Yvenna took a single look at the egg in my hand and grinned wide enough to show me how white all her front teeth were. "Hell yes! Don't eat it! Well, eat if you want, but it will sell for a small fortune—just enough to get a set of good equipment, or some really sick-ass sword!"

"Won't they… die if I don't heat them up?"

"Nah, they'll be good. They are Frost Griffins, after all, even their eggs don't afraid of some cold. Unless you want them to hatch, they'll be alright for… for a while. I'm unsure, but they'll last a couple weeks, that I know."

"Couple weeks… Alright, Yvenna, go and clean up after all, you are dripping."

"Oh," Yvenna looked at her bloody clothes. "Okay. Damn, I hate cold water," she grumbled, walking outside of the cave.

Without her, I finished eating the rest of the griffins—it gave me over one billion and a half EXP. Then I carefully wrapped the eggs in my spare clothes and put them in my bag. Now I just had to either wait for my wings to heal, or…

Or evolve them until they do on their own. I knew from my experience that a single level up won't be enough, but if I picked up a new upgrade, the change would be enough to force them into healing. And now I even had the EXP for it.

On the other hand, I also wanted to toy with the griffin's magic ability, 'Frost Wind Blades'. I never had an ability like that before, and I wondered what I could do with it.

Then, I still had Yvenna to deal with, as well as her little cult. It was… disconcerting. If some fanatics knew about me, knew about me coming here and going to kill these bastards who call themselves gods… what if gods knew, too?

What if they attacked because they knew? God, this sort of thinking made my head hurt. Either way, I had to learn more about Yvenna's cults and her Prophet and her Bishop. But before that, I wanted to check with Rosha and give her the eggs to sell. I wouldn't trust that to Yvenna, and I couldn't sell them by myself. With all that travel, I really needed to wings whole again.

With all that on my mind, I walked out of the bloody cave and searched for Yvenna. She was just nearby, using water from her waterskin and a small cloth in an attempt to clean her face.

"Yvenna, where are you and your cult from?" I asked.

"From? Oh, I live just nearby, in Tinaris," she gestured in a supposed direction to this city. "Convenient to hunt in the mountains if you live there, so tons of adventurers from Tinaris do just that, or go deeper into the caves down below. I guess you won't be let into a city without a fight, eh? Not that fight is bad… These pissy-pants in the city guards deserve some ass-kicking…" Yvenna grinned dreamily.

"Then I will see you there, Yvenna. I'd like to chat with your Bishop… But I have some other stops to make. I will find you." This wouldn't be hard to do with someone as noticeable as her.

"Eh? You are leaving? Just like that? Ah, hell. See you later, then!"

"You better leave this place before predators smell all the blood," I advised, hoping to not find her mauled to death when I get to Tinaris, and left her at that.

I had to find a hole to hide in before I evolve my wings, and I didn't want to it in a place that stank of blood strong enough to attract snow cats from all over the mountain.

⠀⠀

I thought I had a lot of EXP, but it took me two millions to level up 'Agile Flight' to level 20. Though I still had almost two millions left, so it wasn't a crippling loss… but a serious one, nonetheless.

The gaining of five levels made a lot of good for my wings. Not only they felt stronger, they didn't hurt as much when I tried to move them. I even had hopes of flying, but those crashed as soon as I tried to beat them fast enough.

If I reached with my hand, I could feel the torn membranes of them, the crushed blood vessels, the cracked chitin. There was still a lot to heal. I had to pick an upgrade.

The choice was between "Stealth Flight" and "Magic Flight Support" (and what a lame name again… Lame and telling me so little about the ability!). It was a hard one.

The fact that my wings were so loud that there was no way for everyone around to not hear them was a source of noticeable inconvenience to me, but after meeting Frost Griffins, anything with 'magic' in the name was, at the very least, curious.

What was important, this time, unlike many others, I wasn't pressed to pick the upgrade that will help my survival the most of all. I even had a way to reset them if this doesn't work out. And speaking of which…

'Pest, have you finished with the task I gave to you yet? It's been quite a while.'

'Almost! Just a little bit left. It will only take an hour more.' He sounded pleased with himself, which displeased me. But I meant to try out the other branch of 'Malleability', and I had all the EXP I could need from it.

'Then keep draining EXP from it until it drops a level, then… Don't do anything else.'

Satisfied with Pest's commands, I returned to my hard choices. Risk it or not risk it? In the end, I decided it that the risk would be a calculated one. At the very least, I will still be able to fly, and this was just what I needed at the moment.

['Agile Flight' successfully evolves into 'Mystic Flight'.]