Their little plane squadron was flying over the remaining edges of the Somorin Archipelago. The eastern half had been much more populous, but the people were still spread out when compared to Merista or Laskar. Each island was like its own contained world, with different plants and unique animals, along with their own traditions and views on strangers stopping by. They were almost to the end of the chain, after a few weeks in the tropical paradise. They would camp somewhere tonight and then fly north to Naxos, the other major power that split the Terrignion continent with Merista. Once they finished there they would turn west and loop back home.

  One island coming up felt unusual to Laurel’s senses. Like the mana was massing at one end, with a line cut across the center. It took her a few minutes before she swore and told Kat they needed to land. The affable Major signaled the rest of the pilots, and they put down behind a small village. Laurel leapt out of the plane but had to wait for Maria before they hurried over to the village. Somorins had poured out of their homes when the planes approached, a man and woman now walked to meet where Laurel and Maria were quickly hustling over to the village. Laurel started talking while Maria translated.

  “Hello. I’m not sure how familiar you are with magic, but unfortunately I will have to go rather quickly. There is a phenomenon on the other end of your island called a mana font. It is an area that absorbs magic over time. When it reaches a certain critical amount of magic, the font spews it back out in the form of monsters or other unusual effects. This can be dangerous if you are not prepared to deal with the result. Do you understand so far?”

  “Who are you, what are you talking about? No, that doesn’t make sense.” The man answered rather curtly, though it was admittedly filtered through Maria’s comprehension of the local language, which was good but not subtle.

  Laurel tried again. “You are in danger. Have you noticed unusual animals or plants showing up occasionally?” The woman admitted this was the case, though the strangers both looked skeptical. “Something like that but much more dangerous is about to happen. We will help you.” By then, the rest of Laurel’s team had arrived.

  “We’re just supposed to believe you?”

  Laurel almost screamed. “Yes! I’m trying to help you all, you miserable bastard.”

  “I’ll go ahead and skip that last part,” Maria muttered before translating.

  The two village leaders took a few steps back to discuss. Not far enough to have actual privacy if Laurel spoke the language but probably enough that Maria couldn’t eavesdrop. Just in case, she cocked an eyebrow at her friend. Maria shook her head. The man returned to them while the woman went back into the village and started calling out something.

  “I will go with you to investigate. If it turns out you are telling the truth, we will accept your assistance.”

  Laurel kept from rolling her eyes. Just barely, but she did it. How magnanimous, to accept the assistance. They hurried back to the planes and gave a quick explanation to Kat and Trip, who hopped back into their seats to start the engines. They took off, following Laurel’s direction to the other end of the island. The mana had contracted even further, maybe a tenth of the island now enclosed in the boundary. It was dense enough that there was a glowing crack in the air, visible from their low altitude.

  As they watched, a shape emerged, covered in glittering light. It was a series of interconnected and overlapping rings, rotating around a central ball that pulsed with green light. Next a black-scaled snake, thicker around that Laurel’s thigh slithered out of the opening. The ring creature faded to be almost invisible, while the snake’s tongue flicked out, scenting the air for threats. The crack had faded when the two monsters pushed out into the world, and was now increasing in brightness again.

  “Back, back,” Laurel shouted. The pilots listened and they were winging their way to the village at top speed. The village leader’s face was slightly green, from the flying or what he had seen she wasn’t sure.

  They landed to find the soldiers waiting for them, along with a few armed villagers. Laurel wasted no time in issuing orders.

  “I’ll hunt down the offworld beasts. You all won’t be able to see them well anyway, and guns won’t be effective. We’ll need everyone else to keep the spirit beasts back. Guns might work, or might not, so grab something sharp as well. Do you have any boats or anything? Good, fall back onto those if you start to get overwhelmed. It's unlikely we’ll see anything aquatic since the Font is on land.”

  Maria had rapidly translated, and the villager that had witnessed the Font added some shouted words as well, getting everyone moving. When Maria had everything in hand, Laurel went hunting.

