I stand up, dust myself off, then look to the fused glass crater. "I'd say the Antlions would be a convenient choice. But getting through this doesn't seem worth it. So we'll just need to keep an eye out for other pits." My gaze moves up the mountain. "The Cave sounds interesting. However I'm not sure it'll have the impact I'm looking for. And I guess we'll leave the Strange Thing on the back burner. Have to wait for something to start rotting to lure it out. So I suppose I'll go for the most impressive sounding one first." I huff, and walk over to Ginro. "Let's take the Verdant Ooze to the Den, then look for the Forest's Heart. . . I should have asked where it is. Ahh. Maybe my Arboreal Movement can tell?"

"Umm, I might have an idea. Not sure how you didn't notice, but. There's an area north of here and a bit further down the mountain where the trees are taller, and they seemed kinda, shiny, I guess." I smile and pet him between the ears. "Nmm~" He seems fairly into it, so I keep it up for a few seconds. When I do move my hand away he makes a disappointed noise.

"Cuuute~ Ehhem I mean. Cut that out. We've got things to do. So I can't just pet you all day." He grins broadly, so I don't think my attempt to cover up my initial reaction worked. "Anyway, time to go." I make a shooing motion at him and walk over to the Ooze. "You too, come along." Once I'm sure I've got its attention, I start jogging back to the Den. When I notice the large slime keeping up quite easily, I speed up slightly, though I'm still moving slower than Ginro and I had been on the way out.

"How do you move like that? You'd think a slime would roll, or hop. But you just, slip?" I shake my head at the slime's oddness and focus on the trip. Despite the more casual pace, it isn't a very long trip, maybe half an hour. The first thing I notice upon entering the clearing is the beginnings of a large, sturdy looking fence. "Pen for the sheep?" Aside from that, Kinu is making a thick wool rectangle that could be called a mattress. Maybe? Her index claws are currently shaped like knitting needles. And, the Varnish Slime has coated a little over half of the house. The coating itself is somewhat patchwork though.

I find Lara in the house trying to explain what a bed frame is to the two female carpenters. Almost as soon as I enter she turns her head in my direction, but I figure I'll wait until she's done talking to them. Once she approaches I don't have time to say anything before she speaks. "You smell like wet fur, and fire. And a little bit of a bunch of other things." I sniff at my left arm, then start licking the fur there. "Are you? . . ." She shakes her head. "I'm surprised you're back already. Sounded like you'd be gone a while from the way you were talking."

"Mleh. Ahh. I have other stuff I wanted to do, but I needed to drop something off here before doing that. Specifically a big slime that can use healing magic. It's got a bit of a thing for nature too, so it might not like all the wood construction. But we'll figure something out on that. Oh right." I turn to look at the Kamamimi girls in the room. "If you find any sand pits, keep your distance but make sure to take note of, and tell me about, them. And make sure everybody knows that." I tap my foot. "And, tell the Chef to set up a scrap dumping site a ways out of the camp. Which, I guess I decided to call the Den, since I was talking to a fox about it."

"Talking to a fox? I take it, that would be the fox that brought the Cula fruit? Since you aren't keeping them in your 'Den', I'd guess the fox is a wild monster?" I hum an affirmative. "Well, you should introduce us sometime. Or at least ask where they got the fruit. Meat is all well and good, but humans, and probably human like monsters, need to eat other things too." Oh. That's right. Guess we could ask Meiron too? "And before you suggest it, no we shouldn't rely on the possibly crazy forest witch for everything."

"Oh. I thought she was alright. Guess I wouldn't want to impose on her though." She holds a hand in front of her face and sighs. "If I make a monster that could pass for human, would you go with it to buy things from humans in the town you came from? Er wait, money. Start by selling something valuable from a strong monster I kill? Can people just sell monster parts?"

"I would rather not return to Kelden. It's pretty big, but not so big that I wouldn't be recognized by someone there. And as for selling parts from monsters, it's fairly normal for people to hunt monsters. And hunters often sell the parts to various stores, but higher ranked monsters might be a problem. Solo hunters normally hunt D-rank or below monsters. C-rank would still be believable if they're exceptionally skilled or have a decent group. B-rank or above, would probably have to be taken care of by specialized Monster Hunters, most of whom are employed by the kingdom itself. Or, it might even come down to the Knight's Order."

