I jumped, but so did the cats, which probably indicated that all three of us needed to get better at fighting.

On the other side of the clearing, the massive crystal that the ooze had been within had cracked cleanly in two, and a much diminished ooze, only about the size of a sportsball – okay, I was never that sporty, but Ed could probably have said what game was closest. But the fist sized orb of ooze turned and began to roll away.

Note to self. Oozes are very, very weak to draining spells. Good to know!

I spun back to the cats and blazed my Briarthreads out around me in an overcharged display of power and dominance.

The cats, unfortunately, hadn’t heard of the sunk cost fallacy. They’d already burnt some of the spells they’d stored up to try and eat me, and they weren’t about to pull out of the fight now.

With a sigh, I teleported back and released my Pinpoint Boneshard at them instead.

Caught off guard by the sudden swap of attack, one bone struck each cat before they were firing those gray bolts at me. I teleported behind one and struck at it quickly with the overcharged Briarthreads, then teleported off to the side again as another flurry of bolts came at me.

I had to admit, for all that I’d pushed to avoid expanding my mana pool, instead focusing on progress, now that the natural treasures from the Idyll-Flume had done their work, I had to admit that it was pretty nice to not have to worry quite so much about running out of mana.

The exception, unfortunately, was temporal mana. With both of my storage spells draining it away, and the constant use of Foxsteps, I was already starting to run low. With an effort of will, I shaped my Testudinal Reserve spell, stepping to the side to dodge the sudden burst of forged stone that shot at my head from one of the cats.

As soon as I finished, I drew power out of my bones and into my spirit. To my surprise, the mixture that flooded through me wasn’t pure time, but rather a mix, not unlike the temporal tortoise I’d gotten it from. My spirit filtered the temporal out and filled my gate with it, while breaking the rest down into energy and replenishing what it could in my body.

In retrospect, I really shouldn’t have been surprised, but I’d still been caught off guard, at least enough for a sizzling acid pulse to fire out of one of the cats.

If I’d had my usual gear, my aura pin and suit, then it wouldn’t have done much.

As it was, though, my Briarthreads tried to cut the attack apart, and only managed to divert some of it. The rest splattered over my outstretched hand, burning, and I let out a yelp.

With a growl of frustration, I released all five Pinpoint Boneshards at the cat that had struck me, and while some of the cats disruption spells knocked the bones out of the air, two still managed to land, striking the cat and drawing blood. I teleported right up close to it and slashed out with my briars, then shouted.

The cat turned and ran, and I whipped around to face the other, chaining together three quick teleports until I stood before it. It seemed ready to fight for a moment, until I layered it in three Fungal Locks. Grayish armor filled the air around the cat, and it turned and fled as well, its self-preservation instincts able to overwhelm Edgar’s weaker control over them.

I examined my hand, trying to remember what all Kene had told me about acid burns. I’d managed to disperse most of the acid here, but before anything, I needed to cleanse the wound.

I had no way to track water sources, nor did I have a pot that I could boil water in, so I’d have to make do. I gathered together some snow, then used a single drop of my firebomb potion, lighting it up with a pulse of ungated mana. It let out a popping sound, and some of the snow started to melt. I slowly added more, drop by drop, until I had a pool of relatively clean water.

It would have been far more preferable for me to boil the water, but I didn’t have that as a real option, unfortunately. I’d just have to rely on the antibacterial properties of the healing potion to do its work.

I used splashes of water to rinse out the wounds as best I could, then drizzled my healing potion over them, watching as they slowly closed up and healed.

I’d have to keep an eye on myself to make sure I didn’t develop a fever or any other signs of an infection, and that none of the acid spots re-appeared, or had weakened my bones or anything of that sort. There could be some nasty side effects to acid burns, but I was fairly sure this should take care of it.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Still, if things got too bad, I’d pull out. It was better to lose the points, or even fail the entire competition, than to lose a hand for something that could be easily prevented.

With that done, I checked over the large shell that the ooze had been within, running my mana senses over it to try and make out what I could. I was in need of a new crystal for my temporal basin, after all. The one that I’d grown with Ed’s help was nice, and did store my mana alright, but it had hit the point of diminishing returns.

Unfortunately for me, the large crystal seemed to be mostly nonmagical. There were faint tinges of telluric energy, sure, but that was about it. Nothing really stood out to me as especially useful, no matter how deep I pried.

