Kyrion and Tiffany returned to the underground town after a week of practice and effort. Some innovation was also made in their positions. When Tiffany hit rank three, her speed and endurance shot up quite slightly. Which meant Kyrion didn’t have to play meat shield anymore. Issac and Jala were also summoned to assist in attacking and padding their numbers.

Kyrion stood in the back, staff in hand, a few pouches wrapped around the head with a rope. He still wore the travel clothes made by Everest as they were the easiest to move around in. On his back was a bag with various medical tools and supplies to the camp. Unlike their last trip, this time, they were meant to make it all the way to what Gamodren called a Gremlin boss and kill it.

“What is a boss?” Tiffany asked Kyrion.

“Probably a ruler type monster. Something that leads, much weaker monsters.” Kyrion looked around the ruined town, noticing that his vines had spread significantly in the time.

“What’s going on here? Didn’t you grow these?”

“Yes, but after I give plants mana they can grow on their own. These vines must be invasive if they spread this much so quickly. I’ll need to be careful where I plant things.”

Kyrion extended his hand to one of the vines. A torrent of information flooded his mind causing his head to hurt for a second. The boy let go of the vine he had latched onto before pulling out a sheet of paper. Drawing up a quick map of the area based on what he managed to discern. The knowledge was seared into his mind. He couldn’t entirely forget it anytime soon, even if he wanted to.

“This place is big. Hundreds of gremlins are here lurking about, killing all of them could take days. And the way this place is structured we will need to kill all of them if we want to make it where I think the boss is and not worry about ambushes.”

Tiffany brought out her rapier and did some light stretches to prepare herself. Issac looked sheepish at the force they would have to go through, while Jala seemed bored at the moment.

“Hundreds of gremlins… That’s a bit of exponential expectations.”

“We were given a week’s worth of supplies. It should be easy for the four of us.”

“You’re getting cocky again. What did Gamodren just teach you?”

“Ah. Let’s stay alert then. Issac I want you to focus on the stone gremlins, Jala I need you to take care of any bag gremlins or shadow gremlins if they’re at range.”

“Oh how I love to serve.” Jala replied sarcastically.

Issac shrugged with his wings. “Shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Are they going to do it?” Tiffany asked.

“I believe so.” Kyrion pointed his staff ahead.

“Let’s go kill some gremlins then!” Tiffany charged into the first room.

Three gremlins were loitering around when the charging girl came into the room thrusting her rapier through a napping bag gremlin. It did not bleed shadow, nor did its blood turn to stone. Instead, this gremlin exploded with a popping sound leaving behind a cloth sack.

A shadow gremlin moved to get up when it found that its torso had been separated from its head by a quiet and sharp blast of wind.

The third gremlin found itself crushed under a water whip. Its body melded into the earth.

Kyrion jogged into the room after the attacks and started searching for cores. “I don’t see anything special aside from the bag.” He handed the sack to Tiffany.

“Whats this?”

“Your loot. The sacks from a bag gremlin are capable of holding more items than should be possible. It was your kill, and It’s probably better for you to fight unencumbered. Since items in the bag also lose their weight.”

“I see. My first earned magic item is a bag.”

“To the next room then?”

“Master? I want a bag!” Jala declared.

“Do you even need one?” Kyrion asked.

“No. But I want one anyway.” Jala told Kyrion with a straight expression.

“If we’re making requests then I want a crown.” Issac butted in.

“Reasonable request please. Where would I even get a crown swan sized?”

“Abyss if I know.”

“Should we go to the next room now? Or do you two love birds need to fight it out?” Tiffany asked.

“I am not a bird.” Kyrion responded sagely.

“What about the love part?” Jala asked.

“I love all my spirits equally. Some days I may tolerate one of you a little more than the others.” Kyrion used a phrase that he heard his dad say a while back, changing a few words.

Tiffany and Issac entered the next room, clearing it out with ease, and were moving onto the third when Kyrion realized he was left behind.

The day was spent fighting small waves of gremlins one after another until they found their way into the remains of a ruined mansion.

“Let’s clear this place out and set up camp.” Tiffany suggested.

“Sounds good to me. Fifty two gremlins and only three cores. Two of which came from the stone gremlin and the third from the shadow gremlin.”

“Why are you keeping count?” Tiffany asked.

“Jala and Issac wanted to see who could kill the most gremlins. They kept count, and shouted out the numbers as we cleared the rooms.”

“How many gremlins do you sense here?” Tiffany asked.

“Eight spirits, one of which seems to be a bit stronger than the others. Not a practitioner rank yet but almost there.”

Tiffany clicked her tongue. “There could be more then. Be on guard.”

