CHAPTER 58: TO THE TRIAL (2)

As our part of 5 left the city and entered the vast plains I took in a deep breath excited to begin my next adventure. Dawn was as usual clinging around my neck perfecting her camouflage of being a fancy scarf. Giving her a quick scratch behind her budding horns I decided to check out my status since it had been a while since I last peopperly looked, and would be good to have a baseline and see how much it improved over the course of the trial.

[Status

Name - Lilliana

Species - Elf

Age - 18

Titles - One With Nature

Boons - Magically malleable, Expositional Aid, Submissive Desires

Class - Druid of Lust

Stats - Iron - Mind 2. Body 2. Soul 4]

Oh my soul has improved quite a lot! I guess having Ivy now living in my soul really gave it a workout. The rest of my improvements likely coming from my ability to advance through intercourse, gosh I loved that ability! It was even better now that using it I could effectively boost my companions, I wish I could boost Dawn too but with how it works that is not something I would even consider.

"Hey so should have asked this before but who is it that knows the right spot? I mean iv got a rough idea but..." I hesitantly asked the group hoping that they might be better prepaired than myself for finding the actual spot. Thankfully it seems I needn’t have worried as both Amanda and Zara both indicated that they knew where we needed to go. Knew I could trust my stoic vampires.

As we walked away from the city traffic on the road slowly decreased as we left the main roads and entered into the wilderness of the plains, apparently we would need to travel for roughly 50 kilometres. Whilst this could take in excess of 10 hours for a mundane person thanks to our advancement our casual walking pace was more like a steady jog for my pre magic self.

If we maintained this pace we should be looking at around 6 hours of travel which should leave us enough time to set up camp and have some dinner before calling it early for the night.

And so our little group continued on. We shared some stories and got to know Zara a little better. It turns out that within her clan when a child reaches the age of 5 they begin to train. And whilst people don’t unlock the ability to advance till they reach the age of 18 that doesn’t mean that they cannt unlock skills and train their body’s. In fact Zara declared quite proudly that when she finally unlocked the ability to advance her body stat instantly rose to Copper 7 which was indeed quite impressive! It showed that she already had a near superhuman physique, or I suppose super wolf? Either way it showed that Zara was truly dedicated to the way of the warrior.

But thanks to her upbringing she was also quite sheltered and whilst she wasn’t exactly socially awkward she was quite easy to tease. Something that all 3 of us did, but we were careful to never overstep. The last thing we would want is to upset our new teammate, we ballenced teasing her by dishing out jabs and jokes at all of our expense, well except Dawn I brooked no allowance to tease my little baby!

Speaking of Dawn after an hour of so she decided that she would like to stretch her wings somewhat and given that we were out in the open what better place to practice flying for real. So she uncoiled from my neck and decided that my head would be a suitable launch point to my chagrin. She tensed her legs and then launched herself off flapping her wings as powerfully as she could.

She actually managed to get some lift this time and before I knew it she was actually flying she stayed relatively close to the ground to my relief and flew in lazy circles around our small group. She would occasionally mix things up by trying some aerial manoeuvres, she was not exactly skilled just yet and managed to nearly crash several times but I could feel her excitement through our bond whenever she managed to successfully perform any manoeuvre.

We all naturally cheered her on and she fed off our praise. Zara was particularly enamoured by the little dragon and became her biggest fan. It seemed that Dawn was a sucker for praise as the little traitor actually landed on Zara’s shoulder and nussled against her head when she wanted to rest for a bit.

Whilst I wanted to be upset that Dawn would choose someone else I but that reaction down as I knew it was illogical. Plus seeing the unbridled joy on Zara’s face when Dawn showed her some affection erased any lingering unease I had.

We didn’t stop for lunch opting to just eat some pre prepaired food as we walked wanting to arrive at our destination sooner rather than later. Dawn did stop her flying practice when food was brought out and rejoined me around my neck as I fed her chunks of meat.

Ivy did pop out at one point which caused Zara to have a mini heart attack as she stared in abject shock and lust at the 9ft dryad. It took a bit to explain her to Zara who took it surprisingly well. "Wait so you gained a familiar from that staff you bought from my uncles shop? And she is actually gold rank but just has her power reduced to better match your own advancement? That is wild!"

"Ha, yeah it was quite the surprise for me too. When I managed to inspect it it just said that I could summon a golem from it, yet it seems like even that wasn’t quite true as now the staff is living in my soul and Ivy here is now bound to me soul deep." I scratched the back of my neck still somewhat struggling to grasp that fact, I still struggled to understand that I now had a fully sentient and sapient being bound to me and fully under my control. I still felt like it should bother me somewhat but wether it was because my magics were altering my view in the world or something in the bond itself ensured that I didn’t actually feel any discomfort from it.

That didn’t however stop me from promising myself that I would never treat Ivy poorly, if anything I would endeavour to treat her as one of my companions just like I would to Kana, Amanda and Dawn. And potentially Zara, although that would depend on how well we worked together during this trial but just based of what little we knew of her so far I was already quietly hopeful that she would choose to stick around with us after the fact.

But the day continued on and Ivy soon returned to my soul deciding that she didn’t fancy walking for too long. As a note whenever Ivy was outside of my soul she would require a steady supply of mana to stick around. And whilst I would be able to have her out perpetually she currently took around 3/4 of my total mana regen. When she was inside of my soul she did still require a constant source of mana but it was miniscule in comparison to when she was summoned. Ivy did mention that she would slowly accumulate her mana when sequestered in my soul which she could then utilise once summoned. And I could then in turn boost her regeneration by diverting more mana to her.

So she was technically a consistent drain in my mana but not to the point that I would be loosing mana thankfully.

As the day started to get later and the dual suns began to dip towards the horizon we finally laid eyes on the spot we were looking for. We knew this by the fact that their was a stone structure standing in the middle of the plains. That and the small encampment that was currently residing outside of the building. Around 40 tents were currently set up just outside and a number of fully kitted out adventures roamed around the campground.

My companions fit right in as they were kitted out in leathers for Kana and Amanda and a mix of leather and half plate for Zara. Meanwhile I was in my dress as per usual, I did spot a few other mage types roaming around in robes and dresses which I was thankful for, although none of them were quite as.. risqué as mine.

As we closed in on the camp a number of heads turned in our direction and a guild employee approached us and confirmed our identities quickly before they shuffled back towards the structure and settled back down into their chair.

Their was quite the mix of adventures gathered. From a group of humans in polished steel armour, to a group of Beastkin all dressed in hunting leathers. I even spotted a few of the rare demons. But since this was a trial for fresh Iron ranks it was safe to assume that they were all around our strength level.

Most folk just gave us a quick nod or shared polite greetings but as always there had to be an outlier. The group of fancy looking human knight wannabes sauntered over to our group, completly disregarding some of the other parties that were currently talking to us and pushing their way to the front. From there 1 man who was kitted out in the fanciest armour stepped forwards. He was wearing the same full plate as the rest but his was embellished with gold and silver filigree with a detailed rendition of a flower in azure was embossed in his right chest. His sword was equally decked out, it even had a giant gemstone as its pommel.

As for the man’s facial features they could be called handsome if not for the air of superiority and arrogance that he held about him. The way he turned his nose up at us coupled with the glare he gave Kana before disregarding her. He flitted his eyes across the rest of my party before he settled on me, his lust practically oozed out as he gazed hungrily at me. I felt my skin crawl as I let out a weary sigh already not wanting to deal with this.