Celia took a deep breath and then let it out as she stood over the bodies of the wolves she had killed. Normal wolves would have been no trouble for her by now but these were no ordinary wolves, they were greater wolves one and all. Each tier two and on even footing with her, still she had killed them all. Her level had been slowly creeping forward during the chaos of the nobles and monster rampage. She had been doing her best to keep well away from all of it, she had even gone so far as to move back to Corinth for a little while once she heard the dungeon town had been taken over.

She rubbed her forehead and began skinning the wolves in a messy and disgusting process. What she had heard from the dungeon town was very inconsistent, everything ranging from it being taken over by the Bancrofts, to one of the Storms having died and there would be war soon. Personally, she thought that war was rather unlikely, there hadn’t been any mass recruitments or gathering of soldiers. But what did she know, she was just a city girl turned adventurer. She was getting a big appreciation for the wilderness though, aside from the ravening monsters there was a large lack of other people’s problems which was nice.

As she gathered up as many pelts as she could carry, Celia paused and checked her status, glancing in a pool of cooling blood. She grinned to herself as she saw, level 21, she felt like she had been close to her next level and it looked like she was right. That meant she had gained almost ten levels outside of the dungeon. That seemed like a lot to her, and it was really because of how many contracts she had been getting. The normal monsters didn’t go away just because there was a bigger, and scarier monster in the area. The contracts not only let her get paid for leveling, but they also helped her find monsters without having to look too hard herself.

Sure she could go wandering through the forest and hope she got lucky, she had even improved somewhat on her tracking, but it still wasn’t a great idea. For one, it was almost asking to get ambushed, which had happened to her a few times anyway, and tier two monsters were common, but they were still spread out far enough that she could wander for a few days and not find any if they didn’t want to be found. All in all, contracts were the best way to go, and she could pick which ones to take and keep as far away as possible from where the rampaging monster was supposed to be. She had heard a rumor that the beast might be dead, but she didn’t want to take any chances. Getting torn to shreds by a monster far more powerful than her was not high on her list of ways to die.

“Why hello there fancy meeting you out here.” Celia jumped in surprise wheeling around as fast as possible, dropping her skinning knife and drawing her daggers. She was confident she could get away from anyone of her own tier, especially with her not-so-new movement technique, but if it was someone a lot stronger than her she could be in trouble. “Nice reaction time, not a bad use of chakra either for a beginner.” She gritted her teeth as a familiar wave of pain washed over her, it was fortunately short-lived as her body rapidly repaired itself, pain was an old friend by this point.

The person standing in front of her was not what she had been expecting, well she didn’t really know what she had been expecting in the first place but it certainly wasn’t this. The rather young-looking woman sat in a lounge chair waving at her, as she took a bite of an apple in her hand. “Hey kid, how's it going? Let’s see you took down those big puppies over there so let's count that as one test, your reaction was quick enough so let's count that as two. So just one more test aren’t you a little overachiever.”

Celia squinted at the clearly disturbed woman who was now babbling nonsense, anyone who dragged a massive recliner this far into the woods had issues. The woman’s hand casually waved through the air, and she saw a flicker in the corner of her eye as her instincts screamed at her. She flung herself to the side as something whizzed by her, and crashed into a tree. She flung a knife at her attacker and then dropped to the forest floor as the recoil of using her power hit her like a hammer.

“No need to get testy like I said that was only a test, one you passed by the way.” Celia glared up at the psychotic woman now spinning her dagger and grinning down at her. She had no idea how this person had gotten from their chair to in front of her in less than a second, but they had done it. That either meant Celia was losing it or this person was insanely powerful, that fact did not stop her from trying to glare whole through her attacker though. “Oh come on don’t give me that look, I made sure the blade was blunted and everything, you would have been fine even if you had failed. But you didn’t fail, good for you! Now we can get to training after your body recovers, rather sloppy work by the way you need to work on your control with higher amounts of chakra.

Celia gritted her teeth and hauled herself to her knees and looked behind her. There was a massive crater in the tree she had been standing in front of, blunt or not wouldn’t have made a difference if the so-called knife had actually hit her. Painfully she slumped in a half-kneeling position unable to rise any further as her body slowly repaired itself with chakra. The crazy woman leaned down and stared her right in the eye. “I heard my grandson is around the local dungeon somewhere, I bet he could use an assassin on his team. We’re always in such short supply, you’ll need a bit of work, but that’s fine.”

Celia finally got her breathing under control and gasped out. “Who?”