Kyrion pulled out a small bag of stones. Infusing mana into them caused the rocks to glow. Bringing light to the dark mansion. Kyrion tossed the bag into the air before pulling out his staff and cracking it with a loud smashing sound. The stones spread throughout the room and kept it well-lit as the growth spreading through the stones seemed to spread to where it landed.

“Glow moss, an invasive moss that glows in response to the amount of mana it absorbs. That swing should have been loud enough to get their attention.”

“You want them to come to us?” Tiffany asked.

“Easier to set up defenses with my abilities than it is to fight directly.” Kyrion set up a few vines and spread them throughout the room.

“So you want to ambush them in their own territory?”

“The first three will be here in three two….”

“Ag!!” Screamed a gremlin that tripped over a vine and soon found itself covered in them.

Jala immediately cut it in half with a blade of wind, the creature melding into the earth and solidifying soon after and burying a majority of the vine under the solid stone.

Kyrion ran towards the second gremlin and swept his staff, aiming to take out its legs.

The gremlin disappeared with a puff of smoke and reappeared next to Kyrions chest and clawed at him, leaving a shallow mark on the boy’s flesh.

Kyrion headbutt the creature who was now all too close, sending it falling to the ground.

Tiffany capitalized by piercing the creature through the heart before getting back up.

Issac grabbed the third gremlin with a tentacle made from water and squeezed it until the shadows came popping out like confetti.

Kyrion looked around, a sense of dread crossing his face. “The others are on top of us!”

The party members dived to various sides as a loud booming sound from above came crashing down. Rubble furniture among chunks of ceiling and floor lay where the group was standing. Standing in the destruction was an eight-foot-tall gremlin with long stone claws that held an inky black aura.

“Kyrion you said that there weren’t any practitioner rank monsters here. What do you call that?”

“No idea. There are four more to keep an eye out for along with this one. I’ll dely it while you and the others take the rest of them out.” Kyrion charged at the large gremlin.

The gremlin swiped his claw, intending to kill the boy.

Kyrion redirected the swipe with his staff forcing it to miss his body.

The gremlin opened its monstrous yellow eyes wide as it brought down its second hand to squash the bug,

Kyrion rolled out of the way. Throwing some entangling vines at the creature to restrain its movement.

The creature broke through with ease, though it took long enough for Kyrion to start planting plant mines.

The gremlin stepped forward, and an explosion of weak vines tangled its limbs.

Unhindered, the creature cut away at them as it moved towards its prize.

Meanwhile, Tiffany was having trouble with an alert bag gremlin.

The creature was adept at dodging her thrust and shot out an endless supply of stones and other trinkets from its bag, forcing her to dodge back and stay on the defense for moments on end.

Jala had slain another shadow gremlin but felt lifted by a stone gremlin into the air. Restrained by a creature she couldn’t see, squeezing the life out of her. Jala couldn’t send a wind blade at it, and she couldn’t break free with her brute strength.

The fox began channeling wind mana into a powerful blast to blow the creature away.

The gremlin squeezed harder, breaking Jala’s concentration and almost her neck.

In an act of benevolence, Issac grabbed the gremlins head with a tentacle made from water and popped it off. Unfortunately, the creature’s blood covered Jala, freezing her in position due to its hardening properties.

Instead of struggling, Jala returned to Kyrion’s core which freed herself from the trap.

Kyrion felt the mana in his core increase as Jala returned, giving him a little more to work with.

The giant gremlin saw an opening in Kyrion’s defenses and quickly swung at him with the strike sending him through one of the mansion’s walls.

Kyrion got up and saw that his staff had been broken in the attack.” I need to stop losing weapons.”

Kyrion picked up a surprisingly clean knife and felt a connection to his wind mana. “It’s sharp and pointy.”

The boy then picked up a wooden rolling pin connected to his plant and life mana. Then, dual-wielding the chef’s tools and charged back into the fray.

The gremlin was surprised to see the boy still out; it was hit hard by the rolling pin, which broke on impact.

Kyrion looked up in surprise as a fist came falling onto him.

This time Kyrion poured all of his wind mana into the knife and swung it at the creature’s falling arm.

A whistle could be heard as the large gremlin lost its entire right arm from the shoulder along with a portion of its head that seemed to seep shadows.

The knife took that moment to break as well. Kyrion started running as the enraged gremlin chased after him with one arm.

Tiffany was having much better luck after tricking the gremlin with a feint and landing a lethal strike, the next few gremlins were easy pickings for her, and they were just about to help Kyrion when they felt a rumbling coming towards their direction.

