Sofia spent the next three hours flying around far above the forest, and tracking down nine more Firebirds, which all had the same mana imprint. She had also tried to absorb the imprints with Pareth’s heart after taking it with her own ,but as she suspected, each imprint could only be taken by one heart. This must have been why cooperation was an unrealistic expectation for the trial takers. After each fight, only one person would get the spoils. For Sofia it wasn’t as bad, as she had planned to share with Pareth from the start. As she absorbed the last imprint, she checked on her mana heart again, which she had Mr. Scribe rearrange the description of.

[Nascent mana heart of Aphenoreth]: /F tier/

9 months, 32 days, 22 hour

Imprint progress : 17.57/50

Effects (Will be doubled) :

• All stats -30% (F rank base)

• Mana + 1757

Decent progress. These birds are easy to spot but there aren’t so many of them around…

I managed to get three of them in decent enough shape for Bookie to eat. I just don’t know if I should do one page with three or three pages with one… One with one and one with two?

I’ll decide later… Still plenty of space in storage.

Still haven’t lost any life, so that’s good. Though there was that one close call when the Ironbeaks went after me. Had to sacrifice a bird carcasse to get rid of them…

Could have probably killed them without losing any life but I better get used to being overly careful.

The sun is starting to go down already, I feel like the days here must be a bit longer, but we arrived late. According to Michael, the night could be dangerous. I should find some kind of shelter, just in case I need it. I’ll backtrack to the tower if I don’t find anything else.

Sofia flew back up as high as she could, and looked around for anywhere that could offer some decent natural shelter to build a discreet bone-base. A good part of her bone storage was occupied by what were essentially building blocks to construct a large shelter; she had prepared enough bone walls in advance to build a castle, had she wanted to.

I wonder if just staying up there could be safe enough. I can use the latest level of VPPV to hide the light my wings make now, so flying at night isn’t as bad anymore. Still I’d feel safer with walls around.

I can still use the unlife runes to hide my presence too. But I might be overthinking. If anything, as long as nothing changes, night should be safer, in theory, with most creatures going to sleep.

Finally Sofia found something to her liking, a cave entrance on a small hill’s side, looking a bit like a bear den. She landed on top of the hill and sent Crowie down to scout the cave.

Using the runes tokens she had learned from Eternam and perfected since, she could see what Crowie was seeing. The cave was somewhat deep, going about twenty-five meters into the hillside and finishing in one large open cavity. And there was already a big occupant of the reptilian kind sleeping in the back.

[Emperor pearled snake - Lv. 283 - Imprint power : 85 - Effect : +8500 Health]

‘A fearsome giant snake with deadly neurotoxins, its scales are almost as hard as mithril. It boasts outstanding physical power and resilience as well as an innate resistance to magic but is also almost completely unable to use magic himself’

Oh, wow, that is one BIG snake.

Come back before it senses you, Crowie.

The sneaky crow skeleton made it back to Sofia and Pareth without waking the sleeping white snake.

Let’s deal with this and get in that cave before nightfall. The health should go to Pareth, so I don’t have to worry about fucking up the imprint.

Now how should I proceed?

I almost want to bolt it but a piercing bolt will never be enough to kill this in one hit unless I hit the head. Even if I hit the head it might survive… And an explosive bolt strong enough to potentially harm it will also destroy the entire hill…

Rot might not work and risks collapsing the hill too. I can’t take the risk to go there myself either.

Sofia brought up her small notebook, looking through Bookie’s increasingly long list of summons.

10 female stone Ogres 100 000 mana

That’ll be perfect.

The book of skeletons appeared in front of Sofia, opened at the page of the stone Ogres.

A minute later, Pareth was above the large snake, phased through the hillside thanks to the graveyard skeletons, while the stone Ogres were waiting in front of the cave in a line.

Two of you stay outside and block the entrance. The rest rush inside on my go.

Pareth, you ready?

Alright, three, two, one. GO!

The graveyard skeletons dropped Pareth inside of the cave, right on top of the giant white snake. His [Sanctified Grounds] immediately activated and the snake woke up, with just enough time to realize a giant skeleton was about to tackle it from above.

Sofia sat atop the hill, directing the stone ogres while Crowie stood on her head, vigilant about spotting any creature that might be drawn to the fight scene by the commotion.

