Waving a hand in a sweeping gesture, Cirila smiles as she looks over the town. “This is Tikuna Village. If you look at it on a map, this is an island. There are rivers crisscrossing the entire rainforest. They just happen to encircle this area. This creates a unique natural array that gathers mana in the area. That gathered mana draws in confluences.”
While she is talking the group continues walking. The village seems primitive. Wooden walls held together by woven vines. Inside the village is made from thatched huts. But that is only when you look at it with normal eyes.
Using his aura, Helo can feel how the entire village is covered in rune-less enchantments. To do something like that, on such a large scale, either means two things. One, impressive rituals, or two, each piece was placed by a powerful individual and filled with intention. Both are displays of impressive magical power.
The front gates open as they appear. Two men are standing on either side of the gate. They are wearing clothing similar to Isabella’s husband, only much less colorful and more practical. Each one also holds a long spear in one hand.
As the two sides get pulled apart, the gate reveals Ria on the other side. She grins at the group. “You’re the final group to arrive.”
Helo and Hinata look inward and they see that not only has Alli and Maria’s groups arrived. But the other three large groups, made up of three or four parties. “Come.” Ria says while turning. “Confluences are common in this area. The village is warded against overlapping realities. But a tier 2 reality is going to be layered soon. We are leaving in a little bit.”
After that Ria leaves to go and talk with her Teacher Assistants. Isabella is also with her. Behind Isabella, her husband is standing with clenched teeth. He is glaring at everyone around him. Mostly at his wife, but as soon as he spots Helo, he zeros in on him with considerable amounts of killing intent.
Helo shivers as the negative emotion sweeps over him, but he shrugs and ignores the man. From what Isabella told them; her husband is on extremely thin ice. The odds of him doing something are slim. If he does Isabella is here, and Ria.
Meeting up with Alli, she starts to excitedly tell them about how her trip went. She didn’t fight anything as intense as the Frenzied Chimps. But Bibbin did lead them off route often to fight other beasts.
Everyone around them are listening intently as Alli and Hinata share stories. They are the two strongest parties in the group. Of all seventy students that came to Brazil, they are the only two noble groups.
“Then the chimps…” After a few minutes of talking Hinata stops and looks around. She just realized that the surroundings were suspiciously quiet. All around them the other parties listen to her story. She blushes slightly at the attention, but she was trained for moments like this.
Looking around she gives her best cheerful political smile. The other students don’t know it is a political smile. All they can see is that one of the most beautiful freshmen is giving them a beautiful and blinding smile.
“Hello everyone, from what I was told we are going to be entering a tier 2 layer. I am not sure how strong the enemies will be, but as long as we work together everything will be okay. I know some of you might be nervous.” She is right in that last part. Almost all of the students are mid-tier 1. They are between levels 20 – 35. Entering a dungeon filled with tier 2 monsters is well above their skill level.
“But keep in mind that not only is Ms. Ria here with us, but she also brought four upper classmen, and Tribal Leader Isabella is here as well.” Hinata smiles again and those that were nervous start to feel a bit better.
“The little girl is right.” Ria calls. She walks up beside Hinata and pats her on the back. “We will be on the other side of the spatial passage. If we enter it will lessen your growth, but we will be close by. You were initially split into four groups. I am going to split up Maria, Alli and Hinata’s group.” The three teenagers step away from another. Pointing at the three other groups she says, “You’re with Maria, you are with Hinata, and finally, Alli.”
The three girls look at Ria in surprise, but with their Noble training they quickly adjust. Maria and Alli look a little overwhelmed. But Hinata dives right in, getting names and roles, she starts to make battle plans. Splitting up her own party she puts them in charge of their own roles. Rurgrim is leading the defenders, Aiko the support, Rocco the attackers, and Cody the ranged righters.
The other two girls watch what Hinata is doing and start to do the same. While they are organizing themselves Ria says. “Keep this in mind, if we do something like this in the future, these will be your groups.”
Everyone nods, the non-nobles feel safer with the three girls leading them. “Yah know, maybe like this we actually can take down a tier 2 monster.” One of the guys says.
“I know right! I hope I gain a level.” says a girl next to him.
“We won’t gain much experience through.” Another guy says.
“Huh? Why is that?” The girl asks.
“With such a large group, the oversized party penalty will be massive.” The other guy says.
Luna is listening to them talk and she sees when everyone around deflates. “You don’t have to worry about that.” Luna says. Everyone looks at her with a little hope rekindling in their eyes. They all know Luna as one of the most intelligent first years. Everyone knows that she takes care of Alli and Hinata’s management. If Luna wore glasses, she would be smugly pushing them back into place. “Well, the penalty only applies within the same tier. The only reason you might not gain a massive amount of experience is the split.”
