Rise of the Omnimage

Team five traveled 16 kilometers west until they found a stream and an area on a slight incline that was flattened out and surrounded by large boulders to give some cover and concealment. Their sight lines were not near as good as the other location, but this area had what Cain and Linx were looking for. Signs of fire beasts.

On the hike over they had discussed plans for how they wanted to finish this week out.

Linx and Cain wanted to begin farming the area for beasts to obtain as many fire cores as they could to begin pushing into tier 3 in a few months from now. They didn't actually know the next time they would get an opportunity to get cores in the future and wanted to stock up even if they didn't need them. Sorin agreed with their plan.

"I will watch our gear and work to get myself back in true working condition. I have an idea for getting back some of the loses, but I will let you know." He said. They set up the camp using brush and dirt to further camouflage the camp. After a brief area scouting session, the three split up. The Cain and Linx heading into the woods together to hunt and Sorin remaining behind.

Sorin sat down and expanded his fire sense to the limit without it pulling from his aether and then activated his absorption ability to begin infusing his flesh once more. To his surprise it went even quicker than the first time. It was like his body had a memory of the infusion and what he thought was going to take him all the rest of the day and night, took him only a few hours. He looked at his stats again and sighed in relief.

Body: 50/50

Mind: 50/50

Spirit: 50/50

Sorin shut down his HUD and settled in for another round of the hard part. He ramped his absorption up and began pulling as hard as he could. He braced for the struggle this time. The usual resistance came, and he slowly began moving and compressing the aether down in his core and he pushed even harder with his will. He could slowly feel his core pushing at the edges what felt like a single micrometer at a time. He could feel the sweat pouring off of him in buckets.

Hours passed as every single bit of progress was made. He eventually stopped when he saw two people crossing into his fire sense. He stood up and peered through the brush and verified that it was in fact Cain and Linx. They were looking a little ragged, but happy and smiling when they crossed into the camp with the sun starting to break the horizon.

"How did the hunt go fellas?" Sorin asked wiping his own sweat from his face. "It went extremely well after the first couple. We had to figure out how to fight as two especially without our damage sponge." Linx said elbowing Sorin as he walked by. "How did your side go man?" Cain asked dropping down heavily taking a drink from his water skin.

"It went pretty well actually. I am back to where I was before I wrecked that lake." Linx laughed and Cain sighed, reaching into his pocket Cain tossed a red core over to Linx.

"You assholes had a bet going?" Sorin said as he looked unamusedly at them. They both grinned at him. "Sorin, at this point, you have been doing crazy crap and after you decided to blow up an entire section of forest we are going to start placing a lot more bets between us. We even have a bet going whether or not you blow up our assignee." