Chapter 64: Shadows Among the Trees

  Two days later, Emilia made arrangements with Boss Titus, and they met early in the morning near the dark forest. He briefly introduced her to the rest of the group, and after discussing their combat formation and a few tactics, they entered the forest and began searching for traces of weaker magical monsters. Fortunately, it didn't take them long—about three hours—to find the first mutated animal. It was a massive wild cat, weighing several hundred kilograms and over a meter tall.

  The group immediately took up a battle formation. Garrick attacked first. Burly and muscular, he wielded a curved saber and a large shield. His job was to always stand in front of the monsters and absorb their blows with his enormous shield. His saber was quite heavy and capable of delivering powerful slashing attacks.

  Close to him was Lora—Titus's wife—who was armed with a shield and a long spear, and also carried a reserve sword. She assisted Garrick by trying to attack the monster's head with her long spear, preventing it from attacking the others. Her goal was to distract it and give the rest time to surround it.

  Next was Han, or as everyone called him, Big Han. He was two meters tall, with huge muscles and an even bigger halberd. Despite his massive size, he was quite fast and usually aimed to wait for the others to engage in battle, then attack the monsters from their blind spots, delivering a series of powerful blows with his heavy weapon.

  Boss Titus and Zevan aimed to attack the monster on the flanks, one from the left, the other from the right. Boss Titus carried a huge, heavy sword reinforced with a magical formation embedded in its base, allowing him to use his mana for more powerful strikes. Zevan relied on a large curved saber which he held with both hands. On his back, he carried a shield and a three-piece collapsible spear.

  Finally, there was Petra. She often climbed nearby trees and rained accurate arrows down on the monsters. She either aimed for the monster's weak spots or for already open wounds. She also had super-expensive magical arrows, but they were reserved only for emergencies. Besides this, she had other important skills. For instance, she was the best at reading tracks, could find water, and had a very high-level Herbalism skill, making her responsible for collecting valuable herbs growing deep inside the forest.

  The others also had various skills. Lora was good at healing wounds with various ointments and powders. Zevan was a specialist in processing monster carcasses, Big Han was capable of skinning monsters and locating weak spots in their bones. And Boss Titus had unlocked mana and Mana Sense.

  And so, Garrick attracted the monster's attention and blocked its initial attacks. The others immediately took up positions and began striking the monster, wounding it in several places right away. However, it quickly began to retreat and attack in one direction or another, preventing Titus and Zevan from surrounding it.

  This made Lora bolder, and she frequently attacked it with her spear from a distance, while Petra, who had climbed a tree, periodically shot well-aimed arrows.

  Emilia watched all this, frozen behind a rock. She nervously clutched her talismans and periodically looked around for other dangers. The battle had started well, but the monster soon began to enhance its attacks with magic, often forcing the others to retreat. It suffered heavy wounds a few times, but instead of slowing down, the mana in its body swirled, and it suddenly became even stronger and faster.

  “It must be burning its primordial blood to temporarily boost its strength. This is extremely dangerous and can't last long. The monster must be quite desperate,” she thought.

  Meanwhile, the experienced hunters began to be much more cautious. The real battle was just beginning.

  ...

  The fight was long, perhaps about half an hour. The monster was capable of ignoring its wounds and using its mana to redirect its vital forces. Towards the end, a Curse of Gaia in its blood was even activated—something almost all mutated monsters possessed. The experienced hunters, protected by their armor, fared quite well in battles against weaker monsters.

  Despite everything, Emilia learned a tremendous amount about the hunters' work and their combat formations. She didn't stop marveling at their synchronization and how they continuously managed to help one another. Especially Lora and Garrick, who were always ready to rush to someone's aid if they were pressed.

  Interestingly, the monster was capable of firing balls of dark magical energy, which burned deep holes into the surrounding trees or rocks. It sensed and even attacked Petra, hidden in the branches of the trees. On three occasions, its magic struck the hunters, inflicting deep wounds.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  After the battle, Lora set about treating the wounded with her ointments, and Petra began scouting the area for any further dangers.

  Garrick, Big Han, and Zevan started processing the beast's carcass, and Emilia approached, her heart still pounding from the adrenaline of the fight.

  "Boss Titus, that was a pretty fierce battle."

  "Ha, nothing special. That was a relatively weak monster. Let's hope we don't run into stronger ones while you're with us."

  Emilia quickly moved closer to the monster and began collecting blood from its heart. She used a small obsidian knife with a streak of silver. With a few deft movements, she made a small incision in the monster's heart and began tuning her mana to its aura. When she achieved good synchronization with the residual mana there, she slowly began to guide it and extract the hidden Blood Essence.

