Thalion arrived kilometers above the mountain where the white wind crystals gathered after a bumpy flight. There were more white crystals now and bigger ones, probably grown by the death of countless elementals. There even were more birds who were fighting over them. The strongest predators in the surroundings were the two eagles who had conquered the four biggest crystals and the giant one the wyvern had guarded before it disappeared. Those two birds were close to the level of the wyvern, probably also close to E grade, and every other bird tried to stay away as far as possible. A new addition to the fight above the crystal was some sort of flying sea turtles who were swimming through the air and were faster than one would believe possible. Their necks were also able to shoot out for a meter to grab birds.
The last time he was here, it was almost peaceful—at least before the wyvern had left. Now, there were multiple groups of flying beasts who were killing the defenders of Windcrystals, and after a quick rest, they moved on. The swarm of eight sky turtles was very effective with this method, killing birds, flying mantas, and snakes left and right.
And now Thalion was joining the fun. He was much stronger than last time, and he already found a flying snake that was a bit away from the big hunting groups circling two small crystals. He flew at the snake with full speed and started to charge up a lightning bolt. The snake realized too late that it was being attacked, and Thalion hit it with a fully charged lightning bolt, which threw the snake a few meters back and made it fall down with a twitching body.
Thalion followed and pierced the head of the snake with his talons, which instantly killed the snake. He put the snake in his spatial ring and flew up to the wind crystal, landing on it and looking out for new targets. While he was looking out, he tried to crush the wind crystal with his talons and eat it, but his claws didn’t even leave a dent in the crystal. So he transformed into the umbral predator and devoured the crystal. He stopped his fall from the sky by turning into eagly and shooting up into the sky after a quick turn. His next targets were two hawks circling around a crystal.
He was still in the area with small crystals, which meant he should be safe from the stronger beasts. He did exactly the same as with the snake, but one of the hawks spotted him and started screeching, which made the other hawk turn around. Upon seeing Thalion shooting at it, its wings started to glow in a blue hue.
Before the hawk could do anything drastic, Thalion unleashed his charged lightning bolt, and the air crackled around him as he shot at the hawk, which in turn managed to conjure a barrier that was ripped apart like it was paper and hit the hawk's right wing, ripping through it and making the hawk spin to the side. The other hawk screeched with anger and shot a blue mana slash at him, similar to what he could do with his manablade.
Thalion dodged it by turning to the side, before the Body Tempering, he would not have been able to avoid the attack—at least not from this close distance—and countered by throwing a whirlwind at the bird. The whirlwind distracted the bird long enough so he could sky dive and crash into the smaller hawk. Thalion easily ripped the hawk into pieces and dove for the still-falling hawk, finishing it off with a final lightning bolt that killed the unconscious bird. Sadly none of the birds had a skill which was weird. Was the slash mana manipulation or couldnt he take all skills from the beast he had killed.
The experience he gained from the two kills was enough to push eagly to level 38, while the umbral predator and his human form remained at level 37 since they needed more experience to level up—probably one side effect of the mythic class and race. Thalion continued after devouring the crystal as umbral predator and made his way to a bigger group of ravens who had just killed a little swarm of seagulls.
He again didn’t manage to get a surprise attack in since there were multiple ravens flying around the newly conquered crystals, none under level 36. He wanted to try what he was truly capable of, and so he went all out by channeling feather glide and tempest shroud, eye of the storm, and lightning bolt barrage while flying directly at one raven. The raven screeched in defiance and attacked him. One even fired a fire breath at him. But the storm was rising, and most of the skills fired at him missed, and then the lightning bolts started to strike from above.
Thalion was flying at full speed almost around them while firing a charged lightning bolt in the middle of the swarm, with the lightning bolts striking down randomly at the ravens. It didn’t take long until all the ravens were dead. It took a while for him to put them all in his spatial ring. The fight only lasted minutes, but to keep his skills active for such a long time would have drained him greatly, now his mana was half full, which was much better than he had thought. He also had never anticipated that he could defeat the swarm of ravens as eagly without much effort. The powerups were clearly showing.
