They made sure their keys worked on the room and everything was in order before turning right around and heading back out for the day. It was still morning, though it was about to hit noon, and they needed to at least get the lay of the land before they did anything else. The first thing Beth suggested was a little research, able to tell Blood's thoughts on that by the drooping of her tall lupine ears, but that's still what they settled on doing. They spent a quick half-hour paging through the local CRA Hall's records about the surrounding area; every CRA Hall would have fairly detailed records about the surrounding area, regardless of their location. The information certainly wouldn't explain everything about the place, but it was more than enough to get them orientated and give them a decent idea of what was what.
The area around the city was quite hostile overall, with not just a huge number of powerful beasts everywhere, but also semi-frequent monster incursions. The terrain around the city was plains, but there was a massive forest to the south, similar to the one near the city of the previous stage, and a huge range of mountains, only partially explored even after centuries, to the north. The mountains sounded like a good idea at first, but their current status of mostly unknown was for a reason, mainly being the place was crawling with powerful beasts that made the one that slammed into the city walls look like a pipsqueak. Anyone venturing out there was advised to do so in a sizable party, and the recommendation was that at least half the members of the party be Empowered, which Beth had to remind herself was someone between five and nine rebirths.
They might venture into the foothills, but the mountains looked to be out as an option for gathering resources. Beth liked to challenge herself and explore new places, but she wasn't suicidal by any means, and being recommended to be in a big party mostly consisting of people many times stronger than her was enough of a warning to deter her more adventurous side. She found that the plains stretched to the east for quite a distance before hitting a massive ocean, filled with insanely dangerous creatures. The thought of battling near or in the ocean was interesting, but the underwater stage was still fresh in her mind, and the idea of water battles without any of the necessary equipment or skills was really not appealing.
That left the area around the city and to the west, which was more plains stretching into rolling hills for many miles. The west eventually became a desert, with scorching temperatures and tons of venomous enemies hiding under every rock and cactus. The place wasn't actually quite as dangerous overall, but it was fairly far away and would be a huge pain to operate in, so it didn't really appeal to either of the girls.
In the end, they decided to try just surviving in the plains for a day or two to see how bad it was before maybe venturing down to the southern forest. Of the four cardinal directions, the forest was the closest place that was likely to have enough un-gathered resources to make it worth their while, and was also likely the least dangerous. That's not to say it was safe, by any means, but it presented far less of a risk than heading north or east, and it was closer and much more hospitable terrain than the desert to the west.
Beth caved in to Blood's impatience soon enough, finishing with her research and leading the way out of the building. They moved around the city for a few minutes, getting a feel for the place, which was not too difficult considering their speed and good memories combined with the smaller size of this city. Eventually, they came upon the south gate, conferring with the guards for a second to figure out the permissions for entry and exit. Unlike other cities they had been in, the gates of Crystal Script were kept closed other than times that people and even goods moved in or out. Much to their pleasant surprise, the showing of a Copper Emblem was enough for both exit and entry permit.
Once outside the gates, they headed away from the wall for a short while, finding a moderately maintained road leading off to the south. The road was not in great repair, and that became more obvious the further down it they moved. It was a large dichotomy, between the wealth displayed in the city in various forms, versus the condition of the roads outside the city. All of it was due to the dangers of the area, showing how the risk presented by beasts could affect how things were built and maintained outside of safe zones such as the city.
Beth could feel the differences in the environment as they traveled down the road, more noticeable than even in the city. As she breathed deeply, she could feel the dense mana in the air entering her lungs, giving her energy and a clarity of thought she hadn't really ever felt before. She understood why she had read some things about people who were serious Wayfarers trying to spend as much time as they could in mana dense environments, and it wasn't just the powerful beasts and rare resources. She felt like she could run a hundred miles in a second and then kill twenty bosses right afterwards.
Blood took the lead shortly afterwards as they diverted from the road, moving off into the rolling plains that surrounded the city. It had only been a couple minutes in total from them exiting the gate when they began encountering beasts, showing there really was no safe exclusion area around the walls. The first group they encountered was somewhat lower in level, being in the eighties, but put up some surprising resistance. The whole group of lion-like beings, covered with scales rather than fur and standing as tall at the shoulder as Beth herself was, all were able to channel mana through their bodies to strengthen themselves, similar to how the stronger kobolds of the first beast tide they had fought could strengthen themselves.
This pattern quickly repeated after this first group, and group after group of enemies they encountered were only more challenging than the last. To rank it in terms of how Beth had been thinking of beasts, there were no "regular" enemies even here on the plains; everything they encountered she would label as, at minimum, an elite of whatever species it represented. The power of their opponents only increased from there, with every beast they encountered displaying a level of power unusual for its level. They spent multiple hours through the afternoon fighting in the plains outside the city, simply trying to get used to the level of power of everything they encountered.
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What was even more frustrating was they had to flee several times as they spotted beasts that were just too far beyond them to even think about battling. Both of them could technically hit above their own weight class, putting them into the elite ranks of Wayfarers at a minimum, but being strong for your level didn't equate to fighting up twenty, thirty, or a hundred levels. Fighting up ten levels for them right now was their limit, and they had to use all their cards right from the start to do that and hope that they hadn't stumbled into a bad matchup. A beast that was over level two hundred, another major milestone in terms of beasts' power levels, was something that could kill them with a cough, not something to be fought for a challenge.
