It had been two months since they had come to the mysterios realm. While they had gotten better at teamwork during a fight, outside a fight Izzy was still a complete pain in the a**. Anna kept suggesting that they feed Izzy to one of the numerous beasts they had come across. After the third week no one knew if she was joking, not even herself.
The team had managed to collect forty horns, and four tons of crimson rock ore. They hadn't seen any wolf packs but they along with the lightning stones would only be found in the center region. Everyone had leveled up to the first level of the second tier. Jasmine was lucky enough to find a blood ginseng that allowed her to level up again. Out of the thirty-nine water rhinos they killed four had beast cores.
Jason had awakened the fire element and already made four trump cards centered around it. The first was an improvement on his 'cthulhu' spell, filling each tentacle with fire that would use the suckers to inject the flames inside the body if the prey, they tentacles would also explode now if broken rather than just dissipating. His most impressive spell was called "mana rpg". It created a ten meter squared bubble of mana then compressed the air inside into the size of a five centimeters squared ball. It then surrounded the ball in flames burning at 2,000°F, before furming a drill shaped cone over the fire. finally it would launch the spell. The drill spinning and sinking inside the target before the spell blew with the same force as a rpg-28 the most powerful anti-tank rpg. There were two very large downsides. One was that it took one and a half minutes to completely form after casting the sigil which took Jason almost thirty seconds by itself. The second was that it used up three thousand six hundred mana instantly, based on his and Jess's calculations the spell would most likely kill him by shattering his mana veins. This was a last option spell, he would only use it if he knew that he or his party would die if he didn't use it.
Thomas had awakened the water element, Jasmine was earth, Anna was water. William awakened fire but he was disappointed unlike Jason, as he had wanted wind as it was the best for an archer. Izzy had gotten wind, which wasn't to shocking as the royal family was most closely tied to the wind and lightning elements so was very likely to awaken lightning as well if he managed to ascend to the true cultivator rank.
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
Today was the first time they had seen signs of the iron wolves. They were currently tracking a pack of eight. They had all learned to move quietly through the woods over the last few weeks. noise could scare away their prey or far worse attract beasts they had no hope of beating. They had found that lesson out the hard way a week ago she the fight dragged on to long and a level nine two star rock bear came over attracted by the noise. Luckily they could all run fast except Izzy and Anna, Thomas grabbed Anna in his arms and sprinted away while jason threw Izzy onto his shoulders before following. They might have still failed to get away but the bear decided to take the very wounded water rhino instead, besides it offered more meat anyways.
After a few more minutes they found the wolves. Their luck could be considered really good or really bad. The wolves had led them to their den and were bedding down to sleep. The bad news was the original eight wolves became twenty adults and six cubs. Jason sent a few quick hand signals and everyone left the area quietly. The others followed jason back three hundred meters before the climbed a large tree to go over their plan. The reason for going up the tree was so none of the animals on the ground would come upon them and be startled.
"So what do you all think? This fight just got significantly harder. But Duke Evans had told me that the monster dens here would almost always have some kind of treasure that would help is on our path of strength." Jason questioned his team. This was to big a risk to make the choice on his own.
"I think we should pass on this. Eight wolves we can handle but it would be hard. With twelve I think we can scrape by, but I don't see how we could handle twenty wolves." Anna said with worry.
"Normally I would call Anna a coward but I agree with her even though I hate myself for it" Izzy said with his usual venom, causing both Thomas and Anna to glare at him.
"I believe that we can do it if we follow my plan" William hurried to interject trying to change the topic.
"Oh? What plan is that? " Jason asked with some hope as he wanted the treasure the Duke had hinted at.
Everyone turned to listen to William and his plan.
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
Jason snuck through the tree boughs towards the wolf den. He had masked his sent with a level one spell used to extract sent. it was very week so instead of using it on himself he used it on the wolves urine and applied the scent to his body. It would only last one hour but it was more than long enough.
