Mid-air.
The spinning target cart slammed into the ground upside down, and even the enormous roar couldn't mask the teeth-grating creak of the wooden structure that made it up, groaning under the violent impact.
Thankfully, in order to train Hunters of varying strength, the target cart had been built to be incredibly sturdy.
Otherwise, it wouldn't merely look like it was about to fall apart right now—it would have scattered into pieces across the ground like flower petals flung by a heavenly maiden while still mid-flight.
That said.
But in truth, for a training target cart, damage that came infinitely close to falling apart could already be called completely totaled.
"Meow-ooh… (My… my brand-new target cart that I just finished today—it's only been used for this little while and it's already totally wrecked, meow…)"
"Meow… (My contribution points, meow…)"
Looking at the target cart before her that could now be broken down into firewood, the Felyne serving as logistics support was suddenly on the verge of tears, able to comfort herself only with the thought that at least it had been broken at the hands of the legendary Hunter Andrew.
But she never imagined that this had actually only been Andrew putting out half of his power.
Because Andrew had brought up wanting to test his new equipment himself, she'd specially hauled over this newly finished target cart—but she'd forgotten that the destructive power these legendary Hunters unleashed was absolutely top-tier!
Ruined. Utterly ruined.
Freshly made, and she hadn't even had the chance to have the Guild inspect and approve it in exchange for contribution points.
While the fact that the target cart she'd made had served its intended purpose made the cat quite happy, watching the contribution points that had been all but in her paws fly away was equally heartbreaking.
Without contribution points, what was to become of the Silvervine she'd been yearning for, meow…
And then she recalled that after coming out here, she'd only just learned that some big-spending fat cat had bought up all the Silvervine in this round of supplies—free for the taking if you just came to grab it.
But over the past few days she'd been so absorbed in making the target cart that she'd missed it entirely.
Especially after she went to ask at the supply shop and got confirmation that this entire batch of Silvervine had been bought out by a single person.
This Felyne grew even more sorrowful.
Her weeping was enough to break the heart of anyone who heard it and bring tears to anyone who saw it.
Meanwhile, the hurricane that had originally been able to conceal Andrew's form seemed disrupted by that very strike, causing his figure to reappear before the eyes of Hoshimi Miyabi and Kairu.
And as he watched the dejected logistics Felyne slumped over in a forward bend of despair, an unavoidable trace of awkwardness crept onto his face.
He honestly hadn't expected that even at only half power, the Wind King's Hammer could still carry this kind of might.
Especially after roughly guessing, from the Felyne's mournful cries just now, what purpose she'd made this target cart for—as the very culprit who had bought up all the Silvervine, he now felt even more awkward.
He scratched his head.
Feeling guilty, Andrew thought for a moment and came up with a solution.
Since her ultimate goal was the Silvervine, then he could just skip straight to the final step and compensate her with Silvervine, couldn't he?
He didn't have much else these days, but if he brought out that cartload of Silvervine, he'd absolutely be the shining star among all the Felynes in the entire outpost.
He pulled out a small pouch of Silvervine from the cartload of Silvervine belonging to Meow-Da in his backpack, packed it into a cloth bag, and gently set it down in front of this Felyne.
He said:
"Sorry, I accidentally misjudged the power of my output. Let this Silvervine serve as compensation for the maker of this target cart."
Instantly cheered up by an amount of Silvervine that far exceeded what her original contribution points could ever have exchanged for, the logistics Felyne clutched the bag tightly to her chest with both paws.
As she gleefully scampered off to the side, she didn't forget to add:
"Meow~ Meow-owh~ (I knew it—Lord Andrew is the best to us, meow!)"
"Meow~ (From now on, I'm definitely going to spread the word about Lord Andrew's glorious deeds and greatness every single day in the outpost, meow!)"
"That… that really isn't necessary."
However, Andrew's polite refusal was gorgeously ignored outright by the logistics Felyne, who took it as him being too embarrassed to accept the praise.
After realizing his attempts to stop her were of no use—
figuring that he was about to return to New Eridu anyway, and holding the attitude of "spread it if you must, as long as it doesn't affect my acquaintances back in New Eridu," Andrew ultimately chose the out-of-sight, out-of-mind approach.
After all, they couldn't exactly spread the word across worlds, could they?
Compared to fretting over such things, continuing to study the Kushala Daora Armor on his body was far more appealing.
He felt out the Wind King Barrier attached to the armor.
Flowing in the forward direction, it was the Wind King Barrier with its stealth and protective functions; and once he deliberately reversed the flow, it became the Wind King's Hammer, which represented pure destruction.