They returned to the CRA to retire for the night, bathing before eating and relaxing for a handful of minutes. They turned in still somewhat early, back-to-back in the same bed as they had done quite often before. The day had been fairly tiring, Beth having used her Presence a decent bit in the fights, and they slept for about six hour before waking and getting ready for another long day.
They ventured further out the second day, still not heading all the way down to the woods, but they did move further away from the city, seeing more of what the plains had to offer. The same pattern as the day before largely repeated, with them engaging in a series of battles against powerful beasts at or below their level while having to avoid beasts that were simply too strong for them to defeat. They had pulled what beast cores they found from the various beasts they defeated on both days, but Beth wasn't sure that would give them very many points. Beast cores were useful for an insane number of things, far beyond their value as a crafting material, so demand was always high, but there were whole teams of Wayfarers who weren't aiming for the top who would spend all their time farming cores to make money.
No, if they wanted to rack up some real merit to pass the stage with flying colors, they would need to get one or more big scores. Something like really rare, valuable herbs, which Beth was hoping to find in the woods, or some kind of rare ore that all the smiths would go crazy for would be their ticket. If she dreamed a little bigger, they could even have insane luck and stumble upon some mana crystals, which would net them all the points possible, but she had a feeling their luck wasn't quite that good.
They made it to within sight of the woods before deciding to turn back, seeing the dense swathe of trees ahead of them in the late afternoon. They still had plenty of time to return to the city if they didn't get bogged down in any battles as they moved, and they used all their skills to make it back to the city quickly and efficiently. They did the same as the first day, heading straight back to the CRA hall and cleaning up before eating a huge meal while relaxing for a minute and then heading to bed. They slept another fairly long stretch, near six hours, before getting up early in the morning and going through their morning routine, heading for the city gates when they were ready.
They blitzed through the plains today, as they felt they had gotten a good idea of what moving around and fighting in the frontier of a high mana world was like. With a much better understanding of what they were up against, they didn't want to waste time fighting in the plains but instead go for the good resources. They were following Beth's idea that good loot would be the best way to pass the stage, even pass with a bonus, and continuing on that train of thought they were heading away from the plains to try to find something worthwhile. The forest was the best bet for them getting something good without getting in too far over their heads, and Beth's idea was reinforced as they entered the forest before noon and didn't immediately run into overwhelmingly powerful beasts.
They spent the day being a little cautious, understanding that this world was quite dangerous and they shouldn't run headlong into an unknown environment. The outer parts of the woods weren't very much different from the plains in terms of the strength of the beasts that they encountered. They fought many and ran from a few, but it wasn't a vastly different experience other than having to navigate through the trees. That, and the beasts that they were fighting were slightly different, including there were more insect-type beasts in the forest than there were on the plains.
The first day in the woods they didn't explore too far, considering that the forest was both dense and truly massive, far bigger than the forest of the previous stage of the trial. This woodland extended for as much as a thousand miles to the south and multiple thousands of miles total from east to west. Exploring fifty miles into it in a small area in terms of how far they went east and west was only a tiny speck of the whole area and didn't yield them anything particularly valuable.
Day four was similar to day three, as they continued their exploration of the forest, but this time they pushed even deeper into the woods. Beth was glad for the upgrades to her eyes now more than ever, the heat vision helping with identifying enemies and threats while the ability to see information about items at least allowed her to figure out things they came across that might have value. It was as they were pushing deeper into the woods than they had done the previous day that they made their first relatively valuable discovery.
'Something good to our left,' Beth said to Blood through their mental link.
'I don't get a good smell from that direction,' Blood replied, scrunching her nose as she crouched in a tree across from Beth.
'I can see a plant that is showing up to my eyes as something different than the trees and shrubs,' Beth replied with a shrug, tilting her head in the direction of the plant.
'We'll check it out, but it doesn't smell right,' Blood said.
The two moved through the trees, their preferred method of travel in forested areas, before arriving at a small, sun dappled clearing. There were two small plants in the clearing, both coming up to about mid-thigh on Beth if she were to stand next to them, each consisting of a thick, dark blue stalk with several small branches jutting out from them. The branches had triangular leaves and little, six-petaled yellow flowers dotted across them. They showed up to Beth's eyes as Sun's River. Beth had never heard of it before, but then again she wasn't trying to become an alchemist, so she wasn't super familiar with different types of plants.
As she approached the two plants, noting them gently swaying in the light breeze that was blowing that day, she started feeling a bit off. She had some experience with this before, walking closer before stopping and breathing in deeply. She felt a little woozy, her crystal clear vision becoming noticeably less clear as the toxin released by the flowers started affecting her mind. She stayed in the same spot for a few minutes before stepping forward several paces, once again stopping a handful of feet from the flowers and breathing deeply. She waited another handful of minutes for the wooziness to mostly fade before she stepped right up to the flowers and knelt down next to them. She stayed there kneeling for more than ten minutes, breathing deeply while she let her body fight the toxin, running Lordly Reconstruction on her bloodstream and brain to help counteract the effects.