He leaped from the final branch while casting level two levitate on his shoes. The spell didn't stop his fall but it slowed him down extremly so he didn't make any sound as he landed above the cave mouth. Jason immediately set up twelve of the level two mana mines two feet back from the edge, followed by another twelve set exactly one foot back from the first line of mana landmines.
Setting all twenty-four mana landmines cost a grand total of two thousand four hundred mana, but sense the cost was over many spells Jason felt zero strain on his mana veins. Jason crouched against a corner twelve feet back, he would have moved further but the mountain had a sheer cliff behind him. Jason decided to spend another two thousand on ten if his improved level two mana shields giving him two hundred and fifty protection each for a combined total of two thousand five hundred five hundred more than if he used a basic level two mana shield ten times, even though they cost the same to cast.
Jason only had a hundred mana left but sense the battle wouldn't start for thirty minutes he would be able to regen about a thousand mana before the fight started.
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
Izzy set eight wind turbine traps on trees facing the wolves dens. Each trap cost her three hundred mana, leaving him only six hundred mana. Izzy was originally proud of his high mana pool, double what a typical mage had. He had even bragged about it when William has asked while sending a smirk at the so called team leader. Soon after William asked jason his mana capacity to further help the plan. everyone besides Thomas and Anna were astonished when he said he had four thousand five hundred mana, meaning his capacity was three times the norm. The most shocking thing was that jason had only recieved body strengthening medicine for a month so this constitution was purely from hard work and possibly talent.
Izzy set under a tree holding a focus crystal the queen loaned him to increase his mana regen speed fifty percent. Even the queen couldn't afford to give a mortal rank cultivator a focus crystal, even if it's her son, as they cost thirty platinum a piece since it worked just as well for true cultivator and Lord cutltivators. With it he should be able to regen a little over a thousand mana before the fight started since his base regen was twenty-four and with the crystal it was thirty-six mana per minute. He would be shocked and pissed to discover that Jason could regen thirty-four mana per minute without outside help.
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
Anna set up a 'palace of life' sigil it was a single large semi permanent sigil placed on the ground. it was a rare level two healing spell with no set cost. to creat the sigil took five mana, but the caster could slowly keep adding mana to it, every five additional mana could heal a small scratch. Every fifty mana would heal a large cut. One hundred and fifty mana would heal a broken arm. One thousand five hundred mana would allow the sigil to reattach an arm, though not regrow one. to regrow a limb would cost fifteen thousand mana far more than they had time to add. with the thirty minutes before the fight Anna believed she could add maybe two thousand mana. Anna only had two thousand five hundred mana. putting two thousand mana slowly into the spell and refining heavenly energy into mana for the next thirty minutes she should have about one thousand for the coming battle.
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
Jasmine carefully laid out six feet by six inch straps with sharpened obsidian spikes roughly three inches tall and and placed every four inches. In total there was thirty-six obsidian spikes on each strap. This obsidian was unlike the obsidian of Jason's Earth, while it was just as sharp it was as hard as steel.
Jasmine laid out all forty straps that William had given her, placing them around disorderly yet were none touched and all covering the forest floor leasing to the clearing behind her. The small clearing behind her was were Anna and Izzy had set up.
After setting the last trap down Jasmine moved behind a tree and sat down to rest. waiting for the thirty minutes and Williams signal.
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
William was slowly adding screech venom to each arrow in his quiver. Screech venom got its name because when it is injected in the blood it makes a sound attack inside the body like screeching. Strangely even though it was internal those with better hearing often suffered more. Normally william would use a poison if he wanted to increase damage but the mission called for the meat, and he knew that Jason wanted some alpha iron wolf meat himself, so he choose to use this venom as after twenty minutes the meat would be safe to eat with zero side effects from the venom. After he had applied the venom to one hundred arrows and was at the right vantage point to do the best damage he pulled out an arrow without venom and used the skill flame arrow on it shooting it at one of the three alphas outside the den.