Aster

  It was a fine line of multi-tasking to achieve a balance of tasks in a way that suited my plans. Finding the core of my mana wasn't easy. The visions hadn't even shown how difficult the process was, and it led to a whole new opinion of Alten. It'd taken him a week to find his core, and I was already pushing on my second week.

  At first, making progress had been easy, the spec of mana visible even as it got smaller and started to change its affinity to match mine, but as I got closer, my mana veins or roots, whatever they were called, grew bigger. That brought a whole new problem. The bigger the veins, the more mana that went through them and the faster it went. At some point, I just couldn't keep pace, and the progress had slowed to a crawl, but at least there was some progress each time. It was almost like making a map which wasn't unfun.

  The only excuse that I could give myself was that finding my core was a side project and only done early in the morning. Most of my time was taken up by practice and skill work. Most importantly, Advanced Rune Etching, Riding, Archery, and Primal Shift.

  Agile Archery, as the skill was now called, had advanced to two yesterday after killing a grade three GrockalBask. A weird mix of two species I'd read about, almost like a snake with two long front legs. It had taken over an hour to bring it down, and it was done by range and constant cold attacks that slowed it. Its scaly hide had been stored after finding it had an innate resistance to most natural elements. The Archery skill was improving mostly from combat, so I wasn't too worried about it, but my other skills needed a big chunk of time. Riding was on the edge of advancing; I could feel it and was excited about the options it would present, but my main focus was on my runes. I'd gone from just making rune-etched arrows to practicing on leather and stone. The former had gained me a rank in leatherworking, more proof that skills could advance in rank together. At the moment, I was messing with the idea Umbra had suggested. Runes on big rocks.

  Turning my knife in my hand, I angled it as I marked the path for frost onto the stone. It connected with the mana storage runes and the heat rune. Once it was done, it would be an interesting take on the frost-shard etched arrow. I grinned as I checked my journal.

  Instead of exploding into a cloud of small ice shards that went everywhere in an instant, the mana in the runes around the stone would freeze the air around the rock it fell. It would be more effective in a humid environment, but if it had enough mana and was dropped from high enough up, the long spikes of ice it would create would gain momentum on its own and become deadly projectiles. Once the stone hit the ground and inevitably cracked, it would also release a wave of frost that would coat everything. At least all of that was the hope. The ice spikes, while created by mana, were still only physical projectiles that relied on speed and a not-so-armored target. The hope that the stone letting out frost on impact to slow or even trap the thing we were trying to hit as the ice spikes fell was perhaps an overreach, but I wouldn't know until tests were done.

  My only gripe about the entire invention was it felt too similar to my previous creations, only upscaled. That was because of a lack of runes and quality material that I wasn't willing to waste. I might have been able to use the fire and heating runes I had to create a flaming ball of destruction, and that was on my list, but I wanted to start with what I knew worked, even if I did complain about it to Umbra.

  There was the last point that I brought up to Umbra. This idea couldn't be original. Yes, she had made the idea up on the spot, but with rune arrows already being a thing, rune boulders and siege weapons had to be as well. She had agreed, and I wanted to find out if we would be able to look at some of the devices when we left. As I finished the final outline of the rune set, I went over it a few times before I started to carve out the shallow lines. Mana would be needed to mark them, but I'd learned how, and with larger lines, it would be much easier if more expensive.

  “Do you think carrying this will be an issue? Would it be better to hold it in my storage or just have you fly with it? We could attach it to a strap and cut it when we're over the target.” I asked the dragon, who was busy carving out a large plot of ground.

  She reared her head back, inspecting the large stone we'd plucked from the river earlier in the week from the first valley.

  “Not for long flights, but having it in my talons will make it easier to drop. Maybe wrap leather around it so I can hold it without damaging the markings, though.”

  I nodded, reaching up to rub one of my ears, noting that the fur needed to be brushed. I hadn't thought about that part of the trip. Damaging the runes could make it useless or, worse, cause it to explode. If she was attacked by one of those bird monsters while holding it, that would be all the worse.

  “Huh, okay, well, we'll figure something out. It's going to be holding a lot of mana, so we want to move it right.”

  Focused on the rune lines as I was, I didn't notice Umbra using her frost breath in the hole she was digging until the rain of light ice fell from the sky, bouncing out of the hole and into the air. Curiosity got the better of me, and I leaned over to see a six-foot-deep circle wide enough for Umbra to move around in as long as she kept her tail out of the hole. At the moment, half of it was covered in frost, and as I watched, she started coating the other side of the hole. It was similar to where we slept but much bigger, and the ice looked to be a lot thicker.