The man that mentioned the penalty has multiple people glaring at him. He looks around frantically. “I had no idea! None of you knew either!”
Before stepping away Luna says one last thing. “Just make sure you get a few hits in, and you should gain some decent experience.”
Similar conversations are happening all over the area as everyone excitedly discusses the next hunt they will be going on. Hinata is already done organizing everyone, but before Maria and Alli can finish, everyone stops as they hear the gate to Tikuna Village opening again.
From the parted gate a young man swaggers into the village. His gaze holds contempt as it passes over almost everyone he sees. Instantly categorizing them as less than and not important.
Helo can’t help but notice the similarities to the man that is standing behind Isabella. This must be Miguel. Helo thinks as he studies the man. He has a tier 2 aura, one that is filled out by having an advanced class and bloodline. But it is only early tier 2. Which isn’t surprising, from what Helo knows about Miguel, he is only a few years older than they are.
Miguel is wearing clothing like his father. It is a mix of tribal clothing, ceremonial accessories, and a dash of the ostentatious look of someone who is a young master. Miguel ignores everyone around him and struts directly up to his mother.
She stands almost two heads over her son. Her own height and size are much larger than even her husband. It makes Helo start to wander about the mythological Amazonian women. Maybe she is one.
“Mother. I demand that you drop these ridiculous charges against father.” Miguel says while staring up at his mother.
Looking down on him, Isabella sighs, and they wonder why she adopted little Maria. “Your father attacked someone from both the Brightmoon and Kashiwagi families.”
“It was just a servant.” Miguel says flippantly. He waves his hand like he is swatting a fly. “Just execute the servant, then there is nobody that the charges are against.”
Isabella looks up at the sky and pinches the bridge of her nose. Mumbling, she asks the sky. “What has your father been teaching you. That kind of logic is barbaric and something we stopped doing almost five hundred years ago.”
Miguel ignores the fact that his mother thinks it is a horrible idea and charges forward. “Father says that to become the leaders of earth we need strength and to go back to our roots.”
Isabella looks down at her child and sighs. “Your father is just upset that he follows the orders of his wife. He is a man child that can’t get over his own petty desires for power.”
Miguel is shocked by his mother’s words. Behind them Isabella’s husband Lucas’s aura erupts from his body, and he glares at his wife we hatred. “I am no such THING!” He yells and takes a step forward. Before he can do anything to rash, four people appear around him.
Each one is a tall and powerful woman with builds like Isabella. Watching the scene unfold Helo truly is starting the think that one of the races in the amazon is the Amazonian. Each woman is dressed like Isabella, wearing colored skirts that have a long thigh slits and small bikini tops.
But at the same time, each one radiates a powerful tier 2 auras. They surround Lucas on each side with the tip of their spears just millimeters from his skin. “You wouldn’t dare.” He growls out through clenched teeth.
Isabella looks around and sighs for the umpteenth time. Looking toward her son, she asks. “Why would you make such a scene in front of our guests?”
Before her son can give a stupid answer like ‘They are irrelevant’ she speaks over him. “It doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t come here like this just because of your father.”
“Your right mother.” Miguel stands up tall. “Maria was banished by father. But here she stands in one of our towns. I would like to lay my claim to her as her betrothed.”
Isabella glares at her son with such ferocity that the air around her seems to freeze. “You can’t honestly think that I would let you do that.”
Miguel is shaking, clenching his fists, he stands his ground. “It is the laws of our people.” Surprisingly he speaks without stuttering, even under his mother’s gaze.
“No.” she says sternly then dismisses her son. She turns back to her husband and starts to wonder what she should do with him.
“Then I would like to guide my underclassmen on their trip into the tier 2 layer.” Miguel says from behind her.
“Hahhhhhhh fine. But you’re staying by me or Ria the entire time.” She speaks. “You…” She looks at her four kinswomen. “Take him back to our house, he isn’t to leave until the students are gone.”
“Yes, Tribal Leader.” Four voices ring out. Lucas is still glaring, but he follows along. He knows that if he acts out further, then any leverage he might have will disappear.
Turning back to the group she looks a little sheepish. “Sorry for that everyone.” Pausing for a second she reaches out and grabs her son by his ostentatious golden necklace. He was starting to make his way toward Maria.
Alli and Hinata are obviously going to tell their parents about the discontent in Brazil. But everyone else is too scared to let any rumors spread. The only person spreading rumors is going to be Miguel. He plays the part of an arrogant young master, which he is. But he isn’t as dumb as he acts. He knows that he made a scene, it was his and his father’s plan.
