74: Fights

Once everyone had eaten, the conversation quickly turned to the buffs—particularly the bread rolls.

As Jen pointed out, it shouldn’t have worked. I’d done tests with Geo, and any time he helped me with cooking, I couldn’t infuse the food. So how was this dough any different?

“Milo, any ideas why this dough let me infuse it, but all my tests with Geo ended in failure?” I asked.

Milo looked to be deep in thought for a long while.

“Well, I have a couple of theories… The first being the simplest: your restrictions might have been tied to your starting skills. Now that you’ve evolved out of them, you may have lost those limitations. It would be easy enough to test—and I think we should test it later today,” he said, still looking thoughtful.

“It didn’t say anything like that in the evolution, though,” I countered. “It did clarify that the buffs now affect anyone who eats the food, but that’s all.”

“True. My second theory is that perhaps the baker you bought the dough from uses some kind of evolved class skills to prepare it. Maybe his ingredients are processed without any manual labour—and it’s the labour that matters here,” Milo said.

“The system can be odd in how it interprets intent,” he continued. “It’s possible the baker didn’t consider the rolls truly started until he portioned or altered them. If that’s the case, the system might have recognised his intent, and the dough was still fair game for you.”

He glanced around. “But again, this is something we can test.”

“How?” I asked, feeling a bit stupid.

“Simple,” he said. “You’ve got the ingredients for dough on you. One of us will help you knead it, and then you take over from there. Do exactly what you did with these rolls—portion them, add the dried herb, bake them. If you can’t infuse it, the theory holds. If you can, then the restriction might be gone entirely.”

He sounded very sage-like at the end of that, and it seemed I wasn’t the only one who noticed—Liane gave him a light slap to the back of the head, laughing.

“Stop acting like you’re some wise scholar.”

“Compared to you lot, I am a scholar!” Milo retorted, rubbing the back of his head.

We quickly wrapped up breakfast after that. I stored the leftover porridge, and everyone took a spare roll for their storage—leaving me with just one extra.

Would you like to store [Common] Rockin’ Roll x1 for 5 mana? Yes/No

Strange name.

It didn’t take long for camp to be packed up, Crisplet to be back in his brazier and strapped to the horse. I couldn’t help but stare in awe at the scene—the two burning Treants were now nothing more than piles of ash.

Today, we’d continue along the forest edge until we hit the mountain base. From there, we’d backtrack almost all the way to town before turning down the path that cut through the forest. We’d have at least two more days on the road.

As we travelled, something became very clear: unlike yesterday, there was a lot more activity near the forest’s edge. In just the first couple of hours, two packs of Sky Wolves tried their luck. Unfortunately for them, both were cut down before they even reached Hari.

“What level would they be?” I asked curiously, wondering where I’d sit in terms of strength compared to one of them.

“We don’t really know exactly. Usually, on the forest edge, you’d expect creatures between level ten and twenty,” Milo said.

“But with the migration away from the centre, I’d say those Treants yesterday were at least in their high thirties—maybe low forties,” he added.

“How do you know if something’s too powerful if you can’t see its level?” I asked. I’d always wondered how people could just guess a monster’s level like that.

“Did you not feel it with the cat?” Jen asked, sounding a little surprised. “The higher the monster, the greater the pressure. You get this sense of ominous danger—it’s obvious when you’re facing any non-stealth creature.”

“I mean… I felt a bit of pressure, yeah. But it wasn’t that bad? Honestly, Kara’s glare felt worse,” I said with a nervous chuckle.

“That’s very curious,” Milo said. “When that cat appears, for me, it feels like the weight of the world is on my shoulders—while I’m being doused in freezing water. And we’re mid-forties level-wise.”

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“Same,” Jen added with a chuckle. “I can barely move when it’s there.”

“That’s something we’ll need to look into,” Milo said, frowning slightly. “Because that’s certainly not normal. I wonder if it’s just the cat. I assume so—since you said Kara gave you pressure too.” He pulled out a notebook and jotted something down.

We travelled for another couple of hours before finally reaching the base of the mountain—or rather, not even the true base. Even here, rockslides were evident, and the terrain quickly shifted from scattered trees and grass into a grey, rocky wasteland.

Liane emerged from the forest and rejoined us.

“How’s it looking in there?” Hari asked as she returned to her horse.

“A lot more lively than yesterday. There are a couple of large Phase Spiders lurking near the edge, but I don’t think they’re brave enough to come out into the open and fight,” Liane explained.

“Is it worth engaging them? Do they appear hostile?” he asked.

“Oh, absolutely hostile. If you had approached the treeline, they’d have gone for it. I think it’ll be a simple fight if we can draw them out of the trees, but we shouldn’t fight them in the forest. Their abilities will be far too effective in there,” she advised.

“Well, we shouldn’t just ignore them. If they’re stalking us, it’ll either be us or the next patrol that ends up dealing with them,” Milo added.

Jen groaned. “I hate spiders.”

Liane looked way too excited. “Wait till you see them! They’re at least twice the size of the one we cooked before!”