“Life changes faster and faster to the point that many can't keep up. As the world evolves, the system improves, and the dangers of everyday life become more threatening to the non-elite. All most can do is live day to day and hope someone stronger deals with the real threats.” - Unknown

  Aster

  Biting into something living, with the intent to kill them, is a completely different feeling than expected, but it wasn't that gross. The grade three blue-skinned monster squirmed and shook, and I could feel the tendons and muscles shift as it tried to throw me off, but my jaw was locked in place and held on. Over a month of training had gone into practicing this form and how to use it. As my claws dug into the monster, it proved that the practice had paid off.

  The blue monster resembled a mutated mole with an extra set of legs and was way larger than me and verged on the size of Umbra. Even the wolf form was able to stand on its back with room to spare, which was where I was, gripping the flesh between its neck and shoulder as it tried to get me off. Its first attempt to dig underground using a skill had been stopped by a well-placed breath by Umbra freezing the ground.

  “You have to shake your head. The goal is to remove as much blood from it as you can so it weakens.” Umbra explained through the bond. She was currently flying above after making sure it couldn't run, keeping a watch for other approaching creatures while giving me her best tips.

  Shaking my head, I felt something tear, and more of the blue blood welled up. As a response, the monster squealed and tried again to get under the ground, but its short front talons failed to do much more than upturn some of the frozen dirt and cover me in it. Shaking my head more, I continued to shake and only stopped when the world spun dizzyingly, but it continued to struggle. The constitution of the creature had to be massive, even for a grade three. Blue blood puddles and skin lay scattered across the area we traveled.

  “I am, and it’s not dying! It must have some kind of skill keeping it alive.” My complaint to my bond was reinforced as the monster glowed slightly, and some of its skin was stitched back together. Growling through my full mouth, I started to shake my head again, reopening the area it had just healed. Mentally, I cursed every mole I’d ever seen. If I’d been in my normal form, then I would have had the option of using a rune arrow to freeze it, but in this form, I lacked any useful skills for a creature this durable.

  Tugging harder, I felt the part of the monster I was holing onto give ripping free, and I slipped, thrown off harder than any time Sandath had ever tossed me. Tumbling over the dirt, I quickly got back to my paws, ready to leap out of the way of an attack, but as I looked at the monster, I saw that it was still trying to get under the dirt. Growling, I felt my frustration building as I finally realized I couldn't kill it on my own. It’d been hopeful when I spotted the monster coming up from a burrow, but it was just too damn tough to take out in any reasonable time.

  “Umbra, It’s too much and will take too long without any way to get to its organs.”

  As if waiting for the signal, she descended like a blue specter of death, landing on the mole, squishing its half-buried form, and pinning it to the ground. Her much longer talons dug into it, and as she leaned down, she grabbed its short neck and wrenched. I could hear the snap from the two dozen-foot distance and grimaced at the cutoff of the squeal. Even if the mole was a dungeon monster, it was still a little disturbing how easily it had been killed by a creature a grade lower.

  [Your Bond has killed A Blue Gem Scrounger - Dungeon Monster - Level 132]

  [Race Class: Progenitor Beast Kin has increased in level to 89]

  [Second Class: Bonded Ranger Of Frost has increased in level to level 89]

  I focused on Primal Shift and started my transformation back. As Umbra took a bite out of the monster, she started digging around for its core. As the transformation finished, I looked down with a groan at all of the blood and dirt on me. A lot of it had fallen to the ground, but not all, and I could tell a bit was in my hair. Turning my attention to the level gain notification, I smiled, my mood brightening a bit. Then, I pulled up my status screen.

  [Name: Aster]

  [Grade: 2]

  [Top Level: 89]

  [Shown Title: None]

  [Available Titles - Expand For List]

  [Achievements - Expand For List]

  [Status: Healthy]

  [Mana: 465/1205]

  [Stamina: 733/2090]

  [Current Classes]

  [Race Class: Progenitor Beast Kin - Level 89]

  [Second Class: Bonded Ranger Of Frost - Level 89]

  [Attributes - Expanded]

  [Available Attribute Points - 9]

  [Constitution - 298][x1.0]

  [Strength - 400][x1.0]

  [Endurance - 458][x1.0]

  [Dexterity - 722][x1.01]

  [Charisma - 323][x.9]

  [Intelligence - 297][x1.0]

  [Wisdom - 359][x1.0]

  [Skills - Expanded]

  [Available Skill Points: 83]

  [Bond Related Skills List: Bond Speech, Lesser Draconic Instinct, Lesser Bond Transfer, Frost Control - Five]

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  [Active Skills List: Stalker’s Movement, Pack Bond, Pack Formation, Spirit of the Wild Hunt, Progenitor’s System, Alteration’s Legacy, Primal Shift, Frosted Arrow, Advanced Frost Arrow, Frost Shard Imbuement.]

