Within the forest there was only the sound of sizzling in the air as the three stared wide-eyed at the broken blade that was still being melted by the poison

'What a ridicules acidity'

He knew even more than Ellis herself how strong her aura when it was fully inserted into a weapon right now, so even he was shocked that the poison actually burned through it within a matter of seconds

He watched as the poison finally burned the metal of the blade and moved on to make a hole in the dirt, stopping shortly after a small pit was made

'Its already exhausted? That can't be, it should have burned through the earth easily...Hmm? Burned through the earth?'

His eyes shifted toward the first wave of poison suspiciously, only to find a green puddle on the ground, the puddle remained on the dirt without being absorbed and it didn't burn the earth either, in fact, even the grass was intact

'Is the poison not acidic? Since it has mass but isn't having an effect then was the one shot against Ellis an energy attack? Or are these two different poisons...'

He analyzed the two attackers but couldn't determine anything without proof

Looking back to the dead body of the crow he pursed his lips in dissatisfaction

'If that was an energy attack then this body is useless and the two treasures were wasted, I hope the beast shot two different poisons'

He walked to the body while he contemplated experimenting with the body to check, in the end though he shook his head, it wasn't worth playing around with dangerous poison without professional tools, this was an unknown species with unknown abilities unlike the rest of the treasures and beasts of which he already knew of

As he walked toward the body he noticed Ellis and Anput giving him a questioning look, they seemed to want an explanation on why he evolved the beast but didn't enslave it

"The heart was losing vitality and the pearl is useless to us with its unknown bloodlines, its better to try and turn them into a new treasure than uselessly hoarding them"

He explained to them, not to give a reason for his actions, but in hopes they learn how to make use of what they have in hand, hoarding items in hopes they come in handy sometime later is a fools choice

Standing beside the body YuJu took out one of the new spatial feathers and handed it to Ellis

"Cover it with your aura and use it to store the body, then throw it some distance away from us"

She looked puzzledly at him at first, but then she remembered the time when the feather exploded nearly killing them and thought it might have something to do with that, thus she followed his instructions, storing the body without any problem, but the feather was thrown a bit too far

Seeing Ellis act so vigilantly he nodded his head satisfyingly, this is the attitude one needed if they wanted to survive for long in this merciless world

The two watched the feather in the distance in silence

'When the body contacted the feather it didn't produce any harmful effect, meaning it wasn't acidic at least, and since nothing happened yet after it was stored then the body then there should be no spatial instability caused by the new evolution'

After making sure there was no problem he went ahead and picked up the feather, storing it in his own

These producers he did were the norm in this new world, after all the Infidome is a cruel world filled with dangers at every corner, and when dealing with items of unknown origin one must first probe or else he ould end up dead, much like those fools who thought this was a game where they pick spoils whenever the battle ended

Just then his hand started to itch uncontrollably, alarming him and causing him to hastily take out the newly stored feather

There were dark plums of smoke rising from it as if it was about to burn at any moment, Ellis who saw it by the side immediately paled with fright

'Space fluctuations, there must be-'

His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden impact, the feather in his hands fell to the ground while he was carried away further from it and was pushed to the ground, warmth covering him tightly all over

"..."

Looking at Ellis who was covering him with her body, as if protecting him from a bomb, he couldn't help but look at her with dull eyes

"What are you doing?"

His words caused her to open her eyes as her scrunched up face that was expecting pain revealed confusion, she didn't answer him and turned back to look at the feather which was back to normal, after a pause she turned back to him, embracement plastered all over her face

AT this point he understood that she wanted to protect him thinking the feather was about to explode, it would have been a touching action if not for the awkward outcome, it also made him question whether he had made her a bit too vigilant or not

'No, I was careless, I shouldn't have stored the feather inside another spatial item when I already suspected the body had space energy'

Storing space inside space wasn't that big of a deal, that is as long as the space wasn't too large, else it would cause too much space to be compacted inside one point which would lead to space collapsing on itself from pressure

'The body must have some sort of spatial storage function or something similar, storing space inside space inside another space would certainly cause spatial instability'

Thinking up to this point he actually started to accept Ellis's new level of vigilance, so he didn't reprimand her for it

Ellis got off him somewhat awkwardly while he merely dusted himself off and picked up the feather, then inked it into his other hand, after that he stored the last feather into his first storage with all the bodies of the crows

"Let's go"

He commanded after throwing the remaining clothes for Ellis to store in her own feather, turning his head away from the sight of her shoving shirt after shirt into her ravine

They moved without taking a break, heading toward the port city where they would be levelling up

Five hours later, near the suburbs of a moderate-sized city three panting figures could be seen making their way toward the high buildings in the distance

"Is this the city Master? It looks so desolate"

"That's because a horde tore through them, I believe there aren't any living humans in here anymore"

YuJu answered Ellis calmly, in fact, he would be surprised if any humans were alive here, anywhere near water is dangerous for the creatures in the water are much more high levelled and ferocious than the ones on land or in air

Suddenly a pack of wild beasts that looked like dogs ran out from the nearby small houses, hunger clear on their savage faces

The three didn't flinch at the sight of them though, Ellis and Anput head to engage with ease

The pack had four dogs, so it would be a fight of two to one, but Ellis wasn't worried, she merely swung her sword to behead the first one to approach her

"RARGH!"

The dog whos end seemed certain burst out in speed, dodging under the sword and biting toward Ellis

"Wha-Ugh"

Shocked by the turn of events she didn't have much time to lean away from the bite, allowing the dog to sink its teeth deep into her left thigh

Its friend didn't waste the opportunity as it leapt at her from the side, biting at her neck, and bite it did, on metal though as Ellis threw the sword into its mouth as she had no time to reverse its attacking motion

The dog couldn't bite her and but it hit her body causing her to stagger, this promoted the one biting her thigh to pull her to the ground, falling on her back, then it proceeded to climb on to her to finish her off

"Rargh"

The sound of flesh ripping came as the attacking dog suddenly found itself bitten through from the side, it didn't get a chance to cry out as its neck was twisted, killing it instantly

The panicked Ellis was relieved of death as Anput came to the rescue, with one dog dealt with she turned toward the second one only to find it running away after realizing it was the only one left

Just when she picked up her sword to give chase she heard YuJu's voice from the side

"Don't, it's not worth it"

Swivelling her head toward his direction she was met with two very dissatisfied eyes

"The two of them remained quiet for a while, then he turned his eyes to the side, she followed his line of sight and saw the two of the ones that faced Anput, each killed with a single bite

Understanding his point she looked back into his eyes and spoke with guilt

"I didn't fight with all I had, I underestimated my enemy and allowed them to defeat me"

She had been told more than once to fight with her all no matter who she met, yet she kept failing to do that even after all these reminders

Seeing her admit her mistake he saved his speech and walked away toward the city without any more words, Anput following closely behind

Ellis, on the other hand, took out a syringe filled with red blood and poked it into her thigh, then limped slowly toward the two who had slowed their pace for her to keep up

'Shes not learning from her mistakes, even after doing the same with that rat she still made the same mistake again with the crow, and now with these dogs'

While the dogs were certainly higher levelled than the other normal beasts they fought because of how many humans they killed it they were still much weaker than her, just two of them almost killing her showed how careless she was

'She has the title and the innate talent for fighting, just why isn't she learning'

He contemplated silently, hoping to figure out a solution soon