Mike followed behind Crosse as he walked through the forest. They had been walking for a good few hours now and Mike was starting to feel the limits of his body. He wondered how his stats interacted with the fact that he was currently underweight and had little in the way of a proper diet for months. He didn’t know what the High Elves had done to keep him alive but he doubted they had given him an IV.

Did this mean that his stats weren’t giving him their full potential boost at the moment? He'd started with abysmally low Physical stats, and had assumed that was because of his physical state after the coma. However, even after he had started putting stats into physical just to get by, he hadn’t felt particularly better, sure he felt stronger and had more endurance but did ha have the same endurance as an average person in this state?

As he thought of all this he looked around. The trees had maintained their massive stature and distant uniform spacing as they had walked. They were headed north-west, according to the compass on the back of his hand. “So what other threats were the other hunters sent to deal with?” Mike asked as he trudged behind Crosse.

“Mostly reports of some lower threat beasts. The one we are heading towards now was at a source of herbs that some of the village girls pick for the Lady's use. They reported seeing a tree-sap ooze. A pest that comes from inside an old gild-leaf tree if it is damaged enough.”

It took Mike more than a few seconds to stop himself from thinking of the creature as a slime because he knew the AI would have a go at him for that. “So how do you usually deal with these monsters?” Mike asked, curious, oozes were common in games, but he had no idea how a creature like that would actually live.

“Fire,” Crosse replied. “Tree-sap oozes are incredibly weak to fire, a single spark will burn them into a stain on the ground. So we give the hunter access to arrows that can be lit and shot from a distance.”

Mike smirked, “That seems to be the answer for a lot of things.”

“Gods damn right it is. You shouldn’t ever get close enough to something that can kill you if you don’t have too, and the lot of us all have these,” he said holding up his already strung bow. “So we don’t have to.”

Mike hadn’t seen the man string it. He must have done it while Mike wasn’t paying attention. Which wouldn’t have been hard, he had been struggling just to keep up at some points.

Crosse started to slow his pace. “We are almost at the area that Connor intended to fight the thing, keep your eyes open. Just in case he hasn’t found it yet, just like the peryton, if you're dumb, even this can kill you.” Crosse said glancing back at Mike with a smirk.

Mike nodded, even with the prodding, it was sound advice. They started to walk slower, looking all around them as they moved. It wasn’t until after a few minutes that Mike realised that Crosse was making no almost no sound at all, his steps were silent and his breath and the rustling of his clothes seemed to blend into the ambient noises of the forest.

Mike tried to mimic him and felt the stealth skill guiding his movements. He stepped where Crosse did and tried to listen to his surroundings. Once he felt like he had the movements down, he started to look around himself.

After they had walked around the area for what felt like ten minutes Crosse stopped and Mike stopped with him.

“Somethings up, we should have seen Connor by now, or the beast if he didn’t kill it. He wouldn’t have gone back to the village already, I told him to wait for me here.” Crosse said under his voice, he was either explaining to Mike or remarking to himself. Either way, he seemed wary.

Mike looked around himself trying to find what was wrong. As he had been doing this, he turned on his Mana Sight and panned back over the surroundings watching mana flow through the world around him, separated from it in the Aether.

Then he saw something in his periphery. A golden bloom brighter than the leaves of the trees usually maintained. As he looked at it his Hostile Awareness Spell sent cold shivers through his mind, reminiscent of fear and adrenaline but more detached.

“It's above us!” Mike shouted pointing toward the spot and as he looked back at the hunter he saw that he already had an arrow nocked and his bow drawn. Right before the arrow fired he heard a clicking sound from the hunter’s hand and the head of the arrow blazed into fire.

Mike watched as the arrow shot forward in a streak of red. Fire mana! Mike thought he had been too out of place last night to look into the campfire and see it, but he was sure it had been there. Now it was here, following the blazing arrowhead as it sailed towards the thing among the metal leaves.

Mike was briefly worried that it would start a forest fire but then he thought about the golden leaves and their metallic nature, were they even flammable? The arrow sailed through them and hit something but didn’t seem to stick. Mike heard it thud against something and then fall towards the ground still lit.

Crosse looked confused for a second and Mike looked back to the spot of brighter Golden mana, which he supposed he could probably call its actual name. The AI had hinted at it enough for him to know, and the leaves kinda gave it away.