He had anticipated that he would have to turn into his human form and shoot them with bloodthorns. It turned out eagly was an absolute monster. Now his flying speed was faster than any of the ravens, also, his mobility was higher, which allowed him to take sharp turns without losing much speed. Then there were the lightning bolts striking from the sky and the strong winds from eye of the storm, which had thrown the birds around and made their skills miss while it didn’t affect Thalion at all.
The mana cost had also dropped significantly through his body tempering, as the voice had told him. He had kept almost all of his skills running for the whole fight, and it had only cost half of his whole mana pool, which was a big improvement. Without the body tempering, he would have already been out of mana and could only dream about doing the maneuvers he had done in the fight. The last kill gave enough experience so that his other forms also reached level 38.
He rested a bit after landing on the flying crystal. Above him, a swarm of turtles had killed three high-leveled hawks by ripping them into pieces like a swarm of piranhas. It was so weird to watch. On another crystal, a manta was devoured by some kind of flying worm, which swallowed the manta alive without a care in the world. What would come next? Flying snails? Thalion thought in amusement.
After his mana pool was almost full, he changed form and devoured the crystal, and soon after, he was off to search for his next target. He decided to go for the ten-meter-long worm that had swallowed the manta before the worm could speed up for a short duration. Its mouth was designed for grabbing and swallowing its target, and even when its level was at forty-three, Thalion was confident he could defeat it.
His speed should be superior, and when the worm, against all odds, managed to grab him, he would turn into the umbral predator. He doubted that he couldn't rip the worm into pieces even when he was stuck in its mouth. He tried to attack the worm from behind, but the worm without eyes, of course, spotted him and turned around, flying at him with incredible speed. He really needed to improve his stealth attacks in the air, Thalion thought while turning to the side and firing a lightning bolt at the worm, which shrugged the lightning off like it was nothing.
Thalion even had to activate feather glide to prevent the worm from catching up to him while he spit another lightning bolt at the worm to damage it, but it barely had any effect. After he shot another eight charged lightning bolts at the worm, it slowly started to get weaker, and it tried to fly away. Thalion, of course, saw through the charade; it was just a bait.
The worm was definitely injured, but at this point, it was probably just waiting for Thalion to come close so it could snatch him with a surprise attack. He, of course, didn’t give the worm the satisfaction of making that mistake and stayed at a distance while blasting it with charged lightning bolts. Thalion praised the day he got that skill from one of the birds he killed. Without it, fighting would be such a pain. The worm probably had the exact opposite thoughts as its body started to weaken, and in a final attack, it turned around and flew at Thalion with full speed.
But Thalion had already expected that response and was ready to turn around, and after a little hunt, the worm died. Thalion put the worm in his spatial ring. It was no wonder that, the worm didnt have any skills. When he turned around to devour the crystal, he saw that the swarm of turtles was flying around it. They had stolen his prize while he fought the worm. Thalion circled for a bit above them to give his mana pool a bit more time to recover before he would attack the fuckers. The shells were extremely resistant, and they were moving fast in the air with an ability to boost their speed for a short duration.
They could also extend their heads to grab their prey. The good thing was their level was not that high; the strongest was at level 38. The bad thing was that the swarm was quite large; Thalion counted over twenty sky turtles. Whatever. One last fight, and if they turned out to be too dangerous, he would flee and return to Kael's base.
He was confident that if he couldn’t defeat them, he could definitely outrun them. With that, he dove down to the turtles circling his crystal, channeling eye of the storm and skybolt barrage while charging up his lightning bolt skill. The turtles noticed him and shot at him with incredible speed.
Thalion had anticipated this and turned to the side, unleashing the lightning bolt that hit one turtle right in the face and threw it back, spasming. The other turtles were short on his heels as he flew at top speed after activating feather glide. It took a moment until the storm was rising, but then it was difficult for the turtles to keep pace in the storm, also they got hit by the lightning bolts. It all gave Thalion enough time to charge up another lightning bolt and shoot it at the turtle in the front.