"Quantity over quality to avoid drawing attention then!" My tail's tip flicks side to side as I think. "The Antlions maybe? I was hoping to go after them soon enough anyway. And the ones I've seen so far are too weak to be tasty to me." I clap my hands. "But what sort of human monster should I make? Maybe a Homuculus or humanoid golem? Or, there are other races too? Elves at least. Dark elves? Or a monster that can transform to look like a human? . . ." My eyes pop open and I gasp. "I should make my own unique monster based on humans! I've got time to think about it anyway."

"You, get excitable about the weirdest things sometimes. Never heard of most of those anyway, but if you want to make something new I suppose that's fine. Just don't go too crazy with it. On the other hand, If you do make an Elf like monster. Dark Elf you called it? You should make sure to give them a Spirit focused skill. Like Spirit Fist or Spirit Burst. Since Elves are supposed to be good at using Spirit Energy." She pauses and holds up a finger thoughtfully. "Well, Spirit Fist is sort of a martial arts skill, so it's normally acquired, not innate. I have to wonder if you could make a monster with that sort of skill from the beginning."

"I'll try it out when I finish coming up with a humanoid monster!" Huh there was something else there I was thinking of." . . . Oh! Right, that uhh, zalrose martial art you know, could you teach me, and maybe the Kamamimi?" Her smiling face somehow feels cold. "Uh-oh."

She reaches out with deliberate slowness to grab my left ear. Though for now she is only caressing it. "First thing, the skill is 'Zalroz School Martial Arts', meaning that it is properly called the 'Zalroz School of Martial Arts' or in a pinch the 'Zalro Martial Art'. Second thing, I'm not certain it's a suitable art for a brute force fighter like you seem to be. Third thing, that is a brilliant idea, I'll give you and Ginro your first lesson right away, then try to teach the others while you're off adventuring. I'll even teach you the same way I learned." Her hand moves behind my ear, then she flicks the back of it, about midway up. Then I feel a numb tingly sensation shoot through that ear. "Hard, fast, and through hands on experience."

I wiggle my ear and work my jaw side to side, then shake my head. She grabs my ear and strokes it from the base to the tip. For some reason it feels almost like she is straightening out the tingling sensation? Once the tingles are all moving the same way, she rubs the ear side to side, perpendicular to the remnants of the feeling. After that my ear feels warm and fuzzy, which is pleasant enough, especially in contrast to the feeling a moment ago, that I give a relieved sigh. Lara speaks again after that. Using a bit of a stern, almost matronly tone. "Now, you think about what just happened while I repeat that with Ginro." He stands stock still as she approaches, unlike with me, she seems uncertain while reaching for him. Even missing his ears twice before setting her hand on his head and searching around that way. "Alright, this is going to be a little uncomfortable, but you'll need to get a feel for it if you're going to learn the Art."

Why did he get a warning? Or so I wonder until he abruptly yelps and jumps back, firmly rubbing his left ear, as well as the back and side of his head. She speaks in a gentler tone now. "I can't make it feel better if you don't come back over here." He winces, then steps back in, grabs her wrist, and sets her hand on his ear himself. "Good boy." I feel a twinge of jealousy when she calls him that. Once she's done rubbing his ear she pats his head gently. "Yeah, I figured that'd be rougher on you than it was on Tai. His body is, weird. His skin is softer than mine, and his fur is even softer, but the underlying muscle feels like bundles of woven steel cords?" She shrugs helplessly then turns to face me again. "So, care to take a guess as to what the Zalroz School specializes in?"

I rub at my own ear a bit more. "Uhm. Causing pain over causing damage? Seems like your Pressure Point Massage is also kinda related. I'm not sure how exactly you do it though." I touch the back of my ear where she flicked me. "Lightning hands maybe?" I pinch the spot. "I tried out the elements earlier, it seems like I'm pretty resistant to Lightning. Wind and Darkness too."

"You got some things right. No Lightning though. There are schools that use supernatural stuff like that, but Zalroz is purely physical. Now how to sum it up? Should I start with a quick version of the Founder's story? Or just explain how it's used and what it does?" She reaches up and fiddles with a strand of her white hair as she thinks it over.