  ********

  Leander was holding the daggers he had been given in each hand, standing with two villagers and Colin, all hoisting rifles. Major Kat and Captain Varska had decided to spread the cultivators around, in case they needed magic to help kill the beasts they found. The groups were spaced out in an arc around the village, facing the forested part of the island. He was surprisingly calm. He had spent weeks fighting the spirit beasts that jumped out as the group was searching for natural treasures. Laurel had always been there to help if they failed, but this meant she finally trusted him enough to protect the others.

  He settled into the breathing rhythm he liked best for cultivating and focused on the knives. Laurel had agreed to teach him a basic technique she used with her swords and if he could hold it during the fight it would strengthen the metal and make it sharper. His mana was circulating through his limbs as normal and he sped it up. Just a little though, as his memory of Laurel’s instruction chided him. If he pushed too hard he wouldn’t be able to keep it going through the entire battle. Once it was moving a little faster, he tried sending a trickle into the knives. He and Rebecca had been shocked when they reached the islands and Laurel told them these were magic weapons. Made specifically for new cultivators like them. It made him feel a little better about not being trusted with a gun.

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  Trees in their section started rustling. He dropped into his stance, he wouldn’t fall over this time. The monsters were here. Everyone watched as a snake and some sort of bird with red feathers emerged. The snake came directly for them while the bird went to circle overhead. The soldier next to him swore.

  “Okay, I’ll aim for the bird. You two get the snake. Leander, help them and keep a lookout.” He conveyed most of this with taps and hand gestures but it seemed to work.

  The villagers aimed at the snake while Colin tried to sight down the bird, which kept moving at angles Leander didn’t think should be possible. He looked back in time to see the snake fall to the villager’s bullets. It would have been worth celebrating if another three didn’t come out of the woods behind it, all with some sort of mana coming off them in waves he could feel. The locals didn’t panic. Instead they kept aiming for the snakes, scoring a hit about half the time. Monsters were tough, though, and it took a few shots to kill one, then they would need to reload.

  Leander was about to suggest he try and cut some in half when a turtle lumbered out behind the snakes. Over half as tall as Leander himself, its shell gave off a faint golden light as it plodded forward. Colin had taken down the first bird, but was dealing with more, keeping them away from the others and trying to pick them off while they flew around. The others were still fighting the snakes. The turtle moved slowly, but it was coming at them from a different angle. Did bullets work on turtles? Probably not magic turtles. Leander could even see a faint shine on its shell that matched the golden light. Regular turtles didn’t shine. This would be his fight, to keep it off his team.

  He ran straight at it, skidding to a stop a few meters away. Peering through the greenery behind the beast, Leander confirmed it was alone. The turtle hadn’t reacted to his challenge. It kept walking, steadily getting closer. He was ready. Deep stance, comfortable grip on his knives. When it was close enough to see the swirling brown patterns on its shell, Leander lunged. It was the only thing that saved him from a vicious wound. The turtle had whipped its head forward faster than any turtle should be able to move. A long gash was opened on Leander’s shoulder. As his blood pumped out, he felt panic begin to rise.

  His own slash had missed the vulnerable head and skittered across the shell, leaving only the faintest white line, even with the mana reinforcing his blade. He ducked and rolled to the side. The impact on his injured shoulder almost made him collapse but he hung onto consciousness by a thread. The turtle had kept walking forward in its slow march toward Leander’s teammates. A look was enough to confirm no help was coming. The others were holding their own but no one was going to be able to deal with the turtle. A quick jog and Leander was once more blocking its path. His hands shook but he kept a grip of his knives. Again he slashed out, but the turtle used its speed to dodge its head out of the way. Then Leander was scrambling to the side as it snapped towards him.

  The turtle marched on while Leander’s face burned with shame. He was slower than a turtle, he was too bad with his knives to do real damage. It would get to his friends and hurt them, maybe kill one of them, or the villagers. He could see them frantically putting barricades between huts, but the beasts would still get in. They would fail. It would be his fault. He couldn’t even shout for help. Laurel was going to make him leave the sect because he was too stupid and too weak and too useless to be a cultivator. No no no no NO! He wouldn’t let that happen.

  His mana was already cycling and he urged it faster. He gave a silent thank you to Laurel for insisting he and Rebecca learned how to do this even though it was boring to practice. The mana flooded his limbs. He was unstoppable. One more deep breath and he sprinted directly at the turtle. Leading with the uninjured shoulder, he tucked his head and bent down. With every drop of mana he could control infusing his body, Leander struck the turtle on the side of its shell.