The woman tilted her head and nodded. “Oh that’s right, forgive my rudeness. You can call me master Sophia, I’m sure we’ll be great friends.” Despite her weakened condition Celia had enough of this craziness and started crawling away. “You’re right let's get going then.” Entirely too strong arms lifted her up and before she knew it she was being carried through the forest like a piece of luggage. The trees raced by way too quickly and it was all she could do to keep her lunch down. Mentally she cursed Sophia up and down, she left her pelts and her skinning knife back in the forest. Groaning at a particularly sharp bump she was forced to conclude that this might be the least of her problems.

Kira sat in a clearing just outside of the dungeon town, she was doing some important research on her new powers and couldn’t be disturbed right now. She definitely wasn’t hiding from her work so she could play with her new mana type. Shaking her head she went back to work, she was researching not playing, playing sounded entirely too much like Silas for her taste. She was going to have so much to do when she got back, she was only taking a couple of days off, how much damage could he do?

Immediately she cursed herself for jinxing things, and then took a deep breath. Nothing was truly going to upset her today, not when her new power was so fascinating. She drew out her mana and converted it effortlessly into nature mana, her hard work finally paying off. Nature mana was similar to plant mana so she had a place to start. For one thing, nature mana didn’t do as well as any sort of projectile. She had tried it and it was only a little bit more powerful than a normal mana bolt. She had kind of been expecting that, but where nature mana really shined was creating temporary constructs to fight with.

When she had plant mana this had manifested as thorns and vines she could attack with. However, with nature mana, she could form an entire temporary tree around herself for protection. Not only that but her ability to see through her construct was greatly increased, which meant she could completely cut herself off from the battle and still participate. No more getting stabbed in the back unexpectedly, unless the chakra user was insanely strong. Her new tree shield was still mana after all but from her testing, it seemed like it was a lot stronger than a normal mana shield. There were probably other things she was missing about her new mana type, but at least she had figured out enough to use it in battle.

She experimentally lashed out with a branch from the tree construct surrounding her. The wooden limb cracked through the air like a whip, swift and dangerous, great for quick and harassing attacks. Next, she struck out with a root, aiming for a rock at the edge of the clearing, her construct sailed through the stone like butter. Kira grinned to herself, branches to harass or target lightly armored enemies and roots to pierce through shields and armor. She again noted the similarities to her previous plant mana, but far stronger of course.

“Hey there, that’s a rather interesting tree. Do you think it's a monster tree apprentice? Oh yeah, I decided to promote you from student to apprentice, feel free to call me master now.” Kira peered through the tree to see a rather unusual pair walking into the clearing. One of them was an adventurer with leather armor and daggers. She was looking rather miserable though like she might throw up at any second as she was carried around by the second woman. The second one was tall with dark hair and eyes. Kira wasn’t sure what she was wearing but it looked too fancy for an adventurer and too gaudy. “Do you think we should kill this monster tree apprentice? It should be good training for you. Apprentice?

The apprentice girl had dropped to the ground and was now actually vomiting. Kira carefully split open the front of the tree and waved at the newcomers. “Hello there, I am not in fact a monster, I’m a mage, my name is Kira. Are you new to the dungeon town?” They didn’t act like bandits or people who would attack another human, but she kept her construct fully powered just in case. She couldn’t remember seeing this particular pair before but there were a lot of people around so she could be mistaken.

“My name is Sophia, and I am new to the area, yes. My new apprentice has been around here for a little while unless I miss my guess. Isn’t that right apprentice.” The girl nodded mutely before mouthing help at Kira, that wasn’t good. “I’m actually here to deliver a message and visit my grandson, you wouldn’t happen to know where the mage guild is, do you?” Kira squinted at the woman, the mage guild was really obvious. It was the only stone tower in town.

“Yes I do, if you go through the gate just keep going straight until you see the big stone tower, that’s the building you're looking for.”

“Great thanks, let's get going, apprentice.” The younger woman was looking at her frantically, and she couldn’t do nothing.

“I know an inn that has some very good bathes, why don’t I bring your apprentice to visit and she can meet you in the mage tower after she gets cleaned up?” It would also allow her to hear what was going on from the maybe kidnapped victim.

Sophia took a look at the younger woman’s dirty and vomit-speckled clothes. “That’s a good idea, I’ll meet you at the mage guild later apprentice. It was nice to meet you, Kira.” With that, the strange woman blurred slightly and then was one in a burst of speed. She shook her head wondering what tier Sophia might be.

“Come on let's get you cleaned up. Then you can tell me exactly what’s going on, don’t worry if it's anything bad. I'm sure guild master Silas will protect you, he’s quite strong.” The girl nodded reluctantly and they began to make their way into town.