Chương 169: Limitless Path Chapter One Hundred Ninety-Three

"You look lost," Blood growled with a grin, the throaty tone of her voice with the growl showing her amusement.

"Got a new skill in all that excitement, just reading over it and thinking about it," Beth replied, watching Blood go through two towels just to get her hair dry.

"Oh, sweet. What is it?" Blood asked. Beth made the skill and description appear, spinning the text box in the air with a flick to face Blood, a little trick she had learned some time ago. Blood examined the skill for a few moments before saying, "Oh, that's nice. That's the first thing we've seen that actually mentions mental defenses, right?"

"Yeah, now that you mention it, we haven't seen anything about that yet, which is kinda concerning," Beth replied.

"Concerning how?" Blood asked as she dried her body.

"Well, if I have a skill that offers increased mental defenses, that means there are skills and spells that will attack us mentally," Beth replied.

"Oh. I see," Blood replied, giving herself a shake as Beth stepped into the shower, turning the water on and starting to wash. Beth finished fairly quickly, letting out a quick sigh when dealing with her hair, which was creeping down her shoulder blades. She would have to get Sabs's mom to work it over once they were out of the Trial, which was coming up fairly soon. They had nine more stages total, and Beth wasn't sure if they'd be able to get through all nine, but either way the end was fast approaching.

She hopped out and dried off, noting Blood had stepped out of the bathroom in the meantime. She caught up with her companion in the living room after she was dry, seeing the wolf sprawled out on the couch still in her birthday suit. Beth sighed and said, "Get up lazy bones. We need to head out."

"I thought we had the day off!" Blood whined.

"We do, but I'm fucking hungry," Beth shot back.

"Let's throw some clothes on and get some grub. Maybe we can just get a pile of take-out and bring it back here. I don't even feel like eating in the restaurant."

"Fine," Blood sighed, rolling onto her feet and following Beth into the bedroom where they hastily dressed, just throwing on some undergarments and pants and shirts before heading out. They made their way to the hall with the eateries, and Beth went into the Golden Platter, asking the staff about taking food back to their rooms. The staff explained that not only could they take food back, but they could order more food on their wallscreen to be delivered to the room.

Beth thanked them and asked for a long list of food, after which a waiter ran back to the kitchen to get the order going. Beth and Blood waited for a little bit chatting with the staff while the food was prepped, not wanting to simply turn right around and go back to their room. They eventually got a massive armload of containers filled to the brim with delicious dishes, which they split between them before thanking the staff and heading back to their room.

They piled the boxes on the large coffee table in the center of the living room before sprawling on the couches and digging in. Beth pulled up a match on the wallscreen, curious to see about any other kinds of huge fights like the melee at the CRA. Apparently, it was a popular format, though not quite as popular as the team format. A little surprising to Beth, one-versus-one was actually the least popular format in general, though it was still very popular.

People enjoyed the chaos of the other formats better, as well as the fact that team battles tended to be a little bit more strategic, which made them a little easier for people who didn't pursue the path of a Wayfarer to follow. One-on-one fights often were so fast and flashy that people could have trouble tracking what was happening, even with instant slow-motion replay capabilities. Beth realized after half-an-hour of watching shows that they had totally, utterly demolished all of the food.

She cleaned the remains up, taking everything into the kitchenette and dumping it in the appropriate waste or recycling chutes, having to make several trips to take care of everything. She noticed after trip one that Blood had gotten up and was heading into the bedroom, and she found the wolf sprawled naked on the couch after trip two, paging through shows on the wallscreen.

"Don't take the damn remote while I'm cleaning," Beth huffed.

"We can't watch fights all day, muscle brains. I wanna watch something funny," Blood growled back.

"Fine, but we're watching more fights later," Beth harumphed, finishing cleaning before heading into the bedroom herself, where she tossed her own clothes before joining Blood in the living room. She had to say, it was just more comfortable for both of them lounging in their birthday suits, and Blood brought up some show that reminded Beth of a panel show. The main entertainment was the dry wit of the contestants/panelists, and both girls were laughing quite hard by the midway mark.

They spent the whole day like that, laying around and laughing and talking. It was a good break after the intensity of the last few stages, particularly the grand melee they had just finished. It was a slow, long day, but a wonderful day, as any day someone spent wasting time, but enjoying themselves, wasn't really a waste of time. They went to bed early that night and were up early the next day, slowly going through their morning routine and getting ready to tackle the next stage.

They again went through the song of dance of going to the array room, checking in to start the stage and requesting it be private, then waiting for the Warder to signal them to enter. This time they were leaping through the darkest orange of the portals, Beth noting that the next portal in the series was light red, an almost pink hue. When the Warder made a flicking motion with her wrist, Beth and Blood immediately leapt through the portal, experiencing that moment of distorted senses and whiteout.

When they came to, they found themselves standing on an open plain, with a small structure to their right, and a rough, rocky outcrop behind them. Before they could do more than take that first glance around, a notification popped up in front of them. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Notice of Mission There are times when Wayfarers are called upon to stand as the first among many, and the first to chart the stars.

Herein, you are tasked with survival on a hostile world, as well as the clearing of a safe area in which further Wayfarers and, eventually, civilians may find safe haven. The next refresh of supplies and personnel will arrive in four weeks (twenty-eight days time). Please secure the surrounding area and begin the process of exploring, mapping, and cataloguing the area around the initial location.

The first building is armored and enchanted and should provide a safe place to rest or retreat in the face of overwhelming odds. Beth and Blood had no sooner read through the message for the first time before they heard a rumbling growl from ahead of them, followed by several more when a group of gorilla-like creatures emerged from a bank of trees.

