It took us quite a bit of effort to find a suitable location to make a camp for the night. There was simply too much chaos, too many creatures changed by the incredibly volatile Life-aspected Astral Power we had unleashed and infused with the rampaging energy of the Sun, the fusion of those two powers driving them beyond the limits of sanity.

It was as if they had decided that survival of the fittest meant they would survive if everything else died off. And so, they rampaged or fled the rampage of others to rampage elsewhere.

It was a mess.

Without a whole of Darkness- and Nature-aspected concealment, laid down in concert by Adra, Rai and myself, we’d have been swarmed by dozens, if not hundreds of monsters, all of them equipped with nearly inexhaustible vitality and burning, often literally, with power.

In some ways, it was an unlimited banquet of EXP, just there for the taking but infuriatingly, if we did more than nibble, we always risked getting mobbed by dozens, if not hundreds, of monsters, all far too happy to but their individual differences aside to burn the interlopers, those not infused with their radiance, to cinders.

We risked a few nibbles whenever possible, nabbing us enough EXP to gain a level, bringing me to 120, a big one. My class gave me three Intelligence, two Intuition and two free points, bringing me to seventy-three Intelligence and fifty-four Intuition before distributing the two open points. They could round out my Courage, currently sitting at a lowly twenty-nine, only there thanks to the points gained by crossing the Divides, push my Intuition to fifty-five in the hopes to gain something, or do the same with Intelligence, though that would come automatically once I reached hundred-twenty-five. It would take a while unless we managed to stumble across a dungeon suitable to grind, something incredibly rare, so it might not happen before the beta ended.

Looking at things, I made a snap decision and put both points into Intelligence, planning to push it all the way to eighty, if I managed to get to the next attribute points. That might give something special, as I had some hopes that the smartest person at the end of the Beta might gain some nifty titles for the official version, maybe even something that gave them a tangible benefit in the life-version.

The fighting with them gave me another benefit, far beyond, or apart from EXP and levels. It finally allowed me to gain some additional understanding of the working of magical resistance and affinity.

The creatures we were now fighting were clearly attuned to the Sun and throwing around Fire like nobody's business, their fire strong enough to burn away a casual Ice attack before it could ever do damage. Similarly, I could easily neutralise their flames if I applied a surplus of Ice, especially in the form of freezing mist, simply smothering their flames.

That realisation and practical use of that discovery allowed me to pierce what I had considered a resistance by simply focusing my power down in scale, creating a more concentrated attack. Where an Icicle made from simple Ice was burned away, an Icicle of Hard Ice managed to go through their defence and once it hit? Well, the reaction was akin to my own reaction when getting struck by a fire-aligned attack, causing massive damage.

In comparison, when shooting an Ice-aligned monster with an Icicle, the attack would easily go through, the elements not even clashing but without a clash, the impact was moderately unspectacular, the elemental power largely getting absorbed. An Icicle could still pierce, but it would be minor in comparison.

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Sadly, as almost always when realising some new truth about magic, I noticed exceptions and areas where it didn’t quite apply. In this case, Life and Death seemed to be exceptions, or maybe they worked under some other paradigm. Where Ice tried to overwhelm Fire, and Darkness tried to smother the Light Life seemed to almost invite Death in, the opposing energies mingling and neutralising each other without much fuss. Sure, Death magic would kill a creature infused with Life-energy, just like it would kill everything else, but it wasn’t particularly suitable to do so. Ice, for example, had a much easier job, purely from an elemental aspect.

Discussing our new gains in magical understanding with Lenore was a little bit of an annoyance. Our recent use of the Avatar-state had left our mental connection raw and, for lack of better words, sore. making it ache whenever used. Speaking was so incredibly limited when it came to advanced concepts that we gave up quickly and focused on the simpler things, like the concealment formations we had to put up around our camp.

It was only after we were reasonably confident that our camp was secure, that things became routine. If not for the slightly weird aspect of the game Adra and Rai had caught, it could have been an utterly normal animal and some Magic-devouring Darkness allowed me to cleanse away most of that taint, rendering it harmless and, more importantly, tasty to me. I didn’t even want to think about trying to eat meat that carried Sun-aspected Astral Power, not with my magical senses tied to my taste and smell and my inherent bias against all things fire and light.

Cuddled up to Sigmir, I fell into a deep slumber, my body and mind still exhausted from the exertions of the previous day.

Hours later, I woke back up, my whole body covered in a cold sweat, my mind filled with weird, vague memories, images of giant, crimson eyes, slit like those of a snake had been staring at me and I was quite confident that there had been words, but none I remembered. Only the sibilant hissing, rumbling with power, deep enough to shake my very bones were left in my mind. Just thinking of the eyes, I was reminded of the dreams that had haunted me after the visit to the Dorrian Mountains and the bound titan, only back then, there had been an air of intimidation. Here, there had been interest and curiosity, at least as far as I could feel it. Not that the interest of such a being wasn’t intimidating all of its own, the feeling of power had been palpable, strong enough to make me wonder if it could snuff me out instantly.

Knowing that we had just ticked off some major power, for I was quite certain that was what had set up the Ancient Sapling, it made me wonder why the being in my dreams was interested and not hostile. Maybe a competitor of that great power? It certainly didn’t feel like they were haunting my dreams to punish, threaten or attack me, just…

That they were interested. Curious.

“I’m fine,” I finally managed to assure Sigmir, who had noticed my condition but had been hesitant to wake me, especially as she could feel my mind and likely felt no true distress there. Looking around, I focused on the formations still surrounding our camp and found, to my mild amazement, that they hadn’t been broken at all, there was no sign of intrusion or disruption on them. Making my dream either a simple, regular dream or created by a being capable enough to reach me past our wards without triggering them.

Unable to do anything, I assured Sigmir some more, before logging out for the night, intent on getting my maintenance outside of Mundus done quickly before returning. Just in case things went sideways.

Outside, as I was quickly eating some food I noticed a thread on the forum and, for once, was incredibly happy about my rather easily recognisable magic and style. There was almost no way that anyone who didn’t already know the circumstances would guess that I was, at least partially, responsible for the massive wave of monsters terrorising the eastern parts of the Human Empire. If it were Ice- or Darkness-Monsters, sure, some might have guessed it, but when the monsters were largely aspected towards Fire and equipped with tremendous, unnatural resilience? It was just too far off-brand to be associated with me.

Time would show if Leonard or any of the other Travellers undoubtedly working with the rebels would give out the information that I had been travelling through the Forlorn Forest if they even heard about it. Either way, for now, there was a huge mess, spilling all across the eastern part of the Empire and people would be running from it. Why not use the chaos to our advantage? There had to be a lot of people trying to get away and if there were a few more, though, with higher levels than most, it shouldn’t warrant too much additional attention.