Despite Leo’s insistence that they needed to find a town as soon as possible, he and Taylor spent another three days in that new, non-poison-filled plane. There were a number of things he wanted to take care of, and there was no time like the present.

  First was ensuring he and Taylor actually understood how to fight alongside one another. Put bluntly, fighting alongside Taylor felt like little more than letting a feral dog off its leash. He quickly discovered that rather than attempting to really coordinate anything, it worked out much better for them when he let Taylor take the lead and he focused on providing support. Thanks to her unnatural durability, Taylor was capable of shrugging off devastating blows for her soul rank. Most of the time, she dealt more overall damage to the magical beasts they faced, but Leo was the one to actually land the killing blow, finding an opening while the beast desperately tried to deal with the deranged human clawing away at it.

  Besides learning how to fight together, Leo also wanted to work on his own Cartography skills. Becoming a Cartographer was his life’s dream, after all, and mastering those skills would only benefit them in the long run. That involved figuring out the different criteria of any new plane they entered, recording the plane into his own personal working map of the known planarverse, and noting the different resources the plane held, such as plants, animals, and magical beasts. And with Taylor’s help from her freaky open-soul ability, he was even able to record not only the total number of rifts the plane held, something that often took experienced Cartographers anywhere from days to years to track down based on the plane’s size, but the number of closed rifts as well.

  There wasn’t a single map in the entire planarverse he knew of that included that detail, which made him quite excited as he jotted the numbers and loose positions down when Taylor relayed them to him.

  The last thing he needed was to find a replacement for his Poisonous skill. While it was certainly nice knowing that anything that tried to eat him would quickly spit him back out, it was less nice knowing that they would probably just kill him in some other way instead.

  Luckily, this plane held one or two lower-Grade magical beasts that lived alongside the large snakes.

  Leo stumbled backward, lashing out left and right with his sword faster than any mere human could ever hope to match as he cut down magical beast after magical beast. With the help of Minor Tremorsense, he’d stumbled upon a colony of burrowing beasts that did not take kindly to him digging up the entrance to their home in an attempt to aggravate them.

  “This is sort of fun,” Taylor grinned, revealing monstrous fangs as she punted a rodent the size of a small dog away that had tried to gnaw through her ankle.

  “Glad you’re enjoying yourself,” Leo scoffed, continuing to move steadily backwards as he cut down rat after rat. He’d hoped a lone scout would come up to see what he was doing when he began digging, but it was just his luck that he'd aggravated the entire nest. There was no way these beasts were any higher than Grade 2 or 3, but that was exactly what he was looking for.

  Finally, after a solid thirty seconds of cutting through magical beasts, the remaining rats got the memo that these weren’t opponents they wanted to mess with. The final few dozen turned and fled right back down the hole Leo had disturbed, and Taylor let out an annoyed grunt at the cowardly display.

  “Still can’t believe some magical beasts run like that. No fun.”

  “We’re like ten times their size and just killed half their pack,” Leo pointed out, wiping the blood off his sword. “Honestly, I’d feel bad about aggravating and killing them at all, if it weren’t for that.”

  Leo nodded toward the skeletal remains of one of the wild cows, now lying on its side near the entrance to the burrow. Spotting that was what had led him to discover the horde of magical beasts in the first place. From the nearly eaten-through cow, it was obvious the rat beasts waited until animals got close before swarming out and tearing their prey apart one bite at a time.

  “Eh, I don’t feel bad about killing monsters,” Taylor shrugged, tossing him the body of one of the rats. “Is the gem really worth taking? Weak skill.”

  “We’ll find out in a second,” he said, fishing around for the gem before holding it against his chest and testing it. Sure enough, the gem was only Grade 2, which meant he actually wouldn’t even need to give up his Poisonous skill just yet.

  “Guard me?” he asked, making sure Taylor heard him before he sat down and got to work. At this point, pulling a Grade 2 gem into his soul was practically as easy as breathing, and he slotted the brand-new skill into his core in under a minute.

  Soul Rank: 11 (0 available)

  Physical Evolution (Dash): Increased speed and reflexes

  Beast Gem: Monstrous Centipede (6)

  Skill: Minor Tremorsense

  Beast Gem: Guck Toad (3)

  Skill: Poisonous

  Beast Gem: Tunnel Rat (2)

  Skill: Darkvision

  “Darkvision,” he said, nodding as he got to his feet. “It’s a pretty good low-Grade skill to have. Do you have room in your soul for it?”

  “I can already see in the dark,” Taylor said, tapping her temple. “Always could.”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “You and your stupid body,” Leo muttered, shaking his head. “Anyway, it’ll do for now. Ideally, I’d like to find an actual offensive skill. You’ve got physical brutality down, so if we could get our hands on anything ranged or more element-based, that would be fantastic. Though most element-based skills are always at least Grade 10 or higher, so I’d have to give up pretty much all my other skills.”

  The hardest thing about being a Cartographer, according to his parents at least, was always picking and choosing what skills to keep, and what skills to give up in any given situation. It was why gem boxes were such popular items. They were expensive beyond belief, but they really expanded the options gem holders had available to them. The fact that Leo had not only one, but two in his possession was wild. Even if he could only actually use one at the moment.

