Chapter 37: Exploring

  Billy shivered a little from the cold air as he and Su Li crept through the forest two days later. The encounter with the Valekia had weighed on Billy’s mind, and he was determined to find out whether there were more of them.

  Trevor wanted the whole group to go, but Billy rationalised that they were better off training. Most of the others still had unassigned points to work through, but Billy and Su Li had already assigned all of their points.

  They had spent the previous day working on their crafting and progression. Billy had a skill upgrade for hammer mastery. He had upgraded it to void hammer, which would do void damage for every strike. He had also pushed body cleansing to level 5. The upgrade he chose was called body enhancement. This would allow him to start pushing his body cultivation to the next level and improve his ability to resist the effects of the void mana.

  The rest of the time had been training – learning to use their class spells effectively. That proved difficult to do against each other, even knowing that Trevor now had a healing spell with his class.

  The forest was quiet, but not as quiet as the previous time that Billy had been here. They had not spotted any more high-level monsters. When they reached the spot where the Valekia had attacked them, they found only a few gnawed bones. The scavengers had done their work.

  Billy and Su Li scouted the area, their boots crunching over brittle twigs and frozen leaves. The forest around them was quiet—no birds, no rustling creatures, just the occasional whisper of wind through the bare branches and the occasional buzzing noise from insects. After an hour of searching, all they had to show for their efforts were a few abandoned water containers.

  "So, what next?" Su Li asked, her breath curling in the cold air.

  Billy studied the terrain, his eyes narrowing. Sunlight filtered unevenly through the trees, but one direction glowed brighter than the rest. "There," he said, pointing. "The trees thin out that way. More light means open ground—maybe a path."

  Su Li gave a curt nod, and they moved west, their steps quickening as the forest slowly retreated around them. Billy kept one eye on his minimap, the digital grid confirming their route, but nothing could have prepared him for what lay beyond the treeline.

  The world opened up before them in a breathtaking rush. Towering before them, razor-edged and cloaked in snow, stood a vast mountain range. The peaks clawed at the sky, their icy crowns gleaming under the pale sun, an impassable wall between them and whatever lay beyond.

  For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Then Su Li exhaled sharply.

  “Well, that’s a change,” she said softly.

  Billy’s eyes widened as he saw specks coming towards them. The specks were still quite distant but he was unwilling to retreat back into the forest just yet. There would be time for that if it was deemed necessary.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Incoming,” he said to Su Li. “If I say run, run into the trees.”

  She unwound the chains from her wrists and adjusted her helmet. He was pleased to see how calm she seemed beneath the shadowy helmet.

  “Let me try something first, before you attack,” she said.

  He looked at her for a brief second. “What are you planning?”

  “I have been practising my cultivation technique, soul absorb. Not sure what effect it will have.”

  Billy nodded, “Ok, get ready.”

  As they flew closer. Billy could see that there were about ten large birds closing in on them. They were not as large as the Valekia, but they had numbers on their side. Their feathers were reddish brown. He could sense a faint mixture of air and void mana surrounding them.

  Billy readied his war-hammer and started a gentle current of mana running through his meridians.

  The birds were now within twenty metres.

  “Whenever you are ready,” he shouted.

  A sharp sound escaped Su Li’s lips—then the air shivered. Billy felt it before he saw it: a ripple of invisible force, gentle as a breath, rolling outward. Then the birds began to fall.

  One. Two. Three. Four.

  They dropped like stones, wings locked mid-flap, their bodies thudding against the earth. The wave of energy faded, but the remaining birds reacted.

  The first two snapped their wings forward. A hail of needle-like darts sliced through the air. Most clattered harmlessly off Billy’s lorica, but a few found flesh—his thigh, his forearm. Pain flared, but he barely flinched. His hammer crunched into the closest bird’s wing, bones splintering under the blow. It hit the ground with a screech, and Billy silenced it with a brutal stomp, crushing its tiny skull.

  The first two of the remaining birds flared their wings. Sharp objects flew from their wings towards Billy. Most of them bound of his lorica, but a few found his legs and arms. Billy grunted from the pain, but it did not stop him from lashing out. His hammer hit the wings of a bird with a sickening crunch and a flair of black lines. It fell to the ground. Billy finished it off by crushing its skull with his foot

  “Duck!”

  Billy dropped.

  Su Li’s blade whirled to life, a silver hurricane of slashing steel. Three more birds exploded into feathers and gore, until another volley of darts forced her to twist aside, her technique interrupted.

  Billy rose up and pummelled the two birds. Black flecks flashed across his eyes. The birds' talons scraped against his armour, and the beaks attacked his eyes, but he easily dodged the clumsy attacks. It was not long before their bodies also lay on the ground. Feathers drifted slowly down to the ground.

  <10 Thorn birds, level 5 - 7 killed. Contribution 30%. Experience awarded: 2944.>

  “Well, that is a pleasant chunk of change,” Billy said. That was more than he had earned during the whole of the dungeon.

  “Ding, ding!” Su Li said. She did not need to pump her fist to show she had levelled up. She did it anyway.

  “What the hell?”

  “Well, you did pick a rare class.”

  Billy frowned. It was true. Dilchak had told them after the face that rare classes were more difficult to level up. They gave more stats and better spells, but needed more experience points. Still with the improvement in experience points allocation, levelling up should happen a lot quicker.

  “Hey, what’s that?” Su Li said, pointing to the nearest slope.

  Billy followed her gaze. A shadowed overhang loomed in the distance, its edges blurred by the hazy light. Something moved there, a flicker of darkness against stone, too swift to define. He squinted, muscles tensing.

  “Movement,” he muttered. “Too far to tell …”

  “Should we investigate? Do you think it is people or more monsters?”

  Billy considered for a moment before shaking his head. They had time, but it was still too risky to do with just the two of them.

  “No, we're going to get the others. We will come back later.”