"Boss!"
Eo stood up in a flash. What was a Phase II doing here?! Sure, one anomaly from before may have been acceptable, but two? And the exact same type?!
Eo looked around. He was near the border delineating Zone F and Zone E, and as such there were hardly any other Recruits here. He also couldn't see any Yellow Ranks here. That would make sense; no Yellow Ranks would want to be far away from the origin, that would make them look like cowards.
Eo had to play captain now.
"Utaris, try distracting the monster. Fire is flashy and hot, right?"
Utaris nodded. Eo continued.
"Then Lodan, use your sound element to destabilize it. Wifjad, use the wind to knock it off its feet. Jimean, impale it still with your stalagmites. Then, I'm going to try to cut its head off."
"Boss gets the cool flashy ending."
Eo ignored Lodan. "GUYS, THIS IS GOING TO BE ATTACK A! GO!"
Utaris heated up the dust in the air until it ignited into a flame. He directed the blast towards the demon-type.
The monster winced at the flames and roared. Utaris started yelling curses that would make any pirate cry while running away. The monster charged towards Utaris. It was much faster than Eo expected. The monster was about to pounce on Utaris when Lodan let out a sonic blast.
The monster faltered, and crouched to finish the pounce. As it was about to rebound from the floor, a powerful gale buffeted it from the side. The demon-type tilted to the side, and the attempted pounce resulted in it flying sideways and crashing into the floor.
As it was scrabbling on the floor, rock spikes synthesized below the monster. The synthesized stalagmites shot upwards, indiscriminately impaling it all over the limbs and chest. It was still alive, so Eo ran to finish it off.
Using his tangiform, Eo synthesized a dagger-chain and swung to strike the base of the monster's neck. With a sickening slurch, the monster's head flew off, trailing goo.
"Amazing, as expected of Boss."
"Lodan, we get it."
Jimean scrunched his eyes at the corpse. Then he looked at Eo.
"How do you manage to change the path of the daggers without touching them? I don't know any element that can do that…"
Eo shrugged.
"I don't know, maybe I'm a telekinetic!"
Eo grabbed the corpse and started to skin it, much to the horror of the rest of his gang.
"B-boss, I didn't know you were that hungry…"
"I'm not. I'm just trying to get the hide."
"The hide? What for?"
"The hide is extremely tough. It will make for semi-useful armor."
Eo then grimaced at all the holes.
"Maybe I shouldn't have told Jimean to use stalagmites…"
Jimean stiffened.
"I'm very sorry, boss! I will impale in a way that doesn't make holes next time!"
"You don't make any sense."
After an hour or so, Eo finished fashioning together 5 demon leather parkas. The stitched patches gave it the appearance of horribly made brown quilts. It also smelled horrible.
Eo looked at it weirdly.
"Let's try to burn off anything that isn't flesh."
Eo started singing the sides into the fire. After another hour, the sides of each parka was blackened. At least smelled more like smoke than rotting flesh.
Utaris put his on. It was hefty, but definitely tough. He pounded his chest.
"Yeah!"
"Was that really necessary?"
The five of them ate their rations in silence. Night was falling soon, and they had to return to the buses in a week..
While everyone else was starting to sleep, Eo established a night watch system. He told Jimean to take first shift.
Eo snuck off in the night to do some training.
Eo's insane essence training regimen rejuvenated his body, and as a result reduced his need to sleep. Eo thought this was amazing. He decided to constantly keep up with the essence circulation.
When he was about 50 meters away, he started practicing his tangiform. By practicing again and again, he managed to reach 88% purity. Eo attempted to exude his tangiform without it clinging onto anything, but he found that practically impossible. Instead, he decided to practice summoning chains. By visualizing and understanding the formation of chains and each of their links, he was able to synthesize them more quickly.
Eo finally started experimenting with other types of weapons and tools he could synthesize. He recognized the importance of being able to control chains, so he started thinking about how he could attach hooks, axes, maces, etc. onto the ends of the chains.
Eo also experimented with the chains itself. He made them thinner, thicker, or sometimes attached blades to it. He made chains that split into more chains, and made chains like whips.
After night had completely passed, Eo felt satisfied. He sat down and suddenly realized how tired he was. The fatigue hit him so badly that even essence circulation could only somewhat slow it down. Eo sluggishly walked back to his groupmates.
Lodan was on shift, and looked terrified.
"Oh, that's where you were, Eo. No one realized you were gone until I had already taken shift. Good thing you're still here."
Eo sleepily nodded and then collapsed in his group's tent.