"I guess, both. The Founder, Zolora Razain, I'm sure you can tell what he did for the school's name, had a unique skill called Anatomical Eye, which allowed him to see the pressure points of any living thing he looked at. By pressing or hitting the pressure points, he could cause pain to, or even temporarily paralyze, his targets. At some point he thought to teach others his combat skills, but had to adapt it for people lacking his special eyes. To get to the point, Humans have between Forty Eight and Seventy Two Pressure points, Twenty Four of which are consistently placed across the species. Different races have different numbers of pressure points, and even different numbers of standard pressure points, but. Learning those standard pressure points for one of the races is the first step."

She holds her hands up, flexing her fingers slowly. "After that, you need to be able to find the rest. For which, a keen sense of touch, and some ability to observe the subject's reactions, are most useful. So even someone with poor eyesight can make use of the Art." Her voice lowers to the point where it's almost hard to hear. "At least, that was the idea he had." She clears her throat and shakes her head. "The Art can be used to fight monsters too, of course, but as a rule you'll usually have to discover monster's pressure points yourself."

She steps in close and grabs my left hand, she feels along my fuzzy arm for a few seconds, then settles on one spot, rubbing it carefully but firmly. The feeling it causes is rather relaxing, similar to the feeling of a cat's kneading. "And I gained my Pressure Point Massage skill by playing around with finding people's pressure points, and being nice about it instead of making it hurt." She presses down with her thumb, and suddenly it feels like I have a muscle cramp in my arm, which she quickly massages away. "It's actually pretty useful, since the Zalroz school doesn't have a way to relieve the pain it causes on it's own."

She pulls the hand she is holding to place it on the side of her own neck. "I'll start by walking you through the standard pressure points of a human so you can gain the basic version of the skill, and of course, learn what sort of reactions you tend to get from triggering them." She interlaces the fingers of her right hand between mine, then traces along her neck before settling on a specific point about halfway up. She positions my index finger there and moves her hand away. "Several of a human's standard pressure points are in the neck, shoulders, and arms. They're also symmetrically placed, so I only really need to show you twelve of them. Now, go ahead and press down there, and pay close attention to how I react."

My hand trembles a bit as I rub my fingertip against her neck. She gives a bemused sigh, then places her hand on the back of my wrist. "You've got to take it more seriously than that. I get that you're worried about hurting me, but you don't have the skill yet, so it won't be as painful as if I pressed it myself. And even then, that's all it amounts to." I grumble, but press down on her neck until she winces and makes a whining noise that would sound kinda cute in, any other context. Once that happens I let up right away. "There you go. Now, on to the next one." She moves my hand down to the boundary between her neck and shoulder, takes a moment to poke around to make sure she positions my hand correctly. "Now, pinch me about here."

I hesitate again, for a bit of a different reason this time. "Umm. You're not going to pass out if I do, are you?" I still move my index and thumb to be ready to pinch her, angling my claws away as well as I can.

Her left eyebrow quirks up. "That, is something a Master of the Art could do, but somebody who doesn't even count as a Beginner certainly couldn't. Even at the Intermediate level, I'd need to hit several key pressure points to put a person to sleep. But, where did you get that idea?"

"That, would be hard to explain properly. Let's just say, there's a story where I'm from where a person could pinch the neck about here to knock people out." I laugh awkwardly a few times, then lightly squeeze her neck so she knows I'm moving on before pinching properly to see her reaction. She gasps and taps my hand. When I let up my grip and move my hand away I notice a small spot of red. "Ack! Damn claws. Sorry." I lean in and lick the blood off without thinking about it.

"Mmmm. Not that I mind, but it's a little embarrassing to have a guy abruptly licking my neck like that." I pause then draw away. My ears fold back and I look at her feeling bashful. She giggles and rubs at the tiny nick above her collarbone. "This isn't even a bad cut. I've done worse to myself trying to help with the cooking."

"Uhh, did the Verdant Ooze follow us into the building?" I glance around, not spotting it. I exhale slowly then look over at Ginro. "Could you, go find it really quick?" He nods and steps out of the room. I turn my focus back to Lara and set my hand on her shoulder lightly. "Should we, go on in the meantime?"

"Sure. There's no real need to rush, but not much else to do in the meantime, right?" She moves my hand down to the front of her shoulder, just over her armpit. Though this time she doesn't place my hand very precisely. "With this spot you've got to push a little harder, okay?" I put the reverse side of my thumb's first knuckle against the point I think I'm aiming for, and press down. She doesn't seem to react much, so I reposition, feel around a moment, then try again. "Ah! Yeah, there you go. Looks like you're already starting to get the idea."