  “Umbra,” I said, feeling my tail twitch

  “Hmm.” her response was only half interested, humming.

  “What are you working on?” I asked

  She closed her mouth, cutting off her breath, looked up at me, and gave a tilt of the head. “I'm trying to improve my ice shaping skill, and to do that, I need ice, lots of it.”

  I blinked, then nodded, smiling slightly. “Planning on making anything specific?”

  “I wanted to try to shape a pillar like at the Tower in Arilon. As my control with shaping gets better and my ice grows colder, things I created will last longer, and perhaps in the right environment, they will last forever. The idea of art has interested me slightly.”

  Her words were a bit of a shock to me. I'd never seen or taken Umbra as someone who enjoyed art. I knew she liked stories, food, and cake and had a slight fondness for jewelry, but this was a first, not that I wouldn't support her. I could only imagine the type of art my bond would be able to create with ice, especially after her control improved.

  “Well, if I can help, let me know. I'm in no rush to finish this stone, but I also understand wanting to work on it alone.”

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  “Thanks, but for now, this is to just work on my skill.”

  Her response was expected, and I didn't take any offense, just nodding. Sometimes, someone didn't need help or just didn't want it. I could understand that. Going back to my work, I resumed working on my runes. To my delight, only a half hour into the work, I received a notification.

  [Through practice and inventive work, your skill Advanced Rune Etching-3 has increased to Advanced Rune Etching-4]

  It was getting harder and harder to get my skills to gain in rank. I knew part of the issue was that there was an ever-increasing gap between the ranks that one had to scale to grow, but it also felt like there was something else stalling my growth.

  My idea was that the system or dungeon was limiting our growth in a way I didn't understand.

  Using the dungeon to grow was a good idea and was working fine for now, but it also felt like a misuse of its purpose. Staying a year in a dungeon instance and only having ingredients months pass outside was something everyone would be doing if there wasn't a downside.

  Dungeons, from what I had grasped, were a way to farm levels, items, supplies, and resources, and in return, somehow, the dungeon grew. Each instance of a dungeon had limited resources to collect and monsters to kill. A large dungeon like this, or even specifically this one, lacked any items, so far as we had found, had a large number of monsters and a few valleys that needed to be fought through. All of the resources found inside could be gathered outside without issues besides levels and the monster parts. If a person like me could just stay here picking off monsters, then this dungeon would be in constant use, but it wasn't.

  Sure, if a mana overflow or whatever the dungeon was going through wasn't happening, I was sure people would be using it quite often, but even so, the city had only been big, not massive.

  My theory was that there was a soft limit on how much someone could gain in a dungeon when it came to skills that had some form of increasing difficulty and a cooldown. The longer Umbra and I stayed, the harder even ranking up a single skill would get until it became realistically impossible until we left. There might also be some form of a cooldown until the negative was removed, but I didn't know. It was all just an idea, and only time would tell if my thoughts had anything to stand on.

  I leaned back from my work, rubbed my ear again, and let out a breath, blowing away the stone dust the knife had left. Soon, I'd need to sharpen it again. Reaching out, I gently rubbed my hands over the runes I'd carved out so far before I stored it and my knife. It took up a large spot of my spatial storage, but there was no way I was leaving it out or trying to move the rock.

  Sitting down in the grass, I pulled out a piece of meat, biting into it, not minding that it was hardly cooked. As I ate, I pulled my Jornal over from where it was on the ground and wiped off the few strands of grass before flipping to the page I'd marked Primal Shift. The wolf form the skill provided had benefits and limits I was still learning, and writing them down helped to sort out the thoughts that game with each realization. The size it gave me made fighting hand-to-hand or claw-to-hand much easier and provided me with weapons, my claws that couldn't be disarmed or taken.

  The issue was learning to fight in the form was an ongoing struggle, and the fact that injuries were transferred between forms. A bruise or cut didn't just go away when I shifted. Instead, it was transferred to the respective part on my other form. That being said, injuries that happened when I was a wolf shrunk in size.

  Taking another bite of the meat, I turned my attention to watching Umbra work. Later in the day, we'd be going out to hunt again.

  Ava

  Ava let out an annoyed hiss. Getting to her feet, she spat to the side. She wasn't a fighter. Far from it, even the creatures and monsters she tamed were meant for support. Yeah, she knew how to use a few weapons, but that wasn't what her class was for, and she hated killing anyway. Grimacing, she looked at Boulder, the bearkin. He hadn't hit her hard, but the blow still stung.