He wants to lessen his mother’s hold of the tribes. If he does, then he can make a claim to be the new Tribal Leader. The other elders need to see her as incompetent, like she is slipping. Then his father can take control, and after his father it will be him.
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Isabella knows that her husband has been trying to take more power from her. The only reason she married him was to appease the groups that have issues with a female leader. But she isn’t aware that most of the elders that want to see her ousted are supporting her son, not her husband.
“Well, it is almost time to leave. Everyone head out the gate and then around to the other side of the village.” Isabella says.
It takes a few seconds for the group of seventy students to start moving. They just witnessed some first-class drama. Some of them were staring intently. On the other hand, others were cringing as Isabella was blindsided by her ridiculous son.
A few minutes later everyone is heading deeper into the jungle as a large group. The seventy students are split into three groups. Each large group is following Alli, Hinata, or Maria. Beside them they have Isabella, Miguel, Ria, and the four tier 2 students.
Eventually they reach a small clearing. Isabella steps forward and starts to use her aura to feel the spatial layers. Nodding she looks back at the group. “This is good. We are far enough away from the center of the jungle. The monsters should start out at the lower end of the tier.”
Pointing at a spot on the left side of the clearing, stakes start to fly from her spatial ring, each one moves on its own flight path. Then they all get staked into the ground in a perfect circle. After that she steps back and looks at Ria. Ria instead looks between the three girls.
It is a few seconds later that Hinata asks. “You want us to take charge? Right?”
“Um. Okay.” Hinata didn’t get a response, but that seemed like it was enough response. Grabbing the two other girls she pulls them close. “How do we want to handle this?”
“Well…” Alli taps her lip and starts to think. “We would go as a large group or split up.”
“We should scout out the area first.” Maria says. “The plants and terrian might be similar, if a little expanded, but the monsters will be random.”
After she says that both Alli and Hinata turn around and look behind them at the same time. Maria follows their gaze and looks right at Helo. He is contentedly standing in the middle of his party. Not paying attention to anything as he plays with Inka.
Helo can feel as three gazes lock onto him. At the moment a lot of people are looking at him. He has a tiny black jaguar in his arms. So, it makes sense that people would be staring. But these three gazes feel different.
Tilting his head and looks left, he doesn’t have to look around. He directly looks up and into the eyes of the three girls. His slitted red eyes meet their eyes and Maria gulps quietly. “Isn’t he hurt?” She asks them.
“He is fine, he just can’t fight right now. But he will be fine doing a bit of scouting for us.” Hinata says.
“You have two minutes.” Isabella calls out.
“Alright, game plan.” Alli looks between the two girls. “Send Helo, if there is a group of monsters, we all go together. If there are individual monsters, we all take out groups and go separately.”
Maria and Hinata look at one another and nod. “Sound good to me.” Hinata says.
“Yeah, I’m fine with it.” Maria agrees.
“Great! I call the kitty!” Alli cheers as she dashes ahead of her two friends and directly up to Helo.
They explain their plan to him and he nods. It seems like a decent plan to him. But before he hands Inka over, he takes a quick look around. Finding that Luna isn’t busy he walks up to her and hands the cub over.
Other than Helo, Inka has bonded the most with Luna. Walking past the pouting Alli, Helo pulls out his cane and speaks. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
He alone steps up to the ritual stakes, and he waits for them to activate. As he is waiting, he plants the cane in front of him and leans on it. But after a second, he gets bored. Crouching down he leans on the cane and looks at the stakes.
Using his skill ‘Appraisal’ he scans the stakes.
Ritual Stakes of Parsing Reality.
Stakes created specifically to make passages between two intersecting, but similar realities.
- Spatial Lock.
- Spatial Bridge.
He doesn’t get much from his skill. But he can read a few of the runes. Getting lost in his pondering he fails to hear the people talking behind him.
It starts with one or two people. “Why is he going first?” “Why does he have a cane? Is he hurt?” “Who is that?” “Isn’t that the guy that pushed back the tier 3 aura?”
But eventually Miguel complains loudly. “What are they doing letting a cripple enter into the tier 2 layer first?” He looks at his mother. She doesn’t respond. At this point she is pretty sick of his attitude and doesn’t want to deal with him.
Stomping forward Miguel is about to do something stupid, which Ria speaks up. “He is the one that your father tried to attack?”
“Him?” Miguel asks while pointing at the Helo. Right now, Helo is crouching down with his cane between his legs. His arms are above his head holding the cane handle and he is studying the stake closely. Nobody but the tier 3’s can hear him, but everyone else can see his lips moving as he mutters to himself. “Ha! He is just a cripple, and obviously insane.”
