The Caravan crested the small rise in the wide desert valley. And down below Seras saw the greenest expanse she had ever seen. Centered around and perforated rock pillar of stone was an irrigated and vibrant expanse of vegetation contrasting to the desert’s drab browns and yellows.

“Welcome to Cupric. City of rebirth.” Dustin said.

“This is even larger than Karstess.” Seras mused.

Dustin nodded. “Cupric has several water based astral spaces below it. Ancient wells and irrigation bring that water up to the surface and irrigate the valley. This is the greenest place you’ll ever see within the five deserts.”

“Dustin, this is the greenest place I’ve seen anywhere.” Seras said pointedly.

“Why does that not surprise me.” Flint muttered bitterly. Despite the gifted essence Flint still hadn’t warmed up to her yet and remained just as hostile.

“Is your world not a green one?” Martin asked.

Seras was about to answer when Dustin held his hand. “Honestly son the less you know about her world the better you’ll sleep at night. For now, let's just say they don’t call it Ruin for nothin’.”

Seras grumbled to herself. Apparently, all her stories about Ruin left her follow caravanners with nightmares and restless nights.

“Why is it called the city of rebirth anyway?” Seras asked.

“The astral space under Cupric Rock isn’t one that helps with surviving in the desert, it’s a place of fire and lava, or so I’m told. Only the local nobility are allowed access. They rely on those deeper astral spaces to survive out here. But the wells that feed the valley’s irrigation rely on the Labyrinth to tap into those astral spaces, and as you know the labyrinth shifts and changes. Sometimes the water will disappear one year just to come back another, sometimes there’s century in between the connection. When it dries up people abandon the city, and when it returns people flood in an continue farming like nothing happened.”

“Then there’s the Phoenixes.” Martin added.

“Right” Dustin said. “The rock in the center is called the Ariary, and its been the home to a clan of phoenix longer than we have historical records.”

“What’s a Phoenix?” Seras asked.

“It's an innately magical creature, like dragons. It’s a bird that when it dies it bursts into flames and is reborn from the ashes.” Dustin explained.

“Damn, that sounds awesome.”

“Yup, and they’re the reason that no one has dug into the side of the Ariary either. Instead, the people around here set lots of little villages with high walls, and use the irrigation cannels to move around.”

“What’s the magic density around here?” Seras asked.

“Low bronze, so you’ll see large packs of iron rank monsters and a smattering of bronze with the rare potential of silver.” Flint said. “But we’re not going to be staying long enough for you to do any jobs. This will just a be a resupply before we set off for Volkis.”

Martin gave them a look “You're going by Volkis?” he asked in surprise. “I thought you were going north through the Dells.”

Dustin gave Martin a look “Volkis is the fastest way to Basal. The Dells will mean traveling by the north roads, which should still be snowed in.”

Martin looked sheepish, “I guess you didn’t hear the news. The Volkis path is blocked off.”

Flint scowled “Its open desert from here to Volkis, how can it be blocked off?”

“Toruachs. Largest heard I’ve ever seen. They came south a few weeks back and don’t look to be clearing off.”

“How large?” Dustin asked.

“Lots.” Martin answered “They’re blocking the whole route to Volkis. And I’ve heard some people say they might be settling in for the birthing season.”

Dustin looked worried. “I’m going to need to ask around about this one. If we need to wait for the snows to clear up north then we might be stuck in Cupric for a while.”

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“I’m sure it’ll work out.” Seras reassured. “Its not like our cargo is perishable.”