She moves my hand over to the point where her shoulder meets her arm. My eyebrows furrow, but I go ahead and feel around there. "Can this, really be used in combat? It seems kinda slow paced, even if you know what you're aiming for." This time she just tenses up when I push against the pressure point.

"Of course it can. If you're up against a human, or other race who's standard pressure points you already know, you can just quickly jab the pressure points with your finger tips when you're up close to them. And if you want to hit the other ones you can just grab them and feel around." She moves my hand down to her forearm, just below the crook of her elbow.

Like with the last spot, her only reaction is to tense up. "Mmm. Yeah? I guess I could do that. . . Say, you were talking about like, levels of mastery a bit ago. What all is there to that?" Now she moves my hand to hers, specifically, in the area of the hand before the thumb. I think I kinda know this one too, so I go ahead and squeeze the muscle between her thumb and index finger. That one actually gets a yelp out of her, and she shakes her hand a bit.

"You got that one pretty well." She flexes her hand, and I feel a slight creeping sensation. "Looks like you don't have the skill quite yet though. Beginner's luck I suppose." She grabs my hand firmly and sets it on her hip. My fingers wiggle slightly, and I have to suppress the reaction to pull my hand away in embarrassment. "As for the skill levels. That is, a bit of a subject, honestly. The basic idea is obvious. The ranks are, Beginner, Novice, Intermediate, Adept, and Master. Though Mister Zolora's rank would have been 'Foundation'. On top of that, the Master rank would be about equal to his Foundation at the very peak of his personal ability with the Art. With the exclusion of his Anatomical Eye of course." She taps my wrist, as if reminding me that my hand is there for a reason.

"What if somebody surpasses his skill though?" I start feeling around carefully. Eventually my thumb touches a spot just over what I think is her hipbone that she reacts to. So I press down there a bit more firmly, which causes her to gasp loudly in a way that is, very interesting, and grab my wrist firmly. I would have pulled my hand away pretty quickly if she hadn't grabbed my wrist. I move my thumb away from that spot carefully. "Ahhh. C-Can I have my hand back?"

She scoffs lightly, then moves my hand down onto her thigh. "Don't worry about it. That one just tends to get me a little, worked up. It's even one of the less painful ones when somebody with the skill presses it." She shakes her head lightly. "Keep going. And I don't rightly know. I guess there might be a rank over Master? But most people aim to make derivative schools. Which is to say, finding a way to use the same basic skills in a different way. I think, you could almost consider my pressure point massage to be a derivative, but not a Martial Art." She giggle slightly when I hit what must have been a ticklish spot instead of a pressure point. "I figure you and the Kamamimi can make a derivative school that focuses on your claws for a more lethal spin on it." I feel around her thigh, finding three pressure points in the area as I go. "You could even learn other Martial Arts and make a derivative based on more than one Art. Or try to invent your own, though that is a fair bit harder, for obvious reasons."

After finding those she moves my hand further down to her calf. Once I've found a couple more in that area I feel that creeping sensation again, and she speaks up. "Congratulations, you are officially a Beginner in the Zalroz School of Martial Arts. Now, try to find a Pressure Point on me other than the Standard Twenty Four. I'll go ahead and give you the hint that I'm a pretty sensitive person with the max total for humans of Seventy Two of them." I think a moment, then stand back up and put my hand over her right ear. "Oho~? Trying to get your revenge already?"

I feel my cheeks flush at the teasing tone, but I keep feeling around either way. I notice her ear seeming to twitch when my index finger slips behind her earlobe, so I put my thumb over it and squeeze lightly. Though I hesitate to actually pinch what might be a pressure point now. "Is this spot one?"

Her mouth twitches into a slight grin. "Lucky guess, but yes. Could have tested it yourself, I'm pretty well used to it. But okay, maybe you should try to get Pressure Point Massage while you're at it? So, for now, keep squeezing about like you are, and roll your fingers lightly side to side." I do as she suggested for a couple seconds, getting a slight hum out of her, but not much else. "Course it took me quite a bit of practice to pick that up, so the same should apply here." She reaches up to grab my right ear. "By the way, I've already found three pressure points on each of your ears."

