They all rushed over to Catarina’s limp body, Kade arriving first and propping her head up on his lap as white foam started to trickle from her mouth.

“Shit, one of the damned monkeys must’ve managed to graze her with an attack, or maybe she swallowed some of the venom spraying around,” he muttered while checking the light response of her eyes and her pulse.

Luckily, all of the disciples of Mystic Solar Valley received a modicum of first aid training to allow them to dress wounds in the field and assist their injured allies, though he was unsure how to deal with the venom of a spiritual beast.

Aurora shoved him out of the way, gently laying Catarina onto her side and taking out a white pill which she crushed into powder before feeding it to the unconscious girl.

“The pill should thicken her blood and slow her heart rate to prevent the venom from spreading too quickly. We’re too far from the sect to make it back in time, though I believe there is a town nearby that might have a doctor,” she said.

It was the best plan available to them, but Kade felt it was lacking, with too many variables to be accounted for.

What if the information on the map was outdated and there was no settlement nearby, or even worse, what if they made it to the town and there were no physicians skilled enough to treat Catarina?

Typically Kade was not a rash individual, but right now he just needed to vent some of his frustration, thus a few of the trees in the vicinity had to suffer a beating from the boy.

“FUCK!” He shouted to no one in particular.

Calmer heads prevailed eventually, with Helena piping up to suggest a strategy with much better odds of success than blindly wandering towards a nearby town in the hope of finding help.

“Aurora’s suggestion has merit, but I think it’s futile to pin all our hopes on one plan. It might be risky but I think we need to split up. Lawrence can head to the town and check for a skilled physician while I wait here and look after Catarina. Kade, you and Aurora should continue to search for the spirit well, there’s a high chance it may contain a cure for the venom with the multitude of treasures they are known to produce. It may mean giving up on harvesting the core but I think we should still profit enough while still being able to save her. After all, we owe it to her, we wouldn’t have such a chance in the first place if not for her information,” she explained.

He considered interrupting and suggesting a slight change in the personnel distribution, given that he and Aurora were not renowned for working well together, but Kade thought himself mature enough to put Catarina’s wellbeing over any personal feud with Aurora.

Clearly, she thought the same, voicing her agreement for Helena’s well thought out plan and sharing a weary look of acknowledgement with him.

The group rapidly hashed out the finer details, making sure Lawrence would be able to find his way back if he met with a physician or if there turned out not to be a town at all as well as helping to spread a barrier of beast-warding powder around Catarina and Helena.

Kade just hoped that whatever Anomaly was causing the local spiritual beasts to behave strangely didn’t cause any more issues for the two girls.

Before they continued up the mountain, Kade made sure to collect the beast cores from the five Assassin Macaques, the only change in the Mission Log being the counter that changed to 5/15.

Perhaps the rest of the group might think him selfish without knowing his motives, but he’d make sure to give them a slightly better cut of their final haul to balance it out.

Thanks to Aurora’s wealth as the daughter of the sect leader, she’d managed to provide them each with a basic spatial storage ring, which he used to store the beast cores.

Nothing overly impressive like the kind worn by legendary masters that could store the corpses of dragons and mountains of qi crystals, but plenty of space for their expected loot, around 5m³.

She gave him a strange look when he pocketed the cores but said nothing as the two began to race up Demon’s Fang towards the area the spirit well was rumoured to be located.

Unfortunately they encountered quite a few more spiritual beasts on the way, the unusually restless behaviour a side effect of the Anomaly Kade was supposed to investigate.

None of them were nearly as strong as the Assassin Macaques however, a mix of second to third stage beasts that posed little challenge to the pair.

Kade’s worries about the quality of the cores not being high enough to fulfil his mission were unfounded, as the counter continued to trickle up with each one he tossed in the spatial storage ring.

As they got closer and closer to where the spirit well was hidden, the beasts slowly started to become more powerful and there was a greater variety in the species they encountered.

At one point Aurora nearly lost an arm to an ambush from a fourth stage wolfhawk, just narrowly avoiding tragedy thanks to timely intervention from Kade.

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Aurora actually stored the corpse of the wolfhawk in her own ring, which was of much higher quality than the ones she’d loaned out; heaven knew what sort of treasures the daughter of a sect leader was wandering around with.

“Wolfhawk fur is extraordinarily warm, I want to make a pretty coat for the upcoming winter,” she explained when Kade gave her a questioning look.

“Do you ever think about anything other than how you look or what you’re wearing. Narcissist,” he replied.

“At least I take pride in my appearance,” she retorted, “It’s better than looking like a vagrant practitioner like you. When was the last time you ironed your robes?”

