If I was a richer player, I would purchase some info about the dryad forest or issue a quest. Instead, I have to go about this all by myself and some info from free forums. There is a lot of paid info floating around on the internet but I don't know if it's useful or not.

I circle out in a clockwise rotation from my initial position. I do stumble across something on hour 4. It's the dryad region. The eerie silence and the giant towering trees piercing the sky are the indications I'm in the right place.

I see a white flash and a giant white tiger rises up out of the ground. It must be a dryad pet. Dryads don't allow ninety percent of creatures to wander around in their territory. More often than not, they cultivate a pet or guardian that'll do their bidding and scare off the smaller creatures.

I activate [Combat Mode] and that beautiful sleek streamlined golden armor covers my body from head to toe. I can feel the speed and stamina, provided by the armor.

The tiger growls but I don't move any further to antagonize it. I just back away and circle around the dryad region.

I don't understand why every single tree or coniferous region in-game isn't under the territory of dryad's. There should be a reason. Some piece of lore I'm missing.

I circle around that region and find nothing. I decide to look for goblin footprints. They were here earlier, that should lead me to something.

I find a series of tiny footprints in the ground. I'm lucky that it didn't rain. They cluster around a tiny cave. I move into it and something blasts me in the arm. I'm launched backward but I re-orient myself and get back up.

I stare into the cave and activate my skill [Sense Shockwave]. I use a pick-ax to strike the ground and feel the vibrations.

There are three bodies in there. This won't be easy, I could go in for a head-to-head confrontation. Then I check my balance. Buying a sedative is out of the question even with the quest money.

That white tiger is still behind me, I haven't forgotten him. He seems content to see me fighting.

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I make another go of the cave, then another and another. The amount of mana here is just insane with how much they're blasting but it has no effect on my armor. At some point, I just started chucking in random things and that made for such a startled response that even those were blasted.

Thing is, I can just wait this out. Those pesky little goblins did and I'll be able to do it as well. The blasts start dying down and I'm able to walk into the cave. There's three frightened little dryad's. They've been ripped apart from their trees and I don't know what kind of effect it'll have on them. It can't be good.

Two of them look female and one of them looks male. I didn't know gender was a thing in plants. The male's appearance is quite androgynous. He doesn't have the long hair shared by the females.

I only have the taming slot for one of them, not all 3. Should I just abandon the other two? I don't have the money to level them up as well.

I sit down on my knees and they cower away into a corner. I shouldn't stay in this cave for too long. It's a dead-end and if the tiger decides to walk in here, he'll have a golden meal.

The fact of the matter is, I just can't die. Every time you die, you drop items. I'm not sure if Permenance Series items like this armor will drop, but I can't be too careful.

I decide to just take all three of them. I'll figure this out as I go along. I feel like a hypocrite for doing this. If I can cultivate not one but three dryads my in-game advantage is going to be huge. These might be weakened as hell but they're high-level monsters. It's quid pro quo I guess, if they stay back there, they're going to die anyway.

The tiger eyes me and growls but he doesn't leave the range and antagonize me. One of the dryads slips out of my hands and the other one too. They rush back into the cave. The one I was carrying under my elbow starts struggling too.

What the hell is this!? I go back into the cave and I'm blasted in the face first thing. Vines start crawling out of the cave floor and binding me. I use a short sword to cut the vines and get back up.

I knock them out again with a few strikes in the back of their head with the pommel. I couldn't figure out how to do it with one strike.

I take out one of the sacks we used for carrying ores and pile them in. I carry them on my back and continue on my merry way.

Except, I can't take these guys to the city. The guards are going to be all over me, these are high-level monsters after all. Where else can I keep them?

I don't have a giant guild base to go back to or anything. I need to create a base of operations anyways. Might as well be in this forest.

I wander around and find an appropriate mountain. The one thing I'm good at is digging into mountains. I chose a croppy hillside. Set aside the bundle of dryad's and get down to it.

It takes me a couple of hours to create a cave with 3 separate entrances leading to a lobby that goes straight into a cave. I added a few dead-ends along with them.

My new base of ops is done.