Hariot was humming a little tune, in a mix of frustration and elation.
He was frustrated at the face of a lack of progress with his attempts to compress mana in his manapool and a slight lack of sleep, but elated at the fact that Seria hadn't run away last night.
He was not comfortable with a major time investment of his just leaving, although he wasn't comfortable admitting it; It would be a waste if he had to kill her.
Mostly due to his already substantial investment by his standards, and less so any emotional connections.
And all of this meant; It wasn't a huge waste of time to not kill the serf.
Hariot's thought process was instantly interrupted, as he spotted a beyklir nearby; Him still holding onto a magic bolt in his palm worth more than 30 mp while he built up even more mana in his mana pool; Ignoring the slight stinging feeling coming from his chestal cavity.
After a moment of thought, he finally decided what to do with it "Seria, go kill it."
"...Okay." Seria answered after a pause out of getting caught of guard, since Hariot had not let her do much of anything with beyklirs they found- Except helping him harvest the gallbladders.
Hariot nodded as he walked back a bit "I'd warn you to not get to close to it if you were used to that sword, but since you aren't; I don't really know what to tell you except that it almost always attacks in straight lines so you can just step to the side whenever you're scared."
This was the first beyklir he had spotted today, and after figuring out that he didn't feel like wasting mana in order to get 'Combat experience' and 'Battle-boosted mastery'.
It was even good for Seria's mastery, though it was more important for him to just obscure the fact that yesterday's choice to sleep in the woods was merely to test her.
He mentally shook his head with a smirk, she would never know; which was why it was slightly entertaining to know about.
He took a deep breath and started to ponder about all the memories related to air; which was basically exclusive to breathing it in, and a strong wind blowing about.
So he obviously had to first thread all those memories of breathing into one single chain, which was quickly shown to be a monumental task, due to the humongous amount of times he breathed in these two dozen years of life.
Though this large number of applicable memories was a good thing, the problem was the lack of impact and importance held within them.
If he put all those memories together, they'd have a better effect than the collection of fire memories, but it'd be repetitive, boring, exhausting, and time-consuming.
This was the same with both water and earth.
He had drunk water countless times; Seen a few rivers in his time too, so that was a plus; But after some time he found that also wasn't enough.
Same with earth, Hariot had a quite a few memories with dirt and rock, like when he threw a rock at a fellow orphan; Fun times. There's also the fact that he was standing on solid ground at this very moment. But again, not enough for a quick fix like fire.
His thoughts were set on pause when he saw a second beyklir suddenly rush out from the bushes- Seemingly coming from a far- And heading in an arc to Seria's visible little neck, whose brain seemingly forgot his obvious advice and didn't step to the side.
The fact that a distant beyklir had rushed over at the sound of combat wasn't super surprising, though a bit rare in all honesty. The big problem was that the beyklir that was originally attack didn't keep on with what it was supposed to at it's distance of 1 meter; rush for Seria's ankles, and instead paused for a moment, then jumped itself.
But luckily, he had something prepared for such occasions.
Cursing mentally, his right hand burst forth; His mental energy intertwining with the compressed mana of his magic bolt before turning into a spell along with it, before launching forth and bursting the newcomer to the altercation.
Although the sudden death of the cause of her crisis shocked Seria, it seemed that her system-support was working properly again; Seeing as to how she stepped to the side of the beyklir that was still flying through the air.
Hariot could easily tell it was the system's support from the shock and nervousness on her face while dodging along with the twitches coming from her legs and hands all the while, the less indicative sign was Seria confusedly looking at her limbs while still scared.
That latter part especially annoyed him, its prolonged duration showing that she didn't even know about the system's support; which he would have to explain to her after this was over.
He unsheathed his sword and ran over while taking the mana in his shrunken mana rings while also harvesting the compressed mana from his mana pool and forming a new magic bolt right before his heart.
"Seems that this little excursion was a mistake." He stated, suppressing the mental seething occurring within his brain with the fact that he could now get out of this forest with the excuse of her being useless and no longer needing to waste time to placate her potential suspicions.
Luckily he hadn't been super dramatic and watched from only five or so meters away, and could reach Seria before the beyklir could get any ideas.
Of course, as a caution, he hooked his foot around the back of Seria's knee and pulled to force her to fall to the ground- Just for safety reasons, Hariot didn't want her to suddenly put a sword through his back "Sit on the ground and think of your faults."
He put his blade before him as he kept an eye on the newly leaping beyklir, and noted it's trajectory and stepped to the side slightly while putting the blade's dull side towards the arrogant beast daring to think he could be slain by means of its inferior claws and fangs.