“No. He is injured but mostly healed.” Ria says, but before she says more, she looks a little confused. “And I think he is able to decipher the enchantments?” She sounds puzzled and looks back at Isabella.
Isabella just nods. “He can’t read the entire thing, but he is able to read parts of it.”
“That is ridiculous.” Miguel argues. “Those are tier 3 enchantments. It took all the Shaman’s over five years to make those stakes.”
“I am just as amazed as you are son.” Isabella says. For a moment she even forgot that she was upset with him. Right now, his ridiculous young master attitude makes sense. It is amazing that Helo can read some of the enchantments.
Before they can say anything else the enchantment starts to glow. Then in just a few moments space seems to bend and a passage is made. It appeared exactly the same as the last time they saw it. The only difference is that there is now a large amount of tier 2 mana pouring from the gate, not tier 1.
Looking back Helo waves to everyone and steps though. A moment before he disappears into the trees, there is a “YIP!” And Lelai bounds into the passage.
Maria starts to worry. But Alli just pats her on the arm. “Lelai and Helo will be fine, they have been working together for a long time.
Within the higher layer of reality, Helo and Lelai are making their way through the jungle. He plans on scouting in concentric circles. Each pass he will go further out. He is looking for any large groups, like the Chimps or Birds.
Wrapping himself in his bloodline and aura, Helo’s presence is gone. At the same time his aura is almost undetectable and spread out to scout forty meters in all directions. He plans to scout for about thirty minutes. Moving at his fastest speed he should be able to check a few miles in each direction.
So far, the only thing that he has noticed is the way that space seems to grow larger as the mana concentration increases. The trees, shrubs, even the rivers are all larger than in the real world. As far as groups of monsters go, Helo has yet to find anything they need to be cautious of.
The monsters are all similar to their real-world counter parts, only this time they have some unique mutations. If before the tier 1 birds could coat their beaks in metal like mana, now for the tier 2 birds their beaks are made from metal.
Behemoth Anteater.
Weakness: Agl
Bulbus Spitter Leaf Frog.
Weakness: Int
Razon Spine Iguana.
Weakness: End
Bing.
Your Detect Weakness skill has gone from Mid Uncommon to High Uncommon.
Plate Armor Armadillo.
An Armadillo that has adapted to have plate like armor on its shell. It will attack by rolling at its enemies at high speed.
Weakness: Dex
The change in his skill didn’t come as a major surprise, but it still is a good change. He doesn’t mind that it no longer tells the levels. He can approximate levels using his aura. But learning a little about the creature will help a lot.
Finding only powerful, but singular large monsters, Helo decides to head back. It has only been twenty minutes. But it seems like there are no large groups here. As he makes his way back, he passes by the Behemoth Anteater. With his upgraded ‘Detect Weakness’ he gives it a scan.
Behemoth Anteater.
An Anteater that has slowly grown larger over time, it was forced to grow due to the growth of the ants that it likes to eat.
Weakness: Agl
The Anteater is a massive beast. It would more than rival even the largest of elephants. But reading through the system message, Helo stops for a second. That might be a problem. Why would there be an Anteater, with no ants.
On his way back Helo looks for hills of dirt or holes in the ground. Unfortunately, he can’t find anything. This might be good, maybe there are no ants. But he wouldn’t bet too much on it. In the Brightmoon dungeon he has fought ants before. They were large and powerful.
A colony of tier 2 ants would be able to overwhelm and sweep through their class. In the end it is the girls that are in charge. He will tell them his worries and find Inka. He gets back soon after and reports what he found.
As he exits the rift he can hear Miguel snort. “Hhhk. I’m surprised he came back in one piece.”
Ignoring the angry man, Helo reports his findings.
“So, you found a lot of creatures that would be great to hunt. But there is a risk of there being an ant colony.” Maria asks. “What do you two think?” She looks at Alli and Hinata.
“Mhm. Risk and reward right?” Alli says.
“Yeah… Everyone here is hoping to gain a level, they are fighters and willing to risk injury to grow. We need to respect that. But we should take some precautions.” Hinata says.
“Like what?” Alli asks.
“Mhm… Like our three groups should stay in constant contact. We should have anyone with an earth affinity trying to scan the ground for tunnels.” Hinata starts thinking and throwing out random ideas.
“Oh! We can have Helo go between the three groups!” Alli exclaims.
Helo looks at her with shock. He has zero desire to do that. He is supposed to be taking it easy and playing with his new cub.