  Drop by drop, Emilia filled a small vial, sweat trickling down her forehead from the concentration. The monster had a fairly strong aura, and the mana within it was not homogenous enough. In Gaia's private space, mana was heavily influenced by the earth element and was quite uniform, which made working with it much easier.

  "Can't we sell this blood?" Zevan asked, watching the gradually filling vial.

  "Perhaps. Such blood is used for talisman ink. I will also use it for talismans and simple formations. But it needs to be used almost immediately. Also, it requires much more blood than using ink, which further complicates the process. This is not something most apprentices would attempt. In general, working with this blood significantly lowers the success rate of talismans and formations, but I'm just looking for a cheap way to practice my skills."

  While Emilia drained the blood, the others processed the animal. They divided the meat into large chunks, collected its organs into various jars, stripped its hide, and even gathered different parts—such as its teeth, paws, and some of its bones.

  The mana-rich meat would be sold to butchers, the organs to alchemists, and the hide, paws, teeth, and bones would be used for armor and weapons.

  “I'm telling you, it's not worth wasting another half hour extracting bone marrow. Esrik is a huge miser—last time he only paid two silver coins and was still unhappy”, Garrick and Zevan were arguing heatedly, and Emilia asked Lora, who was nearby.

  "What is bone marrow used for?"

  "I'm not sure. It contains a significant amount of mana, and sometimes there are orders for it. But this is quite rare, and the prices are low. Maybe you should ask an alchemist."

  After processing the monster's body, the group continued hunting. Along the way, Emilia noticed that Petra was missing quite a few herbs with high mana content. She asked Boss Titus, who also had unlocked mana and should be able to perceive the mana in them.

  "We've tried selling them. But almost no one buys them. Apparently, their properties aren't suitable for medical purposes, and they also have too many impurities. That's why they are avoided in alchemy. If you need them, you can pick them freely. The other hunters don't use them either."

  Emilia gathered a good number of plants and examined them with her mana as the group walked through the forest.

  Along the way, they were attacked by various wild animals, wolves, a massive bear, and one more magical monster, which unfortunately managed to escape after the first few strikes. In the evening, Emilia experimented with different techniques for writing directly with the blood. The results were quite inconsistent. She tried drawing on talisman paper, on bark from a magical tree, or even directly onto the large leaves of herbs. Unfortunately, things didn't go as smoothly as they did in Gaia's private space, which was rich in earth mana.

  Emilia sighed once more. I had clearly underestimated the difficulties I faced.

  The place where they stopped to spend the night was a rather large cave hall, big enough to accommodate at least three groups like theirs. There was a carved hole that led to a stream flowing into an underground river, and the entrance was barricaded with huge stones and trees. The hunters often stopped to camp here and had taken care of their safety.

  A huge fireplace was carved into one of the walls, and a tall chimney led the smoke out of the cave hall.

  Titus's group roasted the best parts of the monsters, and Petra generously seasoned it with powdered herbs and various rare spices. Some brought wine, others preferred tea, and Emilia brought milk.

  While the others joked after the hearty dinner, Emilia continued with her experiments. Faced with the multitude of difficulties, she had the opportunity to quickly develop her skills, and her experience with tuning auras gradually improved.

  When the fire began to burn low, Emilia selected the herbs that had the fewest impurities and began grinding them into a paste in different ratios in several spots in front of her.

  The remaining herbs she carefully burned, making sure their smoke went toward the chimney and did not spread freely in the hall. Finally, she collected their ash and mixed it with the plant paste, again in various proportions.

  To this mixture, she added the monster blood, carefully recording the different quantities and magical coefficients.

  Master Fjorn made it look so easy... but he had years of experience guiding the mana of the mixtures he used. I have so much to learn.

  Afterward, Emilia tried to construct the simplest formation—just three glyphs that needed to concentrate their mana and emit a faint light. She used different mixtures, and some of them even managed to fuel the simple formation.

  In this way, she could examine the movement of mana through the energy lines, seeing where there were different obstacles or where things flowed smoothly.

  She had strictly embarked on the path of a magical researcher who wanted to solve the complex problems of the magical arts herself, rather than what most did—using ready-made knowledge without fully understanding the principles that defined it.

  This would not only give her invaluable knowledge but was also one of the surest ways to level up her skills. The knowledge acquired through such experiments also provided intuitive understanding, thus laying an excellent foundation for her future.

  Time passed, and gradually everyone fell asleep. Only Lora remained awake; she would take the first shift tonight, followed by Big Han, and finally, Garrick would stand guard last.

  Emilia was still young and inexperienced and would not participate in the watch. Instead, her task would be to prepare bark talismans for use in future battles.