The foliage grew increasingly denser as the party moved west into the Borderlands. This became even more apparent when they abandoned the main path, looking for any signs of an incoming Beast Tide. Instead, they encountered heat and humidity – something most in the party avoided with their magically enchanted clothing, but Louis had to resort to an ‘Cal Xandra’ to regulate the heat, then slowly the humidity. Eventually, the air around Louis even seemed to tolerate him.

It certainly rose eyebrows, given Louis was the only one in the party who had to do it. But too many things vied for the party’s attention for anyone to pay such a minor detail any attention. Rael, for example, was such an enigma. Halfway through their fourth day, Rael had succumbed to spiritual mana poisoning and had yet to recover after a day and a half. While in no real danger due to all the available medicines at hand, it served as a newbie baptism. At least until the next day, where Rael began rambling about each of their flaws in no specific order.

At that point, the party decided to explore the area while Rael adjusted the ambient mana density. Louis very much wanted to go home – five days in the Borderlands meant Louis had spent six full days awake. Even consuming yaupon berries did little to improve his continuously deteriorating mood and his spellcasting had taken a noticeable decline. ‘Cal Xandra’ did not cool him as much as it should have. ‘En Uta’ lasted much shorter, took much more mana and some of the coloration was definitely off, even if no one mentioned it. His daily Divine Magic uses had dwindled to the point that ‘Zet Imaru’ was no longer an option, as the three remaining uses must be saved for emergencies. And so many more small little things that Louis noticed began to gnaw at him.

Louis swallowed a four-year-old ginseng. The things could grow forever if allowed, like trees, but Louis could not. So he ate it. A bit of lifeblood entered his life core, warming his chest for a bit. For a brief moment, his mind became clearer, his goals made sense. The difference was not wholly apparent until he out of the rut. Then everything returned to its mind-numbingly slowness and irritation.

Rimara grabbed him by the shoulder – moving him just out of eyeshot of everyone else. “I called you four times, you didn’t respond. Just when was the last time you slept?”

Louis grumbled. “Why do you care?”

Rimara moved faster than she should have been able to, flashing beside him then slapping him to the ground. “Because you are weaker than Rael right now. Hard to talk to. Yet condescending.”

Louis laid on the ground for a moment, considering the strongest Divine Magic at his disposal. ‘Vyt: Cal Xandra x En Imaru x En Xandra’ sounded really good right now, but the girl was fast, if nothing else and a few mistakes was all it took to burn himself to the ground as well.

…his mind may have declined much more than he thought, if he was resorting to killing already. But, with thoughts difficult, it was hard for Louis to find another solution. He had gone with the flow and underestimated the actual endeavor. Louis hated group projects like these so much.

“Fine. Your words have some merit.” Louis said. “I’ll be back tomorrow.” A couple of ‘En Aether’ acted like a ladder to help Louis climb the nearest tree. Flying should have been possible, but Louis was out of practice and that required far too many calculations. His ‘En Aether’ was already questionable as it is.

Louis climbed on its branches, to disappear from Rimara then hopped over to another tree with ‘En Aether’ to support him. “En Myr,” Louis said, creating a small sphere around him, with some peep holes to let air in. Then his slashed his wrist with a ‘Zet Aether’ to let some blood flow, using the blood to create an alarm perimeter within the sphere. The runes were little more than chicken scratch, but it would have to do. Louis used ‘Zet Imaru’ to heal up then went to bed.

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Louis had woken up in the middle of the night, hungry and still tired. His earthen barrier had served him well, despite his alarm perimeter wholly unfunctional. And he seriously needed to address his lack of sleep – drawing blood last night could have very well ended him. Fortunately, his ‘Zet Aether’ created a clean cut for his ‘Zet Imaru’ to patch up. Then Louis went back to bed. Humans were not creatures of the night.

It was midday when Louis woke up. ‘En Myr’ broke the earthen shell, then worked his way to the ground. Louis took the time to cast ‘En Meng’ each time to find the rest of his group. The first few Divine Magics failed to any member of his party, but his third spell did find a couple of arrows and marks pointing where they may have gone.

Louis must have been asleep longer than a day, for the arrows never seemed to end and no one appeared within ‘En Meng’. Grabbing bites to eat and any mana or lifeblood plants along the way prevented his mood from deteriorating, but from the direction the arrows gradually pushed him into, it seemed that they were entering deeper into the Borderlands. Odd, given that a day or two would have hardly been enough for Rael to recover.

