"Hello again, boys," the Gate greets us. "Heading out again?"

"Yes," I answer. "How are things looking outside?"

The great Gate set into the tall walls protecting our town falls silent for several moments, which is usually not a good sign. Generally, if it has to think over how things look outside, there's either something strong out there, or a lot of monsters.

Standing at twenty feet in height, twelve in width, and one in thickness, the door-like Gate is the only way to enter our town. At least, unless one wants to try going over the walls it's set into. At twenty feet thick and one hundred feet in height, only a monster would ever try going over the walls.

Which they sometimes do, resulting in Cam and me needing to take them out. That rarely happens when we're outside hunting, though. For the most part, monsters stay outside of the town. We aren't that large of one, so we aren't that much of an attractive target to the monsters intelligent enough to target settlements.

Finally, the face in the Gate opens its eyes and looks at us.

"A storm is coming, Rex," he tells me.

"Yes, we know," I roll my eyes. "Did you really have to think over it for two minutes before coming to that conclusion? I can tell by the way the air feels and smells a storm will hit. But we still need to hunt some beasts."

"Not that kind of storm," he tells me. "I have been observing oddities lately. I believe a Star-Level beast may be forming."

Cam and I look at each other uneasily. Ordinarily, the beasts are within reasonable power levels. The two of us alone are enough to handle them. They grow more powerful by consuming the fresh hearts of other beasts, much as we Hunters grow more powerful by killing beasts. Cam and I normally prevent them from reaching Tier Five, which is when they start to gain more intelligence. After Tier Seven, they become Single Star beasts.

Those don't just have better intelligence. No, those have intelligence, cunning, and more. They're not just intelligent, but dangerous. In addition to their ability to plan and plot, they are powerful monsters. Very rarely do they form in an area like this.

"Are you sure?" Cam asks beside me.

"I am not certain," the Gate responds. "But I will continue to watch. Be wary, Hunters. You are many Levels too low to handle Star-Level Beasts."

"We know," I tell him. "We'll keep an eye out for the appearance of stronger beasts."

"Good luck," he tells us. "May I see your Hunter Brands?"

Cam and I pull down the fronts of our shirts so that the Gate can see the brands. Black marks on our sternums which show our Level. We aren't required to update the Hunter Brands, but even having one acts as proof we are Hunters. Many places also require people to either have a high enough Level, or be with people who do, to exit or enter them.

Our town requires us to have the brand, even at Level 1. I'm Level 17, while Cam is Level 13. Even though we're the same age and have performed every hunt together, the difference between us comes because of our positions. Cam is a healer, which doesn't make him stronger, while I'm a fighter. He's fought some, to raise his Level so that he can perform stronger heals and spells, but otherwise, I do all of the fighting and killing.

Upon seeing our brands, the Gate splits down the center, then opens outward.

"Good luck with your hunts, and may the Divine watch over you," he tells us.

Cam and I leave the town and walk down the path between the fields of grass, hills rolling to either side of us. A mountain rises to our left, to the north and west of us, while we know a river passes between the hills on our right, to the south and east of us. One of the feeder rivers for it cuts into the town, a series of strong grates preventing beasts from swimming through, even if fish can make it through.

Some of those fish are monsters, but they also taste pretty good.

We walk in silence until we know we're out of the Gate's earshot. We learned that lesson years ago, unaware of just how good its hearing was. Until then, we had believed it could only hear things within maybe ten yards of it.

Finding out it could hear more than one hundred feet away was a bit of a shock.

"Any idea why he'd think that?" Cam asks.

"No," I answer. "But the Gate sees more than us. It's possible he picked up something we haven't noticed. The formation of a Star-Level beast is always preceded by monsters becoming higher tiers abnormally for the region, though."

"Let's go check the mudhounds," Cam suggests. "I know we were waiting for them to hit Tier Five for the experience, but they'd be the most likely candidates."

"Yeah," I agree. "Though remind me why I thought leaving them around would be a good idea?"

Mudhounds are an annoying creature to deal with. As their name suggests, they're hounds made out of mud. And they attack using mud. And they live in a muddy area. I don't mind getting dirty as much as the next Hunter, but mudhounds take it to an entirely different level.