They stood as tall at the shoulder as Beth's total height and were bulging with rippling muscles, though it was their mouths full of serrated fangs and strange, blue-yellow skin that drew Beth's attention first. She quickly used the ability of her eyes to Identify the beasts before they attacked. Level 120 Ravaging Kogh The Kogh were basically just gorillas, though bigger and stronger and far angrier, and they proved that by screaming loudly before attacking.

The fight wasn't anything particularly special, not even needing Beth to call on her Presence for her and Blood to defeat the five enemies. Once they had killed them, they dragged the bodies away from their starting area before chopping them up, Blood eventually telling Beth to piss off before she ruined the valuable hides. Beth came back once Blood had finished with the skinning and helped with retrieving the cores and chopping up the bodies.

Beth didn't know if they were edible, but they could preserve the meat and see if it was at all palatable. They hadn't even finished with that bloody task before they were attacked again, even more beasts emerging from the surrounding area to try to devour them. This time it was wolves, Beth hearing a growl that sounded much like a scoff from Blood before they engaged. This fight was tougher, though the wolves were similar in level to the gorillas, but they were much hardier.

It wasn't even as if they were elites, the gorillas just had uncommonly weak defenses and stamina for such high level creatures. Beth and Blood settled in for a long slog after that, not ever really having enough time to fully clean up the mess after the previous fight before the next battle started. This dragged on for hours until the late afternoon when, by sheer dint of them having slaughtered any beast that was even close to their base, they were given a reprieve.

They used the time to clear the area, Blood rather cleverly using her Blood Queen's Claws to mow down all the grass and bushes for some distance around the building and rocky outcrop. Beth, meanwhile, used her enormous STR to knock trees down and drag them back to the open area. She couldn't necessarily build a good wall, lacking both the tools and skills to do it properly, those tools including additional materials such as nails or the material needed to make concrete.

What she could do, however, was build a decent palisade, digging up a section of dirt in an area around their 'base,' going with a classic trench and embankment. She would lodge sections of trees in either the embankment or the ditch, depending on what she could get done with their very limited tool set. They continued to work until the nightfall, working nearly an hour after dark before heading inside. They hadn't even looked into the building yet, but found it was quite well-equipped.

Beth was slightly frustrated to find a room with a number of tools in it, including a set of blacksmithing equipment as well as a good axe and chopping maul that could be used on the trees. Her fists worked well enough, even though her hands were sore now, but she would try using the axe tomorrow. The large, broad-bladed shovel would definitely be useful for digging the ditch she had planned, and the rest of the equipment would prove useful.

The rest of the building was spacious and comfortable, with a large central room that was a combination living room and dining room, a large and well-equipped kitchen, and a rather luxurious bedroom suite with a big on-suite bathroom. Beth made sure the external door was secured before they cooked dinner for the night, Beth trying to get some of the beast meat they had harvested to be at least somewhat edible.

She did a surprisingly good job, if she had to say so herself, just hoping that neither of them would be spending extra time on the toilet later. Given the defensive capability of the structure they had been granted at the start of this challenge, Beth was assuming everything that had appeared to be secondary objectives was actually the main point of the stage. If they didn't do a good enough job with preparing the area for the people following on after, they could likely even lose the stage.

How overall nebulous the instructions were didn't really give her very much confidence, but they would do their best to get everything ready for the next group in four week's time. They showered off and prepped for bed, Beth noting a little amusedly that there was only one massive bed in the bedroom suite. They collapsed side-by-side and passed out for five hours before they were up again and starting in on day two.

They ate before heading out of the small building and getting back to what they had been doing the day before. Blood spent a little more time in clearing the area around the building down to dirt before assisting Beth with the trees. The world they were on had a fairly high mana density and must have had mana coursing through it for some time, as the trees were quite tough. They spent the next three days on felling and prepping trees from the surrounding area, determined to get their defenses in shape first.

Starting on day five, Beth began working on the ditch and embankment while Blood worked on the trees they had already felled, prepping them to be used in the palisade they were planning to build. That effort took Blood two days, and on day seven she joined to help Beth complete the last of the digging, the amount of earth the two girls could move with just simple tools being quite surprising.

They had been attacked quite often during that first week, Beth getting pretty annoyed with them having to take the bodies quite far away to keep the area clean and try not to have anything acting to lure more beasts. It took them another two days to get the ditch and embankment finished, and three days to get the palisade built. They were not quite halfway through their time and had just barely secured the area around the base to the simplest degree, but it was time for them to venture out.

They started early on day thirteen, up and fed and ready before they ventured out of their somewhat meager palisade. Assuming that the sun was rising in the east and setting in the west, the rock outcrop at the back of their base was on the southern side. The gate they had made, which was just an opening blocked by a rough door of lashed together logs, was to the north, and it was this direction they continued after exiting that morning.

They moved for only a short time before they were attacked for the first time, and that was followed fairly quickly by a second and third attack. They figured out pretty quickly that the next thing they needed to take care of was the amount of beasts in the surrounding area. What they had been faced with so far was only a fraction of even what was very close to them, and they needed to do some culling before they went any further with exploring.

The plan they developed was super simple and super effective; pile up a bunch of meat, topped off with some beast cores, and wait for the beasts to gather. Once they gathered, slaughter them and create an even bigger pile of meat. Now that the pile of meat was bigger, the smell was even more extreme, and the attraction was greater. After they had slaughtered most of what was in the area, grab a few mostly whole corpses, move to a new area a moderate distance away, chop the corpses up, rinse and repeat.