“Phase whales? What’s a phase whale?” Max asked.

“You’ll see. Gather your people and we will depart. It isn’t too far from here,” Ebba said and walked over to the edge of the clearing.

It took Max longer than he expected to gather everyone up. No one here was under eighteen, but they certainly acted like kids. Everyone wanted to stay and play with their magic, despite knowing they were on the clock. They would get mana cancer if they stayed here, but ... magic. Max understood the feeling, he would probably be playing with his magic card if it didn’t have a refresh period of over an hour.

Eventually, everyone was assembled and lined up ready to go. Max made sure his friends were with him up front and assigned the firearm aficionados to be the rearguard and make sure no one fell behind. They headed into the jungle without fanfare, the clearing quickly disappearing behind them.

Ebba led the way by cutting a small person shaped path in the forest. She held machetes in each of her four hands and made precise cuts to clear the way of obstructing plants. There was an effortless grace to her movements, the kind formed by hours and hours of relentless practice.

Max relaxed and enjoyed the view. His exoskeleton legs kept him effortlessly walking and he had time to learn more about the rainforest around them. Most of the plants were similar to the ones he knew from back home. Ferns grew next to a covering of monstera, rubber trees stood next to enormous roots of the kapok tree, and orchids hid beneath cacao trees.

Scattered between these mundane plants were some that stuck out like a sore thumb. Bright red plants with flowers that looked like spiders. Blue spikes thrust out of a plant that seemed to be breathing. Purple berries draped off of trees in rows, like they were engineered to be food.

“Is there a way to easily tell which plants are magic and which ones aren’t?” Max asked.

Ebba looked over her shoulder as she kept walking. “No, and most plants aren’t magic, despite how strange they look. I think the builders just grabbed a lot of strange plants from our various worlds and threw them together.”

“Various? Do you mean you don’t come from this planet?”

“Yes and no. I was born here twenty cycles ago, but my people are not from this world. My parents arrived just like you did, through a portal leading from their homeworld.”

“Really? That’s fascinating. So, the builders are the natives then? What are they like?”

“No idea. They tell me that the builders live on the sixth layer and the deepest I’ve ever been is the third layer, the one we are in now.”

“You’ve mentioned layers a few times. Is that the bands of land between the mountains?”

“Yes, each layer has different plants and animals. They are separated by those mountain ranges. We will have to cross them twice to get to where we are going, the first layer.”

“Oh, does each layer have a different mana density? The first layer has the lowest amount of mana, right?”

Ebba’s hands twitched all at once. “No, not quite. We are heading north, but the mana density isn’t that simple. Be quiet for a moment. We are coming up on the phase whale’s corpse.”

She slowed down and stopped cutting through the underbrush. She pushed through the plants instead and crouched at the edge of a clearing. Max couldn’t tell what she was looking from where he was standing, but eventually she waved him forward.

“We will take a break here. Warn everyone not to get too close to the corpse,” Ebba said. She sat down at the edge of the clearing and closed her eyes. Her summoned insect appeared over her head once more and flew off into the distance.

Max walked in and had everyone warn the person behind them not to get too close to the corpse. They would understand what he meant. The clearing was long and thin and on the other side was a dead whale.

It wasn’t an Earth whale, it had four side fins and no dorsal fin, but it was clearly a whale. It even had white barnacles on its skin. Max couldn’t decide if it was green or brown, it seemed to change as he looked at it.

The sky drew his attention again. It was jarring seeing the world wrapped around him. It reminded him of that one scene in Inception. It seemed so unreal, but the soft wind and earthy smells helped ground him. There were flying animals cavorting in the sky, too distant to tell exactly what they were. Max was relieved to realize they didn’t look like dragons.

He realized it had been more than an hour since he used his card last, so he decided to make another hammer. He grabbed a fallen branch and focused on the image of a hammer in his mind. He wanted to make a war hammer in case they ran across monsters.

Once he felt he had enough focus, he mentally clicked on the card. This time, the magic felt different. Instead of rushing forward without his input, Max felt like he was fighting against a current. He focused hard, trying to bend the magic to his mental vision. It took something out of him to change the default form.

White sparkles flew out, buzzing around the branch, transforming it into a hammer within a moment. Excess material fell to the ground and he was left with a hammer that was almost identical to the first. There were a few key differences. There was no writing on this hammer, and it was a few inches longer. Unfortunately, that messed up the hammer’s balance and now it was front heavy.

Max shrugged. This was only the second time he was using the card and he was already making progress. He dropped the useless hammer on the ground.

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“Do you have extra water in that enormous pack of yours?” Yang said.

Max turned to see Yang. She had taken off her suit jacket and was sweating lightly. A few stray hairs had escaped her ponytail and were plastered to her face. Behind her Lily was awkwardly standing next to James. He was already sitting down and gasping, rivulets of sweat pouring down his body. He had taken off his backpack and was guzzling water.

“Yeah, sure,” Max said.

He unclipped his pack and set it down. He pulled out and handed over one of his two water bottles. She tried to hand it back after a few sips but he motioned for her to drink more. He wasn’t that thirsty. Working in construction had him used to the heat, and this place was cooler than a regular jungle.

“Have you thought about what to do about your other supplies?” Max asked when Yang had her fill.

“Yeah. I’ll have to beg and borrow from everyone. But don’t worry. I honor my debts. I’ll pay everyone back when I can, even if it’s just a sip of water,” she said seriously.