Forward for defense, reverse for offense—this skill was undoubtedly the result of the Second Cohort's leader's careful selection.
At the same time, with two teachers on hand who could demonstrate for themselves at any moment, Andrew quickly gained a certain familiarity with these two modes of operation.
The Kushala Daora Armor, which had Dragon Jade added as a material, was different from Hoshimi Miyabi's Frigid Blade, which had no Dragon Jade. If the Frigid Blade was like a race car without a battery, its power core being Hoshimi Miyabi herself—
then the Kushala Daora Armor with its Dragon Jade was a complete whole that already had a battery installed and could cycle and operate on its own.
And for this armor, Andrew was more like an external energy source—only after the energy within the Dragon Jade was fully drained would he need to supply power himself, the way Hoshimi Miyabi did.
And this was the main reason the Wind King Barrier added to the Kushala Daora Armor could operate on its own.
As for whether, after turning the Wind King Barrier into something that shrouded his entire person for stealth, the hurricane swirling around his whole body might possibly affect combat…
don't forget that Kushala Daora's most famous ability is Wind Pressure Nullification!
No matter how terrifying a hurricane he unleashed, Andrew—clad in the Kushala Daora Armor—could surely withdraw completely unscathed.
Clearly, the Second Cohort's leader had also taken this into account when adding this function.
The skill of an outstanding craftsman went without saying.
"To be able to design and accomplish so much in such a short time—he really lives up to his reputation…"
However, the next problem that came with it was…
from here on, the development and use of the other skills of this ability would all have to depend on Andrew figuring it out himself.
And that put him in a bit of a bind.
Unlike before, when he'd changed the entire environment of the training ground through sheer willpower control with brute force, complex skills often meant precise control.
Although in the memories of his past-past life there were plenty of moves and skills from novels and anime he could reference, asking someone who could currently only copy Ether energy manipulation by rote to develop techniques outright was still a bit too much to ask.
A genius was a genius.
But no matter how much of a genius he was, wanting to outright develop things in a field he'd never touched before was still a bit too much to ask.
After all, if not even the foundation existed, how could one possibly build a tower?
Watching how, after puzzling over it for quite a while, he'd only managed to turn the Wind King's Hammer—which struck out like a giant sledge—into something resembling a wind blade, Andrew ultimately gave up on slowly figuring it out alone.
And the only local of New Eridu at his side—
Hoshimi Miyabi, as a purely instinct-based martial arts fanatic, could take down monsters with ease, but asking her to understand and teach the basic principles of attribute manipulation was still a bit too much for her.
"After I get back, I'll just have to ask The Mayor to help me find a teacher I can learn arcane skills and Ether energy manipulation from…"
The Wind attribute alone wouldn't drive Andrew to this.
But now that he had the Second Cohort's leader's teaching materials, as long as he had suitable Dragon Jade materials, Andrew could likewise craft treasure tools that manipulated other attributes.
So learning the fundamentals was a must.
As Andrew muttered to himself, Kairu at his side was, at Andrew's request, silently keeping time just as before.
"1… 2… …15…"
After a full half-minute of waiting, the hurricane swirling around Andrew's body had once again taken shape, turning his figure transparent once more.
And this not only signified stealth, but also meant that the Wind King's Hammer could be unleashed again.
"Fifteen seconds to recover… While that might be a bit long in an actual battle, Lord Andrew, the speed at which you recover each time is getting faster and faster."
For reference, that very first time it had taken Andrew a full three or four minutes to reconstitute the Wind King Barrier, yet in just this short bit of familiarization he'd already compressed it down to its current degree.
Such progress was already utterly astonishing to Kairu.
But the moment she thought about how it was her idol, Lord Andrew, who'd accomplished it, it suddenly seemed to make sense again?
In response to Kairu's admiration, Andrew merely shook his head.
"That's only because I knew absolutely nothing about this area before, which is why the progress is so fast. Trying to speed it up any further from here will only get harder and harder."
By Andrew's estimate, once he became fully proficient with this skill, the recovery time should be able to be compressed to under ten seconds or so.
Beyond that, the difficulty would only intensify exponentially.
Just like the human hundred-meter dash, the closer you got to the limit, the more that fraction-of-a-second gap became a world of difference.
Having obtained the test results he wanted, Andrew simply dispersed the Wind King Barrier that had nearly fully taken shape.