  The downside of discovering a new magical beast was that Leo was then forced to spend half an hour grilling up a portion of it for Taylor to try, but he was already getting used to his companion’s quirks. Once she’d confirmed that roasted tunnel rat tasted just as bad as he told her it would, they were free to finally put this plane behind them.

  But while they were standing around, discussing which plane would be good to check out next, Leo heard something that made him freeze.

  “Hey! You two!”

  Shoving his journal back into his pocket, Leo turned to find a lone man off in the distance, waving excitedly at them. As the man began to jog forward, Leo turned and gave Taylor a pointed look.

  “Remember what we talked about?”

  “Yeah yeah,” she said, not really listening to him as she tilted her head and stared at the approaching stranger. Leo supposed he couldn’t fault her curiosity. After himself, this was the first living human she’d seen since she was twelve.

  Stopping about ten feet away, the stranger smiled, revealing perfect teeth as he looked between the two of them. Based on the man’s heavy leather clothing that had clearly seen battle, the oiled spear secured on his back, and the metal helmet, Leo felt pretty confident they’d just stumbled upon a lone gem holder who made a living hunting magical beasts.

  The sled topped with empty crates he was dragging behind him was a pretty good hint as well.

  “Well now, it’s not often I come across gem holders in this plane I don’t recognize,” the stranger said. From the confidence in his voice and the way he held himself, Leo didn’t doubt the man was of a higher soul rank than they were. “I’m Charles. Magical Beast Hunter.”

  “Jim and Taylor,” Leo nodded, going with the fake name he’d decided on ahead of time. It might be unnecessary, seeing as he was supposedly dead, but he figured it couldn’t hurt. The Planar Lords’ description of him had also mentioned he was traveling alone, so simply having Taylor with him should also throw off any suspicions. “Cartographers.”

  “Cartographers?” Charles repeated, looking taken aback. Leo could practically see the man’s initial impression of them changing in real time, as the stranger's smile grew only wider and more genuine. Leo’s parents had told him that most gem holders believed running into a Cartographer out in the planes was regarded as a sign of good luck, but he hadn’t realized just how true that was. “It’s been ages since I last ran into a Cartographer! How goes the training? Nearly ready to head off into the great unknown?”

  “We’re getting there,” Leo said, offering his own smile. “Though my partner and I were actually planning on restocking before long. Is there any chance you know the route to the nearest town?”

  “Sure, there’s one only three planes away. It’s where I sell most of my hauls. They have a skilled leatherworker who pays good money for the magical beast snakeskin of this plane. If you don’t mind waiting a few hours, I’d be happy to bring you back with me.”

  “That would be fantastic, thank you for the help,” Leo said, subtly nudging Taylor.

  “Thank you,” she echoed, still having yet to take her eyes off the stranger.

  “There’s a rift about a quarter mile back that direction,” Charles said, pointing the way he’d come. “I’ll meet you there in a few hours!” With that, he jogged off, scanning the tall grasses for any signs of the large snakes. As soon as he was out of earshot, Leo turned and frowned at his companion.

  “Did you already forget what we talked about?”

  “What?! I didn’t say anything!” Taylor argued. “You told me to let you do the talking if we ran into anyone!”

  “I also told you not to look like you wanted to rip out their throats,” Leo sighed. “Not only were you staring daggers at him the whole time, I’m not sure if you even blinked once that entire conversation. I understand you just don’t know any better and that’s just who you are, but most people will take that as a sign of hostility.”

  “They’ll think I want to fight them just because I’m looking at them?” Taylor drawled.

  “Yes! And don’t give me that tone, you and I both know you do want to fight him!”

  “Yeah,” Taylor grinned, watching Charles as he grew smaller and smaller. “I bet he’d be fun to fight.”

  “Fighting gem holders isn’t like fighting magical beasts,” Leo tried to explain, starting to head toward the rift Charles told them about. “Few gem holders are crazy enough to pick a fight with one another besides raiders, and that’s just because raiders are crazy and don’t care if they live or die. There is no telling what skills a gem holder might have. With magical beasts, you can at least hazard a solid guess most of the time. With people, their skills could be anything.”

  “How do we know he’s not a raider?” Taylor asked, following along behind him. “Could he be lying?”

  “Well for starters, he’s not wearing the bones of his enemies, and he didn’t try to run us through with his spear the moment he saw us,” Leo drawled. “My parents said raiders are literally crazy, the lot of them. As Cartographers, part of their job is helping take down raiders whenever they encountered them, so they had plenty of stories. Most of which they wouldn’t even tell me about.”

  “You said we are also Cartographers,” Taylor pointed out. “Does that mean we get to fight raiders we come across?”

  “Technically, dealing with raiders is part of what the Planar Lords’ agents are supposed to deal with. But as much as I hate the Planar Lords… Yes, if we come across any raiders, we should deal with them. Assuming we have the power to,” Leo clarified. “Raiders are the scum of the planarverse. They slip into weaker planes and slaughter their way through non-gem holders who are pretty much helpless. I’m not going to let innocent people die just because I don’t want to do something that will also benefit the Planar Lords.”

  “I’ll help,” Taylor said, grinning as she stepped up to walk beside him. “I’ll kill the killers!”

  “You know, I sort of figured you’d say that,” Leo said, rolling his eyes.

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