A tense standoff held between the heroes and the tribe of gnolls surrounding them. There were thirty, at least. And given how they arrived, Banda expected more to be lurking in the shadows.

  All wielded weapons and armor with no cohesion in style or make. All bearing malevolent eyes, gleaming at the prospect of what they could do to their prey.

  Some started to bang their weapons together or made sudden lurching feints at the duo, but none broke from the encirclement.

  The monsters were taunting them. Trying to scare or frustrate them into making rash movements.

  Seeing neither take the bait, the gnoll leader pointed his spiked flail at them. “Kill!” At his bloodthirsty howl, the gnolls charged.

  Eres conjured her Avatar Arms without hesitation. Her shield stopped the jagged weapons of two gnolls on one side as her spear cleaved through several more on the other.

  She flung her shield arm, sending the two crashing into a stone pillar, but another with a spear lunged from behind. And a stone shattered its skull.

  Banda rampaged around her in a slaughter. Even at his base Feral Form, he was twice as strong as these peak Rank 1 gnolls. They fought with better skill than most, but he had no intention of wasting time with enemies of this level.

  At the sight of its monstrous prey, the gnoll leader’s expression fell. Immediately, it let out blood curdling howl. The fur of the other gnolls reddened and drool poured through their teeth as their faces locked in rabid snarls.

  The creatures lunged at Banda, now his equal in strength. They didn’t coordinate in any measure of tactics or skill, but they attacked at any openings without care for the fate of their kin. That made them more dangerous than otherwise.

  Banda surged aura through his body, doubling his might with Harness, as he retreated to Eres’ side. A battle against numbers was not her strong suit. The gnolls were not stronger, but they were strong. And the corpses steadily covered the hard ground.

  Banda clawed through the throat of a gnoll, and lunged at the leader without warning. Its eyes went wide, but Banda’s fist struck only its shield. A heavy gong echoed throughout the rocky gorge, and the gnoll leader flung Banda back with pure strength.

  It was strong. As strong as Banda was now. But he did not need to resort to the strain of surpassing his limits for an opponent like this. Eres stabbed the last of the gnoll grunts and the two bared down at the leader who remained.

  A mocking smirk spread across its face, and more gnolls appeared from the cover around them. Three times as many as before. And it howled them into a frenzy.

  “Carry me north! Over the gorge!” Eres yelled.

  Banda did not ask for the reason. There was no time. He swept her into his arms and rushed away as she wielded her Avatar Arms to defend them.

  They darted up the rocky cliff and across the mountainous plain, with the small horde of gnolls trailing behind.

  “Find somewhere to hide.” She said, as a blazing aura coated her hand.

  Before he could ask anything, she cast the fire-imbued Flying Palm straight up into the air. Her intentionally poor technique staggered then fell apart in an explosion of flames that could no doubt be seen for miles.

  Something caught Banda’s scouring eye, and he dashed into a cave. Eres took guard at its entrance and fended off the raging gnolls who couldn’t break past her arms. The gnoll leader arrived moments later, and at the sight of the situation, waited patiently.

  Banda glanced at the darkness of the cave behind him. “We should leave.”

  “Not yet.” Eres argued back as she devoted herself to repelling the incessant gnolls.

  Banda didn’t know what she was thinking, but he readied himself for the worst. Eres had held up against the tribe of monsters for a respectable amount of time, but she was starting to give ground.

  Her feet slide back a step again, and Banda readied himself to lunge. But outside of the cave, a blur of bronze swooped down from the sky and shattered the gnoll leader into gory pulp.

  The rage that filled the other gnolls dispersed, and Eres’ spear started to cut them down. Panic erupted and the gnolls fled straight into the diving beak of the konru. It crushed their skulls with vicious peaks and impaled them with relentless spite.

  Gone was their malice, replaced with pathetic fear. But the konru had no interest in such emotions. It merely wanted to kill. It dove down at a group of three gnolls in line, and Banda lunged with perfect timing.

  He didn’t target its vital weaknesses lying underneath bronze feathers, but instead clawed out its eyes in one swift movement.

