I woke up the next day to voices outside my tent. By the sound of it, I had missed a fair amount.

"..be so loud, he's inside." Cage finished a sentence I missed the start of.

"It'll be simple, bring him about a kilometre east and we can bring him down a peg. I have some frie…" Rio started, clearly not for the first time.

"I said no! Did you really forget we're all being watched? How would it look if I come back perfectly fine and he's beaten to hell? Not worth it for so little reward." Cage hissed back.

"But.." Rio started.

"Go back to your partner." Cage cut him off sounding tired all of a sudden.

I knew I'd gone too far with Rio the day before but I didn't expect him to be quite this vicious. I sent Mason a quick message, letting him known about the overheard argument.

As I was getting ready a few minutes later I made sure to take out a compass and strap it to my arm under my gear.

This morning included actually putting on our proper hunting gear and armour. We were all issued different gear depending on our primary weapon. I was given Dark Wolf leather armour, all enchanted with low strength spells. The armour gives me a decent protection, blurs me into the shadows under the trees, muffles the sounds of my steps and nullified a portion of my scent.

Every time something like this appeared I felt like I was living in a fantasy world again, I asked if it gave me a base ten percent to stealth but considering the blank look I got back, the joke went so far over his head I don't think it's landed yet.

Living in a fantasy world is still better than a cultivation novel with an arrogant young master trope being thrown around though, Cage didn't quite count, I hadn't been told to cripple myself after all.

After I was ready and Clin had taken his 'alert' position on my shoulder instead of around my neck, I was ready for a day of hunting. I exit my side of the tent to find Cage already and squatting down, sitting on his feet.

"We're burning daylight, go grab something from the mess tent and meet me north of camp. Ten minutes or I'm leaving without you." Cage orders.

I chose to not argue, I needed his help to navigate the forest. I ran.

It was barely five minutes before I reached Cage, my mouth still chewing on whatever meal bar they threw me.

I was greeted by a grunt and we started moving, this time I was much more conscious of the sound I made. Even I could tell the massive difference the boots made to the sound of my movements. We were less than a hundred metres into the trees before Cage turned back and nodded at me.

"Much quieter today, try to use your whole foot in your steps, heel to toe, and try to pay attention to where you're stepping. We're lucky here that there isn't much brush on the ground and the trees are evergreens, it's good practice for stealth." He explained, clearing holding out an olive branch of his own.

After a few steps practising and a few more tips from Cage, I could barely hear my own movement anymore.

"Thanks."

After a pause I chose to continue,

"I'm sorry about how I reacted yesterday, I don't like being treated like a servant and I overreacted taking it out on Rio. I know he already hates me." I finish.

"He looked down on you, now he hates you. I don't want to disappoint father by being expelled so I won't be apart of anything he does trying to get back at you but I won't be able to stop him." Cage warned me.

After our short exchange we lapsed back into silence, moving deeper into the forest.

Twenty uneventful minutes later I felt Clin react with wariness, before I could alert Cage he also froze. I took the extra step that had me next to him as he cast Void Bubble, without a chant, only using the name.

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"What do you sense? Clin reacted just before you did." I asked.

"Something is radiating a powerful amount of Nature Mana and there is a manabeast guarding it. I can't figure out what it is but it sensed us first, I don't know why it hasn't moved." Cage explained.

My thoughts started racing, what were our chances of killing whatever was there?

A manabeast guarding a Nature aligned Natural Treasure would probably be of the Nature element so it would take more damage from Fire Spells or from my Karambit if I coated it in Fire Mana.

Any strong manabeast meat would be beneficial for Clin or we could sell it to the Academy. With Cage and my element combination of Fire, Lightning and Void and once Clin's venom included, we should hold the advantage even if it's stronger than us.

It took me maybe twenty seconds to weigh up all the pros and cons before I looked at Cage,

"I say we give it a look. If we can kill it, you get whatever it's guarding and I get it's body and core?" I offered.

"Considering how strong it feels, I get the Treasure, you get the core and we split the meat?" He countered.

"Deal," I agreed knowing one of us was going to get the better deal but not caring.

We both did out best to clamp down on any many radiating off our bodies and Cage dropped the Void Bubble. We slowly stalked forwards, I knew when we were getting closer because even I started sensing the waves of mana that were radiating off Treasure.

Clin was started to get agitated but clearly didn't want to leave me alone, he started pulling on my neck to the left and upwards. I looked and saw a large tree with low branches.

I tapped Cage on the shoulder and motioned towards it, he appeared to think about it for a minute before nodding. We quickly climbed the tree until we were about ten metres off the ground.

We found a branch that let us cross to the other side of the tree. I could see into a clearing on the other side, clearly why Clin indicated this tree to climb.

At first I couldn't see anything different about this clearing over any other, except the mana coming from it. Clin lightly hissed in my ear, looking across the clearing while Cage had his gaze locked on something in the middle of the open area.