“Yeah, that could work.” Hinata nods along. “He can move between the three of our groups and make sure nobody is overrun.”
Now with Hinata agreeing with Alli’s crazy idea, Helo resigns himself to the fact that they will probably convince him to agree. But he won’t go down without a fight. “Do I get a say in this?”
“Why would you?” Alli asks with a cute head tilt.
“Nope.” Hinata says with a smug grin.
Helo stares between the two girls and sighs. This is not how he wanted his day to go. Maria chuckles at the antics between the three of them. Then she claps her hands. Gathering their attention she says. “Well let’s get to it!”
Shortly after, the three groups enter the rift. Helo points each group in the direction of one of the monsters that he found. Maria goes toward the frog, Alli the Iguana, and Hinata goes toward the Behemoth Anteater.
Interested in seeing Alli’s fight with the Iguana he starts out by leading her group into the jungle. With over twenty fighters in each group. It means that each is made up of at least four parties. With that each group has two or more scouts.
With Helo leading Alli’s group they make it to the Razor Spine Iguana in short order. When they are close Helo emerges from the forest infront of the group.
“Holy shit! Where did he come from?” Someone shouts once Helo relaxes his control on his bloodline.
“What he said man. It’s scary to think that someone with such a dangerous presence can be so close and I have no clue.” Another guy says while patting the first guy on the back.
Helo ignores them as he goes up to Alli. “Come with me for a minute. I’ll show you the monster and you can make a plan.”
Waking into the forest with Helo, Alli steps up beside him. IN the past she has held onto his arm while the walk. This time it is Helo holding onto her. Wrapping an arm around her body Helo closes his eyes and focuses.
“Ehhh! What are you doing?” Alli says to Helo.
Instead of answering he releases his bloodline, and his energy starts to flow faster and harder. Then using his bloodline energy, he not only masks his own presence, but also Alli’s. It isn’t perfect. But ever since he saw that guy that could hide other people, he wanted to try. Mostly because he wants to be able to do things like conceal the sound of a door opening, or window breaking.
“Woah…” Alli holds her hand up and she watches in amazement as the shadows that seem to cling to Helo, are wrapping her body also. Her hand is dripping a shadow like energy that dissipates into the air as it falls from her.
Not giving her much time to play with his bloodline energy, Helo grabs Alli and starts to pull her into the forest. He skillfully weaves through trees while Alli does her best to keep up. Just as he ducks under a fallen tree, he pulls Alli down and stops her from moving forward.
From their place under the log, he points up into the trees. Sitting on the branch of a massive tree, and equally impressive Iguana is sunning itself. It found a place where a beam of sunlight can break through the tree coverage. Now it is relaxing there without a care in the world.
They stay there for about half a minute as Alli takes a look around the area. The Iguana is out in the open, but the entire jungle is filled with dense shrubs and tons of trees. Meaning that it will be hard for the large party to sneak up on the monster.
Nodding to Helo, the two of them retreat and they head back to the larger group. When they appear from the forest everyone looks at Alli with a multitude of different emotions. Some of them are excited, others nervous. “Don’t worry.” Alli says with a smile. “We got this. Here is what we are going to do.”
A few minutes later the Iguana lifts its head from the branch and looks around. It tilts its head from side to side and continues to scan the area. Iguanas have keen eyesight and a unique sense that detects chances in light.
Because of this it was able to easily detect as multiple people started trying to approach it from different sides. Alli can see that the creature was already able to spot them. She internally grumbles, but she also planned for this.
She never expected that her entire group would be able to sneak up on the creature. “GO!” She shouts and from one side in a crescent shape, multiple people lunge forward. These are the people with crowd control abilities. Breaking off from the four people, two scouts retreat back to Alli, they used their skills to masks the others.
Arisah leads the charge and she has three others with her. “Ready. Now!” She yells. Then she tosses a handful of seeds into the air. As soon as they land they quickly grow roots and start to sprout up and a prodigious speed. The other three people around her also play their part. In quick succession vines crawl up the iguana’s body and ice starts to freeze at its feet.
Then the other two people cast their own crowds control skills. “Lethargy!” A man shouts. He is a support mage, and his skill rapidly drains a targets stamina. The other person doesn’t say anything, but she does toss a vial into the air. When it reaches the same height as the Iguana it shatters. A pollen-like substance spreads out and attempts to paralyze the monster.
Alli smiles at the first part of the plan works. She knew that everyone wouldn’t be able to approach. So, she had the scouts lead the people that were meant to tie the beast down. Then she had some others intentionally reveal themselves to draw attention. She might not be the best at packing her bags, but she has her moments of dependability.