  [Passive Skills List: Stealth - Six, Careful Step - Nine, Agile Archery - Three, Frost Affinity Meditation - Eight, Forest Stride Basic - One, Tracking Basic - Seven, Survival Talent - Six, Hand Combat - Seven, Riding - Seven, Aerial Balance - Three, Night Eye - Nine, Ranger's Aim - Seven. Mana Control - Two]

  [Trade Skills List: Woodworking - Six, Cooking - Five, Basic Farming - One, Arrow Shaping - Four, Skinning - Seven, Leatherworking - Five, Advanced Rune Etching - Four, Blueprinting - Two]

  With most of my free points splitting into intelligence and constitution and only a few going into Charisma, my attributes were skyrocketing at each level, especially dexterity. By grade three, that attribute would crest over a thousand, a number I could hardly comprehend. My skills had also seen a good jump, but quite a few were getting stuck at rank nine. There was something that each of the skills needed to get over the last stump, and I was missing it. I knew eventually, each would reach a breaking point and evolve, so I wasn't too worried. My eyes moved to the skill points section. Sitting at eighty-three, it was creeping closer to the hundred I needed, and my tail twitched with excitement. The four and a half months of slow progress had been worth it.

  Closing the screen, I looked at Umbra and the dead Scrounger. She had extracted and already eaten the core, but my eyes caught on to what she had set to the side. A small pile of blood-covered rocks that almost glimmered in the light.

  “What are they?” I asked, walking over, my voice a little rough after the shift.

  “Gems, they were in the monster's stomach. I think it ate them.”

  Looking down at the pile of a half dozen rocks coated in blue blood, I leaned down and picked one up. Rubbing the blood off, I inspected the green jewel that identify let me know was an emerald. Rock was still attached to the green gem, and looking down, I saw each gem was the same type. None of them were cut or refined, but they were gems. “Huh, well, that explains why it was called a Gem Scrounger. If we see any more, we should target them.

  “We only saw this one because it was looking for food. It nearly got into the ground before we reached it. I don’t think we will be that lucky in the future,” Umbra lamented.

  I shrugged. “We’ll at least we got these. They're useless now, but maybe they can make something nice for you, or we can trade for something.” Holding the gem up, I compared the color with Umbra’s scales and grimaced. “Dark green suits you, but this is too light. Maybe we can hide it in the leather of a harness or bracelet like the one you have. Gems are great for storing mana, so I don’t want to waste it.” Picking up the pile, I stored each of them, then looked at the monster's corpse. “Is it worth harvesting? I tore up its skin a bit too much to give a lot of leather.”

  “It tasted like a rabbit dropped in the dirt. Maybe cooked it would be better, but we have other things to eat.” Umbra snorted, turning her head away.

  With the dragon's mind made up decided to only collect the tiny claws and the blood of the beast. The blue was an unusual color for blood, but it was a nice deep color and could be useful in a dye. Thankful I had grabbed vials in Arilon for just an occasion like this, I filled a few up, and we left. Umbra angled back to our valley, and I enjoyed the wind.

  By the time we had landed, the blood had dried. Taking off my flight suit, I spent a bit of time scrubbing it off with a rag and getting all of the grime out of my tail and hair before brushing up. While it sucked to clean with the blood sicking more than usual, the practice against a proper opponent with Primal Shift had been worth it, even if the monster was picked because of its apparent lack of any tangible ways to attack. Just next time, I only had to remember to duck myself in a river before changing forms.

  As fresh as I could hope to be, I settled into the grass, lying down and enjoying the constant, weirdly quiet area as I found myself surprisingly tired. The cause was, of course, the amount of stamina that had been spent keeping Primal Shift active. As Umbra moved over to me and settled down, I looked at the blue dragon with a smile.

  “We're getting better at dealing with grade trees. After another few levels, maybe once we both pass ninety, we can try taking on more than one at once.”

  Umbra's mild rumble of displeasure had me sighing, and I knew what she would say before she even spoke. “There isn't a reason to rush danger like that. Our pace is good, and even if we don't clear the dungeon, I'm sure there will be a way into the event.”