Feeling that the energy in the Dragon Jade had nearly bottomed out during that recent test's consumption, Andrew couldn't help but shake his head and remark with a sigh:
"No wonder it hasn't caught on—this ratio of consumption to damage dealt…"
According to the Second Cohort's leader's teaching materials, the energy in the Dragon Jade could be restored by drawing Ether from the air through Ether magic circuits—but at least in this Monster Hunter world, self-recovery was something that couldn't be achieved for the time being.
As for the specific recovery efficiency, he'd have to return to the Hollows over in New Eridu to test it.
As for using the Life Energy in his own body…
without seriously affecting his actual combat power, Andrew had only managed to restore two-thirds of the energy in the Dragon Jade.
His verdict was that recharging it himself was worse than just saving his stamina and going up to beat things down directly.
Mind you, Andrew's stamina and Life Energy were both currently in that utterly terrifying tier among all Hunters, and yet even so he'd only charged it to two-thirds.
With that much stamina, he could've fought two extra battles!
Without an additional energy source as the main workhorse for consumption, relying solely on the Dragon Jade and the Hunter's own power supply was still a bit too much of a stretch.
Looking at the potion in his hand—a dark red liquid mixed with faint threads of a deep purple that gave off a subtle fluorescent glow—Andrew looked at the dragonkin siblings before him and said somewhat uncertainly:
"This… this thing is really a vaccine?"
"In terms of looks, this thing has got to be at least on the level of the T-virus, right?!"
Hearing Andrew's quip, the Third Cohort's leader—who'd been busy without sleep or rest these past few days and had only just recently gotten to rest—lounged lazily against her chair.
The feeling of exhaustion kept pounding at her brain, but she still couldn't help shooting Andrew a white-eyed glare as she said:
"I recall I should have taught you back then that the essence of a vaccine is a virus prototype with all the parts harmful to the human body stripped away, right?"
"The bottle in your hand is no different from the original Frenzy Virus, except that it causes no harm whatsoever to the human body."
Recalling the object Andrew had just compared it to, the Third Cohort's leader added even more irritably:
"Besides, it's not like I've never studied that T-virus—how could it possibly compare to the Frenzy Virus?"
"Wait—back when I was helping those girls who'd stumbled into this world with their research, weren't you out doing a hunting mission?"
"How do you know what the T-virus looks like?"
Uh-oh.
Looking at the thoroughly annoyed Third Cohort's leader, Andrew secretly slapped his thigh in regret.
That subconscious quip just now had made him forget that back in the day, Uncle Leon and Auntie Ada had genuinely, properly come to the New World.
At the time they'd not only carried the T-virus on them, they'd even had a Tyrant following behind them.
Except that not only was that Tyrant easily dealt with by the Felynes, but their zombie virus—which they'd treated as a formidable, dire threat—couldn't even hold its own against the New World's local decomposer bacteria.
The zombies' corpses were broken down straight into a pile of bones by the bacteria in just half a day.
The only thing Andrew felt was a pity…
was that, just as the Third Cohort's leader had said, back when he'd only just become a Hunter, he'd been off hunting a Rathalos, and during the whole period they were here he hadn't been at the Astral Outpost at all.
Otherwise, Andrew would honestly have quite liked to lay eyes on his childhood goddess Ada Wong in person, and personally feel just how hard the legendary Steelback Beast's back really was.
However, in the face of the Third Cohort's leader's probing, Andrew decisively played dumb and changed the subject:
"Oh right, Leader Three, where's the head of the Investigation Team?"
Looking around left and right without spotting that gaunt figure from his memory, Andrew stroked his chin with a hint of regret and said:
"I haven't even had the chance to ask whether that dip pen I gave him works well."
Watching Andrew so obviously change the subject, the Third Cohort's leader—who hadn't thought the question she'd just raised was all that important anyway—shook her head.
Following along with Andrew's question, she answered:
"My… my brother, after confirming the vaccine research was complete, didn't choose to rest. Because he couldn't feel at ease handing that work over to others, he went straight back to the Astral Outpost to continue the Investigation Team's work."
Even though she herself was mentally exhausted beyond measure, her workaholic big brother had gone right ahead and started working again.
The moment the Third Cohort's leader thought about this, she couldn't help shaking her head too.
Recalling his parting instructions, the Third Cohort's leader subconsciously touched the new feather of the otherworldly bird that was pinning up her hair like a hairpin.
She smiled and said:
"By the way, before he left he asked me to pass along to you that the pen you gave him really is very easy to use."
The brief banter now over, the Third Cohort's leader quickly got into gear and began explaining to Andrew the research process behind this new vaccine.
____
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