Once she had somewhat gotten used to the toxin, she carefully dug up the plants, having to exert quite an enormous amount of strength to even break the ground open. She had to resort to slamming the clawed tips of her fingers into the ground quite hard with multiple powerful punches to break up the area around the flowers.
"What are you doing?" Blood hissed at her, clearly upset at the amount of noise Beth was making.
"We're on a high mana density world, Blood. Even the soil here is tougher than concrete before the change happened to our world. I literally have to fight the ground just to dig a little dirt to get these plants out," Beth replied with an edge to her voice, hammering the ground even more rapidly to break the plants free.
She was still careful with extracting the plants from the ground, not wanting to damage any part of the valuable herbs including their roots. She stored the plants in her bags carefully, making sure not to fold or crimp them in any way, before straightening up and knocking her gauntlets free of dirt. Just as she was turning to move back the way she had entered from she heard a deep, menacing growl echo out across the clearing. Looking up, she saw a bear the size of a small house opposite from her, staring at her with rage-maddened eyes. Clearly, the plants had been of interest to more than just her, and whether it was her hasty extraction of the plants or their scent drifting to the beast, they had clearly alerted it to their theft.
The bigger problem was the bear was level one hundred fifty and gave off a massively powerful presence, Beth estimating that it wasn't just an elite but was on the level of a boss. She leaped back and up right before the bear charged, leaping again a second later to land on a different tree as the beast tore through the first tree like it was made of wet tissue paper. She and Blood didn't need to say anything, understanding that this wasn't a fight they wanted to or even could take at this point. They leapt away as fast as they could, the bear showing no concern for bushes, trees, and even massive rock formations in the way. Considering the rocks of this world were as strong as low grade mana steel, the ability of the bear to just run through massive juts of stone and turn them into powder displayed its unbelieveable level of strength.
Beth flew through the treetops, using all her skills to move as fast as possible. She had two boosting skills versus Blood's one, but Blood having extra strength in her human form from her beastly bloodline combined with her Swift being in the Silver ranks meant Beth struggled to keep up. Blood didn't pull too far ahead, not going quite at one hundred percent so as not to get separated from Beth during their flight, but she still stayed in front rather easily. Beth followed Blood as the wolf wove through the treetops and began turning and moving in seemingly random directions, Beth trusting her to know what she was doing and where she was going. Their big advantage, other than their speed boosting skills, was that the bear was pretty much all-in on strength and as such wasn't nearly as maneuverable or agile as it could have been. They took advantage of this with their changing route, slowly leaving the enraged beast further and further behind as they moved parallel to the city walls through the woods.
It took about half-an-hour for them to lose the bear, moving quite a way from where they started before they were sure they were safe. They took a minute to catch their breath before Blood scouted around a little, re-orientating themselves as to where they were in the forest. They had moved a considerable distance westward, and were in territory they had not personally explored. The entire forest had been mapped already, but the area was so dangerous that not nearly enough people would enter daily, weekly, or monthly to keep track of everything that was happening in every part of the woods. This meant that someone could enter the forest at basically anytime and find something valuable, and it also meant anyone could enter at anytime and find some kind of extremely powerful beast or monster that had not been previously sighted.
Blood's keen nose led them down a winding route, the two girls sticking to the treetops as they moved, coming upon a small creek in midafternoon. It was the scent of fresh water and fresh plants that had drawn Blood this direction, and they followed the turgid, cold water as it flowed southward and away from the city. They didn't spot much of interest for a while, with Beth about to tell Blood to scout them some other direction to roam, when they did spot a sudden change in the waters. The creek flattened and widened out, flowing into a large pond that was likely nearly a mile across, the still waters undisturbed by even the slightly blowing breeze. The surface of the large body of fresh water was smooth and glossy as a brand-new mirror, broken only by a small outcrop of rock sticking up in practically the exact center of the place.
On that outcrop of rock was something shining, and only when they got to the trees at the very edge of the pond could they make out what it was. Beth was easily able to see some kind of greenish crystal from that distance, her enhanced eyes letting her pick out the details of what appeared to be multiple smaller clumps anywhere from the size of golf balls to the size of soft balls of the crystal, all of it along a six or seven feet section in the middle of the jagged pile of stone. The rocks themselves were about a dozen chunks of stone from eight to fifteen feet in length and five or six feet across all jumbled together in a messy pile. Like a shining beacon, the rock with the crystals on it stuck straight up out of the pile, beckoning anyone who drew near to come and investigate.
'Well, I don't fucking trust that,' Beth said through their mental link.