Cam and I make our way out off the main path and south, toward the river. We ignore the lesser monsters around here. None of them look stronger than usual. The hares still have pale brown fur and a single horn, the occasional deer still looks like a deer, the squirrels still have two tails. Nothing is larger, nothing is abnormal.

Well, other than the hawk living in a tree we pass by, but Cam and I ignore it. It's twice the size of a normal hawk, and it has an extra talon on each foot, along with three eyes. Spots of red are on its brown and white feathers as well, forming an eye-like pattern across its wingspan.

We're letting it live, even though it's Tier Four. We want it to hit Tier Five because it will provide us some decent experience once it's there. It will probably take the hawk a few more months to reach that at minimum, though. Most of the creatures in the area it's hunting are Tier One.

The ratio to advance to the next tier is one hundred of the same tier as it is. For every tier below it, it needs ten times as many devoured. So to reach Tier Five, it needs to eat one million fresh hearts from Tier One monsters.

It's actually the reason there aren't many stronger beasts in this section of fields and hills. If we leave a monster at a higher tier for a few days, the hawk eats it.

Cam and I reach the river, then cross the stone bridge built years before we were born. We follow the river downstream. When it forks, we continue along the fork we're walking by already. It's smaller than the fork heading north, towards the mountains, but will lead us to the mud fields.

Normally, rivers don't fork out like this, and we know that eventually, the fork will disappear, the river returning to normal. But as far as we can tell, the fork came about because of some attack by a monster around fifty years ago. It was the last great incident of our town, when a Tier Seven monster was taken out by some Hunters from a city.

One day, we might become that strong, but for now, we'll continue to train the way we are. Tier Five monsters push our limits pretty hard, but with Cam's healing, I'm able to handle them as long as there's only one or two we're actually fighting at once.

Because of the amount of stronger beasts consumed needed to hit that high, there is rarely more than one in an area. It's eaten everything else that was strong so that it could become strong. It's at that most beasts realize that eating stronger things makes it stronger faster, too.

The walk from the fork takes us around twenty minutes, trees starting to grow more densely on the hills, up until we reach a small valley between hills. It's only a couple hundred yards across, and the branch of the river fades into it, keeping the mud, well, muddy.

Looking around, I examine the beasts in the mud fields. Some frogs, some mudhounds, and some snails. Judging by the variations in them, most are Tiers One, Two, and Three. There are four mudhounds which we've been keeping our eyes on. They're larger than the others and have horn-like protrusions on their head. Tier Four. Much like all mudhounds, their bodies seem to be made of mud, though that's really just their flesh – there's bone, muscle, sinew, blood, and all the other usual stuff underneath.

"Is it me, or is Geoffrey bigger than last time we were here?" Cam asks.

I glance at the snail in question. It's sitting on a large rock, lazily basking in the fading sunlight. Clouds are moving in now, another sign of the coming storm. We nicknamed him Geoffrey a few years ago, and he seems content to eat lesser monsters. None of the monsters seems to mess with him, either, and we can understand why.

After his first evolution, when he gained a third upper tentacle, he acquired a lightning attribute. There are six elements to the system, though only five relate to each other, and those five have relationships which determine their strengths and weaknesses. Cam uses light, which has both light aspects and holy, and is required to heal things.

The lightning attribute is strong against mud, which is a mix of earth and water. Pure water doesn't conduct electricity, but these things are muddy, not pure water. Because of that, Geoffrey has an advantage here, and we've witnessed him zapping other monsters before.

We dubbed him King Geoffrey because he essentially rules this area. The weaker monsters are generally too stupid to stay away and end up becoming food, and the stronger monsters are intelligent enough to avoid his shocks.

How he acquired that ability, we aren't certain. Normally, monsters gain attributes based on what they've consumed in their life, so his variation should have related to mud, water, or earth. He also shouldn't have acquired the ability to cast spells until he hit Tier Three, either, but he did.

King Geoffrey is just an enigma to us, and we leave him alone just as much as he leaves us alone. There is a mutual understanding between us that there's no gain for any of us to attack each other. Eventually, Cam and I will need to put him down, but we're hoping to be a little bit stronger before then.

Unfortunately, it seems that day might come sooner than later. Geoffrey is, indeed, larger than he was last week, and he has an extra pair of lower tentacles, putting him up to six of them now. He still has his five upper tentacles, four of which have electric-blue eyes, and the split tail that he had before.

"He's hit Tier Five," I tell Cam. "There should be more Tier Four monsters here, too. Seems they probably got too close to him, or too bothersome, and he went on a feeding frenzy."

"Think that's what's caused the Gate's concern?" Cam asks as Geoffrey turns two of its eyes to us, watching us with curiosity.

"No," I answer. "I doubt the Gate would say something unless something neared or reached Tier Seven. Geoffrey will probably need at least six months to hit Tier Six, possibly even a year."

It doesn't look like anything here is a cause for concern, which means Cam and I will need to investigate other areas. Areas further from the town than we normally travel. The trips out won't be entirely fruitless, even if we don't find any signs of a too-strong monster, though. We'll be fighting monsters along the way, and we can use parts from several of them.

"Anyway," I say. "I'm going to take out those Tier Four mudhounds."

"Alright," Cam says.

I step forward, gesturing with my right hand, and water rises up out of the mud. At the same time, I flick my left hand forward, sending a burst of flames along the less-muddy section I just created. The mud hardens into stone, though the effect is temporary. Not because I used magic to do it, but because the water from the river will eventually soak back into it and I did a crude job.

Flicking my right wrist, I shape the water I drew out into a spear, then snap, turning it into ice. I point forward, and the spear launches towards one of the mudhounds, piercing through it. Thrusting my left hand forward, I send a bolt of lightning at the spear as I charge down the path.

With another gesture of my right hand, I pull the earth out of the mud from a spot, leaving behind a puddle of water that starts to muddy up again. Using a mixture of fire, earth, and wind magic, I shape it into a spear with a light metal hilt and triangular metal head. It took me three years to learn how to perform the combination of magic required to do that.

As I run, I continue creating a path through the mud, using wind magic to stop the spurts of mud shot at me by the various creatures here. My initial attack stunned a mudhound, but that's only temporary. A Tier Four creature won't die so easily against someone who's only Level 17. Not without extreme luck or strategy.

Infusing myself with lightning, I begin my real assault, striking with my spear. With this spell, my body is faster as sparks dance off of it, and any metal I touch is affected by lightning. The ground as well.

The first mudhound opens its maw and shoots a blast of mud at me, and I summon up a shield of wind to stop the attack before I jab forward with the spear, before jumping back to avoid being bitten by a second mudhound. I launch a kick at the latter, my foot connecting with it and breaking off part of its jaw, stunning the creature. I follow that up with a jab of my spear, then jump up, using a little wind magic to help me fly over the mudhounds as they both attempt to bite me.

Twisting around, I stab with my spear as I manifest a barrier of wind behind me to stop an attack from another mudhound. With a repeated series of jabs, I'm able to take out the first mudhound, though the second manages to bite onto my arm once.

Only once, because that paralyzed it. Lightning is their weakness, after all. Lightning and fire. As the fourth mudhound decides to join the fight, attacking me with both mud breaths and sonic howls, I take advantage of their second weakness, manifesting several fireballs as I continue my jabs and strikes with the spear.

Gesturing, I send the fireballs at the three remaining Tier Four mudhounds. Two of them manage to dodge the attacks, but the one close to me wasn't able to avoid it in time. Where the fireball impacts on its side, the mud hardens. I step forward and kick the hardened spot, sending the mudhound flying, then I charge forward and jam the head of my spear into it. The spear breaks as the mudhound finally dies, its blood mixing into the mud below.

Releasing the spear, I turn and aim my hands at the remaining pair of Tier Four mudhounds. Inhaling, I feel my lightning increasing with the spell I'm preparing. When I exhale, a powerful bolt of lightning wrapped around a torrent of flames expels from my hands, and I sweep it over several monsters. One of the mudhounds leaps over it, while the other disappears from my sight.

When the spell fades, a huge chunk of my sacred energy used up, I find the latter mudhound limping on the ground, sparks dancing off of it with much of its body hardened to dry dirt. One of its front legs are missing.

I hold out a hand to unleash another, weaker attack at that one, except the other mudhound attacks me, belting out another sonic attack. That's one of the more annoying wind magics I've come across so far, and it's not normally found in the beasts in this mud field. It must have hunted a few birds somewhere else for a little while.

The attack slams me into the ground, battering at my already-bruised body. It can only keep this up for as long as it has breath, though, so I do my best to weather it. I'm lucky only one of these has this attack, or they could kill me. Even Cam wouldn't be able to heal me that well.