  In his mind the turtle would flip over, and he would be left standing over its exposed underbelly. He was half right. The turtle fell on to the side, and then slipped onto its back. Leander followed it down, his momentum carrying him to the ground on the other side of the turtle.

  Small rocks scraped his exposed skin. Leander scrambled to get up. His wound was bleeding even more and the beast’s flailing limbs thwacked him in the side. He staggered up, feeling like he’d had too much of Laurel’s wine, barely able to focus. He remembered the goal though, and picked up one of his dropped daggers. The monster was still thrashing, its shell now fully golden. Its head couldn’t reach him at the side and the legs couldn’t reach to push the body back upright. Rearing back, he brought a blade down and ended the beast.

  Leander wanted nothing more than to have Laurel heal him and then sleep for a full day. But his friends were still in danger so he forced himself to trudge back to his group. He fell into the formation just in time to see two more turtles come out of the forest, one with a shell glowing bronze, the other silver. Tears held back by pure stubbornness, Leander approached the beasts. At least he had a way of beating them.

  *********

  Laurel ducked under a beam of pure mana coming from behind her. She noticed it shear through the trunk of the tree as she spun and darted towards the offworld beast. The foliage was too dense for flight so air mana was directed to help her glide over the forest floor. She landed next to the monster and swung her reinforced blade through the rings and into the core. The light the thing emitted dimmed to nothing, the rings dropped and the core transmuted into a beast core of crystalized mana. Dropping the core into her storage tattoo, she sped towards where she could feel the next monster.

  The offworld monsters weren’t dangerous to someone at her tier, but there were dozens of them. If even one got to the other end of the island, the village was going to need rebuilding. The next monster didn’t have time to react before she dispatched it in the same efficient manner. At least these would be easy to loot. Monsters coming through a font could be anything. Often they were from other worlds, or the place between those worlds, life that was sustained in the cosmic mana flows. Alien biology was hard to determine on the fly, but these cores literally dropped into her hands.

  Five, ten, twenty more of the things were cut down. The forest here would need time to recover, but she could feel the font slowing down nearby. The pulses were far enough apart she could kill some of the normal spirit beasts in between hunting down the offworld ones. When she couldn’t find anything else, she returned to the village. The battle still raged on but it was coming to a close. On the beaches there was nothing blocking her sight, or her lightning. A few well placed bolts ended the tenacious beasts still struggling. Inevitably some had escaped into the forest or the water, swimming to other islands. That was fine, healthy even. It would only strengthen the mana ecosystems in the area. Jade would be thrilled.

  Laurel saw her students clumped together. There was blood on all of them. She felt the faint stirrings of panic. Practice in a real battle was good but she had no intention of letting a serious injury go untreated. Before she reached the others, the village elders accosted her. Laurel dodged deftly around the pair and continued on. She tossed a quick “later” over her shoulder, but she really wasn’t concerned with explaining everything right now. There were more important things to deal with.

  ********

  “Follow those instructions and when you find Jade give her that letter. She’ll figure out a way to handle this for next time.” Laurel and Maria were translating a way for the village elders to contact Jade Treeborn. Resources like the mana font would be an economic boon to the village and the local cultivators if they could get a handle on it. Sects, or more likely the local military, would pay to let their members harvest the monsters or get combat practice defending the area. Laurel was considering it herself. Her students had benefited even from this slapdash version. Once patched up, she could see the subtle changes in Leander’s cultivation that indicated he had decided on his path as a protector. Rebecca and Flint had deepened their bond. Laurel had a bunch of useful cores and a new ally. A good outing for the sect if she had anything to say about it.

  “We can’t begin to thank you. I shudder to think what would have happened if you hadn’t been here to warn us.” The arrogant elder accusing Laurel of lying was nowhere to be seen. The man’s eyes shone with gratitude as he gripped her hands tight. Laurel accepted the thanks with grace. It felt good to be getting back to her roots as a cultivator. When she diverted disasters and the local mortals were fawning with appreciation for it. It brought up happy memories when she and her friends had prevented a tsunami from destroying a village or defended the citadel against beast waves.