Iron ranked rat fur and rat meat first. I chose iron-ranked spirit coins. Werewolf pelts and the meat were next up. I didn’t realise they were werewolves, but I probably should have. I had the options for claws, teeth and blood as well. I got a mixture, all bronze rank.

The bear was a Giant Forest Bear, and I put everything I could into the pelt as I figured it would be worth the most. After that, I got the claws and teeth, although blood and bone were options. Then I kicked myself. I should have got some blood. I had my alchemy set there, but silver rank material was beyond it.

Reaping Magic was my first Skill to get to level 9. It may be my first bronze-level skill, but we will see.

I did some patchwork repairs on my armour and ate what I could.

Then we were off scouting again. Five rats and two werewolves later, we arrived at a clearing the Professor was happy with, and they set up the monitoring equipment near the centre.

“Theo,” Val said, “You know my perception sees magic, right?” I nodded. “Do you want to come and look at this?”

I followed her to the edge of the clearing, and she pointed to a tree. “There is something up there.”

I sent Kai scampering up. He went right to the top, where the branches were too thin to climb.

“Get ready to catch,” I said to her.

Shortly after that, an object was dislodged and came tumbling down. I was the one who caught it, and I examined it. “I have an identifying ritual, but I am pretty sure this is the Moon Essense.”

Val blew out her breath in a whistle. “It does look like it. That is a rare essence.”

I handed it to her, “Here you go, you found it.”

“You helped,” she said. I was going to protest, but she said, “We will split it. Can you store it for now?”

I nodded. “Let me know what else you find.”

She grinned, “This is more like it.”

I was pleased she was finding this Astral Space more along the lines of her expectations.

The encounters here were random, so we were not overwhelmed. There was one more bear wandering into the clearing, but we were all involved and handled it fine. There were three werewolves at different times, which Perich let us bronze and iron rankers handle.

There seemed to be only three kinds of beasts here. Iron rats, bronze werewolves and Silver Bears. There were no flying creatures, or snakes or anything. I found it very strange. I was always on edge, looking for a surprise attack because this didn’t seem to be enough.

We moved on to the next site with intermittent interruptions. Either Val or I would go out and deal with Iron Rank rats. My Tether was better with a swarm, although her sword wave was also effective. Single bronze-rank werewolves Zavis, Haemir or Lyari would deal with it. Lyari had some surprisingly effective methods, but she took longer than the others. She could bend the forest to her will, and she had Dryads Allure, which seemed to mesmerise her enemies.

Where the werewolves were in groups, we would all get involved, and for the bears, we left the bronze ranker and higher to it. The bronze rankers were not quite enough against a bear, and Perich would get involved. With some practice, they would soon be able to handle a silver-ranked bear without help.

We were in this Astral space for three days, taking readings in different places. The Astral membrane was constant, which was unusual, and the rats, werewolves and bears were all there was. We got rat, wolf, bear, moon quintessence, and awakening stones of frost and rat.

The three days of constant cold were starting to affect us Iron Rankers. The bronze rankers and up had a Recovery attribute that was more than enough for them.

There were three skills that were in constant use for the three days, regardless of whether I was fighting or not. My Senses of the Hunter levelled to 9, as I was always looking for the hidden trap. My Aura didn’t level, but it was getting close, as the constant tension made me work at it.

The third skill was Reaping Magic. I was always close when the monsters were killed, so I was always Reaping the magic. The silver-ranked Bears improved it the most. It was getting so close to bronze.

At the last setup, we had multiple silver-ranked bears. Three came into the clearing, and Perich went forward with Zavis, Haemir, and Lyari, and they engaged. Perich was holding two while the three bronze rankers worked the other one. Then three more appeared from another direction, and Venter had to protect her instruments rather than monitor and adjust them.

Venter had a range of spells, even though she was mostly non-combat-orientated. She conjured a sword that was translucent and seemed mostly not there, but was effective none the less. Being Gold rank, she was faster and tougher than the three silvers, but silver rank is still tough and hard to kill. The sword seemed to pierce through the bears easily but made no cuts, yet the bears became increasingly injured and slower.

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“She is cutting magic,” said Val, who could see magic.

I had no idea how that would work, but Val continued, “Silver rank means most of their bodies are magic constructs, and she is severing that from … something. From their core or soul? Do monsters have souls?”

They didn’t, as far as I knew, but they must have had something. I remember the undead priests raising monsters in Ironwood, so they were binding something. I didn’t say that.

“We are up,” I said as a lone werewolf ran out of the forest.

I grabbed my strongest shield and axe, as I would be trying to keep its attention on me as Val whittled its health down. We hadn’t killed one with just the two of us, but we were both closing in on bronze, so it was within our reach.

I moved into its path with Hunter's Step and yelled at it to get its attention, bashing it with the shield and cutting it with the axe. It howled and struck at me. I ducked one strike and deflected the other off my shield, using Quick Sharp to get it in place in time.

Val was slicing legs and tendons from behind. I spun the axe in my grip so the blade was away from the werewolf and used Pierce with the spike on the back of the blade, which still had the weight of the axe behind it.