  He grabbed hold of its neck as the giant bird burst into a frenzied flight. The konru screeched in pain and rage as it tried to shake off the hateful prey that had so grievously wounded it.

  But Banda held on. He took its neck underneath his arm and planted his feet on its shoulders. In one monstrous motion, he twisted its neck with a sickening snap.

  Strength left the creature immediately, and it crashed down from the sky as Banda dropped down quietly to his feet. He rushed over to the entrance of the cave from which Eres had just started to emerge.

  “We should plunder the cores. Before the blood brings others.” Banda said.

  She smiled back. “I’ve found something better.”

  Eres walked back into the cave without further explanation. Banda glanced back at the corpses strewn about behind, then followed her in.

  The cave was not a deep one. They reached the end within moments, and Banda realized the object of Eres’ interest right away. A small patch of land in the center, abnormally lush compared to the rest of it, filled with herbs. Some he recognized, most he had never seen before, but together they emanated a powerful medley of mana.

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  “A cornucopia.” Eres spoke. “A piece of land blessed to bloom with random herbs. Low Grade, Mid Grade, even High Grade. Just the opportunity we need. Look.”

  Eres led his sight to two soft blue fruits the size of a fist covered in white patterns like clouds. “A Cloud Fruit. It allows one to take in a great surge of mana all at once. It would be even better processed into a pill, but there’s no such alchemist on the first floor capable enough. Still, merely eating one is huge boon to Rank 1s like us. We should be able to open up multiple meridians at once.”

  Banda was tempted but he had a far more pressing concern. “Can something here cure poison?”

  “Of course.” Eres pointed at a dark colored drooping mushroom with glowing green spots. “Gloomcap. Powder made from crushing those green spots can be mixed into a tonic that cures most high grade poisons. But only a capable herbalist is skilled enough to handle it. At the peak of Adept, at least.”

  “Then, we harvest and leave quickly.” Banda stepped towards the patch.

  “Well, that’s the thing.” Eres halted him. “We can’t leave. Not yet. The other herbs are fine, but Cloud Fruits wilt within minutes after they’re picked. We don’t have the means to store it properly, so we have to eat them here.”

  “Use your ring.” Banda said.

  “It only manipulates space, not time.” Eres walked to the cornucopia and carefully harvested the Gloomcap before looking back to him with a smile. “I’ll go first. You stand guard.”

  Banda frowned at her slightly, but remained silent. Eres took out a elegant knife from her ring and cut halfway through one of the vines. It started to droop, as though air was leaking from the strange plant, until the vine shriveled away completely, leaving only the fruit.

  Eres picked it up as she sat in the cross legged pose of meditation, and ate the Cloud Fruit in three bites.

  Immediately, mana surged around her. Its intensity far greater than any of the Rank 2 monsters they had fought. Even Banda was caught off guard by it. For a brief moment, he worried whether Eres could maintain control over that much, but his fears seemed unfounded.

  Strain showed on her face but her composure was firm. Slowly, the blaze of mana absorbed within her until it was gone, replaced with a dense emanation of aura.

  She grit her teeth as the strain deepened, her focus and resolve soaring to its fullest heights. Like that, she lingered. Fighting against something. Forcing it to bend to her will. And finally, the aura exploded out from her and her power settled to a new constant.

  She opened her eyes and inspected her cultivation internally. “I opened all my meridians.” She reported with enthusiasm that matched her aura.

  “All?” Banda asked.

  “The nine remaining to be exact. But I could have opened more if I had more to open. So aim to do that from the start. Should make things easier.” She calmly rose to her feet, but a presence struck chills through her spine.

  Banda whipped his head to the entrance as a massive bear stepped into the cave, with emanations of a peak Rank 2. Drool poured from its maw as it stared at them, its expression ominously empty. There was no reason within it. Only violence.

  Banda opened his hands, but Eres charged first, summoning her full Avatar as she threw him the knife. “I’ll hold it off! Just eat the fruit!”

  The Ironfur Grizzly mauled at her with a thunderous roar. The Avatar’s shield arm threatened to buckler under the weight of its blow, but it held enough. It thrust its spear with enough force to knock the bear back into the cave wall, but it couldn’t pierce through its thick hide of fur.

