The next day started just like the five days before it. I settled into a comfortable walking pace. If I walked all day with no breaks or stops with my new speed, I could easily cover eighty miles in one day. My new walking pace would have been a fast jog back on earth. Though the truth of it was with my gathering and fighting I would be lucky to cover fifty miles in one day. I would always end up fighting one or more beasts on any given day.

Today would be no exception I had walked most of the morning in relative peace. I was collecting more magnetite as I came across it. The stone was fairly common and I wanted to have plenty of it. I would need it if I was going to push this world forward. It was on one of my stops that I noticed it. I must have crossed into a very territorial beast’s range, and now it was stalking me. I thought it had gone unnoticed but to me it was obvious. I could see the beast on my map a bright dot. It was like Akurra had been.

This time I would have no time to set a trap. Akurra had been mostly land-based when he was hunting me it had been how I had tricked him before. This beast was using the environment to track us efficiently. I decide that this beast needs to go, its dot is similar to what Akurra’s had been which leads me to believe that this is a portal beast. I head to an area where it can only come at me from one direction, and gear up. I want to test my new swords on it but decide that would be a bad idea in this case.

Panthera Netherous lvl 22.

The beast that stalks into the area is a huge cat twice the size of a Bengal tiger. The cat is black with silver metallic stripes. I can tell that it is surprised when it first stalks into the small clearing that I am in. I can guess that not very many things sense its presence until it is too late. With that being said the beast does not seem to be worried for long. It moves to pounce when Akurra pops out of the grass and hits the beast with stunning sight. The beast jumps out of the way of Akurra’s strike as electrical orbs hit it from multiple directions. I had learned from my experience that there might be a chance that a beast might come along that could resist Akurra’s stun. This cat had almost done so. Even though the stun took partially it still had been able to move, and quite fast. I had taken the liberties to start sending orbs out to the tune of one-fourth of my mana.

As Dereck one of my gaming buddies had said “if you ain’t cheating you ain’t trying.” As the beast lay there getting shocked by numerous electrical balls. I walked up and with one sharp stroke buried Sky Cutter into its skull. This beast was not like Akurra it would not offer up a familiar contract. I might have if I understood the mechanics behind it. But for some reason, the information was locked. The shigan library lacked the information and Rogul had not had a familiar so they did not have the information. The shigan did have beast masters but the process was different. A beastmaster had to get the beasts when they were young and raise them himself. The process sounded like domestication with skills and more dangerous creatures.

I removed the beast’s core and stored the rest in my storage. The core in this case was black and silver. I knew from the moment I saw it that it would be the core for my next project. I stored the core and backtracked on to my original path. I soon found out why the beast had coveted this area. The panther’s lair was a small glade. It was obvious that the area had been home to a mana well. The area had been heavily saturated with mana. Like in the guardian glade it had permeated everything in the area. There were several highly valuable plants growing in this glade. There had been valuable plants growing around the guardian tree as well but I never felt right in taking them. Here though I had no such compulsion. The herbology taught me how to harvest each plant correctly. It also taught me which plants to harvest fully and reseed vs which plants to replant after harvesting a decent number. I did not want to leave this spot barren. I was hoping to cultivate a stable harvesting area. I also collected several stones and a few large boulders. I also took branches for different trees. I took now more than two branches from any tree only enough to be considered a trim. Once I was done with my harvest and replanting and seeding, I had to do the hard part. Well not hard so much as the disgusting part. There was a pile of Panthera scat just outside of the glade that I spread around the glade. Part of this was to help the plants grow. I would also keep the smell of the Panthera around so that hopefully other beasts would be scared to encroach on the area.

I had been tempted to call it a day and stay in the glade all night, but I resisted. It would be too easy to stay there tonight and then tomorrow and then a few days after that. If I was going to stay in a glad in the forest then I should go back to the great trees’ glade.

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I continued for two more hours before I was startled by a creature lunging out of a bush at me.

Cavia Robustus lvl 17.

It was like a giant guinea pig. I could tell it was posturing trying to scare me away. I could also tell that it was about to be dinner as I walked up and punched it in the head. The thing's skull cracked as the light fled its eyes, I stored it. Akurra looked at me when I stored the creature like he thought it was going to be his meal. “No buddy that one is going to be my dinner.” Once I had dealt with the beast, I heard the screams.