  “That wasn't fair. Salla didn't even say the fight had started,” Ava said, then let out a whistle, stopping her leopard, Spot, from jumping on boulders back. He might have taken a cheap shot, but she wouldn't.

  “Salla said fight starts when both on mat.” Boulder said, frowning.

  Ava blinked, then let out an angry growl, realizing he was right. Salla had said that. Looking over to the laughing foxkin, Ava glared at her as she watched Salla try to cover her mouth.

  “Let's take it easy now. Boulder, you saw that Ava wasn't ready. This isn't an actual fight. We are here to train, but even so, you should have paid attention, Ava. When we go into the realm event, the wording of everything should be taken and looked at.” Ovim said diplomatically. She wanted to argue with the deerkin but couldn't. Ava was still pissed, but she had to admit he was right, which wasn't helping her anger. Clicking her tongue to let Spot know to follow her, she walked off the mat, taking a seat on a nearby cushion.

  “I didn't think he'd actually attack you, but it was a little funny seeing you fly like that,” Salla whispered from My side, her eyes full of sympathy and amusement.

  Ava gave her a glare but felt a slight amount of amusement of her own thinking about what it must have looked like. Letting out a sigh, she let the stress melt away and found herself chuckling, even if it was a bit forced. She didn't want to start having bad relations with the people she'd be spending who knew how long with, especially when they were protecting her.

  “Do you think there will be any monsters unique To the event inside?” Ava found herself asking. It was really what she was hoping for. As a beast tamer, her power, abilities, and even skills revolved around the monsters and beasts she had tamed and contracted. At the moment, she could tame grade one and low grade two beasts, but that was improving, and she was hopeful when she advanced to grade three, she'd be able to tame equivalent grade beasts.

  “I would think so, but who knows?” Salla said, only half paying attention. Ava could see she was focused on the fight between Boulder and Ovim, and she couldn't blame her. The two were a sight to see. Ovim was a wonder, with his staff, using it to halt and shift his momentum to dodge the heavy strikes of the massive bearkin and retaliate with strikes of his own.

  Even with the display, Ava found her attention drifting. Her skills in the party wouldn't be focused on combat. Instead, she'd be acting as the scout and watch of the group. With Spot being an amazing tracker and her other companion Stripe being a Shadow Feather Hawk, there wasn't a chance that many people could sneak up on her.

  As if sensing his owner thinking about her, the Hawk landed next to the cushion, the white line from which Ava named him clear on his back. Idly, she stroked his head while debating what her choices were.

  She had three total spots for monsters and creatures that were given to her by her class, and currently, two were filled. She could take a third beast to fill out her last slot, and certainly, it would help, but she was saving it in the hopes that something caught her eye in the event. It was a gamble, something she didn't like to do, but it was a risk she felt compelled to take. Creatures lost to time or never before seen could be inside the event, an idea that had the hair on her ears tingle with excitement. The companions she had currently required weeks of taming to earn their trust, the requirement for a creature over a monster. A monster had to be forced into submission and kept that way the entire time. It was something that she had avoided but would do if it was necessary. Looking over to the grade two leopard lounging at her feet, she smiled. Spot was the first and secretly her favorite companion, a gift from her family for getting a rare class. Her plans for both of her companions were to have them evolve through the grades with her and maybe even bond with one in the future to free up a slot, but that was a far-off decision.

  Ava almost groaned. She didn't want to and wasn't going to make a rushed decision and have to break a contract with a creature to free up space for something in the event. That was her decision. Other preparations could be made, and more training could be done, but she wasn't going to make rash decisions.

  “Oh yeah!” The cheer from Salla had her looking up to see the Boulder a half step off the mat, which meant a win for Ovim, who was already explaining to the bearkin how he had pushed him back.

  It reminded Ava of the discussion of having a leader for the group. The easy choice of the deerkin had been unanimous from all of them. Not only did he have a party skill and experience running multiple dungeons, but his father had raised him to be a tribe leader, a position he would eventually take. Part of the off feeling Ava had first felt was a charisma skill he had from a class that helped to dissolve disputes, and while she didn't like the idea of mental skills, it wasn't hard to spot the effects now that she knew what to look for.

  Looking at all of the members of her party, she only hoped it would be enough to get through the event with something that would help all of their tribes.