She starts at the inner edge of the base of my ear, giving it a slight rub, to which I start purring. Then she moves halfway up to stroke at the midpoint of the back, which gets a mewl out of me, and finally up to tweak the tip. I moan softly from the feeling of her playing with all three of those points in such short order. Then I hear Ginro clearing his throat and speaking up. "So, are you two done yet? I've kinda been watching for a while now. . ." My ear flicks out of her grasp and I step back, lightly smoothing down my ear.

Lara claps her hands. "Yes, I'd say we are. Now, come over here, I need to borrow your hands for a bit." His tail swishes, then he and the slime approach. For some reason the Verdant Ooze has the Varnish Slime up on its, back? Regardless, it reaches a tendril up to heal the nick on her neck. "Oh. That's rather nice. Thank you." The larger slime bounces happily. Ginro looks at his claws a moment, then shrinks them down to look like human fingernails. Lara grabs one of his hands and starts showing him through her standard pressure points.

I beckon the Verdant Ooze over. "Why have you got that?" It raises the Varnish Slime up with a pair of tendrils. "Eh? No it isn't a child, it's older than you are!" The Ooze tilts to the side curiously, then raises the Slime higher. "Fiiiiine? Was it at least done coating the outside of the house when you found it?" It sways side to side uncertainly, then slides out of the room, presumably to take the Slime back to it's intended task. "What kind of weirdo have I unleashed upon the Den?" I sigh and shake my head before sitting down and starting to poke around, hoping to figure out my own pressure points while Lara and Ginro are busy.

By the time they're done I've already found about a hundred pressure points. And I haven't finished exploring myself. Even if they're less effective on me, I certainly seem to have a lot of them. Ginro seems kinda worn out from trying to keep up with Lara's pace, so I pat his head a few times. "Ready to go check out the Forest's Heart?" His face twitches a couple times, then he manages a smile.

Lara walks over and pipes up. "You should stick around for an early dinner. Or would it be a late lunch?" Hadn't thought of it, but it is probably late afternoon. "Well, either way. The Chef you made hasn't stopped cooking since you left. Actually, I think most of them have just been using the skills you gave them. I'll try to teach them other ways to pass the time, after I'm done with their basic training."

"Oh yeah. I suppose, if those are their jobs, they'll probably need hobbies too." My tail waves slightly. "Could be interesting to see what they come up with." My tail freezes. "Ah! We definitely don't want the Carpenters cutting down trees all the time for no reason." I lead the way out of the building as I talk. "Especially not with the Verdant Ooze around. Maybe they can forage for fallen wood and make carvings when they're not doing anything else?"

"Or, they could learn to make a bow and arrow and practice archery until they can help with the hunting. Though I obviously can't use a bow to teach them that." The Chef has a cooking pan, presumably obtained from Meiron while we were out. She has also set out several different preparations of meat on large leaves atop the stone table. A few different shapes of steaks, some oversized ribs, a roast, somehow, and something that looks like a large square hamburger. Most of it would likely be cold by now, but there is a low fire under the table, maybe keeping it all warm?

I follow my nose to the ribs. Even without any kind of sauce they seem to have the most savory scent. When I grab a single meaty rib, I get a little overeager and chomp right through the bone. That's fine though, the bone marrow seems even tastier than the meat. The flavor is like roasted walnuts with a crispy, sort of sweet shell of bone, add the savoriness of the meat at the same time and it's a strangely appealing combination. So I shrug and keep eating it all together, despite my compunctions about eating bones.

Meanwhile Lara, with just a little help plating up from the Chef girl has gone for the hamburger thing. She essentially chopped bite sized pieces off of it and is eating them like that. Though they'd probably be better with bread or chips or something. Ginro seems most interested in a large steak that he is cutting up with and eating off of one of his claws. I end up eating a couple other things by the time he has finished his steak.

When we're done eating I give a quick, "I'll be back soon!" to Lara, as well as a pair of head pats to Oct. Then bolt up a tall tree to take a look around, when I spot the trees Ginro mentioned I stare for a bit. They are indeed taller, and sort of have a brass like color instead of the normal brownish gray bark of the other trees. Aside from being north, they're also a bit east from here. I plan out a path through the treetops to the edge of the shiny part of the woods, that Ginro can follow.

The treetop run to that edge is fairly uneventful, I took it about as quickly as my companion can comfortably follow, even so, it was a longer trip than the return from the Antlion pit I glazed. I stop a short ways outside of the taller trees to take a look around. The brassy trees are on average, about twenty meters taller than the rest of the forest, near as I can tell. And, looking into it, they seem to be in a broad ring around a clearing. Within the clearing there is a lot of smaller plant life, bushes, smaller trees, things that look like crops, and so on. "A natural garden?"

Aside from that there is something that appears far larger in the center, though I can't get a good look at it from here, it looks rather colorful. Instead of charging in, I take a moment to identify one of the brassy trees, as well as a normal one.

"Huuuh? The names are a little different. And the shiny ones have an Essence related skill. Maybe they're, almost monsters? Not enough Essence for their size I guess. I don't quite trust them with that skill though." I sway side to side lightly, trying for a better look at the clearing's center. I can't seem to identify the thing in the middle from here. "Well. No time like the present. Let's climb down and head on in to see what we'll find."

I look down and think about a path down, the first obvious one is to just jump, even according to my skill. But I decide to take a more comfortable one that just involves jumping down about ten meters at a time on various branches. Once I'm on the ground I take a moment to wait for Ginro and make sure he's ready before finding a path through the Titan Umme ring without getting too close to any of them. "If the fight gets serious, focus on evasion, maybe retreat to the trees if you have to. Though I'm a bit paranoid about the shiny ones, so make that a last resort."

"Right. I'll be ready to use Mercurial Slash to get out quickly." As we wander into the lush undergrowth I am assailed by a variety of fruity and flowery scents in the air, even without focusing on my nose. When I actually put my attention to it, I find that the scents are nice, but most don't whet my appetite. There are two or three that tempt my attention. And one underlying smell that sets me to salivating even more than the Croc Ogre did, despite still having a vegetative quality. A moment after I register that Ginro speaks up again. "Miss Lara was talking about needing other things to eat. Couldn't we make trips here regularly for that?"

"Yeah. Some of them even smell good to me. Which means they're probably monsters too." I follow one of the closer appealing scents, something fruity, tangy, and almost saccharine. At the end of the trail I find a giant orange and yellow fruit with arms and legs and a thick stem at the top that is attached directly to the trunk of a tree. "What the fuck?" The fruit's arms move up to push against the tree. Causing me to blink a couple times and shake my head. Then I identify it before it can pull itself free.

The Manghoul finally pulls itself away from the tree, leaving a gaping hole in the tree's bark. Then it turns around to face the stem towards me, revealing that the stem ends in a lamprey like mouth. "No! Kill it with fire!" I create an F-Rank fire attribute bomb with the skill Second Contact Self-Destruct. It's about the size of a softball, so I grab it like one and pitch it at the Manghoul's mouth.

The fruit monster hisses, of all things, and lashes its mouth at the fireball. The resulting fire burst is nothing like the E Rank version. The flames don't even completely engulf the Manghoul, but they do seem to cling to it as they continue to burn. The monster flails around and shrieks as it cooks. Once the fire sputters out the creature struggles back to its feet, facing me again. The surface on most of the front half is heavily seared, and the stem is completely burned away. It honestly smells even tastier now that it's partially baked. It raises its arms and charges at me.

Ginro steps in with one of his claws extended to about the length of a sword and cleanly bisects the enraged fruit. The top half continues to grasp around with its hands, while the bottom half just falls forward limply. From the exposed side I notice that aside from fruit flesh it seems to have bones? "That, just isn't right either." I walk over to the top half, aim for the space just under where its stem had been based, and shove my left hand into it. I grab ahold of something hard and pull it out.

The thing I removed looks, quite a lot like a human skull covered in fruit juice and scraps of the fruit itself. The skull clatters at me, so I crush it in my hand and let the broken bits of skull fall away leaving only a larger than normal mango pit in my palm. The pit has roots extended from it that seemed to have been growing into the skeleton. I am struck with a strong desire to eat the pit, despite its terrible origin.

"Uuuuh. Well. Bottoms up?" I toss the seed into my mouth and crunch through it. It has an almond like taste, and the fruit juice still on it is very similar to a normal mango, though it has a faint alcoholic burn. Ginro cuts off a small piece of the actual fruit and licks it cautiously. He makes a bit of a face and shakes his head. "Don't like the taste?"

"It smelled good. But it has a sort of, spoiled taste to it?" I didn't notice that. Unless he means the alcohol like taste I got from it. Or, maybe it just doesn't matter that much with me if it is spoiled? "Can we find something else?"

"My instincts think it's fine. But yeah. That is a pretty weird thing to be eating. Doesn't matter. I'm sure it wasn't our target anyway. I just wandered here out of curiosity." I cut a wedge out of the most cooked section to nibble on as we walk away. "Hopefully we can find some things that aren't walking corpses around here. But for now, let's aim for the top."

We follow the strongest scent as I snack upon the small piece of Manghoul. Finally we reach the edge of a proper clearing within the garden clearing. There is only one obvious plant within this huge circle, with a radius of about a hundred meters. A strange sight. A sixty meter tall tree with a bulbous shape and shimmering multi-colored metal bark. It looks almost like an artichoke, with that ten meter wide base, which quickly thickens with overlapping wide scale like shapes each with long branches at the tip of the scale. At its widest, it seems almost as thick as it is tall, which gives it a much more massive appearance compared to the three or so meter thick trees surrounding the outer layer of this clearing, despite being about half their height. I tilt my head, then identify it.

"There is a lot of stuff there I don't understand. But Ancient monsters are supposed to be intelligent. Guess, I'll approach carefully instead of charging in." The moment I step into the barren circle I feel as if I am pushing against a giant bubble, though the feeling seems to pull back away from me a bit as I move forward. Ginro seems to actually struggle with it though. The gargantuan tree shudders, its weird scale branches slide against each other with a rasping noise. A moment later a small piece of bark on the side of the trunk's base facing me cracks open, revealing a glowing, molten metal interior.

An iridescent silver hand emerges, then is quickly followed by a mostly featureless humanoid body with a head like a deer's skull, complete with antlers. Identifying the humanoid gives the same result as identifying the tree, so I guess that is its humanoid extension skill in action. Weird.

The creature's mouth opens, and there is a noise like wind rustling through trees. A moment later the bubble snaps taunt, for a moment it felt like the bubble was trying to push me away, but it slipped by shortly after. Ginro is actually pushed most of the way back to the edge before it goes by him. It seemed like he cut through the bubble with his claws. The windy noise grows louder, and a ball of compressed air hits my chest. I wasn't ready for it, so I actually get knocked back a ways this time. When I regain my footing, I stare at the tree's avatar. "Heh, so that is the way we'll be playing then?"

I dash forward, taking another air bullet as I go. When I reach the projection of the tree's power, I punch it firmly in the chest, cracking its metallic body a bit before grabbing it and throwing it out of the edge of the clearing. "You try to finish that off, I'm going for the main body!" Ginro nods and retreats out of the bubble, or rather, chases after the lesser creature.

One of the tree's branches swings down at me. I grab it as it comes down. The branch hitting my chest actually seems to knock the wind out of me a bit, but I don't let go. When the branch rises back up I switch to standing on it and start jumping around between the branches, tapping hard on the branches and trunk to look for pressure points. No reason why it shouldn't have them, right?

When I hit the trunk just under one of the scales the tree jerks, then another branch slams into me, almost trying to crush me against the tree. I clench my hand into a fist, then punch the spot under the scale as hard as I can. Instead of shattering like the other tree had, it dents under my fist, leaving a clear impression of my knuckles in its multicolored surface. The entire tree spasms, and I hear a scream from the direction where I left Ginro. When I glance over the tree's humanoid clone is writhing, Ginro takes advantage of the situation and pierces its cracked chest with his extended claws. The tree jerks again as the clone dies.

The tree itself shrieks, then the surface of its bark splits in several places. Five more clones emerge moments later, up in the tree like me. When Ginro tries to get back into the bubble, a wall of roots grows up around the barren part of the clearing. I jump to one of the projections and grab it by the back of the head before slamming its metal skull into the space under one of the scales until the bark breaks. Then I punch the skull into it even harder, lodging the clone into the tree.

While the clones are writhing from the pain caused to the one I just killed and the tree itself I create a lightning attribute bomb at the D-Rank, yank the clone back out, and shove the bomb into the gap. The resulting blast of electrical energy is enough to throw me away from the tree despite my resistance. When I reorient myself to look at the tree, the damage isn't quite as great as I expected. The fissure is now large enough for a person to fit into, and there is lightning still crawling across the tree, occasionally frying the avatars as it arcs around. Its molten sap oozes from the large gash on it.

