We had a night off in a strange city and the next stop would be the island paradise. We would be four days there and then less than a day in another small space before heading back for the start of the third year.

I sold a lot of the goods I had picked up. I bulk sold them to traders in the Adventure Society as I didn’t have time to shop around for better prices. I needed the space. Val sold her Moon essence, and she gave me half. I protested, but at the end of the day, if she wanted to give me the coin, that was her choice.

I fixed my armour as I thought through the weird moon forest. Val and I alone defeated a bronze-rank werewolf. We have made tremendous progress and are both near bronze.

It appears Val does not have self-healing skills. That was a weakness, in my view. She was planning to be a member of a team, so her focus was on movement and dealing damage to the target. I guess I was focused on operating alone and on self-sufficiency.

Should I remain alone, or should I join a team? Val and I worked well together. If only she were not so fixated on fighting as entertainment. Jabari, or rather Olivia, expects to work with me someday. We will see where the paths take us. And the goddess.

The next day, Venter portaled us to one of the entrances to the shallow water and island Astral space that had many Shabs.

We were setting up the instruments right next to the entrance.

“The Moon forest.” I asked, “Were the readings normal?”

“Yes,” Venter replied, “all of them.”

“So only the Earth Tunnels were different?”

“So far,” she said, “and only at the entrance.”

“Which is why we are setting up here at the entrance,” I said.

She nodded, “This astral space has several openings into Pallimustus, and I want to get readings from as many of them as possible. We will also stop at our usual testing spots.”

I am not sure four days is going to be enough here. We will be on the go all the time to get that done. So much for my Island Holiday.

I helped the Prof and Perich set up the instruments and we stood around waiting. The entrance was in knee-deep water, so there was no sitting.

I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, “Gulls!”

Flying enemies were the worst for us as we had no flyers. Zavis and Val have skills that let them step on air or similar, but they do not have true flight. Val and Zavis also have a teleport, but Val can only use it infrequently due to the mana cost. Zavi is much freer with his.

I moved and planted four poles around the instruments and raised a net over them to keep the worst gulls off. Venter will catch anything that gets through that.

“They are bronze rank,” Zavis said.

There will be several that get through the nets.

I pulled out another net, and as the flock of gulls swooped down toward us, I threw the net and tangled three, and they splashed down. I rushed to deal with them as Zavis teleported up and cut two wings before teleporting back. I don’t think he will be able to do that too often.

The Gulls were larger than normal gulls, about the size of a medium dog. Their feathers were very resistant to attacks. Their main attacks came from their snapping beaks, and there was a mixture of water and air attacks from their wings. Their wing attacks were already cutting through my netting.

I lamented once again the fact my only level jumping ability was my claws. I grabbed and stabbed with my claws with Pierce and then Rend. Pierce and Rend. The gull snapped at me and marked my bracer. It threw a wind blade at me, and I ducked under that.

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Val was attacking another gull in my net, and Harmir was the third.

Lyari had some ranged weapons, and she could throw her warrior children, which would use a tangling skill to bring down a Gull. I debated throwing Ardisia, but she started stabbing with her thorns from my hand as I stabbed with my claws. I would drop Ardisia on them if these gulls looked like they were getting away.

We killed the three gulls, but my net was ruined. Those things took time to make.

Venter had a magic shield around the equipment and under my net. The equipment couldn’t be used under the shield, so we would have to restart the measurements after the gulls had gone.

Zavis was very skilled with his lightning movement skills, and one of them will probably move to flight when he reaches Silver. He has a very versatile skill set.

I was grounded, but with my Hunter's Step levelling, I needed less and less under my foot. I could not just use the surface tension of the water yet, but that would come with bronze.

The Gulls were ripping apart my nets, but disrupting their wings only brought them down. I pulled out a weapon I had only practised with: my long bullwhip. It was mostly braided Cutting Web with strips of bronze hide and steel caltrops. The bronze hide was the only thing to withstand my cutting webs and give it the weight it needed. I was not touching the bronze hide, so I was not affecting it, although it was painful to make. The idea and skills came from the Monster-crafted Weapons skill book. It had the design of a whip of sticky web to trap certain monsters.

The Cutting Web was tricky to use on the fast-moving gulls, and I stripped a lot of feathers off before I got it caught in my first wing and brought down the first Gull. It was a water gull and was at home in the water as much as in the air, but It was not happy with me and spun to attack. I dropped the whip handle as it came at me and used a shield to block the cutting water wave, but I lost my footing and went under. My shield had deep gouges from the attack, and one of my greaves had a gouge that lined up with it.

I spun around in the shallow water, putting my shield between me and the Gull as I tried to get my feet back under me. I was on my knees, and then a water wave hit, and the gull’s beak took a section out of my shield.

I stabbed with my claws and Pierced through the protection of its feathers, drawing blood. It let out a raucous squawk and beat its wings to gain some height. The whip was still wrapped around one of the wings, so I grabbed the handle, and my fur protected me from the cutting web when I missed. I did get a grip on it, and the gull crashed into the water again. I was dragged through the water a short way when the gull decided to attack again.

I created a large kite shield and jammed it as hard as I could into the sandy bed under the water. I hid behind it as another cutting wave struck it and swept past. The shield bent as the enraged gull attacked, and I Quick Sharp got my claws into it, and it let out another ear-piercing squawk. This time, I was ready and kept my claws embedded while my other hand jammed into its mouth.

The beak closed with a force that pierced right through my bracers and Resistant Fur and drew blood. I was trusting my defences as I pumped Resin down its throat as fast as I could and hardened it as fast as I could. Bronze-rank creatures usually still needed to breathe, so this wouldn’t kill it fast, but it would certainly help and keep it distracted while I Pierced and Rend away with my other claws. Getting under the feathers was the trick, as Pierce just deflected off them. I Pierced against the flow of the feathers to get to the flesh underneath.

It tried to bite the arm it had in its beak continually, and I rotated it slightly so the bracers would help some. I snatched my arm back with Quick Sharp when I could and very nearly lost some fingers. I jabbed those claws at an eye in retaliation and took a full-body Cutting Wave that I couldn’t dodge. Resin Armour version two was a lot better, and combined with my Resistant Fur, I only got a shallow cut. I swung around behind the beak, and a wing buffered my body as Ardisia turned that part of me into a porcupine. I had her manifest as she couldn’t stop the wings, but she could restrict them enough they couldn’t take flight.

I was almost washed off by a water surge, and Ardisia’s vine anchored me close while I wore away at its health. I had no time to see how the rest of the fight was going, and I knew I was vulnerable to other gulls, but I had to trust my teammates. I wondered why none of them were coming to help me.

The gull opened its mouth to squawk again, but its throat was filled with hard resin. I Pierced and Rend and combined it with Blessings of the Reaper and Mighty Oak, but I didn’t want to run out of mana, so I was sparing in the use of Mighty Oak. I might need Quick Shark to escape, and that took mana. The water around me was awash in feathers and both our blood. Eventually, the Gull stopped moving. I just flopped back into the water, exhausted.

I heard clapping. I raised my head. No, that was not high enough to see over Ardisia as she fed on the body. Two Kai’s swam over to the Gull's corpse and started eating as well. I sat up, and everybody lined up and was watching me. Val, Zavis and Haemir were clapping at my performance. I flopped back down as a root came out of the sandy sea bed, touched me, and a healing spell washed through me.

Val walked around and held out a hand to help me up. “That was awesome. You killed a bronze-rank monster with no bronze-rank skills yet. You are a legend.”

I just groaned.

“You really should come and join my arena fighting team.”