Cruising through the crisp, cold morning air, Caeden took a deep breath, savoring the moment. Choosing the largest skiff had been a good choice, considering the extra members they had. Snowball was curled up at the prow, with Lily sinking halfway into his dense, furry body. She had one of his massive, dinner-plate-sized paws pulled up into her lap, covering herself even further in fluff.

The reason for her half-submerged state was the cold weather they were currently experiencing. Caeden had noted that this was a colder continent when they arrived, but he had no idea how bad it was going to get. Slightly below neutral had transitioned the farther inland they went. Now, he could see fog every time he breathed. They were lucky that the skiff's design incorporated an air shield as part of the infusions on the hull.

Both he and Erik had formshifted to cut off the effect of the chill, Caeden looking like a man made of bronze with streaks of black instead of his usual purple accents. Bronze body, the name Erik had given his partially infused form, was more than enough to ward off the chill. Erik's formshift, which made him look like he was wrapped in string, had a similar effect.

Cat could not be seen anywhere. That's because she was literally buried in Snowball's fur. Something new they had all discovered, Cat did not deal with the cold well. When the temperature had started to drop, she started violently shivering. So Lily offered to let her lay on top of Snowball, which translated to sinking a foot deep into his fur. Cat had gladly accepted, and they hadn't seen her in over an hour.

Caeden had been a bit surprised that the cold could bother Lily, considering her splinter was Ice. When he had asked her about it, she admitted that it would only take a minor application of her shroud to become entirely immune to the cold. She could walk in shorts and a t-shirt through a blizzard and feel nothing but comfortable. She had just taken the shift in temperature as an excuse to snuggle with her fluffy boy and ran with it.

Her other bonded monster, Sky, was flying around some distance from the skiff, scouting. At least, according to Lily. She had a psychic link with her bonded, letting her communicate freely with them. Both were still children with animal intellect, so they weren't stellar conversationalists, but they could relay information and their general feelings with ease.

Sky was the polar opposite of Snowball's constantly relaxed vibe. She was hyper-vigilant, constantly on alert. She took her bonded's safety seriously and saw herself as Lily's protector, which Lily found adorable. From what she understood, bounded monsters had to obey their shrouded bonder, but they didn't have to like them. The fact that Sky was so deeply invested in her safety was very touching for Lily; Caeden thought it made a lot of sense, considering how much love and care Lily put into her pets.

The last member of their group was completely unaffected by the weather. Blaine had achieved his embodiment long ago, reaping the benefits that came with that achievement. Caeden had noticed changes when he achieved his incarnation with Sharp. Besides his Invasion Pressure essentially doubling, the area his Sharp aura could cover had expanded massively. Before had had a range of roughly three hundred yards, a respectable distance. Now he could cover miles. His control over his manifestations had also increased by a large margin.

The benefits of embodiment were similarly massive. Blaine was immortal, along with being free of many mortal restrictions. His body no longer produced waste, and he didn't need to either eat or breathe to live. He was unaffected by all but the most extreme of temperatures, and he was just generally more physically robust compared to a normal human.

The skiff itself was set up with the driver's seat in the very back, right next to the engine assembly. It was a wide, flat ship with two rows of bench seats. The front row had been removed to fit Snowball's big body. Each bench had enough space for four people to sit shoulder to shoulder, so everyone had more than enough room, especially since the girls were glommed onto the mass of fur at the front. It left one bench each for Erik and Blaine, with Caeden in the driver's seat.

As they flew through another mountain valley, Caeden heard a sharp, avain cry from their left. Looking over, he could see Sky's distinct, dark blue plumage circling over a patch of stubby trees. Caeden looked toward Lily, wondering what was going on.

"She found some monsters. I'm not getting anything specific right now. Are we in our assigned area yet?"

Caeden shrugged, toggling the acceleration lever to bring them to a slow stop, hovering a few hundred feet in the air. He pulled out a bronze egg-shaped device with a seam running around it. Giving it a twist, the ether crystal interior was revealed, along with the ethertech components. Caeden pressed the two sections toward each other without twisting, and an image began projecting from the top of the egg. It was a map of the entire continent.

There was a red line drawn from the edge of the continent leading into the interior towards an area surrounded by a white dotted line. The white lines were courtesy of Blaine, who had given Caeden the map, and defined their operational area for the mission. The red line was from Caeden tracking their progress. He could use his manifested shroud to leave marks on the map.

Following from the last place he had marked, Caeden tracked the topography to where he thought they were now. The map was incredibly detailed, and Caeden could adjust its size and scale to get a better understanding. He added to the red line, sliding it ever further toward the center of the continent.

They had been assigned the inhabited area farthest inland, which was no surprise. Caeden was now ranked first in the year, with Lily being third and Erik tenth. They were undoubtedly the strongest group in their entire school. For now, at least. Caeden knew his hold on first was tenuous at best. It was down to him being the first to reach Nascent with one of his shrouds. The second someone else did, that spot would no longer be his, most likely.

Still, they were the strongest group for now. There was no way the instructor was going to have them be dealing with anything easy. So they were sent in as deep as anyone ever went. Tracking the map, Caeden found that they were less than an hour from the edge of their destination, but they weren't there yet.

"Not our area." He paused, reaching out with investigative sense through the expansive area his aura now covered. He was searching for any nearby towns or villages. The map had no indicators for human habitation. It only held a photorealistic overview of the continent and its physical features. He felt the monster's in question, not bothering to focus on them at the moment.

Searching far and wide, Caeden couldn't find any humans. It was likely that there were no settlements this far inland except for the one they were headed to. "I don't sense any settlements or human life anywhere near here. Can we take care of these?" Caeden looked to their supervisor.

Blaine had been watching him look at the map and pulled out his own egg. He was surrounded by a dome of red and black swirling shroud. Caeden could only guess he was checking his own map, which likely contained information they weren't supposed to be privy to. The bubble collapsed after only a moment, revealing Blaine putting the bronze egg back into his robes.

"Do what you want. This isn't your testing zone, so whatever happens won't affect my assessment of you positively or negatively. You should know, killing monsters in another group's assigned territory is forbidden. It probably won't matter to you since no other groups are set up near your area, but it's something to be aware of."

Caeden looked at his friends, even seeing Cat's head poking out of Snowball's fur. "I think we'll handle this."

He got the skiff moving again, pulling up to where Sky was circling, the Midnight Roc landing daintily on the railing. Seeing everyone standing up and gathering around, Caeden asked, "So, how do you all want to do this?"

They had discussed various strategies for acting as a group, but their discussion had been rather empty of ideas. It was hard to plan around unknown situations, and none of them had any experience fighting monsters. That was what this trip was for. They had made some tentative plans, but nothing concrete.

Lily shrugged. "Get down there and fight, I guess. I think we just need to get a feel for how this is supposed to work and go from there."

Everyone nodded in agreement. It lacked any kind of detail, but it was a solid idea nonetheless. They could fill in the blanks along the way.

Before jumping down, Caeden once more reached out with his senses, getting a feel for what they were facing. There was a cluster of twenty monsters below them, spaced only ten feet apart from each other, moving slowly down the mountain. To Caeden, they registered around 3,000 IP, which didn't feel very threatening. Either of his two shrouds outclassed that rating. Everyone in their group totaled at least triple that pressure. Invasion Pressure wasn't the sum total of something's power, but it was a good indicator. Still, it was a solid indicator. Caeden didn't expect too much trouble.

Leaping over the side, Caeden formshifted midair, going from bronze body to full golden in an instant, the colors rippling across his skin. The bright metallic gold and brilliant purple stood in sharp contrast to his black and white school robes.

He was followed swiftly by Erik, Cat, and Lily, each finding their own way down. Erik actually Stitched himself to Caeden, literally riding his nine-foot formshifted frame to the ground. Lily descended on a white cloud, made much more solid than the normal substance by her shroud. Those with object shrouds could manipulate the base qualities of the materials they produced. Thus, a rideable cloud. Cat descended once more on the back of her spectral pegasus, still looking deeply uncomfortable with the cold.

They weren't the only ones coming down, though. Sky launched off the railing and winged over to land on Lily's shoulder, and another much larger cloud rose from the boat carrying a very sleepy-looking Snowball on it. Caeden had forgotten that this mission was supposed to be the two bonded's first introduction to combat. He wondered how well they would do.

Slamming into the ground, Caeden shattered the stone under his feet, throwing chunks all around. Erik leapt from his shoulder, looking at their monstrous opponents curiously. Cat decided to stay hovering in the air on her mount, which Caeden considered a smart decision. She was easily the least defensively capable of their group. Lily stepped off her cloud as it dissipated, absorbing the spent material back into her shroud.

Their enemies were Rockadillos. Large, lumbering creatures six feet tall. They had thick plates of rocklike armor coating their backs and heads, with massive paws and foot-long claws that seemed built for digging. They were almost entirely grey, with tufts of white fur peeking through gaps in their stony shells. They moved ponderously down the mountain, seemingly unconcerned with the four who had fallen from the sky to land among them.

"...They don't look like they're going to attack," Erik noted.

"Yeah, I noticed." Caeden sniped. This was strange. He had been under the impression that monsters would attack on site the second they saw a human.

The wind shifted, and suddenly over a dozen heads perked up, shifting beady black eyes to gaze at the four. Caeden's own eyes widened. "Oh, shi-"

“RAAAAAAAAAAA!” All the Rockadillos let out long, sustained bellows at the same time.

"I think they have a good sense of smell," Lily noted, shouting over the noise.

At the same time, their bellowing seemed to have snapped a certain sleepy bear out of his nap.

Piercing blue eyes, like the deepest depths of a glacier, opened fully, staring angrily out at the source of the grating sound. Snowball took a deep breath…

“ROOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAARRRRRR!!!”

And yelled back.