  Banda hesitated for a moment, but turned his focus to the remaining Cloudfruit and mimicked how Eres harvested hers. He snatched it up the moment it was free from the vine and ate it whole.

  A surge of mana exploded around him, threatening to crush him within its turbulent throes. With savage haste, Banda started to plunder it all.

  He cycled the surge of mana through him until the aura gathered within him filled to his capacity, and flooded it all into the meridian of his right shoulder. He spiralled it until it broke open, and spiralled it until it repaired anew.

  The surge of mana diminished in size but remained as blazing as ever, washing away the frailties that would normally limit further cultivation.

  His speed was too slow. Eres’ Avatar was powerful, but it wasn’t infallible. Especially not against a foe he knew to be more dangerous than the konru. He could hear the faint clashes of their battle outside of his concentration.

  Banda focused again and broke open another meridian. And then another. Each time, he began more skilled, and each time he succeeded faster. But it was still too slow.

  He grit his teeth and cycled another mass of aura again. But this time, he held the swirling mass of aura within his meridian in place. And filled a second one.

  He repeated the act, again and again, until all seven remaining meridians were swirling with aura. The strain compounded each time, reaching heights that threatened to tear him apart should he lose the slightest trace of focus.

  But Banda endured. His eyes were long since blank, and drool leaked from his fanged mouth, his expression frozen in sheer exertion. Such was the extent of his focus. He held the swirling orbs of aura in unison, and broke all seven meridians open.

  Screeching wails clawed through his head with such grating pain it nearly made his mind go blank. But he withstood it.

  Banda kept his firm grasp on the the aura within his broken meridians until they all reformed at once with a burst of aura. He opened his eyes and lunged at the bear Eres struggled valiantly against.

  The Ironfur Grizzly mauled at him and he dodged. It turned its head as Eres’ opportunistic spear barely missed its eye, but Banda’s iron fist broke its jaw clean in the opening.

  As Banda lunged and fought, he could feel the aura within him more clearly. It flowed easily throughout his whole body, as though he had a second pair of lungs to draw breathe with.

  The bear attacked at Eres’ taunt and Banda switched his iron fist to a swiping hand to claw out its eye. A mauling paw swiped him away but his iron palms coated with Armor blocked any damage its claws could do.

  Eres struck with her spear again and Banda lunged. The giant bear turned to him again and Banda launched his intent to pierce through its eye. The bear jolted at it, lifting its head at Banda’s lunged. But it guarded a false target.

  Banda struck its face in the direction of Eres, and her avatar thrust its spear through the beast’s mouth, straight into its brain. It struggled a spasmed for a moment, then fell limp.

  Eres watched the beast collapse, and relaxed her posture. “That should be enough for today. We got what we needed and more.”

  “Could have killed it first. Then eaten the fruit.” Banda said.

  “And risk them being damaged.” Eres responded casually. “Or stolen by something else. Or any other number of the fun twists fate is so eager to write.”

  “Come on.” She headed back to the cornucopia. “Let’s not let any of this opportunity go to waste.”

  ---

  Tath dug through the linen sack of herbs they had brought her. Her disposition was significantly more uneasy and unrestrained than it had been just a week ago.

  They had only given her a fraction of the cornucopia they had plundered, and the least valuable and quickest to spoil at that. The rest was safely stored within Eres’ ring. Still, they had given up three mid grade herbs.

  Without a word, Tath ceased her inspections and devoured them whole. Aura surged within her and pulsed out, leaving behind stronger emanations than before. Banda and Eres’ expressions worsened as they knew what it meant. She had advanced to the next stage.

  Tath laughed as though someone as told her the funniest joke, but the atmosphere of her demeanor still kept the duo on edge. “Good, good! Keep bringing me more like this. What a perfect partnership!”

  “Sister!” Oreb shouted from the side, unable to bear his resentment any longer. “You promised to kill them once you advanced!”

  Tath swiped her arm and shattered her brother’s skull. His body swayed for a moment, then collapsed into a growing pool of blood. She turned to the duo as though nothing of importance had happened.

  “We’ll continue our arrangement, until I am satisfied.”