Limitless Path

Finally, she noted none of their skills had actually advanced despite killing a whole swarm of similar level beasts. It looked like it really would be pretty tough to grow stronger based on fighting lower leveled beasts. She sat back and meditated for a while alongside Blood after she was done with her 'administrative' minutia, only hopping up after close to an hour had passed, turning to Blood as she did so.

"Since we're gonna rest here anyway, wanna look around?" she asked the large wolf. Blood gave a quiet bark in response, her consent to the idea clear to Beth.

The two of them moved out, away from the door to the next floor that had appeared. Beth wasn't really sure of all the rules of this place, but how she interpreted it was that she basically had as much time as she wanted to clear the trial. Given that assumption as the foundation of her theories, she thought it wouldn't hurt to have a look around and see if there was anything actually to these floors beyond the initial area.

"I'm surprisingly not as hungry or thirsty as I thought after a whole day spent in here fighting. You feel the same, girl?" she said to Blood. Her companion gave a low bark and a nodding motion. "Maybe it's something to do with the trial area or something. Though, I really wouldn't mind a drink…or some food."

The two walked for a little while, heading straight away from the rat-fight area in a direction Beth thought might be north, but wasn't really sure. They walked for a while without seeing or hearing anything but the large trees, a light wind occasionally producing a susurrus. As Beth was getting a little bit discouraged from the constant sameness, they began to hear a new noise. It only took her a few moments to recognize the sound of running water, another minute later the two of them coming upon a small creek running through the woods.

"Water, at least. Time for a drink?" Beth said to Blood. Blood actually moved in front of her and pushed her back a little.

"What's up? Don't trust the water?" Blood gave her a little growl, but then turned to the water and walked forward before dipping her muzzle in and drinking.

After drinking a little she moved back and sat down. Beth realized that she was essentially testing the water first, seeing if there was anything dangerous before Beth drank. Beth moved forward and silently hugged Blood around the neck, gently scratching her while they waited to see if there were any issues with the creek.

After almost half an hour, Beth made the decision, seeing as how Blood was totally fine, to drink herself. She walked over to the water a little upstream of where they were sitting, kneeling down and looking around carefully. After determining there weren't any threats in or near the river, Beth just leaned straight down and stuck her face in the water. She drank deeply from the creek, slaking her thirst and then some. Without any kind of bottle with her today, she would have to make sure to get her fill before they moved on.

Once they had had their fill of water, they set out once again to explore. Beth was eager to see if there was anything else around, including anything that might be edible. The forest was disappointingly empty, at least in Beth's mind, nothing but trees and the occasional small bush. They walked on in the same direction they had been traveling for another twenty minutes before finding something out of place. It was, in fact, a large bush with several berries on it.

The berries on the bush in front of them were more like a fruit, the size of a small apple and slightly oblong in shape. They were a dull, burnt orange in color, almost opposite on the tone spectrum than what an orange would be. The two walked up and stopped right next to the bush, Beth looking around while Blood sniffed at the bush itself. They didn't really see anything out of order, and Beth decided she would try something unusual and use Identify on the plant. Somewhat as she expected, the bush didn't seem to have any reaction to the ability.

Deciding to continue the unconventional experiments, Beth tried to activate Identify again and at the same time, infused her eyes with magic. She realized almost the moment she did it that it was a mistake, as there was a sharp pain in her eyes and her vision became blurry.

"Shit!" she snapped, immediately kneeling on the ground and going into meditation, moving a thread of mana out of her core almost by instinct. Blood gave a concerned bark, and Beth could hear her moving over to her side after the bark, but Beth put her full concentration on her eyes. Once burned, twice shy, and she certainly took a much more cautious approach now that her fumbling had already injured herself to such a degree.

It was about ten minutes of careful application of the skill before the pain was all gone and Beth felt her eyes were totally fine again. Coming up out of meditation she opened them straight away, looking around carefully. She could see everything around the bush clearly, Blood sitting next to her with a little bit of a frown, her head tilted slightly to the side.

"Well, I thought it was a good idea at the time," Beth said a little sheepishly. Blood simply growled in response, narrowing her eyes.

"OK, OK, I'm definitely not doing that again. Certainly not before I know a shit ton more about magic…and a lot more about biology," Blood responded with a bit of a 'humph' and turned back to observing the bush. "At least my eyes seem to have gotten a little better from that. Not that I think it's worth it." Beth finished before hopping up, moving up to the bush.

Blood once again intercepted Beth, moving in to block her from reaching the bush. "Let me check it on my skin first, then you can try one," Beth insisted, removing her left glove as she stepped up next to the large bush. She first tried pressing her hand against one of the fruits, pressing the back of her exposed left hand against the skin of the fruit. After holding it there for a little while she stepped back and waited, both of them staring at the back of her hand. The fruit had felt warm with a somewhat soft skin, and they found the skin was apparently not poisonous in any way.

Beth moved forward again and carefully plucked one of the fruits. She cut it open easily just with the edge of her fingernail, and then rubbed some of the juice on the back of her left hand. She set the fruit on the ground and then sat down to meditate with Blood standing guard. She didn't start the healing process of her regenerative skill, but she did use a little of the knowledge imparted by the skill to observe her hand thoroughly while she meditated. She spent fifteen minutes observing the juice of the fruit on her hand and found that it was, in fact, just fruit juice.

