Master Of None

”There’s no way we are taking that path. It’s a trap for whatever monster made it.” Now everyone looked at Gil questioningly.

”I have some tracking and scouting skills too, and even if I use the all around appraisal I can figure out what might have made that path. I don’t see a way that’s a trap though.” Walker felt that he was somewhat excited. He would have believed that this path he could see ahead was decent when in terms of the options they had.

The party had already figured that they couldn’t fly over the flaming tornados. The winds up top would just be more brutal and cutting. Then the movement to the left would lead them deeper in to the shifting winds and flames making up smaller tornados. Meaning that they would have to face various shifts that could be more harmful to them overall.

This left some paths to the right that they could notice in the almost condensed and rocky terrain made of wind and fire manas condensed. It was one reason that some of the piles of what seemed to be sand were actually a dual elemental rock called floating embers, a sand that glowed red when enough ambient fire and wind mana mixed around it.

It was a nice material for making items that needed to show somehow that they were increasing a certain temperature. Otherwise. It was fairly common in certain areas within the world heavily focused on fire and wind manas. One such place being the edges of the lava fields where winds would heat as they blew in to the fields of lava.

”It’s just that I have seen the practice before.” Gil had the best scouting ability out of everyone, that included tracking too. ”There are the tiniest scratches here. And there are a few pieces of what look to be some kind of dead grass from one of the elemental planes. Nowhere else we’ve walked these past few minutes looking for a path has them. They were taken from further away and brought here to lure smaller monsters to walk this way.”

”This is a great way to leave the boundary here. This place is dangerous and we could take it, but the monster or maybe even monsters, is hunting using this trap and will ambush us when it can. We just don’t know what kind of monster it is other than it is most likely focused on stealth and assassination.”

Walker also realized that Gil had not said anything about the small bits of denser fire and wind mana in the dead grasses placed in to this little open path way between larger continuous wind and flame tornados. Clearly, this also attracted smaller monsters since they would want the fresher grasses if they could grow here or ahead.

”The reason you might have missed it isn’t because of the mana the monster can use, it’s because it only sets everything up physically. If you pull away some of the settled floating embers…” Gil exposed some scratches that had been made. Clearly the monster has used sharp appendages to cut away even more of the condensed materials to ensure that there was a lot of hidden traces rather than anything being exposed at all.

”I see, I haven’t seen a monster act so intelligently with its trap setting.”

”Then it might have a skill for trap setting. There are spiders called trap door spiders that make fake traps in the ground that look identical to the ground, but if you step on them you fall in to a hole of sticky suffocating webs.” The more that Gil spoke the more that everyone realized that Gil had also been studying these things.

All the training with other scouts or even teaching new scouts had pushed him to find knowledge that he had not known and that would be valuable in the future. It was making Midnight visibly frustrated since she had been the only other scout for the party, and now she saw just how far behind Gil she had fallen while she focused on improving her naturally acquired draconic abilities.

It wasn’t altogether too disappointing that taking this pathway would be too much trouble. They didn”t want to fight monsters they wanted to travel and explore. Otherwise, they would have gone out of their way to hunt this monster and gather materials or something of the like.

”Can we make a fire tornado to travel inside of?” Everyone turned and looked at Onyx and Alice. Alice had been the one to speak out but it appeared that the two had been whispering about their idea. ”Like a carriage but it would be safe inside and wouldn’t hurt the area?”

”I think that’s the best idea yet. The fire tornados have space inside them. A few monsters even live in the centers, they use it as a safe place to hide for their nests. I can sense them. We could use the same principle while I control the mana and we move.” Walker grinned widely as he began doing this. It was a lot simpler because the fire tornadoes formed randomly as the two manas collided. This meant that they were able to avoid on another or naturally collide because of the mana moving. So the party moving through would not cause any real disruption.

As they found themselves a little wind buffered and a little hotter, the inside of the smaller wind and fire tornado was perfect for their group to walk with. Walker could even feel that a few monsters within nearby tornados had not stopped focusing and hiding themselves as much.

’Wind streaker

A small species of wind and fire affinity starlet. These avian monsters are small and can temporarily survive high heat and wind mana areas. They make nests within larger and more permanent flame tornados to protect their eggs. They are also very peaceful monsters who prefer to hide or use their speed to escape predators. They often hunt for…’

The small monsters that managed to survive in these conditions were interesting. Their dual affinities of wind and fire mana were not at all used to attach or even find prey in the least. They were used to protect them for short times as they moved in and out of dangerous areas. Right now, it appeared they were checking out the new fire and wind tornado to see if it would be stable and be a good small home for them.

They quickly left when they realized that there were others inside and also that it was unstable. They didn’t want to live there at all. However, Walker and the others saw the beauty in their red and white feathers. The gradient of color from red to white was different from other monsters that grew feathers. It was also just a show of how some monsters would not use their affinities to fight, but just to survive and remain safe.

”This is a nice walk we are taking now.” Su had let her guard down a little since the boundary they were removing through seemed fairly stable. There were monsters who had developed to live here and Walker had created a way to protect them from the dangerous manas here as well. Meaning that now they could enjoy the vibrant flames changing color and even witness the wind taking the form of blades or gusts.

”In the chaos of these two manas meeting, there is still a balance. I can tell what you mean when you keep mentioning that balance this and balance that are so important.” Gil’s blunt response was showing how much he was considering the uniqueness of where they stood.

”I think it’s more than a balance. The manas was to mix and break apart but they don’t need to be destructive and chaotic to the point where they can’t form even with the same sort of mana.” Hearing this from Remey was surprising, but since they had all seen chaotic mana, drawing these conclusions was true.

”That’s why the planes form out there too, right?” With Alcie asking this of Walker, he nodded.

”I would assume that it’s the case. The manas want to come together and that might be why the smaller elemental planes might form out there. It will be interesting to see more small elemental plane. I bet that the wind elemental plane has a few.”

”You would be right about that. But you need to worry about the fact that you are walking toward a silver bug nest. They are very dangerous and need to be left alone.” The voice whispering to them like wind was none other than the golem made by the true wind sage. The aloof attitude was all the same as well. It seemed that the true wind sage had been waiting for them where the wind was just strong enough to form this golem to communicate with them.

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