The tree writhes, then the scale and branch over the damaged section falls off. "Guess lightning isn't the way to go if I want to down it quick, huh? Fire doesn't seem great since its got molten metal in it anyway. And I don't wanna do ice, so, next group." I run back in, even faster than I had been moving before and charge up the side of the tree to the hole I've already made, dodging branches or using them as footholds all the while.

I kick a wind attribute bomb into the wound as I jump past, then dig my claws into the tree to hold on while it goes off. The entire thing vibrates like a tuning fork when it explodes, but it is quick to start swinging at me again afterwards. When it hits me my claws get dragged out of its bark. Which also throws me to the side. I catch the base of another branch and punch it under the scale. When I do the lightning still arcing around the tree crawl down onto me. Did it try to use my own attack against me somehow? Too bad I'm resistant. While it's left reeling I jump back to the original gash. The wind bomb seems to have cooled the molten metal to the point where the area around the damage all looks crudely welded together.

I squeeze into the gash and punch the back of the injury until its metallic sap starts flowing again, then shove an earth element bomb into the new gap. I jump back out of the alcove as the earth bomb goes off. Before I can check on the damage I hear a yell from the ground and see Ginro charging forward with his Mercurial Slash to cut at the base of the trunk. After he hits the tree, a large branch swings down at him. He seems to panic for a moment, but then a couple seconds after the branch hits the ground, he appears a few feet away, as if he had teleported with a delay away from the point of impact. I glance towards the ring of roots, it seems, he actually cut through them instead of climbing over.

I drop back to the giant wound. There are pieces of rock embedded into the wound all over, but it doesn't seem to have done much more damage. I summon a dark element bomb, but before I can throw it into the wound a giant metal hand bursts out of it grabbing me and the bomb I just summoned and raising us up. Several other giant hands start emerging from all over, a few of the closer ones grabbing at me along with the one already holding me.

The hands are all trying to squeeze me, but they're also putting pressure on the bomb, which ends up exploding into a dark nebula that seems almost alive. It twists and writhes wrapping around the hands causing them to darken and decay. The darkness follows the arms back to the trunk eating into it at several points and starting to spread from there. I shatter the embrittled hands around me to get a better look. Darkness seems to be the biggest weakness for it that I've seen so far. An intact hand swings down and slaps me to the ground like a fly.

I climb out of the me shaped hole to see the writhing darkness starting to turn, seemingly looking at me. The tree howls and the darkness all draws together before shooting at me. It takes a shape akin to a giant serpent as it flies towards me. The darkness' mouth opens wide and lunges for me. I grab ahold of the top of its mouth and stomp down on the bottom. "Getting real sick of you using my attacks against me!"

I concentrate Essence into my claws, both the ones on my hands, and the ones on my feet, like that first time I tried to shapeshift them. Once they shine silver I dig them into the darkness and tear it apart. The shredded darkness still flows around wildly, but it can't seem to pull itself back together. I take a deep breath. "Ginro! Get outta here. I'm going to try and take it out with my next creation." He looks back at me, his ears drooping a bit. But considering the tree has been regenerating almost as quickly as he could damage it, even with Mercurial Slash, he nods and darts away.

I run in and start punching at the bases of its scales as I climb it again, my current goal is to distract it from him as he retreats. A bit before I make it halfway up another hand smacks me down to the ground. On the ground I glance the way Ginro had been running, upon failing to spot him, I smirk. "Time to end this." I dash to the base of the tree, its thinnest, and likely most vulnerable point. On the way I create something interesting, and identify it to make sure.

I slam the large cylindrical creature in my grasp against the tree's trunk, ignoring a hand reaching for me as I jab a claw into one of the D-Arc Buster's pressure points. Immediately, the air feels heavy. Then it smells like ozone and death. Black lightning crawls all over me and the monster in my hands before gathering at the end of its body. Finally, a black light swallows up all of my senses.

Chaos_Sinner777

Came up with the title Monster Hunt before I started writing. About four thousand words in, I was thinking about changing it to Martial Training. But decided to stick with Monster Hunt. Also, I have the mental image of the Verdant Ooze being a mossy Baymax. Evolution that adds the Humanoid type maybe? I wanted to imply that Ummeil's Essence Storage is similar to how a cactus stores water, but I couldn't find terminology I quite liked for the skill name. And, anybody get the "D-Arc Buster"? Basically, Dark plus Arc as in lightning, and buster as in bunker buster.