While Karkinos and sister Alexandria went off about a tangent and Panda kept screeching and complaining, Richard talked some more with Krackle about this earth manipulation, and found out that Krackle now had some level of earth manipulation, with it even being labeled in their skills.
After that, Richard had to wonder if he was a poor master, considering he hadn't even noticed that, but also remembered that until recently that Krackle had been spending most of their time in the lake, so there wasn't much time to take notice of what Krackle was doing.
That's what Richard told himself at least.
Anyway, the way Krackle had been using earth manipulation had been to use it to create earthen shells for themselves, and at the same time, to mimic the form of a crab.
Apparently Karkinos had been teaching Krackle some form of 8 legged martial arts (skyborn strikes, blades of heaven?), but it required a crab like form, so apparently Karkinos had been teaching Krackle his way of manipulating the Earth, using this so called qi energy.
Richard had no experience in it, but what he did notice was that Krackle didn't have to rely on their mana to create earthen shells, so it was a perfectly good win.
Richard found a benefit in this too, as it meant when working together, Krackle could create temporary rock attachments for battle which Richard could use and discard without problem.
Krackle had even taken the ability and used it to generate a crystal ball that when residing in it, could amplify their own light and shock attacks, which Richard filed away for use when they eventually went to the human world.
They could probably use this to hide Krackle, who would be an undoubtedly valuable and high attention familiar.
But that was mostly just a possibility, to file away for later use.
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It was eventually decided they would in fact be moving elsewhere, since most of the past residents of their old home had likely fled and were unlikely to return for the next few years.
Sure, some monsters would spawn due to the density of mana, but the location would not return to it's same density of creatures, thus dropping the number of targets and food.
It was just a better idea to move.
So they moved to another part of the mountain, closer to its base.
This didn't mean it was safer of course, the monsters were around the same level of strength, and maybe a little stronger.
And Karkinos was going to come with them.
This obviously worried him, but Richard decided not to voice this concern, since there's no way Karkinos would do so without the ability to not hamper his student's efforts.
That's what Richard believed, even if the concern hadn't subsided.
Panda on the other hand, was much more expressive.
"AAND WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING!? HUH!?"
"Karkinos will follow you of course."
"AW HELL NO! MY FATHER IN HIS GODDAMN TREE NO! YOU JUST UPLIFTED A WHOLE ECOSYSTEM! WHAT, NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU!? BY THE GODS, IF THERE WERE HUMANS ANYWHERE NEARBY THEY'D BE FLEEING IN TERROR! HOW ARE WE GOING TO HIDE YOU!"
The giant crab simply popped out of existence, replaced by a much smaller crab. Richard hadn't actually seen this crab before, and apparently it was a spider king crab, according to sister Alexandria. How fascinating.
With no excuse for not taking him, they went off in search of a new area to reside in.
So it was solved a lot easier than he had expected.
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Karkinos watched the weird hatchling from on top of his student.
The young wyrm had assured him that the gods in question were ones who had interacted with his familiars.
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The wyrm is young. Inexperienced, with only a mere few thousand years behind their experience.
Karkinos has met many gods over the millennium it has existed.
Karkinos knows the presence of Atlas.
Karkinos has seen the old talker Ratatoskr.
Those presences...
They were unknown to Karkinos.
One is close to the hatchling, even attached still, and has a faint connection to his own student and the rat as well as the grub.
Karkinos had not noticed it until Karkinos sensed its presence on the hatchling.
The other presence was a strong presence, perhaps stronger than any other Karkinos has ever faced.
Likely stronger than Karkinos' own master, yet it is faint.
Karkinos follows because Karkinos is curious.
Suspicious.
Worried for Karkinos' own student.
Master always said that Karkinos had good instincts.
And Karkinos thinks something is at large here.
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They ended up traveling down the mountain, Richard could ascertain this much by the fact they moved away from the tip of the mountain range.
The mountains were huge, easily rising into the sky, so the visual of moving away from it was obvious enough.
Frankly, the area wasn't much different from the initial area.