“Actually, I was going to say you don’t have to do that. I packed at least two of everything, usually three. I can share, no problem. I feel bad that thug sent you in here unprepared.”

“‘That 'thug’ was my partner,” Yang said with a scowl. Then she brightened up. “But he was a jerk dog. He sent me in here unprepared. You can call him a thug or worse.”

Max laughed, Lily and James joining in.

Lily spoke up, “I’ll help you too. I hate that my father sent you after me, but it’s not your fault you came here unprepared.”

“Me too. I’ll help,” James said.

He had recovered enough to stand up again. After a bit of rummaging around, he handed out snacks to everyone, small packets of trail mix. Max didn’t need it, he had plenty of his own. He still took the gift and thanked James. Max knew that it wouldn’t be long before he would be giving food back to James and he wanted to make sure his friend wouldn’t reject his charity.

Lily pointed her water bottle at Max and said, “You should ask Ebba about stopping by a river or something. I’m sure you still have plenty of water, but the rest of us will be running low soon.”

“Good point. I’ll also have to do a survey of everyone’s supplies. I bet some people don’t have food either,” Max said.

He walked over to where Ebba was sitting. She had her eyes open again and was watching the humans rest. She turned to Max as he walked up, “Ah, I almost didn’t recognize you without your enormous pack on your back. Those metal legs are a giveaway though.”

Max was taken aback for a moment. Did all humans really look that alike to her? He was the only guy with long blond hair, shouldn’t that be a clue? He decided to give her the benefit of the doubt until after he learned how to tell Lunuk apart.

He shook his head and said, “I wanted to ask about water. Are we going to pass by a river soon? Some of us are running low on water.”

“We will be passing by a river soon, but don’t let anyone drink from it.”

“Why? Is it poison or something?”

“No, it’s mana dense. It’s great for healing, but bad for you right now. It will speed up your chances of mana cancer. Tell everyone to drink and eat only what they brought with them,” Ebba said.

“Alright, but that won’t last long. What do we do when we run out?”

Ebba huffed and said, “I’ll show you how to find water berries. They are usually low in mana. We can stop in the City of Wild Plums for food supplies. We should get there in about two days.”

“Alright, thanks,” Max said, making another mental note. He wasn’t sure if their group even had enough food for two days. Some people had large packs, but half of them only wore day packs.

“But before then, we shall exterminate some leeches and examine some whale shit,” Ebba said and stood up. She clapped both sets of hands in a rapid staccato. “Everyone, gather up. Lesson time.”

The scattered humans wandered over, some bringing their packs, others leaving them. Max went back to his pack to arm himself. He already had his long knife belted at his side. He pulled out two more weapons, a spear in three parts that he screwed together, and his pride and joy. It was a repeating Adder crossbow with an extended seven-bolt auto-loading magazine. It was almost as deadly as a gun and much quieter.

Ebba was already talking when he got back, “... but before we can get to the fun, we need to chase off the floating leeches. The little white things on the fins and tail. They can be dangerous if you aren’t careful. But don’t worry. They are the weakest animal on this layer, they only drop a level one core. I have full confidence your group should be able to kill at least seven or eight of them before the rest flee. Feel free to go all out when we get close.”

Max looked back to the phase whale. The white things he had assumed were barnacles were actually a different kind of leech. Apparently an ambulatory one that could flee when threatened.

Ebba led the group up to the corpse, motioning for everyone to walk quietly. A strange smell hit them as they drew close. It was a mix of rotting meat and strawberries. Max found himself rubbing his nose in irritation.

When they got close, some of the leeches lifted up from the body. They looked like white squids, only with an umbrella body. They floated through the air, slowly opening and closing their umbrellas. It was like they were swimming through the air. Max stabbed his spear into the loam at his feet and unlimbered his crossbow.

The Chinese guy with the blue glass card was the first to attack. A shard spun through the air, slicing off the head of the umbrella squid. The monster immediately fell to the ground in a clump, whatever had been keeping it up having been lost with its death.

That shot opened up the floodgates. Everyone attacked at once, magic and weapons flying. Fire, electricity, knives, and lots of bullets. Yang’s mushroomantis appeared and hustled over to the umbrella squids, its little legs kicking. It was soon outpaced by a cricket summons.

Max noticed that everyone was focusing on the nearest monsters, and they were getting obliterated. He shifted his aim to the farther umbrella squids that were just lifting off. His first shot was a bullseye. Not that impressive since they were fairly close, but Max was still proud of himself for his first combat kill. A blue box appeared across the bottom of his vision.

Minor amount of essence gathered

Nice. Essence must be this world’s version of exp. If he killed enough monsters, he would be able to level up. As soon as he read it, the message disappeared and a small black dot appeared on the upper right edge of his vision. He smiled and got back to work.

Reloading was difficult on most crossbows. Pulling the cord back with 130 pounds of force wasn’t easy even on modern weapons. Thankfully, the Adder had a workaround with a lower limb that he could easily pull forward and back to reload. He was able to send all seven bolts downrange within twenty seconds.

He hit five of the seven shots. It would have been seven of seven, but he kept flinching at the nearby guns. It was so loud, way louder than he expected from movies.

Forty seconds after they started, all of the leeches were dead. A tiny orb appeared over every monster corpse. It was pure white and small enough that you could fit three in the palm of your hand. Max turned to Ebba to ask her about them.

“Oooh shit. Shit, shit, shit. I forgot about the guns,” Ebba whispered to herself. She whipped her head around in a panic, staring into the forest.