Each of us greeted Ny before making sure he understood our plans and his role in them.
"We're heading to the lesser dead zone and I'm here as your guide and to allow communication between our tribes in the case that Petra attacks." Ny said, to which I nodded.
Rapt looked up at the sun and thought,' looks like we have enough time to make to the edge of the dead zone.'
"Let's move as close as possible towards the dead zone before we rest for the night." I say. Ny took point, due to the fact that he had the most experienced with the area.
Along the way, Blum and Orn decided to began teaching Rapt about the nature of the dead zones and how tribes fit into the scheme of its inner workings.
" The dead zones are chaotic areas, areas where beast can release their most primal urges. These zones are what allow this territory to function under the rules of the elder beasts. This is also how the truce between us and those Furyans is maintained."
"After their failed attempt on you, we don't know how much longer it might last though. So I would suggest that you use this time to become as strong as possible."
"There are two main ways that most tribes use their numerical advantage. The first is by working as a group to funneling the mana into one of their us. The second is going our separate ways to fight our own battles."
"I'll decide tomorrow before we enter the area", I say after 10 minutes.
From there we continue to follow Ny for three hours before leaving Gol's territory and entering the buffer area in between the two zones. Half through the area Rapt began to notice changes to their surroundings. The foliage until now was mainly saplings or trees that hadn't absorbed enough mana to gain a minor level of sentience. But now the trees were showing signs of starting the metamorphosis or being on the verge of completing it.
Unlike Beasts and Furyans, trees didn't have a natural affinity to a certain element from the start. They gained a gradually of the years producing a vast variety of different types of trees. Some even gain counterproductive elements like fire and electricity. This was rare and even rarer that such a tree would survive their manifestation of their own element.
Some Ny stopped by a strange looking tree and began to talk to it. Being confused by what was happening in front of me I look towards the others. I quickly noticed that none of them seemed surprised by his actions. I decided that I would ask Blum later about why Ny was talking to a tree. The 'conversation' from my point of view could be considered a one-sided.
After 30 minutes, Ny turned towards us and said, " we can stay here for tonight as it appears that some of Petra's forces are here. Apparently they arrived around three days ago and started causing more trouble than usual for those in the zone."
" Do you know how many are in the area?", I ask.
After hearing the question, Ny turned to the tree again. This time the tree shook slightly to my surprise, I must learn what's so special about this tree. Ny nodded to a 'tree' before turning back to me.
"Their exact numbers are not known, but there shouldn't be any more than 20. Apparently, one of them is has a very troublesome nature. This particular beast destroys the surrounding areas on purpose. Completely razing the area to the point that it takes years for the land to recover."
I suddenly felt more eager to enter the dead zone after hearing about Petra's group. Seeing that this would be our resting place for the night, I decided to talk to my new tribe members. We all gathered together near the weird tree and sat down.
During our talk, I found out that Blum and Orn were old rivals that grew up in the same Tribe. Blum was born a few weeks before Orn to first generation Tribe members, while Orn was found after his families tribe loss in a battle of tribal warfare.
The Tribes in this regional had a unspoken rule against the killing of cubs as they were easy targets. Unlike their humanoid counterparts, it wasn't based in honor or pity but rather pride in one combative prowess and the lack of mana gained compared to stronger beasts.
Since older beast were use to such events, they didn't mind taking care of the extra cubs. The younger beasts were different. They would generally see the 'adopted' beasts as the perfect prey since they lacked a backing outside of the tribal elders. The tribal leaders would promote the rivalries between the 'adopted' cubs and the generational cubs the strengthen the next generation.
Listening to the two elders speak on there pass, I would catch glimpses of their memories as if I was there myself. Sometimes these glimpses would be vague as if important information was missing. I then started to see a pattern forming as those vague glimpses would reappear again with more details as they continued to talk.
Other times they would both comment on a topic which created a more clearer glimpse compared to other. I continued to listen to the elder, becoming immersed in the memories that I viewed. This lead to me understanding some of their thought processes behind their decision to join my tribe. It was simply based on the accomplishment of defeating their leader. This meant that the cubs would now fall under my leadership without considering that their parents may be alive. Along with the cubs, the elders that took care of them came too.
Other topics would come and go as the elders spoke. Some of them were completely mind boggling to me like how days operated here were different from my time in the god domain. Apparently, the planet had two different suns that provided sunlight for the planet. Because of this, the planet has 640 days with 7 seasons. There was 2 summers, springs and fall; each having 24 hour days. Leaving winter being one season, which was the longest season with the longest days and nights lasting 48 hours each. Each season brought benefits to different elements like summer with its volatile storms and increased heat brought brought boosts to the electric and fire beasts.
Slowly my knowledge grew as I listened to these elders well into the night. When the moon was high in the sky, I went to sleep as Sorc and Ny stood watch. Sleep didn't come easy as excitement built up in me for two reasons: entering the dead zones and the timer counting down.
12 hours, 59 minutes, 36 seconds