The thing about being in the forest is that you hear screams all the time. Birds make random noises that sound like screams. Sometimes when animals kill other animals it sounds like screams. Your ears can play all kinds of tricks on you. This time it was different the screams were repeated, and there was other chatter it was the sounds of multiple voices. The other thing about the forest is that the sounds can play tricks on you. You can think the sound is coming from one direction and it is truly coming from the opposite one. I took a few minutes to get my bearings before I headed off in the direction, I believed the sound was coming from. I had to stop a few more times before I finally honed in on the sounds. Once the dots showed up on my map I knew exactly where to go.

Greater Dire Rat lvl 32.

Greater Dire Rat lvl 36.

Dire Rat Alpha lvl 17.

I paused for a moment to take in the scene six women were being attacked by three dire rats. I was surprised to see human women this far into the forest as this was supposed to be demios territory. I was snapped out of my moment of surprise by Akurra arriving. While he was not able to keep up with me in full sprint, he was still quite fast. He was also hungry and pissed so he arrived on the scene like a runaway freight train with teeth. He hit the alpha so fast that the other two rats did not even know what had happened.

It took me a few seconds to access the situation. The six women had been accosted by the dire rats and had been injured severely. Three had closed ranks to try to protect them while the fourth was trying, unsuccessfully to provide aid. Akurra had taken the biggest threat off the playing field by clearing out the alpha. The alpha while dangerous to others, was about as dangerous to Akurra as a mouse would be to an anaconda. I needed to deal with the remaining two snakes and help out the women.

I acted as soon as I came up with a plan that would not get the women killed. I shot a burning ball of plasma at the dire rats. The orb burned through one as it lunged at the women killing it instantly. It burned through the first and continued into the second rat hitting it just below the spine behind its head. Because of the searing heat from the ball, it might as well have hit it in the spine as the rat was paralyzed. I crossed the distance of a few hundred yards in a few seconds and snapped the still shuddering beast's neck, and threw it aside. I knew Akurra would deal with it shortly.

I turned to the women seeing that the two that were injured were in a bad way. I drew my Wand of Lesser Heal the wand highlighted all of them. It seemed as if they were all injured in some way. I used the wand to cast the spell and watched the magic take effect. I had never noticed before but the healing magic was a subtle mixture of greens and golds intertwined together. I could see the magic stirring in them the green magic encouraging growth while the gold magic repaired.

During this time the women did not react. I could only guess they were surprised about being saved. They went from fear of death to relief back to the fear of death in an instant. They all recoiled in terror their eyes getting huge. The ones holding spears took a step back and raised their spears halfheartedly. I could see that they were not looking at me, they were looking through me at what was behind me. I turned around to see Akurra behind me his massive body curled up and his hood fully displayed. When he was like this, he stood somewhere between six and a half and eight feet tall. It was an impressive display, if it had been directed at someone I wanted to scare that was not the case currently.

“Yes, Akurra you’re a big pretty boy, so scary. Stop intimidating the women please!”

He looked at me and then at them. His tongue was flickering slowly out of his mouth up and down. He was looking at each of the women. This was his normal process when he wanted to eat something new. The fear from the women behind me was palpable.

“Akurra you do not get to eat them they are friends.”

There is a gasp behind me and someone stifles a scream when he opens his mouth. He looks from them to me I can tell he is holding back a chuckle.

“Yeah yeah, so funny you can have all of these to eat,” I say pointing to the dire rats.

Akurra moves over to the dire rat I killed first and lowers his head flicking his tongue. He never takes his eyes off of the women as he swallows it. I turn back towards the women.

“Don’t mind Akurra my familiar wants everyone to acknowledge how big and scary he is.”

When I fully turn back to the women, they have all dropped their weapons and are prostrating themselves on the ground this is the first time I get to look at all of them.

Unknown Demios lvl 21 No Class. Unclaimed??

Unknown Demios lvl 20 No Class. Unclaimed??

Unknown Demios lvl 20 No Class. Unclaimed??

Unknown Demios lvl 20 No Class. Unclaimed??

Unknown Demios lvl 22 No Class. Unclaimed??

Unknown Demios lvl 20 No Class. Unclaimed??

Unknown Demios lvl 20 No Class. Unclaimed??