"Hello Kaspian," I greeted the guild leader.

Mr. Bladeheart turned his gaze to me, his face slightly pale from recognizing me.

"Oh, Raptor, I'm so sorry for acting surprised. I just received news that someone I'm close to is in grave danger," he said, shaking my hand.

"It's fine. You said you needed our help with Gore Field?"

He nodded, then looked at the Twin Horns.

He addressed them all and began to speak with Helen. While I waited for them to come to an agreement, I decided to have some fun.

"Hey, Adam," I said, using sound magic to hide my voice to all but him, "how 'bout we prank Durden?"

He looked at me, looked to the others, and nodded.

Once I was done tri- I mean, discussing with the redhead, I turned him towards the large man, who wasn't paying us any attention.

Before Adam could cast Super Soaker, a water spell made specifically for pranks, a large stone pillar slammed into his knob.

I was careful to heavily reinforce my own as I started to crack down laughing, unable to stop as another pillar attempted to break my cock.

I activated my time stop ability, talking to myself saying, "Who wins? The Beast Glades Pillar or the Nards of Steel," like a wrestling announcer.

I deactivated the spell and began to crack up even more as the pillar broke against my balls of steel.

Everyone was looking between my hysterical laughing and Adam's crying. Finally, Jasmine decided it was a good idea to pull on my ear.

"Sidebar!" She shouted, taking me out of the room.

"Hey- ow, haha, Jazzy, haha, stop!" I attempted to stop, but I knew that I wouldn't just be able to cut my ear off like when I used to. I missed Hua Tuo.

Outside the room, she stomped her foot, filled her flushed cheeks, crossed her arms, and gave me a death glare.

"What?"

Her mouth gaped open as she looked at me. "This is a serious meeting," she hissed, "and you just went and did that!"

I shrugged. "It's not like Kaspian minds."

"We do! You're so immature!" She shouted.

I sighed. "Yeah, you're right. Guess I am a bit immature."

Jasmine scoffed. We stood there in silence before she said, "Well, It's a rescue mission. They found some new beast signatures and the mana signatures of someone we may know."

"Any clue who?"

Jasmine looked me right in the eyes, relief in them for the second time this week. "Hua Tuo and Khione."

My eyes widened. "No way…"

She nodded slowly. "And it's rather scary, saying whatever was there left a much stronger impression on the mana than they did."

I froze. "Are they-"

"No confirmation, although we do have reason to suspect they're alive."

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I tightly embraced my childhood best friend, surprising her as I buried my face in her neck. She softly began to pet me as if I were a mana beast, although I didn't truly care.

"They're not dead," I said to no one in particular, my voice drowned out by her pale skin. "They're not dead!"

"Don’t get your hopes up," Jasmine said simply, softly bringing both of us down to our knees. "But we will find them. Don't worry."

I nodded, burying my face into her, tears streaming freely from my eyes.

After a few minutes she backed up, now sitting. I was still on my knees, wondering what she was doing.

She simply pointed behind me, her face red. I followed her finger to see Adam giving me a knowing grin.

"Keep quiet if you like your kneecaps," I told him.

He chuckled. "Really? All right then, but everyone else saw it."

I looked to see Helen, Durden, Angela, and Kaspian behind the redhead.

"Well fuck."

***

Jasmine was stalking in front of anyone, using air as a way to sense anything nearby. It wasn't nearly as good as Alea's, but it was enough to detect anything dangerous.

She paused and her fist shot to her side, telling us we needed to stop.

I created a sound barrier around us.

"What is it?" I asked warily.

"A nest of a mana beast I can't identify," she responded.

I thought about it before moving to her side. "Describe it, I may know what it is."

"Large, long eggs," she said, "in a circular nest covered in… oh gods, dead beasts, and a person as well."

I nodded. "Unhinged fragilis. We are rather close to the Elshire Forest. Can you sense the mother?"

She shook her head. I pondered my decision before deciding.

"Jasmine, Angela, Durden, Helen, how do you four feel about receiving S class bonds?"

Adam's jaw dropped. "What about me?"

I shrugged. "The species wouldn't fit you, it's a wind and earth elemental."

Durden was the first to respond. "I don't think I need one yet. I wouldn't like to risk the wrath of its mother."

Angela responded after him. "Yes, It's rather risky."

Helen shrugged. "All right then, a bond wouldn't hurt."

Jasmine nodded. "I like the idea."

I began to sneak forward, using sound magic to hide my presence as well as I could.

I got on one knee, moving a small mana beast's corpse before extending my hand towards the eggs. I planned to take more than needed due to how much they were worth, especially in the elven kingdom.

As I got the fifth egg in my bag, a reptilian bark made me drop the sixth, its shell cracking loudly on the ground.