The Metal mana that glowed over the leaves deepened further, Mike’s Hostile awareness still blaring at him that he was being watched. “Whatever it is it’s still up there,” Mike said, causing Crosse to glance at him sideways.

At that moment the leaves rustled as something came hurtling down at them from the point following almost the exact trajectory of the arrow and coming just as fast. This thing, however, was the size of a person and seemed to be made of solid gold.

“Dodge!” Crosse shouted, immediately following the call by jumping almost 3 metres from his standing position. Mike, much less nimble, jumped back less than a metre and a half as the huge golden spike slammed into the ground where Crosse had been standing.

The ground shook under Mike's feet. Dirt filled the air around the impact and after a second of it clearing Mike was able to see the creature. There was now a golden spike almost half as tall as he embedded into the ground about 2 metres from him.

“Get back, it’s a golden-sap ooze, not a tree-sap ooze!” As he spoke Mike saw the Golden nimbus around the spike shrink into two points, they were side by side with about 30 cm between them, and both were facing him.

Seeing what the ooze had already done, Mike decided not to run, if he was right… He turned sideways moving his body into the gap between those to points and stepping forward.

The two points of Metal mana erupted outward and became 3 metre long spikes of death that missed Mike’s stomach and back by centimetres and overlapped at the spot where Mike had been standing.

Suppressing the shudder of fear that his mind tried to send through him, Mike looked back at the ‘Ooze’ it was still a huge spike sticking out of the ground but the metal magic aura that surrounded it in the Aether had surrounded it once more. Then it began gathering again, this time to a point right between the first two.

Mikes eyes widened as he dropped downwards, flattening himself as fast as he could. The third Spike erupted from the point that it had been gathering at. Missing gouging another furrow in his scalp by centimetres.

As the spike erupted the aura of Metal mana expanded again. What was going on, was the ooze using the mana in the Aether? Or was the mana in the Aether just drawn towards the mana that the ooze no doubt contained, and more drawn to where the ooze focused it's mana when it cast?

Mike decided now was not the time to be considering arcane physics when the aura once again contracted, this time covering the entire length of the overlapping spikes above him. He inelegantly rolled out from beneath them. They shifted, all three of them melding together and turning into a thick single-edged cleaver.

This time it didn’t Strike immediately, instead, pivoting at the base and reeling back for a strike.

“What are you doing boy? Get outta there! Or at least get where I can see ya so I can start shooting at the bastard,” Crosse yelled from his position on the other side of the ooze. Mike kept his eyes on the metallic pillar that was the ooze and on the huge cleaver that was about to fall in his direction.

Mike quickly rolled back in the other direction as the ooze's weapon began to descend towards him. As he was mid-roll he felt the edge of the huge blade brush across his shoulder as it passed over him. He finished the roll onto his back as he felt the ground shake from the force of the weapon hitting the ground.

Mike was starting to get a read on this thing, it seemingly wasn’t very smart, he had made the least likely methods of evasion each time and the ooze had yet to compensate correctly. This time, the second he was on his back he reached up to the spot on his jacket that covered the pouch of gems filled with Dark mana.

He reached into the gems with his control requesting the mana obey him and felt himself gain purchase. He took as much mana as he could in the short few moments while he saw the aura of Metal mana still present around the ooze.

When the aura started to shrink down again he aimed his hand towards the main body of the ooze, once again requesting that the mana cause the creature pain. The palm of Dark magic shot from his hand and its fingers sunk into the surface of the ooze.

The still shrinking aura expanded again as ripples started to spread over the previously entirely still pillar. Mike decided this was his chance to get the fuck away. So he backed up, sliding over the dirt on his butt pushed by his legs for a few metres before he took the time to stand and look around for Crosse.

He saw the hunter standing a few metres back from where he had jumped to before the ooze attacked.

“What’d you do to it?” Crosse asked. He had his bow drawn into a semi-circle, the fletching of the arrow touching his face. He didn’t look like it was even remotely difficult.

“I stopped it from attacking for a few seconds, I hope,” Mike replied. He then started edging around the ooze in a circle, approaching Crosse. As soon as he wasn’t directly in the path of the arrow, Crosse released it.

