in their eyes. "You have attacked out training compound, slaughtered your way through our newest initiates, and even SLAIN Lord Dark Wind AND Lord Deathstrike! You may have found success against The Hand, but don't think you shall escape us unscathed! SNAKEROOT! ATTACK!" With that command they leaped forward, I was given a notification a moment after Jade and Shiva began to defend themselves.

WARNING: These enemies resurrect after **** due to the power of The Sakki Swords they wield. BREAK the swords to stop their return from ****.

In the time it took to read that I saw Jade and Shiva slowly being overwhelmed by numbers, there were so many that managed to start slicing and cutting at Jade and Shiva's forms, clearly they were extremely well trained in martial arts. I couldn't bring myself to stay out of it though, I summoned my elementals to help out the ladies, glad that I could summon more through the connection of my non destroyed summons. Fire Cobra's, Water Monkey's, Wolves made of lightning all charging into the Snakeroot clan and helping to break the swords. "Zane? Why didn't you mention you could do this?" I heard from Shiva as her and Jade had some breathing room, it didn't stop either from continuing to fight of course. "I was trying to not rely on them too much, but this is all I can do while I'm locked out like this..." I heard Jade sound like she was about to say something but her and Shiva were too under attack to talk further. It took us another half hour just to get through these Snakeroot, when they finally did I heard the temple door unlock beside me while a swirling purple portal appeared in the room with the others. "Wait, check the room. There should be something here as a reward if I had to guess." I was proven right as my summons searched the room, finding 5 different rewards chests, 3 of which had been hidden in different places. With everything collected, Jade and Shiva headed through the portal and walked out beside the temple barely 10 feet away from me, the summons pulling all the loot they could grab out with them as they came through.

From there we discussed what to do next, with the Temple beaten we could now focus on any stragglers as well as deal with that guy with the red cloak. Both Jade and Shiva agreeing that dealing with him would be good as such a location would likely make a good place to at least hunker down for the time being, so we set off to deal with him. When we started approaching we were informed we had found the hideout of the hidden boss, someone that normally wasn't supposed to be here but was currently using this place to lay low from a recent job. We'd barely gotten within 30 feet of the door when guns went off and blasts of energy hit the ground in front of us. He started making some speech about how difficult it must of been for us to find him, slowly monologuing his way down from the balcony on the second story, putting on his cloak as he walked down a staircase. Shiva seemed annoyed that he wasn't taking any of us seriously, Jade didn't look happy either...

So the second he stepped on the ground and it fell out from under him he screamed. The next moment when the earth summons I'd put in the pit began to bite, claw and tear into him he yelled, then he shrieked when a particularly soft place got attacked by a stone honey badger. I heard Jade laugh for a moment as we watched huge chunks of his health vanish rapidly, his cloak being yanked on by a couple summons that tried to tear through it as well. Suddenly he appeared in front of us back on solid ground, standing there and panting before growling and raising his pistols. The moment he pulled the trigger my summons just leaped out of the earth at him, his feet and legs were bitten into first, before a cobra lunged out of the dirt wrapping around his wrists and biting into his arms, another helping to bind him further while that vicious honey badger leaped up between his legs and CHOMP! We heard another shriek of pain, screaming as he started trying to beat the badger off his groin, it was like a scene out of a parody movie or something. Especially when he FELL BACK IN THE PIT HE'D FIRST BEEN DROPPED INTO! Even Shiva let out a little laugh at this point, shaking her head while Jade was having trouble catching her breath as she laughed and laughed. "I didn't even TELL THEM to attack him there, they just did it on their own..."

More laughter from Jade while Shiva shakes her head for a moment. "Well your summons are incredibly effective at the very least. How many can you summon total?" She asked curiously, Jade slowly calming down as she tried to quiet herself and listen closely. "Currently this is around the max number I can have at once though most of them were summoned as little rats to gather intel for us. I've basically got 3 tiers of summons I can call forth, those being Basic, Lesser, and Greater summons. At the moment the total is around 25 and I can summon around 5 at a time max. Funny thing is I still haven't summoned a Greater one yet. Probably should at some point though... Just to test it out you know?" I explained to her, Jade looking at me like I'd grown a second head. "Wait I know you don't wanna be too reliant on them but do you even HAVE another way to engage in combat? I mean against super powered foes. A gun or some of your other weapons can work wonders on normal thugs sure, but what about people with powers and abilities?" Shiva nodded her head at that, looking to me with, I think that's concern on her face? "Indeed, you'll need some way of combating such individuals. There are more popping up each day after all." I nodded my head at that, I didn't want to solely rely on my summons but there wasn't anything else I could do combat wise.

We'd planned on continuing further with the training, but suddenly found a message stating that we were being ejected as an important event would be taking place soon. When we were out and I explained what happened, I turned on one of the systems monitoring any new hero or villain activity, finding dozens more reported practically by the hour. Some were in custody or playing hero, some were trying to get themselves higher in criminal organizations or trying to make new ones. During all this I also saw that Lex was learning about such people as well, meeting with them, making deals with others, all while he slowly became focused on Superman. A clear alien life form, or he had hit the jackpot with his powers upon unlocking what he could do. Hard to tell yet. I looked through dozens of reports while Shiva checked in and Jade helped me a bit around the lab, mostly with putting things back away. Evidently training would have to wait, with all the new info coming in it would take awhile for my systems to track down every last crumb of it, longer to sift through and find what was the most important parts. My thoughts were interrupted though by a new pop up screen.

Objective available: Expand your business further, use all info gathered to your advantage to build your lab into a new powerhouse that can compete even with Wayne enterprises and Lexcorp. Bonus rewards available for completing more research as well as locating and recruiting especially talented scientists.
Objective available: Prepare as thoroughly as possible to build up shelter's and defenses for civilians in order to increase their chance of survival. Bonus rewards available for every hundred saved that would have suffered without aid.
Objective available: Start making preparations to build up your own team. Use connections, make deals, do whatever you have to in order to introduce another option to those with powers so that they don't have to stay in a life of crime. In other words, DO WHAT THE SO CALLED HERO'S WON'T.
Congratulations! You've entered a period of downtime! During this time it is recommended that you focus on things other than training, at least until world events advance further. As you are now MORE than strong enough to survive the next world event, further training may cause you to catch the eye of people whose attention you DON'T WANT.

There were quite a few more objectives but those 3 were the most important ones, they were also more long term goals than anything. That warning at the end though was what worried me most. Attracting the attention of something dangerous was NOT in my plans, so I'd likely have to stop here for the time being with training. That did leave me with a question though, how should I prepare and...