Not all of the apes followed her, the one who she now called Bruce, did. His giant lumbering footsteps shaking the ground slightly as she began to make her way towards the doors of what she guessed was the trial she was going to unlock.

  Theo approached the doors and when she drew close enough she went through her normal routine of baiting a small hoard of monsters. The apes that had followed her including Bruce were watching her as she used a rock to get the attention of one of the animals before she retreated while the small group she attracted followed her. When she drew close to the apes they drew back weary but when she ambushed the first of the creatures as it drew near the apes descended on the animals with whooping war cries.

  What might have taken her a few minutes of carefully avoiding attacks and picking off the animals turned into total obliteration of the flowers. Bruce turning more than a few of them into paste.

  She smiled as the apes excitedly ate the cores from the monsters, with Bruce even sweetly offering her one of them that she pocketed with a smile. Today was the day. She had friends now and she was ready to be done with this rotten place.

  Theo repeated the process of drawing the animals away, larger and larger groups following her as her troop of primates ambushed them from above with branches and stones or simply dropping onto of the animals and smashing them into the dirt.

  The flow of essence was constant and Theo was once again having fun. With backup, she felt incredibly safe. Bruce made it his personal mission to make sure nothing truly even came close to threatening her and when the last of the monsters had been baited away she found herself examining the wall of flowers trying to come up with a way to deal with it.

  [Air bullets] would work maybe. But the range was still subpar and its effect not great enough to do more than pick off a few flowers at a time. It was then that Bruce stepped up beside her, he gave her a strange look before rearing back to drum on his chest and let out a ferocious roar.

  The other apes mirrored it, the forest becoming a cacophony of ape cries and howls. Theo felt her blood rush with excitement, adrenaline pumping. Then a wave passed from Bruce, some sort of magic that felt reflective and shiny as it sunk into her and the apes around her.

  He grabbed a massive fallen branch and with terrifying ease threw it at the wall of flowers. Theo could feel a skill activate and the tree branch smashed into the large bulb in the center of the door.

  Hundreds of flowers were pulped and Theo felt the forest floor rumble as the giant ape charged forward. The rest followed with him.

  The wall reacted exactly as Theo had expected it to. A veritable wave of brown globs launched from it in such a large amount that it would have been impossible for her to dodge it.

  All of the apes were hit, but a sheen of magic coating their glossy fur caused it to slide right off of them like oil on glass. The forest floor becoming covered in the noxious fluid.

  She charged, not wanting to leave her new friends to fight this battle on their own. Her eyes focused on the now stirring bulb. The branch had shattered against it without seeming to do much damage, and as its petals unfurled she grimaced.

  The flower had a different coloration from the lesser ones. Its yellow petals purpling at their tips and the black spots on it forming a concentric pattern that spiral into the center of it. Pitch black tendrils tasted the air before they began their own barrage. The apes it hit with its rapid fire attacks all began screeching in pain as black tar clung to their body. Smoke visibly rising from the chemical as it ate through them like a hot knife through butter.

  Anger flared in Theo’s heart as she watched her friends become injured, and Bruce mirrored that emotion with one massive leap delivering a titanic blow to the flower.

  Vines writhed as they came alive snaking out to grasp at the large ape. Thorns as large as Theo’s forearm piercing into Bruce and drawing out bright red blood.

  The ape fiercely biting and ripping, it tore the plants grasping vines apart but more were coming. The wall of flowers moving with it. Theo arrived as the battle descended into complete chaos.

  She managed to avoid most attacks from the flowers, the air filled with them and the ground sticky underfoot. But even then she wasn’t able to avoid everything. But the attacks that did hit, slid off of her much like they had the apes and she could feel Bruce's magic fading with each one.

  With a scream she charged the massive flower. Aiming to sever the stalk at the base of the bulb. Using [body enhancement] to move so quickly the world was a blur to her eyes.

  In moments she arrived, ducking and twisting around the vines as she drove her spear into the telephone pole thick stem. [Strike] making the blade of her spear bite deeply into it. She began to saw.

  The flower writhed and she saw as the vine began contracting around her. Forming a cage as they closed in, unable to escape she worked harder. Charging an [air bullet] as fast as she could.

  She heard Bruce roar but was unable to see him through the closing walls around her. Flowers spitting and coating her as she felt the magic protecting her fading fast.

  Her spear handle was rotting from the coating of flower goo and it snapped from her efforts to cut the stalk. She abandoned it without a thought and reaching forward she drove her hand into the cut she had made. She felt burning but only for the briefest of moments before shooting her charged [air bullet] directly into the stalk.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  There was a “pop” and she watched a spray of fluid and part of the stalk burst.

  It wasn’t enough.

  The vines closed in and Theo felt needles dig into her.

  She tried to fight it, but it was pointless. Their strength greater than hers, she screamed in pain.

  Then a massive green hand clamped around the base of the flower and Bruce let out a triumphant roar as he pulled the bulb from its stalk.

  Instantly the vines slackened, the yellow flowers wilting and stilling. She was buried in stinging vines, and she struggled to free herself.