It flew straight at the pillar that was the ooze. Mike watched as it sunk into the pillar, the arrowhead piercing through to the other side. The ripples across the surface of the monster became more extreme.

Mike kept an eye on the hand that was his chill touch spell, it would last 10 seconds according to the description, his hand twitched towards the jacket pocket. He wanted to cast it again, but Crosse could see him now, what would the man think?

According to the AI, only Elves and Beasts in this world could use Magic. Crosse seemed alternatively respectful and afraid of the Elves and seemed to really hate the Beasts. Mike wasn’t an Elf, so would Crosse immediately jump to the idea that he was a beast to explain his anomalous use of Magic?

Mike wasn’t sure he could fight the man and was even less sure he could bring himself to kill him. He was reaching him now and called to him, “How do we kill it? Does fire work on these ones too?”

“Yes, though not nearly as well, and only when it is weakened like this,” Crosse said as he drew back another arrow and fired it at the ooze, this one catching fire as it left the longbow, it hit the ooze with a sizzling noise and once again seemed to penetrate deep, thought Mike couldn't see the other side to tell if it went all the way through.

The ooze’s form of a pillar of golden metal started to droop as the ripples continued to run along its surface. Mike was getting much closer to Crosse now and as he glanced at him he noticed something as the hunter drew back his bow again with another arrow already nocked.

Crosse wasn’t carrying any arrows. Mike blinked as he saw the hunter release the arrow and it once again caught fire as it left the bow. Mike was standing close enough to see the arrowhead flash with red mana this time though and see as Crosse touched two fingers to the grip of the bow and pulled them back.

There was a dim aura of brown mana between his fingers as an arrow grew out of the grip of the bow to be nocked to the string, its arrowhead emerging from the grip as a sharpened wooden spike. Mike blinked, maybe Crosse wouldn’t be suspicious if he used some magic, either that bow was rather magical or Crosse was, Mike was leaning towards the former.

Mike looked back at the ooze as it was still reacting from being hit by another flaming arrow. “It has a core of amber somewhere inside it that can be broken by an arrow, usually we shoot it from multiple directions at a time, because it tends to move it in reaction to getting shot, but it isn’t really smart enough to react to three or four arrows at once.”

Mike nodded as Crosse drew another arrow from the grip of his bow and fired it. This time though, Mike saw the Aura of the ooze, which was now the more typical shape of its kind, shrink down and the arrow hit the side of the ooze and bounced off.

The aura returned around the ooze and Mike made up his mind. Putting his hand to the spot on his jacket over the Dark mana that he could still clearly sense there. He drew it out, channelled it, into the spell, reaching out in a claw-like gesture towards the ooze as he released it.

The spell shot out and collided with the Ooze and its surface once again began violently rippling. As Mike glanced to Crosse he saw the man looking at him intently. Looking him over as if trying to work out how Mike had done that.

Then looking back to the slime, Mike tensed for a second afraid the AI would slap him again for calling it a slime, but it didn’t come. Mike sighed in relief and looked back to the ooze and furrowed his brow, the aura of Metal mana that surrounded it in the Aether was getting deeper, the golden metallic colouring of the space around it strengthening.

“Something’s wrong,” Mike stated, trying to focus his Mana sight harder on the ooze. The aura of Metal mana started to contract on the round body of the ooze and Mike focus as hard as he could, he narrowed his attunement trying to overlap it with his field of vision, wanting to focus whatever the AI had done to give him the ability to see mana.

It worked and the other kinds of mana in Mike’s periphery vanished as he focused in on the ooze. His mana sight seemed to penetrate the surface of the ooze and he could see the Metal mana that it physically contained. The mana was forming into hundreds of tiny lines just beneath the surface of the ooze, each a solid bar of golden Metal mana in Mike’s vision.

It only took a second for Mike to work it out. “Cover!” Mike said as he looked around, he saw a tree almost five metres away and began to sprint. Crosse didn’t ask questions and followed, quickly overtaking him.

Mike tried not to think about the ooze as he ran as hard as he could towards the tree. When he was only a couple of metres from it he heard a distinct popping noise and decided to jump. He dived towards the cover of the tree and felt a hot spike of pain lance up his leg as the front of his body slid into cover behind the tree.