Just before the beyklir was to slam into the upper half of his sword, he twisted his side in the same direction that the beyklir was flying towards and raised his sword while re-orienting it slightly; Finally slashing off the beyklir's head a moment later.
He took three steps back in order to make sure no blood tainted his shoes, then quickly sweeped his gaze across the area for any other unexpected occurances.
"We are leaving, right now." He stated as he returned to Seria without even bothering to harvest the gallbladders, showing his dire he considered this situation.
Beyklir weren't supposed to have the mental capacity to be able to even take other beyklir into consideration when fighting, their instincts were simple; more than 5 meters away? Rush and leap at their neck. More than 10 meters away? Don't bother. Less than 3 meters away? Bite their ankles. Between 5 and 3 meters away? Pick between biting their ankles and leaping.
The fact that one beyklir leapt instead of going for the ankles the moment another beyklir appeared, defying all the records of beyklir instincts gathered by Hariot, that was not supposed to happen.
Something was wrong with the beyklirs in this forest, very wrong. Beyklir were able to be in close proximity without territorial disputes, work together somewhat, and it seemed to be a gradual change too.
It was visible to him, and it didn't seem like this little morph of the beyklir's instincts was going to end abruptly. And since Hariot was already full of gallbladders, while also not liking to take risks; He decided that seeing the evolution of a race was not currently at the top of his bucket list.
He walked up the the still shocked and confused Seria, and forced her back to her feet by the shoulder.
"What- What happened just now?" She queried to him, it obvious she questioned for how her body moved beyond the confines of her fear stricken state.
Hariot sadly, was not in the mood to answer her very simple question "I'll tell you later, in the city, now get a move on."
He pulled her by the shoulder and did not pause at her stumbling, and only let go after she finally followed him by herself.
With hasty steps and a heavy heart, Hariot without anything to do; Gathered even more mana into his magic bolt; Reaching a total of 40 mp over half an hour.
This had far surpassed all other magic bolts he had formed in the past, but this wasn't enough.
As he found more and more beyklir in his journey back to the city, his manner of dispatching them became less refined as the pressure of seeing more and more beyklir actually have a slight trace of team-work inside them.
With one stab through the stomach, one beyklir died as he eyed the end of the forest. But then he saw another beyklir coming right for his face.
His neutral smile finally dropped into an annoyed frown, as he used one hand to hold the beyklir corpse and the other to take his sword out of said corpse.
Using the left over momentum of said act, the pommel of his sword launched right into the beyklir's eye.
Having lost it's speed and eye, the beyklir fell to the ground. Taking the oppertunity, Hariot's sword was raised to the sky, and chopped the beyklir in half as if he were a lumberjack.
After a quick breath he put on his smile again and hastily stepped out of the forest with his bloody sword drawn.
With annoyance he flicked the sword a few times to get rid of some of the blood, then squated to use the grass to get rid of a bit more, then put it inside of its scabbard.
After which he looked behind him and confirmed that Seria hadn't run off somewhere.
With a nod, he walked to the closest road, then followed it all the way to the large city of Baccalu.
He quickly went to the alchemists' guild and sold all the gallbladders for money, not even mentioning the change in beyklir.
He then went to the mage's guild and quickly inquisitively investigated for any information on other beasts he could kill; One's that weren't closing in on sentience.
[
Searching for Pavis Lupus eyes, preferably fresh and or refined.
fresh: 9 copper
refined: 2 silver, 1 copper
not fresh: 3 copper.
I am currently attempting to use Pavis Lupus eyeballs as a component for 'Weight of death', it is urgent that I acquire as many as possible!
]
'Hmm, pavis lupus huh?' Apperently pavis lupus sightings had increased north of Baccalu, to the point of being only uncommon in the area. Which was quite surprising since their closest habitat before this change was more than thirty kilometers east- Where the beyklir were forming their tribal civilization.
This was obviously related; In a way he did not know. He did have a theory though, that something had happened in the east and the pavis lupus population had gradually migrated west away from whatever is effecting the beyklir.
Luckily for him though, he was only mildly interested in whatever was happening with the beyklir. Maybe the alchemists' guild would go into a panic due to the core ingredient of an important thing- Hariot not knowing what- becaming more difficult to source.
Looking over the quest's details once more, a word- 'Component'- Caught his eye.
'It must have something to do with magic, since I don't believe 'Weight of death' is refering to some potion or artifact, and the fact it's on a simple quest flier means it's not particularly restricted information.
Which means; it should probably be hidden somewhere in the library!' Hariot concluded using facts and logic as his means, he had only looked at six books in the library so far, it wasn't that far fetched there was still more magical knowledge useful to him hidden within.
Steeling his heart, he walked towards the novice library.