The whole fight turned out to be a lot easier than he thought; the storm slowed the turtles down so much that he could easily avoid them while he got even a speed boost inside of the storm, as his body almost hummed in delight. Thalion circled the turtles and blasted them with lightning until only five were left, who decided that it was best to flee.
He decided against chasing the last turtles and instead flew over to the crystal hovering in the sky. He landed on the crystal to recover for a bit before he would fly back. One of the turtles had used a skill where a wind spiral was summoned around the turtle, mixed with sharp, condensed wind blades on the edges. He wondered if he could do the same with his blood river. As of course none of the turtles had any useful skills. He really didn't like that development.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He was really happy with what he had accomplished so far with eagly. With the current level of power it felt almost like he was a completely different beast. He checked his notification: the sky turtles had given him a lot of experience, probably a high variant race if they gave so much experience to push eagly to level 39 and his human and umbral predator to level 38, which was much appreciated.
He transformed into the umbral predator and devoured the crystal. Then he was on his way back to Kael's base while summoning whirlwinds from time to time, but it barely impacted him anymore when he was close to the fortress. The whirlwinds even gave him a slight speed boost. It was almost relaxing to shoot with crazy speed through the sky without even beating his wings once. It already started to get dark when he was above the base, and he quickly dove down to pay a quick visit to Zyra and bring her the new plants Michael and his lackeys had gathered this day.
Thankfully, the shop was still open when he approached. He also wanted to thank the woman for creating two magic circles instead of just one. The lights in the shop were still on, so he entered and saw the woman sitting behind her desk, drawing runes on a piece of paper before her.
"Hey, how was the day?" Thalion greeted Zyra, who looked up with an almost annoyed facial expression.
"Good, first you told me the rumors were exaggerated, and now I have to hear that you were the master of Jakob and Annie after saving them from slavery," Zyra said with annoyance. "But that's not all; you also saved Kael, Kai, and Sylas once, and Evelyn and the orc Kargul, who are basically the strongest people in this camp."
"Well, what does it matter? I don't really care much," Thalion said with a shrug of his shoulders. "Could you use the corpses of rare flying beasts?"
"No, you don't understand; there will be a lot of people targeting you. I heard that even Michael was thinking about challenging you. Whoever defeats you in sparring could potentially be the strongest one in this base, and your aura is not really impressive," Zyra exclaimed.
"Well, that's because I am suppressing my aura, and if they want to come after me, they are welcome to try," Thalion said with a grin. "You really don't need to worry about me."
"Ah, sure, just don't be naive," Zyra said. "I really don't want to work for those shapeshifters or that Michael guy. Oh, by the way, I declined to work for the shapeshifters today, and they didn't like it one bit."
"Don't worry; just send them to me if they annoy you too much," Thalion said. As long as she upgraded the dark affinity plants 0everything was fine. In fact to have someone else with the shapeshifter felt like a small bonus. He had to take care of those people anyway, so there was no harm in helping out the alchemist who helped him so much.
"I just don't like them; they also threatened me. I fear that they could wait for me if I leave the base," Zyra mentioned after a short pause.
"Oh, what did they say?" Thalion asked, curious. Maybe that would be enough for Kael to at least put them on farming duty.
"Well, they didn't say anything direct, but some stuff I should watch out in the wild; there are dangerous beasts out there and so on," Zyra said with a shrug of her shoulders.
"I would say that is a very direct threat," Thalion said a bit surprised. Just what was up with some people. It was almost like they had gone crazy after integration. "Do you think Kael can put them on farming duty, or should he just banish them?"
"I don't know; I would bet my shop that even when they get banished, they would stay around preying on people in their beast forms. It's pretty hard to hunt down beasts when they decide to run away," Zyra explained.