The spike went in, and the werewolf was not happy. He jerked back, and I almost lost my grip on the axe. The edge of the spike was bladed as this was a common move, and it cut its way out, but it was close.

One of its legs collapsed from Val’s work, and it spun and pounced on her, but she danced away. That gave me the chance to land a heavy axe strike on its back, but I missed the spine. The axe dug deep and lodged in its bone, and this time, it was ripped out of my hand completely.

Ardisia left my body through my feet and moved through the ground, and thorny vines started ripping at the werewolf’s legs, making it stumble and restricting its movement. The Wolf tried to move out of Ardisia’s range, but I was there with a shield to bash it back, using my Mighty Oak.

The shield cracked. Val used one of her high-powered strikes, and it spun, so I grabbed the axe handle, still sticking out its back. I tossed my shield and grabbed it with both hands, swung my feet to the werewolf, and used Pierce with my foot claws. Mighty Oak and Rend both ripped into the monster and yanked my axe out. I went flying away, but I had my axe. I rolled and came to my feet, running back into the fight.

Val was dancing around it, keeping it in Ardisia’s range but not giving it a chance to attack her. It was still limping not fully recovered from the damage Val did to its leg. The hide was tough, the bones were tough, and it was fast. Val missed a step, was raked by claws, and was sent flying.

I sped up and went for the damaged leg to keep it hampered and sliced through the hide and flesh and struck bone, and that stopped it from following up to finish Val.

I supplemented Ardisia with Hunter's Tether, giving Val an opening, and she cut a line in its neck, but not deep enough. She was bleeding. While it was focused on Val, I threw sticky Resin on the ground, slammed another resin compound on its back, and tossed a fire quintessence into it, and it exploded in flames.

It did not like its back burning and focused on trying to put it out for a second, and Val went for a kill strike and scored a deep laceration on its arm, which then hung useless at its side. It stepped in one of my Resin spots, and the foot resisted moving. The damaged leg gave out, and it went down on its knees.

I spun my axe around to the spike, combined Mighty Oak and Quick Sharp, and slammed the spike into its skull with Pierce. I think the brain was gone at that point, but Val used her plunging execution skill and left her sword through the wolf’s neck. It toppled to its side, and Ardisia’s thorns blinded it, but I think it was already dead.

I looked around. Venter had finished her three bears. Perich was still fighting, but one of the bears was barely moving. The three bronze rankers were still fighting hard.

I nudged Val, “That one will recover if we don’t do something,” indicating the damaged bear.

I grabbed my axe, but she was already halfway to the injured Bear, still dripping blood. She started slamming her swords into the existing damaged area. I soon joined her. Silver-ranked creatures had incredible resistance to damage from bronze-ranked attacks and more from iron, so the best place for us to damage it was where it was already damaged.

Perich used a staff, so broken bones were the main injuries, and I crashed my axe again and again against its broken limbs. I Pierced my Claws into its eyes, and two Kais manifested and started eating the eye sockets to stop them from regenerating. It tried to shake them off, and one went flying, but the other hung on with its teeth embedded deep. Kai was a Devourer Rat; his teeth and claws were his thing.

The Kai that was flung off was running back.

I tried to slam my axe spike into its brain like the werewolf and used all the same skills and all the Blessings of the Reaper I had accumulated on the Pierce Skill. The spike bounced off the skull. It possibly did crack it, but it didn’t penetrate. I tried to do it again, but it swung its head around and tried to bite me.

It was injured and possibly dazed, which enabled me to dodge. Then, I did something that surprised me. I cast Hunter’s Tether, but I cast the crystal rod in the open jaws, and when it crunched down, it broke the rod, causing it to explode. It was still only Iron Rank damage, but it was in a sensitive area, or at least as sensitive as a silver ranker gets.

It roared in pain, and the Kai that was running back jumped into the open and damaged mouth and disappeared down its throat, the beast's jaws snapping down on its tail. Kai will try eating it from the inside, but I am not sure how that will go with a silver-rank monster.

It was recovering faster than we could damaged it. It tried getting to its feet. It was suddenly bowled over by a 2.5m troll who bit deep into its neck, bronze rank claws treating into it. A wave of swords struck it, doing real damage. Zavis, Haemir and Lyari had finished off their bear and came to finish this one.

Val joined me, looking as exhausted as I felt.

“We held it long enough,” I said.

She just nodded. She stopped dripping blood as a healing spell swept through her from Lyari.

I reaped a lot of magic. I focussed on the hide but made sure I also got blood and bone. The bones turned out to be big, thick thigh bones.

As I meditated after that fight, I had a lot of skills go up. My lowest skill was now seven, and my Senses of the Hunter and Kai joined Reaping Magic on nine. My Aura, Reaping Power, and Blend skills were very close to nine.

“Oh, oh!” said Val, “My Perception has just gone to bronze. Oooh, this is going to take some getting used to.”

Heidels tits! I wanted to beat her to have the first bronze skill. Luckily, I had not put coins on it.