The fighting continued with Audrey killing the big ones, Eli thinning the herd and the others finishing up what was left. When the wave ended, Eli sat in the center of his crater and meditated, the others left him alone as they could tell from his mid-fight gratitude and his current body language, that he needed some time alone. The rest of them gave themselves a few minutes to get themselves together and recover from how tired they were, all of them knew they were only half way through this event. The difficulty of the last one started to increase more after the halfway point so they were going to need to focus-up.
Tara seemed to be laying down for a nap near Eli, Stevens and Cody walked off with Audrey to talk to the people in their little town, and Bethany laid down on the opposite side of Eli as Tara and began to try to meditate. Audrey was on a mission, she had momentum from their successes and was ready to push the issue with the women, but first she wanted to check in on Greyson. She met him on the wall since he spent most of his time there watching them fight so far.
"Did any undead make it to the walls this time?" Audrey asked.
"No, you and your friends did an excellent job keeping them away. Thank you again for providing my family shelter, though I would like to fight with you," replied Greyson.
"It's only going to get more dangerous from here, last monster horde I nearly died."
"I don't want you to get hurt," Greyson said with a worried look on his face.
"PFFT, as if Lord Ash would allow anything to happen to his little sister. I will be fine." Audrey was surprised at how good it felt to speak about herself as Eli's family, but at the same time it hurt a little. This was going to take her some time to get used to.
"You're his little sister?!" Greyson asked in surprise.
"Not by blood, but he has asked me to be his family, and I agreed." Again she had mixed feelings about it but saying 'not by blood' seemed to help. She wasn't sure if adding that part in was because she loved her parents and wasn't trying to replace them or if she had a crush on him and being related would ruin the romance. Either way, she would get used to it, she wanted to be close to him and all their friends. She really felt she belonged in this group, more than she had anywhere else in life.
"Ok, so that means you aren't like… one of his girlfriends?" Greyson asked awkwardly.
"Oh, no, nothing like that, I'm only 14, he and the others have made it very clear that I am too young. I also think I'm too young for him. At least for now." Audrey paused and realized something. "Wait, you like me, that's why you asked. I've only known you for a few hours, you can't like me that much yet."
"I like what I know so far, you are kind and patient and very smart," Greyson said while blushing.
"Funny how you don't mention my pretty face, I'm sure you haven't noticed that yet," Audrey said sarcastically.
"Well I've noticed, but that's not the only thing I've noticed," he was getting really flustered so she cut him a break.
"Relax, I've only had this body for a little while, still getting used to it, have you worked on any body or soul upgrades?" Audrey asked knowing he hadn't.
"We don't know what that is, we have been struggling to stay alive." Greyson said getting a little frustrated at her teasing.
"We will talk about it later, can your family make furniture?... Never mind, we can talk about that later too." Audrey said as she walked away toward the youngest of the three women. She stopped and looked curiously at Stevens and Cody as they had 2 rocks between them and were hitting them with magic. They were mumbling about system made structures, but she couldn't hear most of what they were saying.
"Hello Arinya, I am Audrey, we need to have some very frank words. First, I will say that you cannot lie to me, if you lie I will hurt you. Secondly," Audrey continued on holding up a hand to stop her from interrupting, "All of your lives depend on your answers being complete. Now, from the end of the tutorial till I started talking to you just now, tell me everything. Ten minutes later, she was done talking and took a breath, Audrey was monitoring her magic closely and would pressure her if she tried to skip anything. Her story pretty much checked out, but the real question was next and now she had a baseline of how her magic reacted when she lied.
"Ok, now tell me what you meant when you asked how Lord Ash was able to claim territory outside of the safe zone."
"Well, my earth node skill lets me feel vibrations and magic in the ground. I thought it was useless until it also let me alter them. I wasn't able to claim a territory since I'm not a lord but it did let me know how it feels when an area is claimed…" Audrey narrowed her eyes at her and her dagger appeared in her hand. "...And I think I can erase a claimed territory."
Audrey was tapping her chin in thought, they didn't want territory, but others would kill her and her group to prevent her or their enemies from using that ability. Most likely she would need to be a lot stronger before she could erase system placed magic, but she could get there. The important part was that having her on their team would eventually make other lords want to attack them. And that worked for her and her long term plan of making Eli world ruler, and by that time she will be old enough to rule with him. He doesn't want to have to do the daily ruler stuff so he could leave that to her and she would be de facto ruler.
