Blue shadows jumped in haste through the intertwined trees, their screeching voices warning their far-away kin of the incoming danger

The purple monster and its silent dark shadow companion chased them through the forest with much vigour, they were a bit faster than it but the stubborn beast never stopped chasing, what was even more maddening was its shadowy companion that found whoever attempted to hide for this purple monster which always resulted in their comrade's quick death

More than once they wanted to hide but seeing that only the ones who tried to hide or got exhausted were killed the beasts decided it was better to keep their lives and flee while they can, perhaps this beast massacre would end before the death count wasn't too large

A somewhat large distance behind another Giba had its body sliced in half without mercy by this 'purple beast'

"Master, why can we not chase them with full speed? We have been hardly killing anything now"

At the beginning she had obliged but seeing the experience not moving too much she decided to inquire, it wasn't that she didn't think he had a plan but she merely wanted to know it

"For the same reason you don't corner a rat, because they will fight back"

That was all he needed to say for her to recall the massive number disadvantage and keep quiet

Digging into the dead corps YuJu pulled out a weird shaped bone that had many sharp edges filled with sticky blood, he didn't mind the blood too much and stored it in his left hand's storage where he kept such materials

Knowing better than to ask about it since she might receive a gruesome answer she decided to chase those cute panicking furballs instead

While dashing through the woods she noticed her master's gaze sweep through her body once again, synchronizing her figure and actions

"Your aura control has come a long way in the short span of time I was passed out"

His voice came just as she was about to question what she was doing wrong

She looked back at him puzzled and then down at herself, he wouldn't say so unless she achieved something new in it but nothing came to mind

'Is it the speed at which I release my aura? or the strength boost that it gives me'

Those areas she had indeed improved upon but she felt they weren't something worth praise

While she looked down she felt something was missing, she just couldn't pinpoint what it was

While lost in thought she made another jump to avoid the branches in the way, landing gracefully on the ground and moving forward again

This action though clarified her clouded memory, the absence of those jiggly jugs was too obvious to bear

Seeing realization dawn upon her face mixed with embarrassment he knew she finally noticed her state

"When did you manage to not rip off your clothes as you use your aura"

"I have no idea Master, I supposed it is because I constantly had it on during the long walk?"

"Just having it on doesn't give you insight nor does it improve the skills usage, only by guided practice and innovative uses can you accomplish such a thing, the only thing having your aura on would do is strengthen it rather than comprehend it"

She fell into thought after his words but he didn't want her to put too much focus on this right now, instead, he ordered her to put more effort into killing those fluffs

'She's improving at an alarming speed, even faster than when she used the swordsman class, she was born to be an aura master'

He never doubted his choice but he was more certain now that it was the best route

'Now her world view is stable, the journey must have grounded her enough not to centre her aura around everything she sees, I should leave her to learn on her own now, it's time to shift my target toward resources instead of training her, or perhaps...'

His eyes settled on Anput who was in his arms but he soon shook his head, her road was a long one and he couldn't start raising her too early, steady steps were the only way she could reach the difficult height he envisioned for her

With both Anput and Ellis out of the question, and Subrina, the bloodroot, and Mia not here he couldn't put his focus on any individual yet, which left him free to tackle the valuable treasures they would pass on their journey, and perhaps add a few more members to his budding group

'The headcount is little, though it's already more than what I had planned, I can't rush my choice though, every soul slot is a centrepiece in my plans'

Well, if those plans lived to see daylight with everything that had been cropping up left and right

"Master, the Giba are steering to the tight, do we give chase"

Ellis alerted him of the cowardly creatures new manoeuvre, his response was to shake his head, they merely slowed down for Ellis to get used to the potent poison, the killings were only a bonus

"Its time to go, run at maximum speed"

"Ye-" Whoom!

Before her acknowledgement came out his shadow zoomed from beside her, showing her the full capacity of an above one hundred agility

Her mood turned sullen at the need to push her heavy feet forward, it was necessary to catch up to him though and so she kicked against the tough ground, blowing up some leaves as her figure also shot forward

Running through the forest she freely displayed her aura's might, scaring any beast from blocking their path, as for caution it was unneeded as the Giba would not inhabitant any land with strong beasts

After spending two finally arrived at the edge of the forest while panting heavily, both equally tired since their vitality could barely support the speed they were going at, YuJu hadn't even used his full speed either and he was pretty much spent

Before the two tired speed sprinters lay a rocky ground, boulders scattered everywhere while howls and bird calls were heard even from this distance, the inhabitants of this land were much more ferocious than the forest dwellers it seemed

While they calmed their breathing he started to explain to Ellis the current route they would be taking

"First of we shall cross the southern parts of this unnamed rocky desert, it should take us about three days at maximum to reach the centre where we will take a detour to the east, avoiding a swarm of rather troublesome species of insects, there we will start our first massacre since we've left the borders, once we are done killing and looting we will return north-westward, getting back on track, from there we will keep moving north until we get to the end of the desert, with the few plans I have in mind it might take us a week to reach there after finishing our massacre"

He gave Ellis a few seconds to process everything and spoke once again

"This was basically the simplified version of my plan, if anything went wrong then you could just move in the approximate direction of this route, as for the plans you can directly ignore them as it would be too inconvenient to accomplish any of them without my presence"

That was all he had to say for now, it was time to move on

Taking lead YuJu scouted the area ahead with Ellis lagging further behind, from this point onward there were no 'safe' areas everything until the end of the desert was a huge question mark, danger could be hidden right under the earth, or it could be none existent in the entirety of the desert, either way, they would keep vigilant at all times

While scouting his keen eyes noticed a slightly off colour patch on one of the large boulders, by the shape of it he could guess at which creature it was, slowing his pace he let Ellis catch up and whispered into her ear

"Toward your nine o'clock, second-highest boulder, seventy centimetres left from its top, it's probably a scorpion-like beast"

To the professional info given she merely replied with a blank look, she thought a several kilometre cliff was as tall as a mere skyscraper, having this multi thousand-meter miscalculation made her sure mental measurement was a major downside of hers, this pinpoint specification was way out of her league

Seeing her blank face and ending her emotions he could tell she wasn't up to the task so he could only dejectedly point toward the scorpion who was staring at them for a while now, knowing that this would expose his knowledge of its location to it, now both parties had their surprise attack foiled and would have to engage in normal melee combat

At least that was how Ellis had planned to engage but the scorpion, who revealed lifted its tail up, wasn't planning to play by the book and shot the stinger atop its tail at the with speed faster than a bullet

Ting! Crack

The bullet of a stinger was met halfway with a gutting knife though which sent it off the mark, digging into the rocky earth

Ellis gave a thankful glance to her master before running to the stingerless beast, very sure of an easy victory

As for YuJu he wasn't surprised at all or nervous, he identified the specific type of scorpion this one was the second it showed the tip of its tail, thus while he couldn't actually match the bullet speed he could still throw the knife in the direction it would be shot before it actually did, if anything though he was sad to lose a knife so soon, he really didn't have many to begin with

'We really need some equipment'

He laminated, hoping to get a chance to loot some dagger focused class humanoid creatures on his way