“Kyrion!” Tiffany dashed to her right, getting out of the charging duo’s way.

“Oh boy.” Issac seemed to sigh.

Kyrion jumped over a patch where he planted some vines rolling with the momentum.

The giant gremlin found itself wrapped in vines stronger than the ones from earlier. Unable to break free as easily. Kyrion caught his breath and felt his wind mana starting to slowly refill.

“All a part of my plan.” Kyrion panted. Much to his surprise, the winded feeling seemed to get worse.

Issac wrapped the enemy with a whip of mana, opening it up to a thrust from Tiffany’s rapier. She pierced the creature’s open skull with a powerful thrust that would have killed an ordinary animal.

Kyrion ripped open his shirt, noticing the scratch on his chest had grown to be much bigger than what it started as. It glowed an eerie purple glow reminiscent of shadow gremlin claws.

Kyrion countered the malady by using a good amount of his life mana purifying it. However, he realized that he wasted a bit too much mana on those recent maneuvers.

The creature melted into a smaller ball of sludge and froze solid, the shell much harder to break than the body.

Issac barraged the shell with water whips to no avail.

“What’s going on?” Kyrion had picked up an old but solid broom and was ready to whack the enemy to death.

“Why are you using a broom?”

“I’ve been having a bad day. Weapons wise anyway.” He wiped away an imaginary tear.

“What about the thing you used to cut that creature’s arm off?”

“It broke right after…Rolling pins no matter how tempting don’t make good weapons.”

“And is that broom going to be any different?”

Kyrion sighed.” Having a spirit weapon must be nice. Not having to worry about it breaking.”

“I do, if it breaks, then I’m literally stunned and my spirit is broken. It’s a weakness with weapon spirits.”

“Ah. Maybe I just need to bring more weapons with me, that or this area is cursed.”

“I’d love to let you two talking but I think the monster is done with its metamorphosis.” Issac told the boy.

“Like the thing butterflies do?” Kyrion asked.

“Close, like the thing caterpillars do to become butterflies.”

“So you’re saying it’s going to have wings.”

“I don’t know what it will have. But it’s going to be a bit closer to practitioner rank in terms of abilities.”

“Great.” Kyrion healed Tiffany while they waited for the gremlin to emerge.

The shell slowly began to fall apart, revealing an emptiness.

“There isn’t anything there.” Tiffany proclaimed.

Kyrion opened up his senses and felt surprised as his stomach was his with a tiny fist that sent him flying into the opposite wall. Some of his ribs were broken from the impact.

The gremlin was now much smaller in size, even for a gremlin. Its lost arm had regenerated, and its body seemed leaner than it had previously. Black horns protruded from its head, and mana flowed into the creature rapidly.

Tiffany thrust her rapier at the creature, only for it to spin out of the way.

In a moment of genius, Issac slapped at the creature with a slow tentacle made from water.

This, too, was deftly evaded by the creature. But, unfortunately, its speed had increased to troublesome levels.

The gremlin entered melee with Issac and kicked it into the opposite wall of Kyrion.

Issac didn’t die, but he was hurt pretty bad, and he decided that returning to the core would be for the best.

Tiffany swept the creature’s legs with her weapon and attempted to finish it off. However, the creature’s reflexes proved too great, and it rolled to the side as soon as it made contact with the ground.

Kyrion felt his regeneration working overtime as ribs reset and healed. Finally, Kyrion pulled his body out of the debris and let the rest of his injuries heal while his wind and water mana regenerated.

Tiffany and the gremlin danced back and forth, exchanging thrust, parries, and riposte. Tiffany with her rapier and the gremlin with a black blade extended from the creature’s arm. The two went at it for a few minutes when the girl saw an opening and attacked.

The gremlin produced a second blade made from the same material and pierced through Tiffany’s shoulder, pinning her in place and stopping her attack.

The gremlin pulled out the blade and jumped back to avoid a kick sent at him by the girl.

Tiffany’s sword seemed to glow brightly for a moment before Tiffany fell unconscious, her sword vanishing.

Kyrion felt anger as the creature walked over to his friend to finish her off and moved to stop it. But, only running was too slow. So he put strength into his legs and leaped towards the creature.

The gremlin was inches away from the girl raising a sword arm to cut off her head.

Kyrion wasn’t going to make it in time with just this and instinctively conjured a platform made from wind which he pushed off with an even greater force than his first leap flying into the creature with a kick that removed the creature’s skull and made contact with a ball in its skull. The ball shot out and bounced around the room before landing intact, while Kyrion found his leg had been sprained when he landed on his feet.