He made a noncommittal grunt.

~~~*~~~

As it turned out, they were indeed stuck in Cuprik for the foreseeable future. Seras had ridden out with Dustin and saw the size of the herd blocking the way.

Massive lizard-like beasts, easily twice as tall as a Heidel, with one oversized horn on the nose filled the wide desert all the way into the horizon. Seras was baffled by the size of the herd. And so was Dustin.

Toruachs apparently ranged all across the flat spaces of this continent, and had been a food source for the native tribes like the Akemi. Typically, they stayed away from the desert since there wasn’t enough for them to eat. But despite that they were still drawn here, and beasts that large had to be eating something.

Some weeks later it was eventually revealed that the unpredictable labyrinth had somehow disgorged tons of iron rank plant quintessence into the surface of the desert. Toruachs were a magical creature that had developed the unique trait of digesting plant quintessence as an additional food source.

How they knew there was a ton of plant quintessence just coming out of the ground was beyond anyone Seras had asked.

But with hundreds of thousands of colossal, territorial, beasts blocking the way the Caravan was effectively stuck in Cuprik.

While it was bad for business to stay stuck in one city for too long it was beneficial to Seras. Life on the road was tough, and while she had endless hours to spend reading or training her aura control, she had no time to tinker with her rifle, or to get formation practice.

In that regard the down time proved to be a boon for her.

Though not all of her time could be spent on tinkering.

Typically, with most cities the good adventuring contracts were capitalized by the locals, leaving only the annoying/easy jobs for people like the Caravan crew. But with the Toruach herd looming on the green valley’s eastern flank most of the adventures were tasked with keeping the Toruachs away. It was a mandatory contract leveled on most of the area’s experienced adventurers, which left a growing plethora of contracts for Seras and the crew.

Rohan had been able to purchase a swift essence for a reasonable price as well as some awakening stones of the feet, which meant he now had a new set of abilities to grind and develop.

And the others were hoping to get lucky and pick either an essence they needed or one they could trade in.

Petra had signed them up for something called a road contract, a tour through all the nearby villages and outposts in the Cuprik valley. It was supposedly a punishment detail, forcing adventurers to give up their comfy beds and homecooked meals for time on the road eating spirit coins. Personally, the only downside Seras found in this style of adventuring was that she had to leave Buck behind.

Bridges were few and far between in the irrigated valley, with basically no roads. So instead, they were riding and two person punts with a small magically powered propulsion system. Instead of a turbine blade like Seras had expected the device had three tubes on the bottom of the boat that somehow pushed water through it. Apparently, motors and fan blades were too complicated for magical engineers, and they instead opted for a system that used invisible force to push water.

Seras wasn’t sure if she was impressed or offended. The answer would probably depend on whether or not the magical system required less power.

And maybe the cost to make the magical reeds.

And maybe what kind of maintenance it required.

And maybe… Seras shook her head and resolved to just rip it apart later and claim that a monster destroyed it.

The first monster they came across wasn’t one they were expecting, it was some sort of furred ambush predator. Just as they were tying up the punt it tore out from the brush to pick off one of their members. Unfortunately it chose Petra.

Even without her armor Petra was a heavily muscled warrior. She caught the beast teeth on her forearm and had a might enhanced punch ready to go. After that their team fell into a loose formation and began kiting the monster away from the underbrush where it was best suited.

Already Seras’ new aura power was showing its value.

Aura ability [Aura of Ruin] had inflicted Lashix with [enfeeblement]

Lashix had its speed and power reduced.

With every strike the monster slowly grew weaker and weaker. Until it had slowed enough for an arrow from Rohan to pierce its eye.

“Is it just me or did that seem too easy?” Chase asked.

Frank smacked Chase unside the head. “Don’t say things like that. You’re just asking for Misfortunes curse at that point.”

“Is that an actual God?” Seras asked.

“Yup, twin to Fortune, or something like that. They’re one of the few gods that are pretty fluid with their genders.”

Seras raised an eyebrow at that. “Is Misfortune one of the evil ones?”

Chase and Frank exchanged looks. “Not, entirely.” Chase said hesitantly.

“Luck depends on your perspective.” Garrette interjected. “One man’s fortune is another misfortune, and good things can come out of a bad situation. They’re some of the more nuanced and fringe Gods.”

“Okay, we’re definitely circling back to that.” Seras said as she reloaded her rifle. “But to answer Chase’s unspoken question; the reason it was easier was because of my aura. With a whole team ganging up on one poor monster the afflictions stacked up fast, making it easier to hit.”

Rohan looked contemplative “Is it the number of the hits or the power behind the strike? The answer might require us to change up our attack strategy.”

“Both” Seras answered as she looked through her log. “On a mechanical level I think the aura works by seeping into cracks in the magical matrix caused by attacks. Small attacks make small holes, while bigger attacks create bigger holes.”

Lots of essence abilities worked by burning mana to enhance the users own magical matrix. Strength and speed boosting abilities were really just mana surging into the muscles. And in the case of afflictions, they were like small packets of programed magical hacks that caused havoc within the targets magic matrix/body. That made afflictions with a low mana cost but required a direct insertion method via direct attacks.

They gave her a collection of stunned looks.

“What?”

“You’ve been in this world for two and half months, and you're already casually mentioning a monsters magic matrix.” Garrette said pointedly.

“Yeah, and I’ve been studying magic theory nearly nonstop since I got here. The magical matrix is a pretty foundational concept, and the effects of powers on the matrix has been readily observed for as long as people have been studying magic.”

“Its just, surprising.” Petra said.

Seras rolled her eyes. “Not that impressive. Anyway Garrette, can I help with the looting ritual. Need to get my practice in, and I want to test some of the magical tools I bought.”

“What kind of tools?” Garrette asked.

“Mana excluder to create a sort of null zone as well as mana lamps tuned to ignore the excluder, should give us a more effective ritual. I also bought a wand that supposedly tells what kind of quintessence a monster gives so we can fine tune the ritual.”

“How much did all of that cost you?” Frank asked in astonishment.

“Not gonna lie, I’m currently broke, and that was after flirting with the nerd running the magic shop. But this is an investment, assuming nothing breaks this stuff should be good enough for any iron rank monster, and when I can I’ll buy the gear for bronze rank monsters.”

Garrette shrugged “Honestly it sounds like your better set for this ritual than I am. Be my guest.”

Serras nodded and summoned the ritual salt from her pocket space and began pouring out the circle. This was another aspect where her blueprinting ability came in handy, once she knew what kind of quintessence the Lashix would drop (plant quintessence) she could select a fine-tuned circle for that quintessence type, display an outline of the circle on her normal vision, and could follow it with extreme accuracy.

After that it was only a matter of stepping back and letting the ritual do its work.

When it was done they had ten iron rank coins to split five ways and three plant quintessence to sell off later in a city with higher prices.

And that was just the start of their little road trip.