'It would be foolish to. Such an obvious bait is clearly meant to lure in greedy fools too eager to die,' Blood replied.
'Do we still try for it, but cautiously? Or do you want to leave?' Beth asked.
'We could try to investigate a little more. The big problem is the pond; I suspect that if the little island itself isn't the danger, something lurking in the pond will be,' Blood answered pensively, running the claws of her right hand through her hair.
Beth, about halfway up the large tree she was in on a fairly wide branch, knelt down and pulled her backpack around to her front. She dug around in it for a moment, reaching her arm deep into her pack as she dug for a minute, pulling it back out with a ration bar in her right gauntlet. She shucked the wrapper of the bar, stuffing it in the overfull outer pocket of the bag before snapping off a piece of the bar. She lined up her aim for a second, carefully cocking her arm back as she stood and readjusted her backpack before tossing the piece of ration bar into the pond.
Her throw wasn't nearly at her full strength, but calculated to try to keep the ration bar from disintegrating from the force of the throw. The bar piece arced out and out, sailing through the air before falling down and plopping into the water with a tiny *plink*. They waited for a second after the bar hit, watching the small ripples it created spread out from the center, the little waves disturbing the mirror smoothness of the water.
"Well-" started Beth, stopping as the surface of the pond exploded upward, a massive column of water and mist shooting into the air. The cause of the explosion was apparent the next second, as a beast looking much like a crocodile, only with six legs, the head of a tyrannosaurus, and clocking in at the size of a tour bus shot upward right next to where the piece of ration bar had plopped down. The huge creature lashed out at where the bar had disappeared before spinning around, its grotesque head thrashing as it death-rolled for several moments. It returned back to the depths of the pond, which was clearly far deeper than they had first assumed, the water taking a minute to resume its mirror-like sheen.
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'I don't need your special eyes to see that thing is way, way out of our league,' Blood commented mentally.
'Level two hundred twenty-five is not something we can fight for a long, long time,' Beth agreed with a small shake of her head.
The two waited another minute to see if anything else happened or any other beasts appeared before slipping off through the trees. They skirted around the pond, giving it a slightly wide berth, before continuing to follow the creek as it wended southward. They observed a number of different animals and beasts using the creek for water, though all were quite cautious when they drank. They didn't see anything else like the massive crocodile as they followed the water, but they did see a large, armored beast that resembled a cross between a hippo and a jackal lunge out of the water to grab a deer-like beast and drag it, thrashing and screaming, down into the water, where it tore its prey apart.
After two hours of travel, and the occasional fight against a few beasts, they came upon an area where the creek spread a little bit, forming a sort of small marsh for a few miles. The area was full of reeds, wild rice, and what looked like a kind of bamboo, all of which was eagerly consumed by animal and beast alike, making the area a quite well-trafficked spot. They spent an hour moving around through the wide, flat-canopied trees that covered the place, observing the creatures that inhabited the area as well as the plant life present.
It was as they were carefully looking over the plants that Beth noted another several stalks of a bamboo-like plant that had a light golden hue. The two girls leapt through the trees until they stopped in the branches of the tree just above the strange plants, observing the area around them. They had certainly learned from their experiences so far today, understanding that powerful beasts were drawn to anything that was valuable. The beasts seemed to feed off the energy of things like mana crystals or wait for a rare herb to be mature before eating it and absorbing its power. Seeing as how these bamboo shoots were different than anything else they had seen in the swamp, and they showed up differently to Beth's vision as well, labeled as Golden Star Shoot, it was quite likely something would be interested in them.
After carefully sitting in the treetop and watching for a time, they took action, Blood getting ready to attack while Beth quickly and relatively quietly hopped down the tree. She reached the bamboo in only a few seconds and plunged into the knee-deep water, digging down into the mucky ground to try to pry the plants free. She felt a lot of resistance as she hauled on one of the four plants, reaching down with her other hand to pull with all her strength. It was like the roots of the plant was clamped in a vise, and as she pulled the plant it didn't give more than a quarter of an inch. She didn't want to use her Presence, but did dump as much mana as she could in Beastly Body as she gave a great heave.
With a sudden wet, sucking *POP*, the plant came free, Beth swaying a little but remaining upright thanks to how far her efforts had embedded her feet into the mucky ground of the swamp. She didn't even look, tossing the plant upwards for Blood, who snatched it out of the air with a swift motion before carefully storing it in her bag. They repeated this process another three times, Beth wrenching herself free and leaping back up into the tree the second she had thrown the fourth herb up. And it was a good thing she did, as one of the armored hippo-like beasts burst out of the mud and water nearby, its four-feet wide jaws snapping shut just below Beth's boots.