The trees weren't much different, and the monsters were already pretty varied.
Turns out that in areas with higher densities of mana, monsters are more inclined to vary heavily from their natural evolutionary lines, to evolve into variants or rarer monsters, so Richard was getting good variety in his fights.
Like right now, he was fighting a giant flaming bear.
It's strength was on par with Richard's, with the two of them brawling it out in a purely physical fight.
Sadly, Richard was lacking his berserk rage, since he no longer had Atlas on him, but there were still other ways of fighting.
In their hand on hand combat, he could feel the flames licking his scales, burning him throughout the fight. His lightning, while strong, was having a hard time breaking through that tough pelt, so Richard, decided to bludgeon the beast.
Ordering Krackle to generate earth around his fists, Richard used these rock conglomerates to bludgeon the beast over the head.
Bam!
If his lightning wasn't getting though, than hopefully a few bashes over the head can take the beast out.
Bam!
And it did hurt the beast, as it faltered, the attacks clearly getting to its brain.
Bam!
Bam!
Bam!
Richard rained blow after blow to the skull, despite the bears best attempts to dodge or fight back, with Richard having no need to worry since Krackle was pulling on this mysterious qi to generate these rock fists repeatedly, since the rock kept wearing down on the bear's skull.
It was a very tough skull.
Suddenly, the beast lunged forward, aiming for Richard's neck, as he was caught by surprise as its jaws latched around his neck, clearly trying for a desperate last gamble.
The strangulation around his neck freaked Richard out for a second before thought about it, even as the teach scraped and cut into his scales.
The pain scared him, yet clarity won out.
Fry him.
Using his storm cloud manipulation, the clouds sneaked into the beasts open mouth, filled to the brim with lightning.
As long as the beast went for his neck, Richard could go for his insides.
BzzzzzzzzzZZAM!
The lightning roared to life as it shot trough the bears brain, as the monsters mouth stiffened before stopping, tightening, and then going limp, as its brain got blitzed by the lightning.
[Congratulations! You have slain blaze brown bear! Points and exp have been awarded appropriately]
Now the only thing to deal with was the beartrap still wrapped around his neck.
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Richard encountered a rather interesting structure in the middle of the new territory.
It wasn't a rare structure generally, but the fact that it was out here was what made it weird.
What was... a road doing running through here?
Sister Alexandria seemed to have known about it though already. "Don't worry about it." she assured him. "It hasn't been used in ages. The monsters around here are too dangerous and the road not beneficial enough for people to go along this route for people to come by. I haven't seen a person pass this way in two centuries. "
Panda nodded as he cleaned out his ear. "Yeah, scaredy-brat. Nothing to worry about. Even I can tell this road hasn't been used in ages."
He wasn't wrong, the road was broken up and worn away, with much of the road having tracks and the markings of monsters scratched all over it, with not even a single trace of human activity in ages, with the most recent thing being a fragment of a vase, having been worn away and slowly being consumed by the flora.
He wasn't scared, just worried a little.
But, he was sure that people were unlikely to come through. They would have to be stupid or really desperate.
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"Faster!" Shouted one adventurer as she shot at one of the pursuing bandits, even managing to land one on one of the bandits.
The driver shouted, clearly stressed. "With all due respect, this is a very dangerous path! It hasn't been used in ages because of the monsters that swarm that area!"
A priest chanted as a flame appeared above her, healing the injured guards, as well as helping vitalize the adventurers, yet it was evident she was tiring.
"We don't have a choice! We can take our chances with the monsters, or try to stop and fight them off!"
The driver grimaced, yet he knew as well as the adventurers that he was right. There were a good 2-3 dozen bandits, and only 10 adventurers.
But still.
"What do you think sir!" he shouted behind him, asking the merchant before they went on the path of no return.
For a moment no answer came, before the final response came.
"Go." A simple answer, and yet the voice was decisive.
Hearing that, the driver speeds forward, praying to the god of save travels.
In the back of the carriage as the carriage lurches forward a spherical rock shakes, glimmering for a second before returning to its dull tone.