I added more mana into my eyes, increasing the distance I could see and adding a small amount of heat vision from Clin.

I could see a pack of Dark Wolves in the trees opposite us, and what Cage was almost salivating over. It was a simple looking flower, similar to a sunflower, but it was the only flower in a sea of grass.

Mana was radiating out of the flower to the point I couldn't sense any manabeasts, but the Dark Wolves seemed to be wary of something in the grass.

"I see you recognise the flower, what is it?" I asked Cage.

"Golden Sunflower," he distractingly answered.

"That sounds like the name of a Light Element Plant, not nature. I'm more worried about whatever is lurking in the field." I responded.

As I finished Clin reacted to something, he wanted to attack. I suddenly spun and slashed, my body moving before I even grasped what I had sensed.

I had cut a small green snake, slightly larger than Clin in half. Cage turned around at the commotion, surprise on his face.

"SHIT! A newborn Moss Python, they must have recently spawned due to the stronger mana in the field, they shouldn't have been born for another month yet." Cage rattled off.

He had clearly studied harder than me for this trip, Moss Python wasn't on the list of manabeast I read. The Moss Python looked like an ambush predator, blending into the green of the trees, I imagine where they got the name from.

"Something is happening." Cage urgently whispered to me.

I put the body of the Moss Python in my bag and turned back to the front, Clin would alert me if any more enemies tried to sneak up on us.

The Dark Wolves across the meadow had finally started moving, one looking almost a foot larger than the rest had arrived and seemed to be in charge. The first Dark Wolf barely made it a metre forward before a small Moss Python burst from the grass, latched onto its throat and wrapped itself around the Dark Wolfs neck.

The rest of the pack started charging, with more Moss Pythons emerging from the grass by the second. The Dark Wolves, now expecting the attack struck back, an all out melee ensuring.

Cage and I stayed where we were, getting involved now would only get us killed. Too many Manabeasts were involved, on the plus side, if we wait it out and take the cores from the dead wolves our gains are huge even without the Golden Sunflower or the stronger beasts.

"Cage, should we circle around and pick off the common-grade pack while the Soldier-grade leader fight it out?" I asked, eager to hunt, my instincts getting the best of me.

At his nod we dropped out of the tree and started running around the meadow. As we ran, I noticed footprints and broken branches, that meant we probably weren't the first pair in the area. The only questions was did they give up earlier or are they also laying in wait.

We made it behind the pack of Dark Wolves and paused for a moment, I could hear Cage start chanting a spell while I started to mentally sink further into the instincts that came with my combat form.

I was focused on the closest Dark Wolf, that was currently circling a pair of Moss Pythons. There were still nine Dark Wolves alive, with another half dozen dead on the ground, surrounded by almost triple their number of dead Moss Pythons.

"I'll take the left side," I mumbled to Cage as I drew my Karambit, lacing the edge with Fire Mana.

Pausing for another half a second for the Dark Wolf to have its back to me, I burst into motion.

A quick slash ripped through the hamstring of the wolf, a rapid stab with the other blade went through its ear destroying its brain.

Clin sprung off my shoulder, latching onto the neck of the first Moss Python and whipping his body into the next one, sending it flying back.

I vaguely saw a different Wolf being strangled by a vine. It was a struggle to track all the bodies around me, a prickle on my shoulder had me dodging to the side, out of the way of a Moss Python.

A quick slash and I had a moment to survey the area, I paused to watch the Dark Wolf leader savage the mother Moss Python as she started wrapping her coils around it.

Shadow mana mixed with something else burst out of the ground behind me, recognising the mana I didn't even flinch until I felt a person appear next to me.

"Fancy meeting you here." I jokingly commented.

"The places you meet people man, wild isn't it," he responded in a deadpan tone.

A few seconds of silence passed before we both started laughing. I held out my hand for a fistbump while we both continued to survey the area.

"Aeron, the guy with me, sensed the flower. I just wanted the core from the Dark Wolf leader, its so close to evolving that it will help me immensely." Mason explained.

"Well he's gonna have to fight it out with Cage. We agreed on me getting the pythons core and splitting the meat. Nothing for me here but the core will do wonders for Clin." I answered.

A burst of mana I didn't recognise turned into a green haired boy cloaked in shadows.

"Mason, we need to charge now if we have to get them both!" He urgently whispered.

A blade sinking into the ground crackling with Lighting stopped Aeron just as he was about to move.

"I think we need to discuss that first, Aeron," Cage heavily intoned.

After a quick negotiation, with Aeron deferring to a level that surprised me, probably a noble thing, an agreement was hashed out. Aeron and Cage would split the Golden Sunflower, I would get the Moss Python core, Mason the Dark Wolf leaders, and we all shared in the meat and normal cores.

We could see both the leader weakening as the Dark Wolf couldn't breathe and the Moss Python was bleeding out.

"Blades only, on three?" I called out.

At three nods, I started to count down.