The two girls took off, darting away through the trees as the beast made a snarling growl at them, unable to keep up with their speed. They retreated after that, carefully making their way back to the city, managing to avoid most fights in the late afternoon. They arrived at the gates in the early evening, the sun a huge, red orb sitting low on the horizon. They passed through thanks to Beth's badge, moving down the main street until they reached the first large square, where they turned left and headed down another main avenue. Following this pattern for a couple minutes brought them to the main guard barracks, where the collection point for the resource hunt was located.
Walking inside the large room, Beth and Blood got in a line that consisted of only two other Wayfarers, apart from the two that were currently interacting with the two workers at the desk. Once it was their turn, Beth and Blood stepped up to the lady on the right and set their bags down, Beth opening hers first and pulling out the Sun's River to present to the attendant. Once she had carefully extracted the plants and put them on the table, she refastened her pack and slung it on her back.
"Sun's River," commented the attendant. "We don't see too much of this, so it's worth quite a bit. Based on the quality of these herbs, I'll be adding twenty-two hundred points to your overall total."
"That's so much more than the beast cores," Beth commented.
"Beast cores are always in demand, but conversely, there's always a supply, as well. That's why they wind up getting valued at a much lower point amount during these resource gathering drives," the attendant explained.
Blood, meanwhile, had pulled out the four bamboo shoots and laid them on the counter before re-securing her own pack. The attendant was even more careful with the four Golden Star Shoots versus how she had handled the Sun's River. She took several minutes just to go over the four stalks, closely examining every single part of the plants, from the stalk to the roots, even pulling out a small tool that glowed dimly as she passed it over the plants. Finally, she seemed to have fully and thoroughly investigated all four pieces.
"These are rather spectacular specimens," she said. "It's a bit of a shame that there is a bit of damage to the roots, but they are otherwise in great condition. Such a rare herb, in rather good condition, is worth quite a lot. I'm going to credit forty-five hundred points to your account for these four herbs. Is there anything else you have for me today?"
'Think we should tell her about the crystals?' Blood asked mentally.
'Sure, why not? It's not like we'll be able to get at them in the next week or so…' Beth replied.
"Uh, we do have one other thing," Beth replied a bit hesitantly. "Is there any reward for information?"
"Yes, actually, we can give a small payment upfront for information. If it leads to a large payout for someone else, we can also in a finder's fee type award after their payout," the attendant explained.
"Alright, we have some information, then. Do you have a map of the forest area?" Beth asked.
"Yes, give me just a second," the attendant replied before turning and walking to some cabinets at the back. She rifled through them for a moment before returning with a large map, nearly three feet across and two high, which she laid out on the table. Beth and Blood put their heads together and scanned over the topmost part of the map, which was the north end of the forest closest to the city. They eventually figured out where the creek was and traced it for a minute, arguing back and forth about where they actually connected with the creek in the first place. They managed to find the pond area after a minute and Beth pointed it out to the attendant.
"This area right here," she said. "There's a small outcrop of rocks in the center of a mile-wide pond in the creek. There's a bunch of green crystals that might be mana crystals on a section of that rock. The reason we didn't go for them is there's a level two hundred twenty-five beast guarding it…I think it was an Ancient Crocdin."
"I see," the woman replied with slightly widened eyes. "That's a very powerful beast, something that would be considered Master Tier. Lucky that you managed to escape from it."
"Sorry, but what's Master Tier?" Beth asked.
"Ah, not everyone uses that system, but it's still somewhat common," the attendant explained. "Instead of referring to enemies as regular or elite or bosses, they are gauged based on how dangerous they would be in a similar way to weapon mastery levels. At higher ranks, weapon masters can be immensely dangerous even with no other skills, hell, even with no levels or rebirths. So, some people and organizations use a tier system that follows the ranks of weapon skills to rate the danger of beasts and monsters. The beast you encountered being at Master Tier means it would be an immense threat."
"Well, I'm doubly glad we didn't try to mess with it at all," Beth said with a slight shudder.
"I'll credit you two hundred points for the information," the attendant informed them.
"That's four beast cores worth!" Beth exclaimed.
"Four lower-leveled beast cores, yes," the attendant said. "More powerful beast cores are worth more, but you're not at the level of power where you can tangle with those."
"Not yet," Beth said calmly, steel-tinged determination in her voice.
"I wish you luck on your Path," the attendant said to them, almost ritualistically.
"Thank you," Beth replied with a nod.