"Well, after they helped us fight the orcs, I hardly can just kill them all. By the way, are you still here in your shop because you fear that a lion is waiting on the streets for you?" Thalion asked suspisous.
"Well, kind of; they were really angry and also mentioned that they would watch me," Zyra said while looking down.
"I will talk with Kael and Kai about this. They will definitely get a nice apartment in the outer district and some special tokens so the guards can track their movements," Thalion said to ligthen her mood. "So, with that issue solved, did you finish the work on the plants I brought you yesterday?"
"Yes, they are finished. Don't tell me you got another mountain," Zyra said with exhaustion while giving him a spatial ring.
"You are right on the spot," Thalion said with a grin as he handed her the spatial ring. "I guess you are finished around tomorrow evening. By the way, would the corpses of flying beasts be useful to you?"
"I thought you were joking with the flying beasts since they are extremely rare," Zyra said while taking the new spatial ring. "In case you are not joking, I would very much like to have those corpses."
With that, Thalion dumped some birds, a worm, a snake, and some turtles on the ground before her.
"Holy shit! How much did you kill? They are all strong beasts; the turtles are at least epic rarity," Zyra said with excitement while storing the bodies in a spatial ring on her left hand.
"How long are you working today? You could come along and tell the shapeshifter situation to Kael and Kai yourself," Thalion asked the alchemist.
"Normally I stop working like two hours ago," Zyra said with a smile. "I just need to place some stuff in the magic circles in the basement, then I am ready to go."
"Perfect, I will wait here," Thalion said while Zyra was hurrying down the stairs.
Thalion started to experiment with a small ball of blood and tried to turn the blood into mist, but he didn't get far until Zyra finished her work.
"Are you ready to go?" Thalion said after absorbing the drop of blood and looking at the alchemist, who stood behind the table as if she wanted to say something.
"Well, there is one other thing," Zyra said while playing with her hair. "I kind of didn't tell you everything about the shapeshifters. There is one called Maik, and he kind of said that he wanted to sleep with me, and when I rejected him, he got angry. It could be that he attacks you if he sees you with me."
"This is perfect," Thalion cheered in his thoughts. If the guy would actually attack him, he would travel beside Zyra through the whole city to finally get his business with those shapeshifters done. Maybe they could even make some extra rounds around the block were the shapeshifters live.
Loudly, he said, "Like I said, don't worry about me. Let's go; we are getting late." So probably no extra rounds maybe later, he thought with a smile.
They both left the shop. It took them almost ten minutes until they were back at Kael's place. When he opened the door, everyone was already there. He was late again, but at least he had a good excuse this time.
"Hey everyone, I hope I didn't miss something. This is Zyra, an alchemist who got threatened by the shapeshifters," Thalion introduced Zyra after entering the chamber were all the others were hanging out.
"Wait, they threatened someone?" Kael exclaimed while Zyra and Thalion were sitting down in the empty chairs around the fire.
Jakob and Sylas were both munching on some stuff that almost looked like a burger, only actional, raising their heads up while Zyra told everyone her story that she shared with Thalion before.
"I said from the start that I don't like them," Evelyn interjected.
"Does it mean you would like to smash them?" Kargul said hopefully. "I can hold them for you so it's easy for you to hit them, not like with the little kittens you always missed."
"Oh yes, I would like to smash them," Evelyn said eagerly, "but we need to be smart with this, and as I heard the rumors growing, it looks like this is Thalion's job."
"I will deal with them tomorrow," Thalion nodded. "I say we place them in the outer district and send them gathering materials with tokens that give the guards their location, like you did with Michael."
"This will be the best course of action," Kael agreed. "So, I am curious, what are your plans for dealing with the shapeshifters? We only have one witness with Zyra. I would like to have more than one reason to banish them; otherwise, Garrick could become very annoying."
"I will be training tomorrow with the guards and when they don't show up to fight me, I will pay them a visit to get things straight," Thalion said.
"Say if you need help," Kai added. "They are over twenty; it could get dangerous if they all attack you."
