Chapter 92: Opening The Door

“According to the map, it should be right here…Ah yes, I’ve found it, sunvein.”

The veins on the sunvein glowed like liquid sun coursed through them. One of the gatherers they were guarding, a caramel haired celestine named Essa, gently scooped the herb from the moist soil. The herb floated in the air, and a soap bubble capsule surrounded the herb, suspending it in gravity so that no part of the herb touched the transparent shell. The bubble shrunk to the size of a gumball, and Essa plucked it out the air and deposited it in a dimension satchel.

This process repeated: a variety of natural materials were plucked from their resting space and encapsulated with an orb. The other teams were nearby, guarding their own respective gathering specialist.

The teams worked from the camp outwards. The newly re-opened astral space was teeming with monsters, and the teams gradually cleared them out. Starting at the edge of the astral space towards the mountains would be too exhausting.

Malik (the youngest son of the Fenhu) had been a force to be reckoned with. He possessed Divine Flames, an ability that transformed the fire from his abilities into flames of glowing white, red, and gold. He had been impressive...until he was very thoroughly scolded by a gatherer that his flames were damaging the objective of the expedition in the first place, and he needed to control himself. The scolding lit up his face to match his hair, but he suffered more from a public display of shame than anger. The massive trees had suffered almost no harm, but the delicate herbs, flowers, and plants had been thoroughly charred to sad, blowtorched bits.

He sulked, using instead his conjured Sun Glaive to slice through monsters along with short range, more controlled fire spells.

Encio too found his abilities impeded by both their purpose and gargantuan pillar trees. However, he was older and more experienced than Malik and had been told off to watch his collateral damage way back during his own adventurer exam. Encio was not in the business of being taught a lesson twice; His racial Quick Mind wouldn’t stand for it. His swordsmanship was always impressive, and now the fine control of his abilities shone. He angled his Sword Waves up or intentionally into trees, preventing them from mangling the delicate plants in the areas. The trees, naturally resilient, bore the small scars of his Sword Waves easily.

Nara, along with a few others, served as scouts for the group. If they sensed just a few monsters they could handle themselves, they did. If a significantly large group of monsters was headed their way, they notified Everett, and he sent out instructions to the teams. The gatherers were ushered into a protective encirclement along with erected protections, and the teams slogged through the monster horde.

Horde was not entirely an exaggeration: There were a lot of monsters. It didn’t compare to the trial, but waves of monsters could contain up to a hundred at a time. In those cases, the area was decimated, and they had to move onto the next collection point instead. Everett and the gatherers knew these were unavoidable damages, and they didn’t scold the iron rankers for that. There was only so much they could control the destruction of abilities that were made to destroy. It was like trying to not burn down a log cabin with a flamethrower.

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The groups stepped back from a particularly large swarm of monsters. Both the crafters and the other teams knew the drill—get away from the rainbow smoke from looting. Nara debated leaving out Zukai from her looting ability but did not. It wasn’t some altruistic or particularly forgiving mentality, even though Nara wasn’t one to hold grudges, but she did enjoy his twisted expression when he realized she was one of the two looters in the group, and the other one was her teammate.

With a single smug expression, she communicated that she could have cut him off entirely. This was her benevolent pity for him. Mmm yes, she was very adult.

Every time, she got to see bags of coins thump-thump-thump him on the head. She could sense his deep-seated inferiority in his aura as he tried to burn it away with a more surface demonstration of rage.

“Poor kid,” John muttered. “What have you been doing to him?”

“Nothing! What are you accusing me of?”

“You gave him a complex,” Eufemia smiled. “Nice going.”

Nara could almost hear the thumbs-up in her tone.

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“You bet. You crushed his self-esteem. He shouldn’t touch fire if he’s afraid of getting burned.”

“Did you just say I’m fire?” Nara said with a dumb smile.

“I wouldn’t go that far.” Eufemia rolled her eyes. “I would’ve just hit him and sent him packing to cry to his mama. He’s some bottom feeder noble in name only. What would I be afraid of? ...But I understand the appeal of a verbal thrashing. Hmmm, I’d do either, depending on mood and my goal.”

“He’s a teenager. Don’ you think you’re being a little hard on him?” John asked.

“He’s a teenager with magical powers. If he’s being dumb, he should be told he’s being dumb,” Nara said.

As the rainbow smoke drifted up, Nara felt a prickling sensation on the back of her neck. Her hand brushed over neck hairs that stood on end.

“Does anyone feel like we’re being watched?” Nara distractedly asked.

“No.”

“I do not.”

“Maybe a stealthier monster?” Aliyah suggested. She glanced at their group leader. “Everett doesn’t seem worried.”

As a bronze ranker he would have discovered it first if there was a monster they needed to worry about. Everett was just there to manage their group and help in the event a situation they couldn’t handle popped up. Compared to the trial, the expedition was far safer with bronze and silver rankers keeping an eye on things. For those that became adventurers not for thrill or to improve themselves, this was the safer and more logical opportunity (although, it had far less renown than Sanshi’s trials, so fewer knew it was an option. The worthiness of the expedition was also strongly dependent on looters, which were rare in a good year, and nonexistent in a bad one. In this case, the Adventure Society increased their compensation and rewarded participating teams with awakening stones.)

Their combined group had a lot of misfits, but in general the expedition was made up of people from more ordinary families. Those that worked jobs alongside their adventurer training, those that were craftsmen that did not want to use monster cores, iron rankers that lived more relaxed lives and aimed for safety and a steady income.

Nara was one of the latter on earth, just working an office job. The same mindset existed here. Just be an average adventurer, take average contracts with measured risks, and rank up at an average pace.

Adventuring was like programming—the job was almost always lucrative (and at least livable), but the pay range wildly varied. Even an average adventurer could eventually afford essences for their whole family and would eventually make it to bronze and silver rank. With the extended lifespans provided by ranking up, there was no rush.

There were even gold rankers that had unexpectedly made it to diamond rank. One such was Sezan, who had never been an outstanding gold ranker (to Nara, he knew how to live life). He wasn’t on the Adventure Society’s list for notable gold rankers they expected to rank up to diamond, but he had made it there anyway. If there was anything Sezan was good at, it was defying expectations (not in an impressive way, just in an unexpected way.)

Some people find themselves crossing the doorway to diamond rank as if they were opening their door back to their home every day of their lives.