  Then Bruce was there yet again. Peeling the vines from her body and extracting her with a gentle grip.

  The poor ape was covered in brown fluid and more than a few black spots. Missing an eye, he gently set her down as Theo worked to scrub the poison from her body with her mana.

  Everything hurt, but all things considered knew she was strong enough to handle the poison inside of her. She worried about her new friends but she needed to focus on herself first.

  When she finally finished cleansing herself, she checked her body. Blood dripping from numerous stabs in her skin and chemical burns coating her arms and hand where they had received direct sprays of fluid from the large flower. But she felt the vitality of the forest around her working. The wounds slowed their bleeding quickly, and while not scabbing over or closing, they were more superficial than any real threat due to the fact she had cleansed the poison.

  The apes around her were in various states of celebration and mourning.

  There had been losses. A third of the apes dead or dying from the black tar that had struck them. Theo feeling exhausted but not wanting to leave her friends to suffer, she quickly got her bag. And started to wipe the apes clean with water she had boiled and stored in her sports drink bottles.

  She was finishing up cleaning the worst of the matted goo in Bruce's hair when she finally sat down to take a breath. Her eyes wandering over to the smashed flower.

  She would have never been able to do this on her own. Maybe she could have picked the wall apart flower by flower, but it would have taken so long and after seeing how the vines moved she would have died or been forced to retreat too often to make any real progress. She glanced at Bruce who was resting with the rest of his troop.

  His fur was patchy. But the same vitality that flooded her body now was working the same magic on the ape and she was no longer worried about him.

  Standing up, he watched her as she went over to the smashed flower and using the blade of her broken spear she began cutting, searching for a core.

  When Theo found she had been expecting something as large as a basketball, but instead it was only about half that size. Read the System message that appeared when she examined it.

  [Blight aspected core]

  She tried to offer it to Bruce but he turned his nose up at it and with a shrug she stuffed it into her bag. Most of her cores were gone, given to Bruce But she still had the few he had no interest in.

  With core she finally received the message she had been waiting for.

  [System quest completed.]

  [Trial unlocked]

  [Standby….]

  Then that same presence that had been there for each tier up crashed around her once again and she felt something reach into her soul and begin twisting. It wasn’t a pleasant experience but she felt as the System touched each of her skills, examining them with a clinical intelligence. Then with a gut wrenching twist, she felt them pull together into something greater.

  Instead of a new limb, it was her entire soul that felt this skill. Theo hadn’t lost any of the skills, but now they worked in tandem, forming a greater whole that was infinitely more complex than before.

  [Unique skill gained: Geist]

  Like before there was no skill description, but the System had left an understanding of the skill behind and Theo understood at least the most basic use of the skill.

  Like [air bullet], she could build up mana inside of her. But instead of simply releasing it. When she pushed the skill outwards it formed an avatar of air matching that of her old body. It was barely visible to sight, but it radiated her mana and she gave it a command.

  Like a gust of wind the skill shot outwards and mimicking movements she had made, it struck a sapling with a blade of wind that severed it cleanly before dissipating.

  “Awesome…” she murmured. The skill did require a large amount of her mana, it drained her to create it, but it was stable and she could feel it would only begin to fade when she used it or after a decent amount of time had passed.

  It would mimic one of her skills or an attack before she had to create another one.

  There was more to it but she was too tired and sore to experiment. Instead she just let herself heal and calm down and fix her weapon.

  The knife blade had been ruined by the flower sap but since she had no other options she used the pockmarked blade and a sapling to remake her spear. Without tape she had to tear a strap off her backpack, and even then it wasn’t pretty.

  Theo approached Bruce, the ape watching her as it picked at the clumps of matter fur from where she hadn’t had enough water to fully clean the giant ape.

  Unsure if he could understand her, she spoke anyway.

  “Thanks Bruce.” She pointed at the door, eager to get on with the rest this place had to offer.

  Bruce tilted his head before reaching out to give her a friendly pat. She grinned before heading over to the doors.

  Wind mana was pouring from them, the same as the air around her. But with the loss of the flowers, it was now fresh and she could feel the area around her saturating with the more lively wind mana. There was so much blowing from it that she realized the entire forest was influenced by it. Compared to the cave where she had found the star, it was an ocean of mana to a bucket. The flower must have been draining almost all of the mana coming from this door, and she wondered what would have happened if the giant flower had had more time to continue its unchecked growth.

  Maybe she had been on a time limit after all. But none of that mattered now as she placed her palm on the engraved surface.

  If she had been back on Earth, she might have considered the engravings as some sort of story, but here she realized it was probably telling a real one.

  Starting at the base of the door, a small lizard was shown eating some kind of insect, but further up the door the lizard grew and grew. Slaying and consuming different beasts and even humans. Until finally at the top was a long coiled dragon, feather wings that radiated what was obviously wind. Storms billowing around it.

  “Wow.”

  [Trial of the Wind God]

  [Enter?]

  With one last wave at Bruce, who responded with a quiet “whoop”, she accepted.