After agreeing on a time to meet in a few days, Gi left the Coalition town and headed back towards the waterfall that had served as their home base. Poe flitted back and forth happily behind him.

"Wow, Boss. It's great that we have other monsters to help!"

"They're not going to help us. They're just lying to try and use us."

Poe worked his jaw in frustration. "How can they lie?!"

"It's okay. We lied too."

"We did? Do they know?"

"They do."

"Then... how is it a lie?"

"Just... trust me for now, Poe. I'll take care of it." The two of them paused in a valley among the hills and Gi had him fly up to check and see if anyone was following them. It turned out that Nori had left a few minutes after them and was headed roughly in their direction so they settled down to wait. Something from his conversation with Hillin had pulled at him though, making him feel guilty. "Poe... what do you want?"

"Want?" The little dragonfly landed on the grass nearby and gazed up at him with his multifaceted eyes.

"Yeah, like what do you want to do? Or I guess what makes you happy?"

Poe hopped up, not quite flying before settling back in his seat and flexing his wings out. "Working with Boss makes me happy! Boss saved me!"

Gi started to explain that he'd only spared him not saved him, but that felt too complex. He sighed. "But like what besides that?"

Poe's face scrunched up and his wings flattened. After a couple of seconds, he started to speak, but then closed his mouth. Gi could practically feel the heat coming off of his brain so he decided to intervene.

"It's all right, Poe. You don't have to have an answer now, but... just think about it. If you ever want anything, I'll get it for you. We're like a family now and family takes care of each other, you know?"

"Boss is family!" Poe shouted excitedly. Gi laughed and rubbed the top of his head behind his eyes. The two of them settled into a comfortable silence until Nori rounded the top of the hill. When he saw her, he realized that he needed to decide what to do with her as well. Was she also family? When Nori got to the bottom of the valley, she crossed her arms and glared.

"I got your help. Five goblins. None of them are great fighters, but they're vicious enough to do whatever we want if they think it's worth it."

Gi nodded, still wrestling with what Nori was to him and Poe. "Are they expendable or are they trustworthy?"

Nori's face soured, but her eyes were firm as they drilled into him. "If I agree to help you, I need you to help me back. No questions. No nothing."

Gi didn't like being in the dark about something, but he did think he'd need his own goons if he wanted a chance against Hillin and Krayli. He didn't even know what traits Hillin had. "What's the request?"

"All of the goblins that I get to help you need to die. All five of them."

"...why?"

"No questions." Again, her glare practically drilled into him and it didn't seem like she'd budge. Frankly as curious as he was, it was simpler than trying to save them all. Not as easy as just not caring whether they lived or died, but it should be doable.

"All right. We've got a deal."

Nori's face finally relaxed and Gi felt better. He didn't consider Nori family he supposed, but it felt like he was helping her meet her needs by murdering these goblins. The three of them all got up and resumed the walk towards the waterfall. Not for the first time, Gi really felt like he should perhaps value life more, but he just didn't. They were monsters and monsters killed. Simple as that.

When they arrived at the waterfall, Gi had Poe fly up to a keep a watch on the surroundings. Nori found a rock to snooze under while Gi had other plans. Using some kelp, he smeared it across the cliff face at a few different intervals and then went back nearly sixty feet towards the river. His Agility helped his aim a lot against slow moving enemies like the mud-covered adventurers or ones that he couldn't miss like the Dragon Pike, but if he wanted to fight someone with high Agility like Krayli, he needed practice.

First, he just tried to hit the spots he'd marked. At how far away he was, it was more difficult than he expected as his shots kept drifting high, but the size of his [Arcane Bolt] helped a lot. The first thing he discovered after using his [Arcane Bolt] more consistently was how his energy fueled it. He could push out three shots in quick succession, but then his attack speed would slow for a few seconds before he could manage to do another burst. His stamina would last longer without the bursts, but his damage over time would be less as well. He pressed on and slowly got more and more accurate.

Once he started to feel like he was hitting each of the targets every time he aimed at it, he increased the difficulty. Sprinting back and forth, he shot at the marks in order as he did. At first, he missed wildly. His three shot bursts were nowhere close to each other and not having both arms meant that running with one hand extended felt very unnatural when he couldn't balance with the other.

By the second day, he started to hit them more and more consistently. He also started to get a feel for whatever energy his [Arcane Bolt] pulled from and how much he could store at a time. It returned quicker if he was resting, but still slowly replenished even while running.

"Not bad," Nori said, after he'd stopped around midday, "but this format won't translate perfectly well to a fight. You've got too much time to aim and your targets won't be stationary."

So? He was trying his best to prepare. What else should he be doing? He tamped down on his frustration. "Do you have a suggestion?"

"Yeah. I've been avoiding spilling the beans, but since we're tied together for the next little bit, I'll tell you my race. I'm a Fighting Goblin. I took down one of the Red Slimes in the Infancy Stage and their innate trait is their fighting style."

"So... you know kung fu?" Gi asked.

"What's kung fu?"

"It's... honestly, I don't know." Whatever understanding of that lingering knowledge was faded away. The visions Danna sent him mostly made sense, but those weird flashes of knowledge were disconcerting as they didn't feel like they had a purpose.

