When they entered the portal they arrived at Limbo, a world similar, but not identical to earth. A world where monster freely roams the lands, a world filled with mana, the main component for magic. On Limbo like on new earth there's also a town built circling the portal that connects both worlds.
The situation on this side is the same as on earth, people going in and out of the portals, street vendors selling various kind of thing, group of people getting ready to hunt, all that kind of thing. But on this side, there's always a constant serious expression on people face because on this side the monster can suddenly launch an attack on the town and they must be ready at all time, that's why there's a wall circling the town different from earth.
"Over here, we were ambush at the forest," Claire said while pointing outside of the town where they can see trees from where they are.
The portal is conveniently located over a flat grassland where people can build easily and close to the town there's a forest expanding outward. James nonchalantly followed Claire, when they leave the towns wall, they can finally get a clear look at the forest.
People called it the newbie forest because the monster that roams there can be considered low risk compared to other monsters far from the portal. There are a few brave people who venture far enough from the portal to encounter a more dangerous monster and they noticed a pattern that the closer it is to the portal, the weaker the monster is.
Which just make it more compelling to James to learn that there's a troll roaming around the newbie forest, cause troll can be considered a dangerous monster thanks to its massive regenerative capabilities, the only known weakness for any regeneration type monster is either fire or electricity but finding a pyromancer or electromancer is hard.
They have been walking for an hour inside the forest, encountering wolves, boar and other weak monsters, James deals with them with ease with his rifle, one bullet for one monster. After each kill, James will tell Chris or Claire to search inside the monster brain to find the monster core. Finally, after walking for another 15 minutes James can't help but asked: "How much deeper into the forest did you go to get ambushed by a troll?"
"Well, the monster around is pretty weak for me so Clair proposes we go farther to find bigger monster" Chris answer.
"Why would you do that!" James asked shocked at the nonchalant attitude of the twins.
"Well doc, the bigger the core is the more valuable it is" This time Claire is the one who answers James question.
"You are completely wrong, a monster core value is not calculated by its size but by its purity. Well actually you are partly true because the bigger the core is the more likely it is to be pure but it doesn't mean that the bigger the monster is then the bigger the core is"
"Really?" Both of the twins asked, they clearly didn't know about that.
*Sigh* "anyway, how much longer till we arrived?"
"I dunno, about 5 - 10 minutes, maybe?"
They then walk for another 5 - 10 before they arrived at the place where the twins are ambushed by the troll. James can see the trace of the battle that happens here. He sees around trying to more understand what happened, he walked to a tree that has been destroyed in half and asked the twins.
"How did you survive after being thrown like this?"
"How did you know it was me?" Chris asked back in surprise.
James pointed at the grass around the tree then said "Those are humans blood, a little bit different from a normal human, but still human"
"Well doc, you see, I'm a shifter" Chris answer
"Really, what kind?" James asked excitedly
This time it was Claire who answers the question "He can shift to a pig"
"Its a boar not a pig, how many time did I tell you that"
"Yeah, yeah, boar pig bacon, what's the different"
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Before Chris can retort back its James who intrude on the conversation. "There's a big difference between the two, one is a domesticated animal that lives only to be slaughtered while the other is a beast of pure wrath. And speaking of beast of wrath, there one looking at us"
20-30 meter in front of them, like James, said there's a beast, it is the same beast they are looking for, the troll. Its standing 3 meters tall with its hand almost as long as its entire body. A sharp bared fangs, the dishevelled hairy body, and even the way the beast is standing is intimidating.
When the beast realize it has been spotted its roar, part of the forest is silenced by that roar, small creature of the forest runs simultaneously to their home, birds fly directly to their nest and even the monster that roams around is frozen in fear. It looks like that roar also brought some sort of traumatic experience for the twins as they are now unmoving, frozen in fear. Seeing the twins not budging an inch a sigh once again escape from his mouth, he then immediately opens fire with his rifle.
*BANG*BANG*BANG* Three shot, three big holes.