Pareth grabbed the snake’s head with his two huge hands and held it against the ground while the stone ogres rushed inside. Already, stone pillars were forming from the cave walls, pressing against the long body of the snake to pin it in place.

The snake’s tail turned and whipped at Pareth, his [Flying shields of Light] appeared behind him, but the tail broke through them like paper, and hit his back with a violent crash. Pareth’s light armor shattered at the impact point.

Name : Pareth

Health : 37 146 780 / 37 146 780

Stamina : 12 600 384 / 12 600 384

Mana : 44 550 / 49 800

This fight is already over.

The Snake managed to free its head from Pareth, but its bite was not enough to damage him, and its neurotoxin, as strong as it might be, was completely pointless against a skeleton. Pareth kept wrestling with the snake to give time to the stone Ogres to seal it down, and when its movements were restricted enough, the skeleton started punching with spiked fists of light for his weapon.

The reptile was unbelievably tough, but after ten minutes of a violent slog, it fell, dead, without ever managing to actually harm pareth, only taking out two stone Ogres throughout the debacle.

‘You have defeated [Emperor pearled snake - Lv. 283 - Imprint mostly intact]’

Woah this was actually close, Pareth! Your mana almost ran out. We’re going to need to hunt a few mana imprints for you as well. No other monster approached, I think this might be because we’re on the snake’s territory.

Full imprint for Pareth… I can already update his heart…

[Nascent mana heart of Knowledge]:

Rank : E tier

Imprint power until next rank : 35/??

Effects (on use) :

All stats ??% (E rank base)

+8500 Health

Let’s get inside, the Ogres should be done cleaning up the cave.

Sofia’s legs were grabbed by two ghostly skeletons and she sank into the hill while she held onto Crowie.

She felt an urge at the back of her mind the second she entered the cave, but she held it back with a smile on her face.

“Not now, Bookie. We have to loot it first.”

This trial is great!

Sofia started by handing his mana heart to Pareth, who collected the imprint by copying how she had done it for the birds.

Using the admin’s dagger, Sofia butchered the huge snake. She collected what remained of its poison and poison glands as well as the entirety of its scaly skin, which had held out pretty well against Pareth’s assault.

It died of internal bleeding…

This is why skeletons are superior.

Sofia let the stone Ogre consolidate the walls a bit more and flatten the ground before she dispelled them, while Bookie was devouring the giant snake’s remains.

The book came back to Sofia in the middle of its meal.

“Is something wrong?”

Sofia walked up to the half-gone snake, and she could immediately see why Bookie had stopped his meal. Right in the middle of the snake’s abdomen was a big pearl as large as her head.

Oh. Pearled snake. Thanks.

Sofia stored the pearl in her eye and let Bookie get back to his meal.

She let the pearl out on the ground a bit further, and summoned a water stone to clean it up before identifying it.

[Pearl of the Emperor pearled snake] : A big pearl with a weak magic-repellant field.

That it? Alright, well, got it. I half-expected a new catalyst.

When Bookie came back again, he had a brand new page featuring the big snake’s skeleton and the number ‘300 000’.

“That’s an expensive one, like three whole sandworms.”

---

 

Sofia patiently waited inside the cave for the night to come, while she kept track of the outside with her mana senses. As the sun fell, things started getting weird.

The first thing was the cold. Sofia was functionally immune to the cold thanks to VPPV, but low temperatures were still slightly uncomfortable, and the outside was getting colder by the minute, slowly spreading to the cave.

Hoooly crap it’s freezing!

Frost formed on the cave walls, and Sofia had to stop breathing because despite dealing no damage, inhaling the cold air felt a bit like getting slapped from inside.

As night truly fell and no light made it through the cave’s straight shaft anymore, the temperature stopped dropping, but something else caught Sofia’s attention. The mana outside was doing something weird. It no longer flowed through the air like water currents, but started clumping up into bundles near the ground.

What the hell?

The formation of these clumps was sucking up all the ambient mana, even the cave she was in couldn’t escape it. Despite no clump of mana forming inside, all the ambient mana got drained by the ones forming outside.

No ambient mana at night… I’m used to mana-dry environments but it’s still uncomfortable, much more so than the cold. And it means I can’t fly at night…

Still, something else stopped Sofia’s train of thoughts.

The mana clumps started moving.

Not good!

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