An Owl's Rise

Evelyn having perched herself on the root of a tree that was growing off the side of the Elmot Gorge observed the salamander she had spotted.

It was a fairly large beast being around ten feet long, but its black skin that had dark green spots dotting its back allowed it to blend in with the dark and lush gorge fairly well.

Still its slow movements had not evaded Evelyn's vision and she had locked onto it.

'Yep, that is definitely the vergif salamander. Judging from the magical energy it has I can tell it is at the mid-tier of the awakened rank. The perfect specimen for making higher quality antidotes.'

Her prey in sight, Evelyn kept track of its movements. She wanted to know where it was going and if it might lead her to more of its species.

Nearly an hour went by as she stealthy followed the vergif salamander.

It moved painfully slow for Evelyn who could fly, but she was determined not to hastily jump in and miss out on a greater haul.

Luckily her restraint was rewarded, as the salamander eventually came up to a well-hidden cave in the side of the gorge.

It was blocked off by numerous vies that grew in the area and without the salamander leading the way Evelyn would likely have never found it.

Ever so carefully she stuck her head inside, all the while being ready to unleash her magic if necessary.

What she found though was not a nest of other salamanders, but the one she had been tracking taking care of a magic plant.

It was a small bush of some kind that had long blue leaves that glowed softly.

Even from a distance Evelyn could tell that this bush had a fair amount of magical energy within it, and after racking her brain for a bit, she recognized it.

When she had been learning new brews form Melisandre this was one of the ingredients used in the long-lasting magical energy rejuvenation pills that would work for twenty-four hours and were prized for their usefulness during long and harrowing missions.

'I did not even know this grew here. It was one of the items I had not gotten around to researching before I ran out of credits but I am happily surprised to have found it.'

Having located two of the items she wanted, Evelyn waited and watched for a little while longer to see how the salamander took care of this magical plant.

To start it dug a few holes around the bush, then opened its mouth and began depositing something into each hole.

For nearly a minute Evelyn from her spot at the front of the cave entrance could not tell what these objects were, but eventually caught better look at one as it fell from the salamander's mouth.

'Beast cores! It is using beast cores as fertilizer for it. What an ingenious little salamander.' Evelyn thought as she watched this.

Seeing this it was clear to her that awakened rank beasts really did have quite the level of intelligence.

Still, while Evelyn was certain that this salamander was not merely a simple beast like most she had killed, she would need to not get hung up on that fact.

'Sorry but you have to die for me to get stronger.'

Evelyn now ready to take out the salamander and reap her rewards stepped fully into the cave and prepared to attack.

The vergif salamander quickly took notice now that she was not longer concealing her presence and was building up her magical energy.

It turned around and looked at her menacingly and let out an intimidating screech while making itself look bigger.

Magical energy began welling up inside its mouth and it deployed a barrier around itself to defend.

But it was too late for it.

Evelyn had already built up her magical energy and thanks to her intense training and high quality of magical energy, she had finish crafting her attack first.

The attack she went with was practically the first thing she had learned. A flame needle.

However, this one was compressed heavily with as much power as she could pack into it and sped up and spiraling like a bullet with her wind magic.

A single shoot was all it took for her to bring down the salamander before her.

The flame needled flew fast and straight for its head, bored through the barrier of magical energy it had deployed, before drilling right into its head.

Within but a second its brain was burned to ash and all life left the vergif salamander's eyes.

'Looks like a mid-tier awakened rank beast living out in the wilds is not much of a challenge. Still, I need to be carful not to be conceited. There are plenty of threats out there I have no chance against.'

After easily killing the vergif salamander Evelyn hopped over to its body and began taking it apart.

She had to be extra careful while doing so, since it excreted a powerful toxin from its skin that worked even with only the slightest touch.

It was thanks to this that vergif salamanders were hardly hunted, but Melisandre had extolled how they could be used to make very powerful antidotes.

'Whew, that was hard. But I managed to get by only getting poisoned once. Glad that I still had my older antidotes and applied them quickly. This thing is really toxic since I still feel a bit sick.'

Once she was finished with the salamander, she moved her attention to the bush that it had been cultivating.

At first she thought about digging up the beast cores the salamander had buried, but decided to leave them.

While plenty of magical plants needed to be plucked form the ground to be harvested this particular one did not and would continue to produce its glowing blue leaves so long as it received enough nutrients.

'In the future I can come back and check on it again. If I am lucky, it could even give me a steady supply of its leaves for as long as I need them.'

Going around the bush Evelyn picked around two third of its large leaves and ended up with a healthy supply of thirty-three.

This would be enough for her to use as ingredients for a fair number of brews for herself and to sell for a profit.

'Now then. Do I rest here for the day or keep exploring?'

Weighing her options Evelyn decided to call the day early in this cave. She knew that this gorge was quite dangerous, and it would be difficult to find places to rest that she did not have to worry about being ambushed in.

Of course, there was no guarantee that something would not venture inside the cave, so she set up a barrier string that would alert her if something entered.

'That should do it. Now time to eat and then get some sleep.'

For dinner Evelyn pulled out some dried meat Anneli had prepared for her and began happily eating it.

Then when she was finished with the main course, she pulled out dessert.

The beast core of the vergif salamander she had just killed was quite the treat, and now that she was at the awaken rank, she could use it to increase her magical energy.

With one big gulp she swallowed the core and felt the magical energy within breaking down and being sent out to make her Stogner.

Now full and feeling content with a beast core strengthening her body, Evelyn nestled within the back of the cave and quickly drifted off to sleep.