James can finally see with his own eyes the regeneration capabilities of a troll, the holes that once as big as his fist is closing rapidly. Seeing that James concludes that he can easily take down the troll by kiting it, unfortunately, there is a problem with kiting it, both Claire and Chris is not moving since the moment they heard the roar earlier. That leaves him with only one option, that is to go into melee combat with a creature with great physical strength and rapid regeneration.
The creature after getting shot is angry at James, it then pounds its chest and goes charging at James. *sigh* "Fine then". James said to nobody in particular, he only said that to psych himself up. He then proceeds to drop the rifle to the ground in fear of breaking it when he goes into melee and then chargeback at the troll.
Both of them is charging at each other, one is a beast of muscle standing 3 meters tall while the other is a puny 2-meter tall human. James is preparing his magic when he glanced at the troll face, if his body is not pumped full of adrenaline then he is 100% sure that the troll is smirking at him.
20 meter.
15 meter.
10 meter.
5 meter.
The distance between the two keeps getting closer until finally *Bamm!!* The two forces collide and to the surprise of the troll James is perfectly fine after colliding with each other, he even pushed back the troll a little. It's all thanks to his ability as a biomancer, James can freely microcontroller his body biomaterial or in other word body, from his muscle, flesh, skin, and his favourite part, blood.
While they are charging at each other earlier James is preparing a mouthful of blood by biting his tongue and when they collide James spit out all the blood from his mouth, the blood then turns to a semi-solid state and stabbed the troll at its face. The troll then roars once again but this time instead of roaring for intimidation it is roaring in pain.
While the troll is distracted by the pain and loss of vision James continues his assault, using his mana, he forces his bones to grow out of his body towards the troll. The bones grow to pierce his muscle, flesh and skin, to reach the troll. If he cants turn off his pain receptor then he will never do something like this. After all of the outward bones have completely pierced the troll body James jumps back to recuperate.
He quickly regenerates all the wound on his body created by the bones, repairing all the bones on his body and to at least rest even for a few seconds. Using magic is very taxing on the mind but the magic James is using not only taxing on his mind but also his body as such even for a few seconds he needs rest.
The troll, on the other hand, is restricted by all the intruding bones on its body, the troll then destroys the bones one by one. James is expecting for it to happen as his fast created bones are not as durable as regular bones. Seeing that the troll almost escape restriction James continue to assault by using the blood that's already been spilt on the ground, he turned all of that blood to its semi-solid state to create some sort of a needle.
While controlling the blood James also want to shoot at the troll with his rifle as now the troll is semi-restricted but when he glanced back to grab his rifle he sees that Chris is already holding the gun, aiming at the troll. "Avoid hitting the head!!!" James shouted, afraid that Chris will hit the troll on the head and destroy the troll core. *BANG*BANG*BANG* A Barrage of bullets is fired upon the troll.
Finally after being assaulted by all the bullets and blood needle the troll stop moving and falls to the ground. They overpowered the troll regeneration ability without using fire nor electricity. "Nice job, I didn't know you can shoot"
"I can't" Chris answer as shocked as James.
"Well, uh. Anyway, I need you two to look to the other ways"
"Why?"
"Just do it"
"Okay?" The twins answer uncertain.
The twins are still curious about why they have to look the other ways, but then their curiosity turns to disgust when they see James is eating the heart of the troll, raw and bloody.
*Bleurgh* Claire can't stomach what she's seeing and throw up.
"I told you to look away"
"If you want to eat that why not cooked it first," Chris asked.
"I don't have time, I will faint without nutrition to replenish my body"
"But you are a biomancer, can't you just, I don't
know, bio something your body?"
"No, I can not. I can accelerate my body regeneration and do that I need food and I can't just create food out of nothing"
*Bleurgh* This time it is Chris that throws up, he then wiped his mouth and asked. "Why do you continue"
"Well because clearly, I still need more, now if you don't want to see that then looked the other ways"
James continues eating the heart of the troll to replenish all the energy he loses in the battle. Meanwhile, Chris and Claire are emptying the content of their stomach.