The chef hated the meat from the monster though as it contained very little fat and was very tough thanks to the thick muscle fibers. This meant that he flat out ground it down before mixing it with peppers and other vegetables before making it into a giant set of patties before cooking them up and serving them on a set of massive buns as a giant loaded burger. Alex loved it as it was a nice mix of rich meaty flavor and mellow spice. He got the [bladed wings] trait from the meal which thanks to being rare ranked was unlocked automatically.-
It caused the front bones of his wings to taper off into sharp edges that he honestly couldn't see any use for but looked cool. Surprisingly Alex needed to wait for nearly an entire month before the reports of the dead zone past the guiding lands started coming in. During this time he mostly spent his time hunting any interesting monsters he came across. For example he had found a brachiodias that was a strange looking monster with smooth reflective dark blue skin. It also had strange growths out of it's head and front arms that produced explosive liquid and a tail with what could only be described as a flail on it.-
The monsters form of combat was an interesting mix of boxing and grenades thanks to it's explosive liquid. Unlike the [explosive poison] trait that Alex had this liquid actually had an inbuilt detonation timer as it covered whatever the monster hit and changed color from green to yellow and finally red before detonating. The tradeoff was that the explosion itself was much weaker than the trait Alex had. Still despite this Alex had no problem at all with killing and eating the blue bomber for it's trait , [burst fluid].-
The two traits ended up fusing however to create the legendary rank trait [grenade poison] that let Alex freely alter the way his explosive poison behaves. Things like how long to detonate , whether it needs a trigger and even the color of the explosion. Alex may or may not have gotten carried away with it and put on quite the fireworks display as a result. No-one really minded the display but the commander still told Alex to give them a heads up next time since it caught them off guard.-
Finally the day came when a meeting was held to discus an expedition into the desolate area that they didn't realize was the nest of the sofi jiiva. "While our approach is clear I want everyone to keep their eyes open down there as we have no idea what we might find." the commander said seriously and everyone nodded in agreement. 'Make sure to pack extra potions as well just in case you get knocked out of the sky.' Alex suggested despite knowing that such a thing wasn't going to happen. In fact if it played out like in the game it would only be after they landed that sofi would make it's presence known.-
To be more specific only after they saw the shed skin of the elder from when it was a zeno jiiva. Unlike what one may assume Alex actually didn't plan to take part in this expedition but rather the operation after it to take care of the fiery elder. Still his suggestion was a good idea so it was agreed upon that they would pack extra healing items. The expedition left the next day via the third fleets airship for most of the journey and the last exploration part on wingdrakes.-
Alex merely waited back at astera while they were away very much aware that first contact with this particular elder is not something they are prepared for at the moment. It was about mid day the next day when Alex's head snapped to look in a particular direction. It was odd like he could feel a separate existence far in that direction that was on his level. 'This must be what alatreon and fatalis felt that caused them to start to stir awake.' he thought seriously. Comparing powers Alex frowned slightly as he could tell that he fell short of sofi jiiva by about a notch.