“If you ever need more of those birds, they are pretty common downstream. There’s a giant lake with all kinds of aquatic life, and with it, birds that feed on them.”

That was good to know. I imagined once my experience started to stagnate, I could travel there and still be able to find plenty of creatures that would give me experience. I hoped it wasn’t too far.

“It’s not even that far. Five minutes, maybe?”

Thanks for reading my thoughts, Cellestra. Who needed communication when she could just do that?

Cellestra quietly observed the webs and after a few minutes, another gull showed up. It flew into the web from the other direction of where the fish hung.

It was quite funny to see it getting stuck but still trying to snatch the fish through the webs.

The more it tried, the more it got itself stuck.

“Poor bird,” Cellestra commented. “So close, yet so far.”

Poor bird, indeed. Shame it was a requirement for me to kill it.

I lowered myself onto the web and made my way to the bird who snapped at me when I got close. I quickly finished it off with an ice lance to its torso.

I removed the bird from my webs again and put it in front of Cellestra and looked at her. Would this be something edible for her?

I pointed at the bird with a leg, then at her mouth.

“Nope. These birds are disgusting. Most of all, they are tough, no matter how long you cook them. Wouldn’t really recommend it.”

I see.

I simply dumped the bird in the stream where it was soon torn apart by a large group of reaperfish.

I scaled up the tree and fixed my web, hopefully for the last time. Cellestra took some water from the stream and splashed it on the dangling fish.

“To keep it more attractive,” She said with a smile.

She then sat down again and observed the web, together with me.

Just her presence made this… waiting a thousand times less boring.

She giggled as I pulled the string that held the fish a few times.

“I doubt that will matter much, Kealyna. It’s not like you’re fishing.”

She had a point there. I had no idea why I even did it.

A few minutes later, my luck returned. Another greedy gull showed up and snatched the fish out of the air before it flew straight into my webs.

Ah, it felt good to have your prey show up and just throw itself into your lap. The waiting was terrible, but once something got itself stuck, the rest was simple.

“That was the last one you needed right? Guess I should get back to collecting beetles.”

I decided to get down and follow the elf. I wanted to know where she got that many beetles from in such a short amount of time. If it was anything that was recognizable, I could cut down on her time collecting by going out to hunt them myself.

I wanted to get this achievement before picking an evolution, just so I would get the maximum amount of evolution points I could get.

At least the ones I knew of…

I would only need thirty-seven more. With the speed at which she found them, we should have that ready in no time.

I was quite interested to see what she was up to. My curiosity rose as I saw her walking further into the forest without even stopping to observe the dirt.

She moved with determination. I had the feeling she knew exactly where to look.

Cellestra stopped at the stump of an old tree trunk. It looked ancient from the decolorization that had happened over the… years, I guessed?

She knelt down next to the trunk and I skittered on top of it, only to notice there was a hole in the middle. It seemed this trunk was hollow.

“A stag beetle nest,” Cellestra clarified. “There are several throughout the forest. An excellent source of food for my tarantula.”

She pulled out a small vial with red liquid from her belt.

“And I’ve developed the perfect bait for them so I don’t have to destroy their nest in order to get them.”

She uncorked the vial and dropped a few drops of the thick, red liquid on the stump. She grabbed her tweezers and jar and opened it.

A few moments later, numerous beetles came skittering out of the hole to get a taste of the bait. Cellestra picked them up one by one and deposited them in the jar.

“The best thing?” She continued. “This mixture makes them extremely docile so they don’t fight with one another in this crowded space. Just put one drop in the jar every day and it’s all fine.”

That sounded extremely handy.

I observed her pick up the beetles and putting them in the jar. There were so many that I doubted I’d even need to look for them myself.

And I didn’t want to ruin her “hunting grounds”.

I would leave this to the expert.

“I’ve lost count of how many I got,” Cellestra said before closing the lid after the last beetle had been deposited inside. She held up the glass jar and observed it from up close. “Surely that’s got to be over thirty-seven.”

She pulled another vial from her belt and re-opened the jar before dripping in a few drops of a green liquid inside.

She quickly closed the jar again before standing up.

“I’m looking forward to what you can teach me. That ice lance spell was one of the spells I was working on.”

She led the way back to the clearing with her home in it. Once in the middle, she stopped and knelt down before opening the jar and shaking all the beetles out of it.

I started to question what she was doing before I noticed that none of the beetles were actually moving.

Of course.

She had tranquilized them.

Cellestra realigned them so they were all placed on one pile.

“All yours,” She said, taking a few steps back.

I apologized to the beetles in my mind for massacring them like this, before I prepared my fireball spell. I didn’t necessarily have to kill them all at once this time around, but I might as well try. Who knew what would happen?

I lined up for the perfect cast, aimed… and cast my fireball straight into the pile of Stag beetles.

The resulting flood of messages was quite annoying and I quickly wished them away. I would only need to see the important one.

And there it was!

I was pretty happy with this new skill. So far, it had already netted me fifty evolution points and, more importantly, I had completed the achievements needed for the rainbow evolution.

Actually…

Would I take that?

It was time I started breaking my head over what spells I should learn before picking an evolution. I was obliged to pick a few for Cellestra.

“Was that enough?” I heard Cellestra’s voice as she walked up to me.

I nodded with my pedipalps before pointing at the door to her home.

I wanted to have a look in the safest place that I knew of.

“Yeah, good idea. I can’t really tell what you want to say now,” The elf replied.

We headed inside, leaving behind a pile of fried beetles. Once inside, I climbed up to the table and the piece of paper while the elf sat down. I immediately started spelling out words for her.

“Give moment. Checking possible spells. Will list.”

“No problem,” She said as she put the empty jar on the table before leaning back in her chair.

I was looking at my available points and enhancements. 

Ugh, where do I even start?

Now that I knew how to make the special evolutions appear, I could go for the green evolution first. I would have to check the abilities that were offered with the last green evolution, but I imagined that the venom bolt skill would be exceptionally powerful with it as its efficacy was based on the venom skill. In the green evolution, I could upgrade the venom skill to a very powerful version.

The skill was also pretty cheap.

I wondered if it would be more powerful than a fireball or ice lance?

I refocused myself on the spells that would be useful for Cellestra. I didn’t think she would have any use for venom bolt whatsoever.

Okay, here we go.