"Moving on then...," Nori said. "What you're basically doing is practicing a fighting style. For me, I focus on my movements and how they relate to my instinctual fighting style. My trait helps with that. Since you don't have that, you'll have to create one. Structure your movements."

It sounded like she knew what she was talking about so he started his most recent training again. Each time he fired, he focused on how his hand and fingers were set. Originally, he'd just kind of done whatever as he flung his arm out. Now, he experimented. He used his full hand, just his finger, his hand as a blade, but finally he settled on one finger out with his thumb up to help him aim. After that he focused on his arm, there wasn't much to tweak as it spun each time to aim, but he kept it locked in tight with less of a bent elbow.

With each shot, he tweaked his body movements. The way he turned with each spot and the way that he popped out to aim. It only took him a couple hours to get the basics down and it seemed to pay dividends. As he'd eliminated a lot of the variables of his approach, his consistency skyrocketed. Out of breath and waiting for his internal energy to come back, he plopped down near Nori who'd been watching him.

"That actually feels much better. It's not quite locked in, but I think I've got the right path."

She leaned over and trailed her fingers through the river, the two of them just far enough away from the waterfall to make conversation possible. Dipping her hand completely into the water, she pulled out a handful of stones. She flashed a malevolent grin. "Now do it again."

With the basics structure out of the way, Nori now started to throw rocks at him as he trained. He started dodging them, but sometimes, it forced him to miss and once, it even sent feedback from his [Arcane Bolt] wracking his body. He'd needed to take a long break after that one.

"Dodging is part of your form also. Focus on the movements!" Nori yelled at him while chucking another rock.

As soon as he focused on his dodging movements, his entire shooting form fell apart. He couldn't focus on his aiming and dodging at the same time, but his form suffered if he put one or the other on auto-pilot. He spent the rest of that day getting pummeled by rocks as he tried to switch back and forth between his dodging form and his shooting form quickly. He'd seen some progress on each of them, but he wasn't able to combine them. Once night fell, Poe returned and quickly fell asleep while Gi explained to Nori the struggle that he was having.

Nori snorted. "Well, that's your problem! You're trying to do two things at the same time. Just do one thing at a time."

"But then I miss my chance to aim? I have to do them both together."

"Are you dumb?" Nori asked, but Gi's frosty glare made her reel it back in. "I meant, uh, here let me give you a demonstration."

Nori hopped to her feet and adopted a fighting pose, squared up with one foot forward. He'd seen her in this a few times from their journey to the Dungeon portal, but he hadn't thought much of it. First, she threw out a simple punch. "A punch, see? That's one thing." Afterwards, she brought her other fist and cupped it over her ear. "A guard. Two things."

"Right..." Gi said, not really getting it.

Nori then launched her fist out and brought her guard up at the same time. "A guarded punch. One thing."

He stared at her for several long moments. An exasperated look started to appear on her face, but then it clicked. It seemed so simple that he hadn't even considered it. He hopped up excitedly explaining. "I get it! You're taking two simple movements and turning them into a complex movement. Trying to move independently is too much, but if you're just doing one thing then it's easier!"

"Yeah, that's what I just said." Nori rolled her eyes.

Gi ignored her and then started to work on turning both dodge and shoot into a complex movement. He didn't really need to fire to make it work so he just tried to aim and dodge at the same time.

Danna sent him memories of playing the piano and this seemed very similar. If you were trying to play both the high and low parts separately, it was nearly impossible like trying to follow two different thoughts in your head. However making each beat a complex movement instead of an independent one made it infinitely easier to play both parts.

It only took a little bit for his brain to translate that understanding into what he was doing, but once he did, the motion came easily. Nori, of course, wasn't satisfied.

"Show me the movements separately." He dodged and then aimed. "Now show me together."

She immediately started picking his form apart. It seemed some fidelity was lost in transitioning to a complex action, but they spent the next several hours working on it and then into the next day. Finally, she had him start to fire on moving objects. He kept doing the same dashing drill but instead of hitting him with rocks, she threw them out for him to shoot at. By the end of the third day, Gi was exhausted, but he felt like he'd made some real progress.

"It's a start. You're about as skillful as a slime dropped fresh from the primordial ceiling, but I suppose that's better than nothing," Nori said as the two of them relaxed as comfortably as they could against the rocks that surrounded the river.

Gi nodded as he kneaded his cheeks absently. She was right and he knew that. Even against his mostly unskilled opponents in the Dungeon, his victory had been a minor miracle. And now? He'd be going after monsters just as strong as he was if not stronger. Nori interrupted his thoughts.

"You're lucky that the size of your beam is so large. Otherwise, you'd really struggle to hit anything."

"That's what she said," Gi blurted out automatically.

"What?"

"Ignore that." Where did these strange phrases come from? "You're right though. I've been relying on Danna's grace for far too long."

"Better to rely on your own skills than some Goddess."

"Danna would agree with you. She only lends her Strength. She doesn't give it. If I want to be of use to her, I'll need to be strong enough to fight on my own."