Lana looked through the maps and documents the team had bought before they got there and Almin also shared some information. These insects were pretty fast and hurt. Lana smiled. "Good. It's great training."
At the gate, where they had to show their traveler tags and the quest they were going on, Quinn gave the new party member, Suzy, a hug. Lana thought that was strange because Quinn didn't do such things. His emotional intelligence was actually pretty low.
A while later, they were in a field that had red soil. The grass was tall and was the food source of huge elephant-type beasts. These were called pompleetes and were basic tier. They were friendly, however, which was a rare thing. They had white fur which was very soft.
The insect in question was red with green antennae. It was the size of a basketball and its wings were a light green color. Lana had not seen quite that shade before and thought it was a pretty bug. At the same time, this bug was going to help them rank up. Quinn's team stopped and he designated teams making sure everyone was safe. He decided this was going to be easy. After the previous day, he wanted an easy, slow grinding experience.
Lana kept going, showing her mask to Quinn to show he could get in touch with her. He nodded as they continued. This field was very large so many teams could work here without getting in each other's way.
She took note of the behavior of the kakuen as they traveled, killing a few here and there. They appeared to hang out in the grass and were disturbed by the pompleetes eating the grass where they were. While they were fast, it looked like the real challenge was going to be finding them.
Finally, the team was in a spot where they could see no other groups. In trying to figure out what the groups would be, Lana realized just how big Caser had gotten over the past few months. His back was now taller than her knees. His head was huge and the top was at the top of her hip. His neck was now about four inches long. He looked at big as a dog.
Lana smiled with pride how her little baby was now closer to adulthood He was only four and a half months old now but his muscle structure looked dense. She compared him to his mother's corpse in her mind. He looked a bit more muscular but she had been pregnant. Was Caser now an advance tier beast like she was?
While she thought about teams, she put up her willow. She left yesterday's willow there and left instructions not to move unless she provided further instructions. She planned to do the same thing today. The oaks needed to be withered. She then observed the current area just a tad more. She put huge venus fly traps around the area in accordance with the actions she saw of the insects. They would not eat the beast crystals but the insect flesh.
"Okay everyone, I'm going to work with Caser. I want Almin with Duff and Shalt with Alto. If you can, get some to go near the venus fly traps and let them help us kill the insects."
With her orders given, Lana asked Caser to run in a circle around having it get wider and wider to try to aggravate any insects that may be in the grass. It worked. A little too well. Shalt and Alto joined Lana and Caser because she suddenly had six of these fast-flying insects zipping toward her. She was quite exhilarated, however. She cracked her whip and one-struck three before Alto threw a water dagger killing one, Shalt sliced one in half and Caser ate one in two bites.
Lana asked Caser to keep doing that but without eating all the crystals as they were needed to get that next rank. She explained if he wanted to go back to his home planet, the rank was required for everyone. His attitude changed a bit. He did his job as he was asked with no extra frivolities.
At the three hour mark, Lana set up the kitchen and prepared food for everyone. The killing was pretty quick but it was slower here. They only had 15 crystals for three hours work. She had set up those venus fly traps but they were not working. She was cursing in her head how much slower it was to grind here.
As she looked at her team, she realized they were more winded here. The advanced tier beasts were going to be stronger and faster, a combination of the two beasts they had fought so far but more so. If they got winded fighting these insects, then the goal was now set to fight these things for a whole day and not get so tired. At least get through half the day without getting winded at all. It would be required for their survival.
Lana put all four people plus Caser in the middle of the venus fly traps. She then ran around the outside, doing flips, essentially anything to be annoying to aggravate as many insects as possible. She was able to get some to follow her and a few others went after her friends but this was the result she wanted. She intentionally missed with her whip and one came in for her. She dodged to the left and the kakuen went straight into waiting venus fly trap. Since there were six mouths on these things, she wanted to feed as many as she could. She grew them. Time for them to work as well. Within moments, four were eating. One insect didn't cooperate and it got too close to use her whip. She withered it on the way to deliver a hook punch to the body. She didn't want to have her hand near the front of the pointy nose. She thought it had a nose similar to a mosquito even though it didn't consume blood.
The next three hours went like that and more crystals were gathered as a result. They got 37 this time. Lana withered her venus fly traps and they headed back. She thought it was a disappointment but they went ahead and went back to shelter. She decided to ask Nate about the policy of staying out of the shelter at night.
Back at the shelter, they did the same thing as the previous day. Shalt got 10 crystals by himself. Then everyone put in their ID cards and the rest of the crystals were shared. Shalt now made it to level D. The others stayed the same. She told everyone to go eat and rest while she went looking for Nate.
Lana found Nate in the training room. Apparently, Dobin had asked him to review the process of looking for his soul weapon once more. She allowed him to finish explaining knowing her brother could be thick sometimes and just because you have a soul weapon, doesn't mean you know how to use it as she could attest. Frankly, she wasn't in the mood to try to figure that out right now. She wanted to be on her planet where her safety was a better guarantee than where she was.
Nate noticed that in two days the F and the E were already a D. He wondered how long until they were all C. The others had been here for a while but they are still all advancing pretty quick. He was a bit worried about their safety. He wondered what they were doing to cheat the system.
When Nate looked available, she walked up to him. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"
"Sure," Nate gave one of his best smiles in attempt to impress her.
"I was wondering what the policy was for staying out of shelter over night? Since we have to check in when we return, I don't want to sound any alarms if we fail to return…"
Nate looked highly concerned. "Staying out all night as Rank D? I would say that is insane."
Lana laughed. "I wasn't looking for a mental evaluation, just an answer on policy."
"Let's go talk to Blip."
Lana laughed again, "A perfectly political answer. Sure, let's go talk to Blip."