  Again, like always, my bond made a valid point, but I couldn't help but want a little more than the carefully picked grade three for a fight. The constant pace we were at was making progress. Yeah, it was probably a fast pace compared to others, and we were making progress in lots of ways other than levels, but there was something about it all that felt disappointing. We definitely wouldn't clear the dungeon before the event at this pace either, and that was a slight worry.

  Even if we rushed to fight daily and managed to kill two or even three of the dungeon monsters at grade three without getting hurt, there still had to be hundreds in just the next valley alone. If we were a grade or two higher like the dungeon intended, it would have been a clean run, but at this rate, it was lucky that no grade four had taken notice of us yet.

  Umbra, picking up on what I was thinking, moved her snout close to me and exhaled a long cloud of frost. “What's really bothering you?”

  Pausing my thoughts, I focused on what was worrying me and why I was so ancy, then tried to voice it. “We entered this dungeon to practice, and we have and are, but it's obvious we can't do this dungeon in the time we have left before the Realm Event. It doesn't matter if it's our grade being so low or the fact the dungeon seems to be creating an infinite amount of monsters because of the overflow of mana that's going to cause a dungeon break. We can't finish it.” I gestured around us, feeling a spring of emotions I didn't even realize I had come to the surface. “I don't really know if we'll be kicked out of here when the mana reaches a tipping point or if the token will pull us from the dungeon, but something is going to happen, and that's not even mentioning the quest we got that we can't finish or the city that's going to half to deal with this. I hate not being able to do it all. It feels like we're missing out on so many possibilities because I'm not strong enough. I haven't even managed to find my core, and it's been over a month! Alten managed it in a week.”

  I pulled my knees to my chest and leaned against Umbra's snout. My outburst had been sudden, and I hadn't meant to let it all come out, but I had and felt a bit of guilt.

  For a bit, Umbra didn't say anything, and I kept silent as well, not really knowing what else to say. After a bit, Umbra did speak, her voice softer than normal. “You're young, I'm young. We have a long way to go before we can fly over everything, and I don't think this will be the last time we get blocked out of things because of our lack of strength. There are so many things I've yet to see that I don't see failing to complete this dungeon as a big loss, even if it is my first, and with the tokens, I doubt that we'll miss the event. A quest not complete won't bother me much, either. There is so much to do that what we miss out won't be the end of it all.” She moved her snout so that I was looking into her eye. “As long as we are together, there will be many things that we can see.” her tongue poked out and flicked across one of my hands, causing me to chuckle.

  I laughed, then rubbed my face with a groan. “Gods, I'm sorry, Umbra. I think I just needed to rant. There's a lot going on, and from the forest To Arilon and then the camp, I hadn't given myself time to actually decompress, just train and practice. Actually, knowing I'm not going to be able to do what I'm aiming for is a new thing for me.” I laughed slightly, but it helped to relieve some of the stress. “How about a flight? It's not night yet, but I think we both need one.”

  The words definitely had an effect on Umbra, and she stood, pulling me to my feet in the process, causing a proper laugh to sprout from me, and I smiled. I was still worried quite a bit and felt a pang at knowing that this dungeon wouldn't be completed by us. It had helped to get it off my chest, even if just a little.

  Checking the leather straps on the flight suit, some newly replaced. I clambered back onto Umbra's back, tying myself in, and as she took to the sky, I laid down, arms on either side of her neck, tilting my head to look at the mountains around us. We weren't high up, avoiding a chance of any monsters noticing us, but it was enjoyable, and without my mask, the air felt incredibly relaxing. The faint thumping of Umbra's wings and the beat of her heart also helped soothe my feelings.

  There wasn't a chance at finishing this dungeon or the quest, and for some reason, that ate at me in a way I couldn't quite put into words. The reasons behind it didn't really matter to me as much as the whole. Yes I wanted to be stronger, but at the same time, that wasn't my fault, and I knew that. I'd taken every opportunity to grow that I reasonably could. The frustration of knowing that even if I did everything right leading up to this, completing the dungeon still wasn't possible. It just didn't settle right in my mind, but I couldn't change that.

  My thoughts ran in a circle while we flew above our valley, Umbra's constant mental soothing through the bond a help as the orbs dimmed in the sky. I was distracted out of my thoughts by the sudden blue system message that took up nearly my entire vision, and the faltering in Umbra's wings let me know she had received it as well. Reading over it, I felt my mouth go dry and sat up.

  “What's a Calltermiror Integration?”