Ah well. I’d had plenty of fortunate encounters, more than my fair share. It wasn’t reasonable to expect everything to have the right tool for me.

I left the crystal there and started walking again, speeding up my hike a little bit to make up for the lost time. The fight, cleaning, and examination of the crystal had only taken about fifteen minutes, but lost time was lost time.

Two more days passed in a similar fashion, and I thought I was probably in the clear.

At least, I was in the clear from the acid burns.

The weather was an entirely different conversation.

Up to this point, I’d had reasonably nice weather. It had snowed off and on, sure, but it had mostly been sunny, and I hadn’t needed to take more than basic weather precautions.

But another snowstorm was starting to brew in the clouds, and the look of it had me nervous. The storm core within it seemed powerful, and I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to just hike through it.

Arguably even worse, I could see large, winged forms circling within the clouds. Casting my mana upwards, they felt like some sort of bird things with a mixture of physical, desolation, tempest, and telluric mana, but they were far enough over the ground that I couldn’t get a complete sense of the picture.

At least, I wasn’t able to until one dove out of the clouds to attack me.

The creature was far larger than I’d thought it would be, bigger than a dog. It had the body of a bird, with wickedly sharp talons that looked like they could cut through a block of stone. Its face was that of an elks, and it had antlers like a deers, only unlike a deers, these ended in wickedly sharp points that I had no doubt could gore me. As if that wasn’t enough, the tips glowed with magic, clearly the conduit for some sort of sharpening spell.

The creature was only in the middle of second gate, much magically weaker than me, but it was still a predator of the blizzard, and its body was more than strong enough to give me pause.

Not to mention, there were still hundreds of them circling in the clouds overhead. I took a little bit of solace in the fact that they didn’t seem to be pack hunters, at least, descending to fight one on one.

It was a cold comfort, though.

The deer-bird dove down, its horns pointed to run me through, and I teleported into the air over it, catching myself with Immovable Lock while leaving a Material Echo of my body behind. The sharp horns struck the construct of temporal mana and drove through, and I used the moment of distraction to launch a stream of bones and briars at the strange monster.

I missed having Dusk around. If I’d been able to slash out with a crescent of Blademoss, I’d have been able to do much better. There was no sense in complaining, though, so I focused on making my attack as impactful as I could, targeting the wings and neck.

Thankfully, the creature’s body seemed far more focused on offense than defense, and my attacks found purchase. I skipped my bones over the edges of the wing, doing my best to mess with its ability to fly.

The creature slammed into the ground, catching itself on its talons and turning up to focus on me. It flapped and tried to take off at me, but I refocused my attack on the wings again, and it turned to fly away.

I let myself slowly descend to the ground and started running.

Well, not running-running, that would just result in me slipping and breaking a bone. It was more of a quickened shuffle that let me cover more distance.

As I moved, snow started falling, and the winds picked up, powerful gusts that were nearly enough to throw me off of my feet. I was forced to stabilize my body with Immovable Lock to hold against the wind more than once.

It was clear that I was going to need somewhere to stop and wait until the storm had softened, at the very least.

I missed Dusk again. If I could just pop open a portal to this realm, I’d have no trouble with the weather at all. Maybe more importantly, it would give me someone to talk to. I was getting unreasonably bored while I was out hiking. Oddly, not having my medicine didn’t seem to be as much of an oimpediment as it was in the city – maybe it was something with the constant movement and constantly needing to keep an eye out for danger keeping my brain occupied?

Whatever the truth of it, I missed my friend, and my partner. An occupied brain didn’t mean I didn’t want anyone to talk to, and it didn’t solve my predicament of needing somewhere to stay.

The only real question I had was where. I could stop at the nearest cleared area of a reststop and try to set it up for a slightly longer stay than my usual camps, but I wasn’t an expert in survival, and I wasn’t entirely confident that I’d be able to make something that could weather the storm. Then again, with my heating potions, I didn’t inherently need to worry as much as a normal person might have to.

I could search out a cave or warren large enough to hold me, but that came with some risks of its own. I’d have to clear the mouth out frequently to stop myself from getting trapped, but more importantly, there was every chance that whatever was already residing within the cave would take offense to the fact I wanted to stay with them. They might not, but given Edgar’s power driving the beasts to act more territorially, I doubted I’d get off that lucky.