Courtney interrupts the two of them to ask, “So do these things have any drops? We didn’t ask with swarm cats and look how that turned out.”

Peter shrugs, “Yubjub’s drop some great loot and their body has natural spacial magic in it. The yubs on the other hand are worthless. All the valuable stuff is on the other side of a dimensional wall from us and I can’t get to it.”

Rosha shakes her head and laughs, “Of course it would be. Though we weren’t going this way for money in the first place, it would be nice.”

Jason nods, “The skin would be useful to help pay off a favor someone did for me.”

Peter rolls his eyes, “What? You expect me to carry the heavy duty magical equipment needed to bridge dimensions everywhere? These things aren’t even supposed to be here.”

Jason sighs, “Whatever, it doesn’t matter for us. You’re the one taking a loss right now because we won’t be getting mind pearls from them. Though I‘d say we should pick up the pace.”

Peter laughs, “This was just a single yubjub. Things get harder much quicker than you expect with multiple master minds involved. Look at the fight. Part of what made it so easy was only one of them to four of you. Once we get more yubjubs in on the action, they will focus their efforts. Swarms are bad because an outside force allows them to work together. These things don’t need an outside force. They already are one being.”

Courtney shrugs, “At least they get affected by illusions and can miss their attacks. As you’ve pointed out, our group is very reliant on avoidance to reduce damage. That my shadow form will work at 100% against the yubs is a thing to rejoice about.”

Peter scratches the back of his head and grimaces, “Yeah, about that. So you might have noticed the yubjub is a multidimensional horror? Well, your shadow stuff is also multidimensional. While it can work, all it takes is for the yubjub to notice and shift itself closer to the shadows. Then your defense won’t be doing so good.”

Courtney throws her hands in the air, “Of course they can get around my defense! How am I even supposed to defend when nonsense like this keeps popping up?”

Peter shrugs, “At least you learned this early on. I’m sure you already realized shadow creatures could get around it. Now you know more of the things that can get through your defenses. Also to add on, magical light and darkness based attacks can deal about half damage to you. There are also some other elemental magics which can pierce it because of them drawing from their own elemental planes of existence.”

Courtney rolls her eyes, “So what I hear is that any attack which draws on any other dimension will be able to pierce my defense?”

Peter laughs, “What? Did you expect your defense, especially at this level, to be perfect? Or even near perfect with a few edge cases? Look at Jason. His ability to dodge is breaks ahead of where it should be at his level. Yet here we are in a kingdom whose dominant form of monster negates it. No defense is perfect, and that is why I wanted you each to have at least two forms of defense.”

Courtney sighs, “Of course I knew it wouldn’t be that easy, but still. I was hoping a racial defense would do better.”

Peter shrugs, “The benefit of it being a racial defense is it will scale will you. The more powerful you are, the deeper you will hide in the shadows. You’ll end up better at hiding in shadows than the halflings. Though that isn’t the most fair of comparison for them. They cut themselves off from the shadow plane. It would make no sense if they then in later levels connected to it.”

“While you are a pantherkin, I am going to guess the actual specifics would be a shadow pantherkin. The system just doesn’t show that kind of stuff until enough of the bloodline activates. But let me tell you about the deep rainforests of the shadow plane. While there are some larger threats, it is the shadow panthers who control the place. So while the halflings escaped the plane, your ancestors still rule a corner of the place. One of your direct ancestors might even still be alive there if such a thing is possible with travellers. This means there is no problem with you delving deeper into it.”

Courtney frowns, “What do you mean I might have an ancestor there? Of course, that wouldn’t be possible. While there has been a rumor or two of our bodies coming from actual beings in NeoRealm. Those rumors are all disproven and came from idiots trying to claim being a direct descendant of some ruler.”

Peter with a small smile shakes his head, “Not those idiots. Rather, people like you. People who have taken on the bloodline of a peak existence. Even the System can’t just replicate a bloodline like that. Though I guess the way I said it gave the wrong impression.”

“I don’t mean the System literally had your body birthed and grown for you with a family tree behind it. Rather, during the creation of your body, the System interwove in some of a shadow panther’s bloodline. You have an ancestor just like some have an ancestor because they absorbed a drop of blood from some peak existence to gain their power. About the only bloodline out there that comes from interspecies shenanigans is from dragons. And that comes from their ability to polymorph being a non-magical ability. You can’t just use normal magic to turn into something and spread your bloodline like that.”