Two weeks in Port Palm flew by for the group of adventurers. Each morning at sunrise, Prith would lead them in fitness training around the perimeter of the city starting with a run, into a swim, followed by meditation, and ending in light sparring with one another. After the physical workout was done, they would split off to practice their skills.

  By midday, they would complete their daily training and set off with the city guard to clear out the surrounding areas like Kumo would do in Gale except in Port Palm, it earned you a copper guin for each monster you took down.

  Once their guard duty was over, they would meet to go do something in the city in order to unwind. This had been a lot of shopping since Zuls demanded they all get new clothes and stock up on extras. Other than shopping they had so far gone to see a play and went to a sporting event at which class chosen used their skills to hit an icosahedron into various goals. It was called Chosen Wars and was quite entertaining. Synexus thought a lot about how he would use his skills in a useful way for the game.

  Gene stayed with Yu in the mornings so she wouldn’t be alone all day, but they did want to experience the new city as well, so a rotation was set up on who would skip out on the group outing to keep Yu company. Shell loved this time because they discussed songs from the sphinx history, and she would try to recreate the tune on her ocarina. Zuls introduced Yu to her animals during her days with her. Kumo discussed wind magic and how to further master her skills. Prith took this time for the two of them to get meditation in since the techniques used by the sphinx were legendary for clearing the mind. Synexus sometimes worked on unlocking her skill, and other times he worked on creating a device that could project the video fictions from the codex given to him, so they could have video nights like he did in the trial dungeon.

  Vorin had left after the first week through the teleportation gate back to Gale and he hadn’t returned yet, but everyone knew as soon as he did, they would be on their way once again towards Goldhill. Kumo had given her message for her father to Vorin since it would be much cheaper for a messenger to go from Gale to Whisper rather than Port Palm to Whisper. She secretly was hoping for a reply.

  Drackenn had been granted a meeting with the council on the third day and had to wait to see a class master until the fifth day. After that they both left for the great pirate city of Doubloon. He had pulled the group aside one by one to say his goodbyes but promised they would see each other again. They in turn took him out to dinner and told him that he was welcome anytime.

  All the class expected had wanted to do various things. Some went along with their original plans and met up with the family they had over in the city while others decided to go back to Gale except through the teleportation gate this time like Crix. Synexus even offered to pay for each of them if they wanted to go back. A few wanted to stay with the group until their class day and then continue with them, but Vorin had said no. Once he got back, they were leaving, and he wanted the group to move fast. His vision for them was to push themselves to their limit, so they could progress and become a force for good in the world.

  No one disagreed.

  Synexus had been constantly working on his skills within his Progress Garden which netted him level 10 in the skill finally. To his surprise there was no upgrade which made sense as it was a manually created skill. Extreme Growth and Body Transmutation had gotten to level 30, however, and they both got an upgrade.

  Extreme Growth has evolved into Instant Growth

  Instant Growth: Your mana now understands the growth of nature. When using this skill, the effect is now instantaneous. Your mana efficiency has significantly increased. You can now interact with the genes of people.

  Body Transmutation: By gaining a mastery of changing your own genome to incorporate the traits of others, you are now able to transmute more of your body with the traits found in any of your collection skills. You may now have two concurrent transmutations going at any one time.

  Overall, he thought his enhanced skills would improve his combat immensely. There would be no delay in growing plants now, and he could use an offensive and defensive trait on his own body concurrently. The one change he wasn’t sure how he felt about was the fact he could now use Instant Growth on the genes of people. When he had read it, his memory had flashed to the pain that Snowfall was in. If he did use it, it would be in emergency situations only and even then, he would have to be extremely careful. Snowfall grew a few unintended feet after all.

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  Kumo had once again caught up to him after pushing her Cloud Walking skill every day and fighting more waves of monsters for Chain Lightning. In addition, a few of her other skills had also gotten an evolution or an upgrade.

  Blade of the Clouds has evolved into Tempest Blade

  Tempest Blade: Channel the power of storm clouds and release their power into more violent cloud blades. Each blade will have a mix of wind, water, and lightning mana.

  Breeze has evolved into Gale

  Gale: Your presence no longer creates a breeze, but a gale. Mana is much more efficient when using this skill and the strength of the wind is now greatly increased. Have more control of the direction of the wind.

  Conjure Fog has evolved into Summon Fog

  Summon Fog: Instead of creating a fog, summon a living fog elemental that will work with you to destroy your enemies. Damage the fog does is now greatly increased. You can still control the density.

  Cloud Cover: Create a much bigger cloud now that is slightly tangible. Keep small things on your cloud to carry them. Light will no longer get through your cloud.

  Cloud Walking: The clouds have welcomed you. Gain more proficiency with inherent knowledge of the best ways to walk amongst the clouds.

  Chain Lightning: Every one of your attacks now chains to three additional enemies dealing 10% less damage to each subsequent enemy.

  Kumo had become a force of nature and strived to be when facing a large group of enemies. Her utility had also increased with the upgrade to Cloud Cover. She almost always had a small wind around her now and thanks to the tips from Yu, she had been working on a few new techniques for her skills.

  Synexus had gotten idea while watching her Cloud Walking skill one day and it was to copy her will pathways to simply grant Yu a new skill instead of working to unlock her Flight skill, but she refused. She said Cloud Walking was a skill for humans. All sphinxes had Flight, and she would not settle for anything less than unlocking her beloved skill. He understood her wanting to embrace her heritage and didn’t push the matter.

  Gene and himself had gone to the Port Palm library to do some research. Unfortunately, there was nothing on locked skills or unlocking skills. They had one text about Mana Weaving, but it wasn’t anything Gene didn’t already know. The owl then decided it was time to start attempting to clear the will pathway by doing the normal steps to create a new skill, however, right before burning a new will pathway, they would direct it through the existing one to clear it out like they were the System attempting an upgrade.

  When Synexus attempted this the first time, nothing happened. The second time he felt a small bit of give before the mana dissipated. On the third he pushed a bit harder and there was clearly some mana getting through. Since the third time though, there hadn’t been any improvement. Still, they made it part of their daily ritual to try and clear the blockage of foreign mana. Gene believes it will eventually work, but every bit of the mana has to be eradicated from the will pathway which is a tedious task. Yu, however, was quite pleased that they even made some type of progress.

  Zuls had gone to the bestiary and learned about quite a few new animals, but also some familiar ones that she had seen back in the wildlife preserve in Gale. She was excited at the prospect of seeing new animals again and couldn’t wait to get back out on the road.

  Shell sent word to her family that she would be going with the group on their adventure, so she could see more of the world and secretly so she could find her…friend, if it was possible. Every night before sleep took her, that was her only thought.

  A surprise for the entire group happened on their first night when they sat down for dinner at a local tavern and were served their drinks in void black bamboo cups. Everyone turned to Synexus.

  “Did you do it again?!”

  “No! I promise! Ecclo must have sold some to foreign merchants.”

  That had gotten a much-needed laugh from the whole group and what he said ended up being true. The Grove did, in fact, have a branch here in Port Palm. According to the workers, he had come through a week or two before to set things up and business was good.

  Over the next two weeks, anywhere they went they would see evidence of his bamboo variants, and it had become a constant joke amongst the team. He was starting to regret his actions in Gale, but at least he wouldn’t have to worry about money ever.

  Their time in Port Palm had been informative, relaxing, productive, and fun. At the end of the second week, however, they were all ready to get out in the wilderness once more to start their adventure properly. Now, they just had to wait for Vorin to return which should be any day unless he got himself into some type of trouble.