Chương 347: Limitless Path Chapter Three Hundred Seventy-One

She entered the room to find Sera and Blood both still on the couch, Blood facedown and snoring while Sera scratched her back with her talons. And Sera's talons were back, as well as the rest of her usual look, Beth found, once she made sure the door was shut and walked over. Sera had her full-length horns back, scales over multiple parts of her body, her claws on hands and feet, and her tail was looking even longer and stronger than ever.

Blood was also fully back to her 'usual' look, though she had done that before Beth left, so it was far less surprising.

"You've changed?" Beth asked, stepping around the couch and up to Sera.

"Oh, yeah, I thought you liked the scales?" Sera asked in response with a little smirk.

"Goddamn, do I ever," Beth growled, grabbing hold of Sera and lifting her off the ground, digging her fingers into Sera's skin and scales.

"I like the tail an awful lot, too."

"I was able to make some more changes, to an extent, with my new achievements in humanization," Sera replied with a grin. Beth couldn't resist, twisting Sera down just a little so she could kiss her very deeply, passionately locking lips with the tall dragon girl and going to town. Sera didn't mind at all, leaning her torso into Beth's with some force and trying to inspect Beth's tonsils with her tongue.

Beth eagerly pulled Sera's tongue into her mouth, noticing after a moment that the girl's new and improved tail was coiling around her body in all kinds of incredible ways. Beth eventually put Sera down on the couch, only to immediately climb in her lap and continue their make-out session. She felt Sera's hands join her tail in wrapping around her, noting that one of Sera's hands was enough to pretty much entirely cover her back.

The other one grabbed her butt, holding both cheeks with just a single hand as their lips remained locked. Beth wriggled against Sera, causing their breasts to smoosh together, enjoying the sensation of Sera's boobs practically overwhelming hers.

"Alright, enough," Sera said after several minutes, having broken off their kiss.

"I'm always ready for more," Beth growled, grinning as she leaned back and let her hands work their way to Sera's breasts and start kneading.

"We have time, Beth!" Sera exclaimed, laughing at how into it Beth was right now.

"But I wanted to ask what you found out."

"Oh, yeah," Beth said, stopping kneading for a second. She leaned over slightly and gave Blood a huge slap on the ass, enjoying the firmness she felt. The wolf growled very lightly and shifted, giving a heavy snort. Beth laughed and gave another slap, this time fully rousing the wolf and getting her to sit up.

"What's with the spanking?" Blood growled, though it wasn't angry. Beth had become a pro at recognizing the wolf's temperament and knew she was more confused than anything.

"Sorry, sorry. Just trying to wake you in an interesting way," Beth laughed, laughing harder when Blood growled and reciprocated with a swat to her ass.

"Alright, you two," Sera said, covering back up Beth's ass with her hand and starting to stroke Blood's ears.

"Let's hear what you found out."

"I went to see Selene," Beth started.

"Wait, wait. Explain who Selene is," Sera said.

"Ah, sorry. So, we were on a planet called Luttraine, where we had to take care of some stuff for Mortaine. We got into the Seven Lights Trading Firm there," Beth explained.

"Right, I remember you telling me about the Seven Lights stuff a bit," Sera nodded.

"Right, and we got to know the branch manager there, whose name is Selene. She's some kind of crazy strong demoness that even other really powerful people respect," Beth continued.

"Hmm, the name sounds a bit familiar, but it doesn't come to mind right away," Sera replied with a slight frown.

"Anyway, anyway. Long story short, I went to Seven Lights and had them start placing orders for everything we need. And this time, it was your stuff, miss scales, that was the most difficult," Beth said, poking Sera in the boob.

"Really? Because it's void-based stuff?" Sera asked in reply.

"Exactly. Selene said most of the stuff she could source within a week, but she might need up to a month to get all the void stuff. I asked if she could get it all in under two weeks, and she said she'd try, but it might not happen," Beth explained.

"So, we've got some free time. And, before you laze around-" she continued, grabbing Blood by the scruff when she went to flop back down, "we are going to do some training and work on our skills a little during that time."

"Fine. If we have to," Blood grumbled, wriggling out of Beth's hold and flopping onto the couch on her stomach again. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"But today, we rest," Beth finished, diving back into Sera's lips once she finished that declaration.

"That's not what I call rest," mumbled Blood from beside them, being entirely ignored by both of them. The rest of that day passed by with a lot of kissing and other activities, most of them relegated to the bedroom. The night passed much the same and the next morning Beth insisted on going down to the arena floor to check what was happening. She and Sera walked out to find the place pretty desultory, only a handful of people fighting and not that many more hanging around.

Beth noted a tall man with skin that looked like stone or abraded rock off to the side, leaning against the side of the arena wall. There was also a tall woman sitting on the edge of the stands, bare legs dangling down into the arena area, as well as a group of three sitting near what Beth would label as the back of the arena on the chairs that could pop up from the floor. Other than that, there were a couple people in the stands and a small handful in a couple duels on the floor.

Beth hadn't expected much, with it being a new frontier world and most people there to go out and harvest resources, but this was really paltry. She figured they wouldn't be getting in any good ranked matches while they were here, but it looked like they might not even be getting many matches at all. She decided they could do with a little warmup to start, taking up one of the several open dueling fields that didn't have anybody on it.

Before they got started, one of the people sitting signaled them, Beth taking only a second to figure out they were gesturing to ask if Beth and Sera needed a ref. She waved them off, as they were just practicing, and the person waved and went back to their conversation with the other two. Beth guessed those three were all likely Senior Enforcers, considering they were asking if people needed extra refs, so that likely took even more of the people hanging around out of the potential pool of sparring partners.