“A quick fix!” Kyrion turned off his natural regeneration and went to heal Tiffany. Noticing that the black mark on her shoulder was spreading quickly. He pressed his hands on the wound and cleansed it with his life mana cleaning the damage with water mana.

“I need to rest. What’s with that thing, was it playing with me?” Tiffany asked.

“Probably biding its time. You started to slow a bit at the end there.”

“Why didn’t you help me sooner.”

“Is that anyway to treat your hero?”

“Maybe you saving me, over and over, is becoming a trend.”

Kyrion thought about it for a moment and realized that was mostly true. “Well I am a healer.” He looked at the slowly dissolving viscera.

“Mostly a healer.” Kyion added.

“One day I’m going to pay off this debt before you’re wise enough to try collecting.”

“Friends don’t count favors. Well I don’t and I don’t plan on changing it anytime soon.”

Kyrion felt a groan in his center as both Issac and Jala mooched off of his life mana.

“Lets go set up camp. I think I’m hungry after all that fighting.”

“Kyrion, that may be the best idea we’ve had all day.”

Kyrion collected a gray core with inky black splotches surrounding it and put it in a bag. He then searched various cabinets, cupboards, and boxes on both floors of the building. By some twist of fate, he found a halberd with a flag under the blade and spear the back end with a rounded pommel.

“Nice, I can’t wait to use this….”

Master Gan, who didn’t appear when they were fighting the monster, almost dying in the process. Popped into existence right in front of me. “Kyrion mind if I get that weapon appraised? Don’t want you using a cursed weapon to fight.”

“I find this situation suspect. Is this weapon valuable or something?”

“As you should. Do you want to find out that its a cursed item in the middle of a fight when it turns you against your alles or something else that could get you or Tiffany killed?”

“Good point, take these as well.” Kyrion gave him his collection of cores and loot, aside from the sack that he picked up from the dead bag gremlin.

“So, I assume you at least have a decent weapon for me to use.”

“Kyrion. Kyrion, sigh. You need to learn how to reinforce your weapons before I get you anything substantial. You should also learn a style of fighting, I thought your family would have one.”

“Why would they have a style?”

“You know your parents fought in the last war right?”

“They never really talked about it… They did give me a book of exercises when I left.” Kyrion pulled out the makeshift book.

“Can I see that?” Gamodren asked.

“If you must.” Kyrion passed his master the makeshift book.

Gamodren looked through it and sighed. “Just some breathing exercises and basic movements. No fighting style, the pictures do look nice.”

“Like I said, I don’t have a style of fighting. Shouldn’t you know that already?”

“Yeah, at first I just thought you had bad training but to think you had no training whatsoever.”

“I grew up on a farm. So I didn’t need to learn how to fight.”

“So everything you did up to now has been instinct. Not that you need to use a weapon with your stores of mana. Though you do tend to lean a lot on beating these things to death. I’m starting to worry if you’re spreading it a bit too thin.”

“What do you mean?”

“You hit hard, can take hits, control elements, and heal. That’s taking you down the path of a jack of all trades. Not mastering a single thing but dabbling in many things.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“At your age and rank nothing, your abilities will just be easier to mold when you know what you want to do.”

“And if I say I want to do it all?” Kyrion asked.

“I’d say that’s greedy and then look for a way to make it happen.”

“I see. Can you at least give me another staff?”

“I’ll give you five no more no less. Please try to be more careful with them.” Gamodren pulled out five wooden staves bundled together and passed them to the boy.

“I still feel that I’m getting a raw deal out of this.”

“Possibly. You may have found the Great legendary polearm of Nwot Nilmerg. It should still be appraised before use.”

“Fine.” After Kyrion said that his master had vanished from sight, Kyrion couldn’t even sense his presence.

Tiffany found Kyion upstairs, and the two set up camp and some defenses. Apparently, Kyripn’s trick with the dagger cut through to this floor, leaving a gouged-out area. Tiffany took first rest while Kyrion worked on refilling his mana and rigging one of the staves given to him by his master.

Kyrion pulled out a knife and cut it in a spiral in the center before planting a vine that took root in the grooves. The vine soon enveloped the entire staff and stopped growing in its entirety.

“Vine staff version one. Let’s see if this is what he meant by reinforcement.” Kyrion swung the staff a few times with half-strength, and it stayed together. Next, the boy sat down and looked for any enemies in the vicinity. There were none, and his shift passed with no issue.

Tiffany took her shift soon after faced no difficulties, as the duo found themselves refreshed.

Issac and Jala were resummoned, much to their distaste, but their injuries were healed, and the mana they could use was fully restored. After eating a breakfast made up of rations, the four made their way out of the mansion and back into the field of gremlins.