She paused and stopped moving, Audrey even stopped breathing. Where had that ambition come from, Eli didn't want to rule anything. He didn't even want to rule the people he was essentially already the ruler of. She was staring at Arinya, but was spacing out in thought, still tapping her chin. She reached for her connection to Eli and it felt normal, so she shook her head as if shaking the weird thoughts out and went back to talking to Arinya.
"I'll give you two options, leave now, or work with us. You have until after the next wave to decide, talk it over with your family." Audrey said as she walked away.
Bethany was upset, Tara was laying flat on the ground in front of Eli with her head only inches from being in his lap while she was sitting behind him mirroring his meditation position. She wanted to nap too but she also knew that after this Event Eli was going to go train and he might take one person. Bethany really wanted to be that person. To get special training from him and be alone with him. If she was going to get this prize she needed to focus and work on herself. The slow process of improving your soul was tough but very relaxing, so it was a good time killer here.
While applying pressure to level her soul she explored her connection to Eli, it was like a magic tube connecting her soul to his. Most of the time there was a slight feeling moving to her from the connection, it was a hint of an emotion. But right now, whatever he was doing, he cut off his connection to her, probably to everyone. She really wanted to hold him and make him feel better, dealing with rampaging emotions is bad enough but it's harder when those emotions can manifest as destruction. He was too soft hearted to see that as anything but bad and she wanted to comfort him.
She opened her eyes and looked at the back of his head, not really thinking but just allowing herself to feel what she felt. Her feelings towards him were strong but jumbled, part of her just wanted to be his mistress, no expectations, nothing for her to mess up in a relationship, and no heartbreak. Most importantly was the no heartbreak. However, there was another part of her that just wanted love, to give it and receive it, but that terrified her down to the deepest parts of her soul. There was always the possibility that she wasn't enough for a man like Eli to love her.
Tara was willing to scar her entire body to try and keep up with him, to be enough for him, not for her sake, but so she can be there for him. Bethany did not know if she would or could suffer through that for him, so she went back to worrying about if she could be enough. After a little more soul searching, she decided that mistress would be enough for her for now. With body level increases, stats, and magic, she had a feeling that living past 100 years old was going to be the new normal so there wasn't any rush. She closed her eyes and went back to working on her soul leveling.
Eli had a lot he wanted to accomplish during this break and he pretty much shut everyone out and got started right away. Sitting and relaxing himself he thought about what his first priority should be, and it was between two things. First was to see if he could manufacture emotions that he could sacrifice for his abilities to be stronger. He wouldn't be able to truly test this until the next wave but he brought out some memories of anger and pain from what he could remember from his teenage years to have those feelings ready to go. There was embarrassment, heartbreak, betrayal, and lust, but they were all muted even in his memory, it's like before the seal the emotions were there but kept at a distance so that they couldn't be used in magic.
A realization fell on him like a house made of, and containing nothing but bricks, the reason his mother had placed a seal on him and wiped his memories was so he could hide from being discovered as a magic user. With his emotions not being able to be used for fuel, and being in a magically barren world until the system came, he would go undiscovered. So his mother didn't abandon him, she was hiding him, but from who, and why. It's a good thing he was using a fake name and hiding his face, he might have a resemblance to his family that could give him away. He needed to make sure that no one other than people who already have seen his face ever get to see it.
With that priority settled and not working yet, he moved on to his next priority, seeing if he can do anything with this claimed territory that that woman had mentioned. Staying in the same position, he pushed his consciousness into the ground, which ended up being way harder than he thought. It was a struggle but he covered his mental projection in a dense layer of his magic which allowed him to send it into the ground. It seemed to him that she was wrong, this wasn't claimed ground it was more like saturated ground. His magic covered and was inside every spec of dirt and every rock, but it was inert magic, not doing anything.
The only thing he could think of was to extend his will to it so it would answer him and respond. It did nothing, so he pushed harder, but still nothing, finally he decided to give it a little emotion to see if it would help, he reached for a memory where his team made him feel good about himself. A small memory was all he needed, it was one from their training trip, where for a brief moment he felt connected to them and like he wanted to protect them as a group. He knew he felt that way about them individually so it felt low risk to give up an emotion of them as a collective. The response from the magic in the ground was drastic and immediate.