Sera had been wearing her typical getup and Beth had been in a set of CRA clothes, what she still mostly defaulted to in or out of armor, but they both changed in a second, Sera changing clothes and equipping her armor while Beth put her armor on over her current clothes. Beth pulled out her sword and rested it on her shoulder while Sera brought her spear to hand and held it in her typical ready stance, point forward and down slightly while the base of the haft stuck up behind her right shoulder.

Beth was able to tap into the arena controls as a Silver badge, though only because their field didn't have anything currently happening, and she set it up so the field would act much like a training ring. She figured there wasn't really any point in going down to one of the rooms, especially since she hoped to get a couple fights in against others after warming up with Sera, and the dueling fields could function for training just fine.

Beth held out her left hand and extended her index finger before curling it, signaling Sera to get started. The dragon charged her, darting across the arena in a blink, making contact with Beth's sword with the tip of her spear. That had been a thrust for Beth's heart, but she shed it to the side with a half swing, twisting her wrist to slash at Sera with her blade. Sera blocked with the haft of her spear but had to take half a step back, grunting and swearing while she thought annoyed thoughts.

She could tell Beth wasn't even using any buffs right now, but her body was just insanely strong, with her high STR stat coupled with the effects of multiple elixirs and the passive boost that just having Beastly Tyrant gave her. Sera had to turn her buffs on to match Beth in terms of strength, running them at about half of what her max was just to be able to make headway against her girlfriend.

It was pretty good for Sera, though, because fighting against somebody stronger like that really pushed her, which could lead to better skill growth. Sera didn't have to hold back against Beth, likely even without the benefits of fighting in a ring that prevented death. She could go all out and push several skills to the max and Beth would likely still crush her, quite literally in some cases.

The best part was Beth wasn't much more skilled with her weapons than Sera was, so Sera could focus on trying to make up the gap between them with her Spears skill, pushing that skill higher more quickly. Beth's idea of a warmup was about an hour of intense combat, only stopping for a minute or two twice to drink a bit of water and rest for a second. Sera didn't have much problem with that pace, however, considering her high level of END and great stamina.

Once they had their blood pumping, Beth wandered off, nosing around for someone else to fight, while Sera walked to the back to talk to the Senior Enforcers. Beth went up to the rock-skinned man first, who was still hanging around, but he wasn't interested and waved her off. She approached the woman with her legs dangling, but was also waved off by her, the lady giving a shake of her head to show that she wasn't interested.

Beth then approached one of the handful of people that had been fighting earlier, finally getting an affirmative that they were willing to battle. The person was a short man with a barrel chest as well as dark skin and hair that wielded a hammer that looked like a sledgehammer on steroids. They moved to one of the two dueling fields that the others had been using where there was still a Senior Enforcer ready to ref, the two agreeing to a practice duel to start.

Beth still had her sword ready and signaled her readiness to the ref during the starting procedures, watching her opponent carefully. He was a little below her in level, but she didn't make too many assumptions based on that, knowing that he could be several rebirths ahead of her or have crazy skills or things that she didn't expect. It turned out she didn't really have to worry, as his charge across the dueling field was slower than what she had expected.

She was still cautious, and was careful in deflecting his first strike, but he didn't have the power or the speed to compete. He wasn't bad, per se, but he simply couldn't keep up with Beth. Only by using a skill to increase his strength and toughness could he compete with her, but she was still able to go toe-to-toe with him even without her boosting skill. She enjoyed the fight, enjoying battling new opponents, and didn't rush to finish him, especially as it was a practice duel to start.

He was game as well, hammering away at Beth's defenses, looking for any angle where he could get a solid strike in and put her on the back foot. Unfortunately, he was matched up against Beth, a real monster in terms of strength and power, even for her level and skill. The conclusion was evident, as Beth eventually thought it was time to put the practice to an end.

She burned her buff, greatly increasing her strength, knocking away the man's hammer before slamming the edge of her blade into his chest, lifting him off the ground and sending him flying. She took a step forward and vanished, using Spatial Step to appear right in his path, slamming her sword into him once more, propelling him to the side even faster.

She went to follow-up, but as soon as he slammed into the barrier around the arena, he was ruled the loser, having taken enough damage the ring overruled his ability to continue the fight. She went on like that for the rest of the day, not battling with Sera again for the next couple hours, but getting a decent number of fights in with the others. It was really good experience, even if nobody particularly strong was in the rotation right now.

She assumed she could get a good row going with one of the Senior Enforcers, but they rarely fought with any of the members, usually only giving training when they were assigned to a Hall. Beth supposed she could challenge some of them, but she figured it was best not to bother them quite yet, considering they would still be on this world for a while. That, and she didn't want to piss off the strong people with all the control who were her higher-ups in the org.

Despite the others being willing to fight the next couple days, it wasn't particularly helpful for Beth to just fight the exact same people over and over again. Not when those people were significantly weaker and less skilled than Beth.

She could still get something out of dueling with Sera and with Blood, but the dragon wasn't interested in spending all her time in the arena and Blood could barely be woken up, though Sera did say to let her rest a bit more, as she needed more time to recover from her humanization effort. That left Beth at loose ends a bit, so she split time for a few days between challenging Sera and studying more information on mana and Mana Physiques.

The details she was diving into now involved the exact method that people bound the mana to their bodies when building their Physiques. There were not only different methods of arranging the mana in the physical body, there were also different methods of binding the mana into the flesh. Some were as simple as layering mana onto the organs, while some were as complex as engraving interlocking, three-dimensional rune configurations into the very molecules making up the physical body.

Beth studied the rune patterns in the materials she had, determining she had to go back to studying runes if she was going to make a good Mana Physique.