Speaking of Cam, I feel my body beginning to mend, my fractured bones righting themselves, the cuts on me healing, pushing out the mud and grit that had entered after I was slammed down. I cancel my lightning infusion to allow his healing to work better. In this state, it's useless, as it's meant to bolster my speed while making it dangerous for the mudhounds to touch me. It provides no defense from a sonic attack.

The moment the attack ends, I flip over, then push myself to my feet before twisting around. The attacking mudhound is dropping towards the ground, inhaling to prepare another sonic attack. I point two fingers at the ground, then draw them up in an arc, sending a blade of flames at it. That first one is followed by several others, each angled separately to ensure some hit.

Swapping attacks, the mudhound uses its mud breath to take out the flames that would attack it. As it does that, I throw lightning at the injured mudhound, which is mostly recovered, the mud of the fields moistening it up again.

Imbuing myself again, I charge forward, delivering a heel drop on its head, before pulling up a pillar of stone beneath it, slamming into the beast's body. I punch its head thrice before dodging an attack from the other mudhound, which I throw fireballs at, before holding out a hand towards the wounded one and attacking with a jet of flames.

My fireballs stop the last mudhound long enough for me to finish this one off, then I turn and face the final one. My sacred power isn't running low, but I'm still feeling the exhaustion of the fight, as short as it has been. Half of it has been in the mud, not on the paths I created, and moving through that isn't easy. Every step takes that much more effort to perform. Then there's the constant attacks I have to perform, and the sonic attack I had to defend against.

Against a group of ten Tier One mudhounds, I could last many times longer than this. But this is a stronger fight, with stronger spells being thrown around, and it was four-on-one. It's quite possible that if I slip up, this last mudhound could kill me.

As I move to clap my hands together, a bolt of lightning shoots from the side, sending the remaining mudhound skidding across the side. It snaps his head to the side, and I use the opportunity to summon a lance of flames, then throw it at the mudhound. The monster begins to dodge to the side, but the lance still travels down its side, its blade cutting into it, hardening the mud to stone and piercing into its flesh beneath, cauterizing the wound immediately.

The mudhound howls, then begins to charge forward, inhaling as it does. I clap my hands together, releasing a sonic boom of my own. Because the mudhound was in movement, not braced at all, it's sent flying back from the attack. Immediately, I follow up the attack with a bolt of lightning and six slashes of flames.

My attacks strike as the mudhound attempts to defend itself, and I'm already moving forward, pulling another spear out of the mud. Not giving the mudhound time to recover from my attacks, I ram my spear into it with all the force I can muster, driving my weapon straight through the monster's chest and out of its back.

With a pitiful whine, the mudhound dies. I release the spear, it won't be good for much more. That one was hastily made, and the spell doesn't make quality spears, just ones good enough for a few attacks. It'll probably be destroyed soon.

Creating a path back to the edge of the mud fields, I step onto it, then walk to Cam as I release my spell. None of the other monsters are attacking me, probably after seeing my fight. I'm kind of glad for that, as I probably could be taken out if everything here went after me, especially if Geoffrey joined in. My exhausted state pretty much would guarantee a loss against Geoffrey right now.

When I reach Cam, I turn my attention to Geoffrey, who has two of his blue eyes fixed on me. Shrugging, I look at Cam.

"Thanks for the help," I tell him. "That must have taken a lot out of you."

"Yeah," Cam confirms. "It was the only spell I could think of to attack with from here. I would've gone further in, except you know what happens when I try to join in a fight against stronger monsters."

He gets hurt, and I end up having to protect him. That's why he focused on learning and improving his light spells to heal from a greater distance. I don't have to worry about protecting him as much, because everything focuses on the stronger fighter.

Only once monsters start hitting Tier Five do they realize they should target the healer first. Until then, their primary target is the attacker doing the most damage to them or other monsters.

"Let's rest up," I examine my clothes, which are caked with mud my lightning dried. "And eat, too. Then let's look for more clues as to what could be causing the Gate to think a stronger monster is forming."

"Alright," Cam says. "But a little further from here. I don't want to smell the mud fields as strongly as I eat. And have Geoffrey staring at me the whole time. No offense, Geoffrey."

Geoffrey wiggles two of his lower tentacles in response, then Cam and I start walking.