I dropped my sound spell, grabbing another egg and putting it in my bag.

"Why are you here?" I asked the familiar beast.

A click and a hiss told me. This nest was its prey.

"Find another nest, this one’s mine," I told the scaled sparrowhawk.

It barked again. Three more scaled sparrowhawks appeared, and I could sense five more surrounding the Twin Horns.

"Twin Horns on me," I said. "They have us surrounded."

The adventuring party came near me as I began to mentally speak with the pack leader.

'Breakneck, these are my friends. Leave us be,' I told him, taking my sword from my dimension ring.

He hissed. 'You have the same target as us. Leave, before we make you.'

I nodded. 'That's acceptable. We already have what we need.'

"Come on," I told the others, and they followed warily. We went in between Breakneck, the scaled sparrowhawk I was bonded to, and his mate, Ikyr.

As soon as we were out of the way, the mana beasts began to dig into the nest.

"Damn illusion beasts," Jasmine whispered.

We were silent the rest of the way to the dungeon, and soon enough we were at the entrance.

"Okay, who knows anything about Gore Field?" I asked.

The Twin Horns were silent.

I sighed, realizing just how unprepared they were.

I sat down and prepared to explain the dungeon.

"Gore Field is an A class dungeon on the direct border of the Elshire forest," I said, pointing at the ominous entrance. "The mana beasts are rather diverse in terms of elements, and the boss usually changes depending on what apex predator is in the area. Right now the boss doesn't fit the rating of the dungeon, one of the reasons it's cut off from other adventurers. Any questions so far?"

"Yeah," Adam said. "We're all B class!"

I shrugged. "I understand. Usually the boss room is home to a pack of true sparrowhawks, which look similar to the ones that attacked us earlier, only feathered. In a group they're AA class, but recently a wyvern moved in. That's an SS class beast."

They all had wide eyes.

I put up my hand to stop any protest. "Don’t worry, we're going on a breakoff route far away from the boss room." I then pointed my thumb towards the entrance. "The worst we'll encounter are a few demogorgons. We're trying to find my siblings, and if we don't then we'll report back and the royal families will deal with the wyvern."

The inside of the damp cave put all my hairs on edge, making me draw my sword prematurely.

We encountered nothing, which worried me. The wyvern may have taken residence outside the boss room.

"If we encounter the bitch," I hissed to the Twin Horns, "you all run. I might be able to hold you back."

After traversing through several man made rooms, we came upon a large cave.

The black rocks of the cave were long and pointy, stalactites and stalagmites littering the ground and ceiling at random while pillars of black metal held the roof up.

Spears of the same metal littered the ground, and the rotting corpse of a human was visible to our left. Blood covered the walls, but it couldn't have been that singular victim.

I activated Realmheart, glaring at each mana signature. Something was off.

"Why the hell is there black mana?"

Helen's gaze shot towards me, but otherwise she kept quiet as I used the ambient fire mana to agitate the unfamiliar particles.

A dark black flame appeared and clashed with the blue one I had conjured. Soon, it was all black. I removed the air from the area, but it burnt on for a bit before it finally died.

"Durden, try conjuring a stone spike exactly where that black flame reappears," I told the giant.

He did as asked, and instead of a regular stone spike, a metal spear similar to the ones littering the room shot up.

"Angela, gust."

Her spell started out normal, but once it came in contact with the black mana, it became a thick smokescreen in the middle of the room.

"Well well well, I wasn't expecting visitors!" An entitled, nobleman like voice rang out.

We all turned towards the sound, a full one eighty from the room.

At the entrance to the cave stood what looked like a redhead version of this rather annoying young adventurer… I didn't bother remembering the name. The mask was the only similarity though.

To his sides stood two robed men, which looked rather like cultists.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked, getting in front of the Twin Horns.

"Well I should be asking the same question, dragon," he hissed, the cultists preparing sickles.

I shrugged. "Listen, man, dragons are extinct. A grandparent of mine might have shagged one, but that's the closest possibility. I'm a half elf."

The masked man chuckled. "A draconic lessuran? Why don't we get a good look of you outside of that form, so that-"

I cut him off. "Listen, fuck off. We're following a lead and you're interrupting us. Don't make us get violent."

"I can't sense his core," Helen hissed.

"Mid silver," I told the Twin Horns. "He seems to have a single specialization in fire."

"Well, it seems we need to get violent," the man snapped. He then snapped his fingers.

The ambient fire mana coalesced around Jasmine. 'He's trying to set her on fire!'

I interrupted the mana before the spell could fully form, taking out my other single edged shortsword, the enchanted one, "Indominus" as it was called. It seemed dual wielding was in my best interest.