Having determined that it didn't seem to pose a danger externally, it was time to see what eating it would do. She motioned to Blood to grab one of the fruits herself, and she proceeded to do so, grabbing one with her large jaws and plucking it from the large bush with a quick jerk of her head.

With a few quick chomps, followed by a little chewing with her eyes scrunched, Blood spit out a huge pit before the rest of the fruit disappeared down her throat, the wolf walking a few steps away to sit down and wait. She had also entered a meditative state, doing much the same as Beth had done earlier, monitoring her body for any changes while her body started to digest the fruit. Beth re-entered meditation beside her while she waited, the two of them waiting for close to an hour's time for any ill effect to manifest.

Beth finally couldn't take it anymore and tore into her own fruit from earlier, eating around the pit until all the flesh was gone. Following that it was a free-for-all, as Beth and Blood tore through the fruits on the bush, eating their fill of both. Despite this terrifying destruction, they hadn't even eaten a quarter of what was on the plant. Beth pocketed some of the seeds, thinking maybe she might be able to grow her own tasty fruit bush back on Earth.

"God, I wish I had a backpack or something," Beth grumbled, looking at all the fruit left on the bush. "Screw it, I just really want a storage ring. Being able to keep everything including the kitchen sink just on my finger would be so cool." She turned to Blood and raised an eyebrow, "You want to camp out here to rest?"

Blood responded by shaking her head before walking around the bush, making a few growling noises, before moving away, only to stalk back and snarl at the air. She then moved to the side and acted like she bit into something or someone before looking at Beth again.

"I'm not super bright but let me see if I got that. Other things like the rats, or maybe even worse, would be coming here for food…so we should find somewhere else to camp?" Beth asked her companion, who nodded in response before coming over and rubbing her head against Beth's torso.

"I'm glad I have such a smart friend with me," Beth said, rubbing Blood's neck in return.

Blood set off after another minute, continuing in the direction they had been traveling previously. Beth followed along after, happy to let the wolf, who seemed naturally at home in the forest, lead the way. They journeyed for some time before they found a little depression in the land between three particularly large trees. Beth spent a moment combing around for a number of large branches before easily climbing what just a handful of days ago would be a large distance to break off a number more.

She didn't have anything to bind them with, but she was still able to wedge a couple large, mostly bare branches into the ground near the top of the gully and stretch them out over part of it before enmeshing several leafy branches together on top. Blood assisted with dragging some branches and heavy material over to build up the sides some, and with a few more branches and some loose brush added in, it formed a sloppy but viable shelter.

The two found some loose, leafy material and some thick frondlike plants which they gathered up and spread across the floor of the makeshift shelter. Once they were satisfied, they crawled inside and curled up together, Beth wrapping an arm around Blood and snuggling against her before dropping off to sleep. Their luck held up, or there was simply nothing else there, as they woke up unmolested only about five hours or so later. The massive boosts to their END were clearly kicking in even more now, as the two had been quite tired after all the fighting but were back up to fully refreshed after a relatively short sleep.

The two got up and made their way back to the dark fruit bush, doing further work on the ripe fruit hanging there. Afterwards was a stop at the small creek, where they not only drank deeply, they also took some time to scrub themselves off a little. The water was only a little cool and not cold, and after they had washed the relatively warm air dried them fairly quickly. Now fully rested and refreshed, they made their way back to the location of the double door, ready to head to the next floor to continue the trial.

"We should do a little exploring after clearing the next floor too. Damn, I regret being too eager on the last few floors," Beth said as they stood at the door. Blood just bumped Beth's torso with her head. "Right, no point moping. Good thing we can learn somewhere a mistake doesn't just instantly kill us. Have to pay better attention going forward."

Beth once again stepped up and opened the door to the next floor the same as all the others, and the two walked through after it had swung fully inward. A moment later they found themselves standing on an open plain with grass that came nearly up to Beth's waist. Beth, having grown from her leveling, seemingly going through a decent portion of what remained of puberty over the course of a few days as she leveled to ten, was now five foot ten inches. This meant the grass was a little under three feet high across most of the plains. Beth was immediately put in mind of the pictures she had seen of areas in Africa such as the Serengeti, with the obvious exception being that the sun in this sky here had a slight bluish tinge.

The two girls looked around for their next opponent, taking a minute to actually distinguish them in the tall grasses. Once she had spied what they were up against Beth barely bit back a string of curses. There was no other way to describe the beasts than as lions, though their fur was a more silver-bluish color to better blend in with the grasses in this environment, both the light of the sun and the grass itself a factor in the coloring. Beth and Blood spent a little time surveying the area, getting a feel for how the lions were moving and trying to gauge their strength and speed based on their patrolling.

"Well, what do you think? Not an easy opponent, for sure," Beth said, turning to Blood. Blood made a motion like a shrug and then a grin, showing all of her quite large fangs.

"Right, guess we just have to get on with it. The more time we take on this, the more times we have to sleep on the ground in the middle of a weird forest," Blood chuffed at that, the wicked grin disappearing.

"Look, it's fine for you, but I prefer a bed, especially one in a warm room after a delicious meal, alright?" Blood actually fully rolled her eyes at that before turning to move towards the first lion.

"Guess that conversation's over," Beth muttered, trailing after the massive wolf.