I stared with an empty gaze at the wooden roof, a dream had plagued my sleep, I wouldn't have given it much thought if it wasn’t so unusual and realistic.

I dreamed of a winged woman, brilliant white feathers adorned her 12 wings, each one transmitting the feeling of solid purity, the likes of which the earthly world would never compare.

What confused me much is the clarity I remembered the dream, her everything was seared into my memories, even her rather *gigantic perky* tits still clung to the surface of my thoughts, the only thing I couldn’t seem to remember was her face, it was clad in a confounding haze.

I shook my head, a dream is only a thought of the sleeping mind, and I’m no practitioner of a seer manual, I had checked some of the Qi pathways that they took, and honestly, it was confusing to understand 5-dimensional geometry and its interference with solid-state carbon-structures when I could barely do basic algebra and most of the scientific names and notations I had never heard of.

Though there is a possibility of the unconscious making background predictions, that's a theory Ferdinand made, and that guy doesn’t do many theories since most of his works turn out to be absolutely true.

I better get out of bed, nothing is going to be achieved if I keep thinking about it.

Shedding the warm blanket of my body, a subsequent groan rippled out my throat, sleeping on bed roles had done it toll on my back, it was worse yesterday before I had gotten to this comfy feathered bed, it will still last for a day or two before the bones in flesh stop their rioting.

Picking and equipping my bow and quiver, just to realize that I don’t need it at a safe location like this, but eh, it makes me look cool and gives me a weapon if anything unexpected suddenly occurs.

I stepped out from my room and lead myself towards the first-floor launch hall, again like last time I was the first to wake up and get breakfast.

I looked up from my meal and searched for any other teams of cultivators, there were about three distinct groups, one of the three had a certain gloom to them, I would have to guess that they’ve lost a team member, and from how each of their builds corresponds to a certain team position, it would be their damage sponge that got himself a ticket to the Styx, and by an eagle flock.

The other two teams just seem more injured than gloomy, each one having been injured, even the Elementalist that should have been the farthest from close combat, had a broken bone or two.

Indeed, I got really lucky by being assigned to this team, and speak of the devil, there they are, why did they all come down at the same time, and why is Foranda limping… oh I see.

Yeap, when they got closer, I could smell the faint musky scent that would be associated with two people of the opposite gender *reproducing*.

Godsdamn these people, they are going to make this awkward as hell.

They sat down on the table and began to eat in silence, although they’re body language betrayed their own thoughts, Foranda is not avoiding contact, Randal is smiling slightly, so not a one thing fling, I mentally facepalmed myself several times.

The folly of the young I guess, and now I’m feeling like I need to hook up, fucking brain, stop thinking about sex now that you finally felt the pull of it.

When we finished the meal, Randal told Joe to bring out the blood cores.

“5 blood cores, 4 from the goblins and one from the snake, truly a pitying amount of cores, I had more blood cores embedded in my desk than we have here, I will give you both the leftover cores, but we will have to extend this trip to way more than just a week, I have really underestimated the dangers that roam the forest, especially their sheer physical might that you have to dodge if you don’t want to receive injuries that would take weeks to heal.” (Randal)

“Why don’t we stop when we all acquire 20 blood cores, it's the exact amount we need to double our Qi input, and with more experience we could hunt with more efficiency.” (Archer)

“That's too little for me, I wanted to at least jump to 5 Qi units from this trip, and I need 80 blood cores for that” (Foranda)

“Don’t you think that's a bit too much, we were barely able to scour up these 5 blood cores, we sooner get butchered by the monster than reach that amount of blood cores combined.” (Archer)

“Why don’t we leave the decision to the team leader” (Joe)

A test was the first thought I had, he called him team leader, would he choose between emotion or rationality? Is he ambitious or patient, would he be able to strike the decision most sensible to both teammates?

I stared at him, giving him a faint nod when we met eyes.

He crossed his fingers and tapped his foot on the ground, he did not take a short time, but with the look he gave Foranda, I knew what he would choose.

“I will….