Then again, Louis was more awake than ever, so he could not say much about that. His life core eventually opened on the way, so Louis dumped half of his mana to regrow the poisoned parts of his arms. First burn away the too badly damaged portions carefully with ‘En Xandra’. Paying extra attention with 'Cal Uta' and 'En Meng' as his habitual ‘Cal Movita’ numbing his pain could allow him to burn off more than he intended.

Insects have also returned to the Borderlands, or perhaps Louis was more willing to acknowledge their existence. When tired, insects felt little more than icky at best, lethal at worst. Now, they were new sources of food, mana and lifeblood. Hard to be careful though – the insects tended to be tricky, imitating each other so it was better to avoid all of those types completely. At least until Louis consulted insect and plants monographs. So much to study, so little time.

The healing detour took Louis about half a day to complete, which gave him time as well to eat something more filling, like vegetable stew. But by nightfall, Louis grew concerned. The trail he followed still pointed inwards and animal sightings were few. Better than none – which meant a Beast Tide – but one was in the making, and that could only mean one thing: they were congregating towards a mana source. An elemental essence or even a pure mana essence. Getting a single one of those would be phenomenal, but getting out alive was even more so.

But now, Louis grew confident moving at night – the greatest dangerous were the animals, since most plants went into a defensive mode during the night. Without the animals, going through the Borderlands was no different than walking through a street – provided he did not attract any bored predator. Finding the marks required ‘Vyt: Cal Uta x En Meng’ in the dark, but that was a worthwhile sacrifice.

And by the morning of the second day of his search, he found not only his group of eight people, but a horde of adventurer groups surrounding a giant crevice. A river flowed through the middle of it, but on the other end of crevice was a giant clearing leading to a cave. Within it, was a hundred-foot Emerald Tree Boa with ethereal blue mana wings.

The adventurer groups did not watch idly, creating an encirclement around the cave and proceeded to burn away trees around it for about a hundred feet and creating covers against it. How did anyone even found this thing and signal everyone without Divine Magic Bryn was unbelievable if Louis did not see it for himself.

Still, the dearth of animals around the place seemed low – did the adventurer groups already kill most of them and scare the rest away? They certainly had the numbers to do so. Combined with a little pseudo dragon poised and ready to strike, few animals would instinctively stay, even if mana poisoning did ruin their instincts.

Rael looked no better and Louis could not blame him. It took a copious amount of lifeblood that Louis refilled through eating to battle the threat of mana poisoning, but it seemed too dangerous to bring him here. But being a week away from civilization, just where could Rael even go?

“I owe you one, Rimara.” Louis said, approaching the party, handing the woman some mana regenerating plants as a token of appreciation.

“Glad you could make it here with the signs. Was worried after a day.” Rimara said, but signaled him to walk a different area, with less people. “I would hate to make you repay me so quickly, or at all, for such a simple matter, but we are able to enter a fight. Are you able to patch me and my party members up?”

“My healing? I thought you didn’t trust it.” Louis said, a bit shocked.

Rimara scoffed. “Rael doesn’t trust you, but Woodrow is a healer as well. He has seen your life aura improve tremendously over the past week. Even if he cannot believe how many ‘Zet Imaru’ you have used, at least some of them have worked.”

Louis opened his mage sight. Her life aura did not seem to have recovered at all during this trip, even getting worse. Hopefully the other two were not in a similar position, otherwise a quick retreat was the best option for their party.

“When is the fight starting and how many life crystals do you have?” Louis asked. Perhaps this still could be salvaged.

Rimara hands me four life crystals. “Try healing me first. The fight starts in about one or two days – it should go in hibernation soon, if not, a few more groups can show up to help us fight it.”

She turned around, utterly defenseless, which was weird. One, because it was the Borderlands. And two, because Louis would not trust any party member after a single life-and-death adventure, let alone before that.

A simple ‘En Meng’ found her two allies nearby, weapons drawn. That made things a bit more logical, but an unnecessary risk. Louis obliged as he put his arm onto her back. “En Meng,” Louis said, looking at her wound.

A few ribs were broken then mended incorrectly. It also seemed her lung was not fully healed from a punctured wound but only should cause a discomfort. “You came into the Borderlands injured like this?” Louis asked.

“This coming from the guy who could barely use his arms?” Rimara asked.

Good point. “You know ‘Cal Movita’?” Louis asked. She used the spell, then Louis gingerly opened her back. Once confirming that the Divine Magic was indeed working, rebroke her ribs before using ‘Vyt: Zet Imaru x Zet Movita’ to fix the problems, but would leave her more than a bit tired.

The other two had much simpler wounds to fix: a broken arm and a fractured shin that was made worse through using it anyway. Those were no trouble and Louis obtained another two life crystals, refusing the last two as the treatment did not warrant them.