Kade rapidly tried to think of another comeback, but taking a peek at his crinkled outer sect disciple robes that he in fact hadn’t ironed for nearly four months, he realised that wasting time arguing was pointless and bit his tongue.

“Whatever, the spirit well is supposed to be around this part of the mountain, keep your eyes peeled,” he said.

Another wolfhawk strutted into their path, making an unholy cacophony with its disgusting voice that sounded like a misguided blend of a parrot and a fox.

Kade distracted it while Aurora snuck around, her brutal kick connecting with the beast’s liver at the same moment as his fourth blow shattered its beak.

Despite how poor they got on in social settings, their coordination in battle was surprisingly fluid and they’d not struggled against any of the spiritual beasts they encountered thus far.

The core of the wolfhawk was the fifteenth and final required core to complete the mission, though it was still labelled as incomplete when he checked the Mission Log.

Opening the mission itself to check why, he was greeted with a flashing prompt asking him if he wished to consume the cores to further the investigation.

Mountain Investigation

The spiritual beasts on the Demon’s Fang have gone berserk and are behaving unusually due to the influence of an Anomaly. Begin by investigating their cores to figure out the cause and find the source of the disruption.

Beast cores harvested - 15/15

Consume cores to decipher Anomaly location? Y/N

He accepted, but nothing happened. A second try also proved fruitless and he began to grow frustrated, before facepalming and taking the cores out of the spatial storage ring.

This time when he tried to accept, the cores were disintegrated into a thick liquid that was absorbed into his body through the pores in a strange yet painless process.

A quick glance at Aurora revealed that she was too focused on inspecting the corpse of the wolfhawk to see if it was up to her standards for a winter coat to notice the strange phenomenon happening to Kade.

One suspicious part of Kade expected to be suddenly possessed, the strange manner in which the beast cores were absorbed doing little to put his mind at ease.

Aurora had completed her inspection and decided that the fur of this particular wolfhawk wasn’t to her tastes and so they left it behind and continued further into the forest.

Just a few minutes later, there was a ring in his ears and upon checking the Mission Log, Kade discovered the entry had been updated.

Mountain Investigation

The spiritual beasts on the Demon’s Fang have gone berserk and are behaving unusually due to the influence of an Anomaly. Head to the source of the disruption and attempt to resolve the problem through whatever means necessary.

Beast cores harvested - 15/15

~

Source located - 0/1

Anomaly resolved - 0/1

Besides the new objectives in his mission, he could also feel a strange tugging sensation in his mind, pulling him further up the mountain.

Most likely whatever the Anomaly was, it had something to do with the spirit well. In some ways that was beneficial for Kade, as he could kill two birds with one stone, completing the mission while also searching for a cure for Catarina.

They’d already been heading in roughly the right direction, but he made subtle adjustments to their heading without alerting Aurora too much.

It would be highly suspicious if he suddenly explained he knew the exact location of the spirit well without having a way to tell her how he gained such information.

Avoiding awkward questions that might lead to anyone discovering the Realm Engineer System was a top priority for him.

So far it seemed that no one except Kade himself was able to see the prompts and information that it provided, but who knew if that would change if he started to encounter practitioners with greater cultivation bases.

Weirdly, once they’d entered the vicinity of the Anomaly, the number of spiritual beasts appearing had drastically reduced, the pair of them only encountering two more before they arrived at an eerie cave that was emitting rich waves of qi.

“The spirit well has to be somewhere in that cave. Stay vigilant, there’s sure to be traps keeping such an abundant source of natural treasure secure,” Aurora warned.

“I know what I’m doing, just make sure to watch my back and investigate anything that could help cure Catarina,” he replied.

She nodded in acknowledgement and the two entered the cave, needing to take a torch from Aurora’s spatial storage ring in order to see where they were going.

It had already been dark in the forest as the sun began to set, with visibility dropping to virtually nil once they passed the mouth of the cave, the sharp decline meaning little light could enter.

As the light of the torch disappeared into the cave, another group of cultivators arrived from a different direction than the path Kade and Aurora had taken.

They were also disciples of Mystic Solar Valley’s outer sect, wearing the customary yellow robes with orange sun embroidery and trim.

Kade may not have recognised any of them, but Aurora certainly would; the youth leading them was the very same boy she’d described as a ‘creepy bastard’ - Edwin Stye.

“We’ve already had a few casualties on the way here, so let’s try to be cautious inside the cave. Spirit wells are renowned for producing a myriad of treasures, but also deadly traps aplenty. Follow my lead and gather whatever treasures you can, we’ll distribute it all properly once we get out. Tyrell and Jemima, stick close to me, I’ll need your help to harvest the core of the spirit well if we make it that far,” Edwin said, lighting a torch of his own and leading the group of disciples into the cave, hot on the tail of Kade and Aurora.