It was starting to get dark. The sun had dipped below the horizon—or at the very least, it was obscured by the surrounding mountains. They had continued following the river upstream at a moderate pace, alternating between active conversations and long stretches of silence.

During that time, Zoe had leveled up {Meditation}, bringing it up to level nineteen. The trick to her breakthrough, like many before, was challenging herself to maintain the ability while doing something else at the same time. In this case, the challenge had been maintaining the meditative state while also keeping track of Millie’s torrent of questions and long, unwieldy explanations.

Honestly, Zoe felt that she definitely did deserve at least one level for her accomplishment there.

In any case, she decided it was time for them to make some kind of camp given the encroaching darkness. While Zoe herself would be fine with neither sleep nor illumination, Millie was still an unawakened human child, even despite her surprising capabilities.

Also, more importantly, Zoe wanted a proper night’s rest. She hadn’t actually had one since she had arrived here. Every time, either something went terribly wrong or she was being held prisoner. Looking back at how rapidly everything had developed, Zoe remained surprised. Sure, she was still interested in hunting down her enemies—but also, it wasn’t like she couldn’t spare any time to take it a bit easier.

Millie, though, seemed disappointed. It took several minutes before she relented, and event then, she showed no sign of calming down. Zoe could only hope that the girl would tire out eventually and give her some peace.

While she did appreciate the easy company, there was only so much she could mentally and emotionally endure.

Departing from the riverbank, the two of them made their way deeper into the trees. At first, Zoe was inclined to just find a particularly well-shaped tree for them to sit in, but Millie pointed out that she wanted to make a fire.

Not only did that rule out sleeping in the canopy—it also ruled out just picking a random spot on the jungle floor. While the dense carpet of undergrowth probably wouldn’t burn particularly well, it would still be really stupid to light a campfire on it. There was also no way they would be able to clear a patch of it, as it was extremely dense and at least over a meter thick.

Therefore, they both spend at least a quarter of an hour trudging around in search of any sort of rock formation in the gloom before Zoe realized how stupid they both were. “So, I think perhaps we could try just going back to the river.”

There was a wide and flat stretch of dried mud and sand between the water and the trees, there were plenty of stones, and there was literally water right there if they needed it.

Evidently, Millie realized what Zoe meant immediately, as she covered her face with her hands. Both annoyed and amused, Zoe led her back to the river, where she then worked on making a small ring of stones from the edge of the shore while Millie went off to get proper wood.

Zoe finished first, of course, which left her alone for a little bit. She adjusted her position many times, as she hadn’t actually quite figured out how to get properly comfortable in this body yet. Eventually she managed. Millie returned at the same time with a big bundle of kindling.

Well, it wasn’t actually that much, but given the size and height of the person holding it, it seemed disproportionately large. Dropping it down, Millie stared at the ring of stones. Zoe glanced down at them as well. “Is something wrong?”

After a moment, the girl just shook her head. “No.” Then she pointed back into the trees. “I found some logs but I couldn’t carry any of them with all the kindling, but I think you could.”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Zoe stared. “You want me to carry the logs for you.”

“Yes?”

Grumbling to herself incoherently, Zoe rose back up to her full height, stretched, and set off behind Millie. A few minutes later, they returned to their campsite. Or rather, to their ring of stones and pile of small sticks.

Then, Zoe watched with interest as Millie started trying to light it. She was using the stick, rock, and string method—something Zoe had only seen a few times in movies. Honestly, even if Zoe still had human hands, she doubted it would be easy for her to imitate successfully.

But then again…

A sudden competitive spirit flared within her chest. I bet I can do it faster. I’m going to completely dominate this kid.

Activating {Mana Manipulation}, Zoe quickly shaped a moderate amount of mana into a tiny point above her hand. That kind of fine control was now fairly trivial for her now, and she suspected that seventy-five points was probably enough to provide the raw heat to ignite the kindling.

But then she got a better idea. This would certainly work, but it’s not very efficient.

After all, while she had learned that raw mana manipulation could be devastatingly effective, it was only impressive at large scales. It had a really awful ‘bang for your buck,’ so to speak. So taking inspiration from Millie’s method, Zoe stealthily scooped up a few grains of sand with {Kinetic Manipulation} and deposited them on a flat piece of bark underneath some dried straw.

It never hurts to practice your abilities.

Even with the massive gains with this ability Zoe had made just before her failed assault on the pirate camp, it still wasn’t super easy to get the grains to do what she wanted to do. Spinning each of them independently, Zoe pushed them down into the bark at the same time. Faster and faster, they spun as her mana slowly dipped a single point at a time.

Only two seconds later, smoke began to rise, and half a second after that she had a proper flame. Licking her fangs, Zoe felt like jumping for joy.

{Kinetic Manipulation has leveled up! Kinetic Manipulation is now level 15.}

Oh, that’s nice!

{You have learned Thermal Manipulation.}

Oh, that’s REALLY nice.

In Zoe’s opinion—based on her accumulated experience so far—manipulation abilities were really great. Both {Mana Manipulation} and {Kinetic Manipulation} had served as gateways to multiple additional abilities as well.

“Woohoo! I got it!”

Grinning, Millie began gently fanning the little flame she had created, glancing over to Zoe with a bright smile. Zoe resisted the urge to laugh. And then Millie returned her attention to her bit of kindling to use it to start the rest of the fire, realized that the rest of the kindling was already going up in flames, and Zoe snorted.

“Nice work, but you were a bit slow.”

Tossing her little piece of bark into the growing fire as well, Millie grunted and crossed her arms. “No fair. You probably cheated.”

“Mmm, and how would I do that?” Zoe probed.

“You’re a spirit beast, right? I bet you used an ability for that.”

Tiling her head, Zoe considered it. Honestly, she still didn’t fully comprehend all of the mechanics of the system—the so called Grand Design—but Andric had used that word to describe her when she lost her initial classes.

Now that she had ascended, did it still apply? What did it actually mean—aside from the fact that she had a magical core, which she already knew even before that had happened.

Deciding it was unimportant, she shrugged. “Yeah, I did use an ability.”

Millie smirked. “Aha! See? You cheated.”

“Whatever.” Rolling her eyes, Zoe stared into the fire. “Actually, why did you want this? You can’t tell me you’re cold. Is it to cook—wait, do you even have any food?”

“Yes, and no,” Millie replied. “I’ve been eating what I can gather, but tonight I figured you could catch something for me and I could cook it. I can’t get any fish because the river is poisoned—did you know that by the way? And the other animals I can actually find in this particular area are kind of dangerous.”

Zoe blinked. “So you want me to go wander off and kill one of these dangerous animals for you.”

“Uhm, yes?”

“Fucking hell, kid.” Sighing, Zoe stood up yet again and crossed both pairs of arms. “Are you coming with me?”

Millie shook her head without even bothering to make eye contact. “Nah.” She paused— “Also, get me one of the sloths with the mane. Those taste better than the other ones.”

Zoe left before the spoiled child could make any further demands. Fortunately, sloths should be easy to find, and while the maned ones were less common, Zoe remembered seeing plenty of them as well. But she wasn’t going to just acquiesce to Millie’s request so easily. A plan forming in her mind, Zoe focused on {Predator’s Eyes} as she began the hunt.

Oh, she was going to bring back a sloth all right, but not without teaching the kid a lesson.