"I plan on getting some additional upgrades tonight. Then I should be able to deal with them," Thalion said. He really didnt need any help with those people. What should happen he punched them a few time stick blood thorns in their legs. Then the shapeshifters will start crying like little babies and stay in the outer districts while collecting plants.
"Very good. I hope everything goes smoothly tomorrow," Kael nodded a bit worried.
"To the next point: Garrick will arrive in two days. Then things will get difficult; he will most likely be even more annoying than the shapeshifters," Kael said.
"Why not send him off to Steven or the water mages to negotiate?" Jakob asked.
"We have already sent people there, and I can't send the leader of another base that has helped us so much as a messenger. That would reflect poorly on me," Kael explained.
"We need to make sure that we keep an eye on his people," Evelyn said, clearly disliking the guy.
"It will be difficult when they join the guards," Kai said after a short pause.
"I think we should focus more on strengthening the guards so we can ensure their safety and they can't threaten citizens," Zyra added, a bit shyly.
"Not a bad idea," Kai nodded in agreement.
"I think most things will align themselves in the coming days," Kael sighed.
"Great! So what did you do the last days?" **Evelyn happily announced while opening a bottle of vodka.
"Thalion has killed flying turtles today," Zyra burst out while pulling out a drink from her spatial storage.
"No way! Where did you find flying turtles?" Annie laughed with the others, except for Jakob and Sylas, since they had full mouths.
"I killed them above the mountains where all the flying beasts are fighting over the wind crystals," Thalion calmly explained.
"The turtles were at least epic rarity and even close to Level 40," Zyra said quickly. "Wait, what do you mean by wind crystals?"
"There are white crystals that are hovering a few kilometers above the mountains," Thalion shrugged.
"You didn't bring some along? They could be very useful to me," Zyra said slowly after taking a sip of her drink.
"Nope. I can't place them in my spatial ring," Thalion answerd quickly.
"But can you carry them over?" Zyra insisted, already a bit drunk.
"I could try, but I won't travel there in a while," Thalion said after a bit of thinking.
"I would like to smash flying turtles," Kargul laughed loudly after finishing a three-liter bottle of vodka.
"We heard that you killed some strong spiders," Jakob said with a smile on his face. "The guards are talking about it nonstop."
"Yeah, I heard," Thalion sighed. "Can we stop talking about me? What were you all up to?"
"Placing stuff I bought in the system shop," Kael sighed. "You have no idea how draining that is."
"I finished the eighth layer of the scroll about swordsmanship," Kai said while smiling at Thalion.
"I smashed a big black bear," Kargul roared. "You should have seen it! First, the bear thought it could kill me, but then I hit it on the head over and over. It was so much fun."
"Did you test the new soups from Lars? They are so delicious," Sylas said after finishing his feeding frenzy and started to drink.
"Yes, I did, and I fully agree. That man knows how to cook," Zyra nodded.
"We definitely need more inns. They made life so much better," Sylas nodded. "So sad we only got one."
"Well, who is crazy enough to focus on cooking when your life is on the line every day?" Annie interjected.
"I think he still has a heavy class but bought skills from the system shop," Sylas said.
"Does he get experience from selling meals?" Thalion wondered out loud.
"Definitely, but it is less effective than hunting. It, of course, depends on how good you are at hunting," Zyra said. "I got most of my experience from working in my shop."
"How are the other alchemists doing? Will you be able to reach 50,000 credits until we move on to the fourth stage?" Kael asked.
"Without a doubt, at the moment I get between 30,000 and 70,000 credits a week depending on how fast the progress is," Zyra said. "The others might have to skip one or two system shops, but if they don't get greedy, they will all come along."
"That's good to hear," Kael nodded while starting to drink.
Thalion watched the others having a good time while leaning back in his chair. It was nice to relax from time to time. Sadly, he needed to get some stuff done tonight, so he left half an hour later and went to his room. Time for some training. It was time to give the shapeshifter the beating of their lifetime.