The following morning, Lana, Shalt, Kattie, Dobin and Duff met with Quinn in the hall. Everyone needed to be there for the daily briefing which included how the faction was doing, births and potential threats which may have been discovered. This day had nothing to be concerned with. The issue was having a person to go with Quinn's group.
Lana was hoping to get her other team members up to C that were close. When they had their assessments, Dobin was a D, Almin and Kattie were Es and Duff and Alto were Fs. It shocked her that Alto was an F with a level 6 ability. Lana figured he must have fought Linda. She wanted to keep everyone together but at the same time, didn't want to stunt their growth.
Quinn was trying to figure out who to go with when this guy who introduced himself as Freddy volunteered. Both teams registered for going after hypocen and off they went. Freddy described the area and took them a safe route to a river. The intermediate beast hippo-type beast could be on land for around 30 minutes. They are large and slow with deadly jaws. Hypolords are sometimes with them and were advanced tier. They choose to stay in the water so staying out of the water was safest. Going after the hypolord angered the rest.
The two groups crested the hills and saw the river and a forest on the other side of the river. There were teams there already but there was room a bit further down for both teams to get in there. Lana chose to be at the farthest end which Quinn didn't like but she explained she needed room to use her ability.
At the river's edge, Lana put in a willow tree. Half the branches were over the water. She had Dobin by himself, Kattie with Duff and herself with Shalt. She then put in two oak trees. She took some time to think on it because spacing for this test was paramount. When she was happy, she gave out the instructions. The willow was to give a hypocen to each of the three groups as well as toss one to the oak trees to bat back and forth. When one died, the willow was to provide another. The oak trees were the most efficient.
Lana tried to have Shalt do most of the work since he needed experience more. She would give him advice on form as he was fighting. The slow speed of these creatures was most beneficial in teaching Shalt how to fight. When it was time for him to rest, she had him sit under the tree. Around the same time, she noticed Quinn's group resting as well. She saw Fex walk off but the area was shaded being close to a forest but she didn't want to take any chances with Shalt. She would make him rest for the full hour to ensure his ring was properly charged.
As Shalt rejoined her, Quinn and his group passed them. He invited them to join them but then he saw what was going on. He looked confused again and shook his head. Freddy led their team away.
More hypocen entered the area walking down stream. She noticed there was a different one in there with the regular ones. Since Freddy said the others get angry when the hypolord is gone after, Lana decided to see if they could pick up the speed and eliminate the others and take the hypolord together.
Lana added two more oak trees and had the willow toss more out there. It was ambitious but she was confident her team could handle it. Shalt was now one-shotting hypocen as was Lana. Dobin was crushing them between earth walls. Kattie and Sven were their own pair while Duff was collecting crystals. Caser went fishing for his own and ate it once he finally killed it. It took him a long time and he couldn't eat the whole thing. But he wobbled when he walked after he threw in the towel.
The group got the available beasts down to three hypocen and the hypolord. Lana waited until everything on land was dispatched and told the willow to bring the hypolord into the center of the trees; asked the oaks to handle any hypocen that entered the area.
Working with the oak trees was something new for her but after creating the sentient trees in the park in the school, she thought this was a good place to try this experiment. So far she was pleased but she also understood the danger of sentient trees. She had great luck with willow trees. They were calm and willing to cooperate. Oaks were notoriously stubborn and strong-willed. To say she was nervous about what she was setting up was an understatement.
Lana required all hands on deck for this. She was quite sure they could handle it but they had never encountered a beast like this before and wanted to ensure their safety.
It took many branches to pick up the hypolord and more to move it and drop it in the area designated by Lana. The beast was biting the tree and doing damage. Lana almost moved the team out of position but noticed the tree had a way to circumvent the attack by wrapping three branches around its mouth.
As soon as the hypolord was in position, Lana wrapped a Qi-infused whip-vine around its mouth. Leo had said this weapon was at least advanced tier and part of her was hoping it would do damage. She didn't notice any, however. Dobin built an earth wall around the back of it so it couldn't escape. Kattie threw her intermediate daggers, holding onto the string, aiming for the eyes but she was unable to hurt it. Sven dove down in an attempt to claw its eyes. He succeeded on one leaving a long gash from the forehead, through the eye, and down the cheek. The hypolord moved his head just as Sven made contact with one eye. Caser was out for the count under the tree having engorged himself. Shalt transformed his hand into a dagger and went in for a blow to the neck. It succeeded but it didn't go as deep as was needed to kill the beast. The hypolord was much faster than the hypocen brothers. It was thrashing, trying to break the vine around its mouth. This made hitting anything vital difficult. Duff transferred the hypolord's strength to Shalt. Shalt complained about being suddenly weaker and Duff cancelled the transfer. Lana created a second whip with the rose thorn vine infusing more Qi into it this time and went for the neck. The head was sliced off this time as the cut had already been started.
Meanwhile there were three hypocens being tossed between four oak trees. The trees dropped them one by one as they died. Lana thought it entertaining to watch but also a cheat. They wouldn't gain much experience from this but she also knew they were ready for more of a challenge. She had 6 weeks to get to Rank B. She couldn't dally in the safe zones even though she told Quinn she had to.
Duff's buff ability was only partially useful here so he also removed the crystals a good portion of the day. By the end of the day, they had 43 crystals. Dobin said they could have had more if they didn't have to wait for Quinn's group. Lana said she had to play a bit of politics and they would be fine.
When they returned to the shelter, the sun was finishing its decent for the day and the moon was shining bright. She heard the whisperings that Freddy had died. The first thing they did was register their crystals for the day. They gave 10 to Shalt by himself and 20 to him and Lana. The remaining 12 intermediate and 1 advanced tier, they put the traveler IDs in for all five of them. Dobin Ranked up to C, Shalt to E, and Lana to D. Dobin would be able to sit out for only a week. If they continued on the way they did today, they would all be D pretty soon. But this meant Alto and Almin would be in it the next day.
Lana informed the group they were no longer selling crystals. If something needed to be purchased, it would be with credits. Crystals were needed for their Family. She dismissed the others to rest and eat.
The next order of business was to go see Quinn.
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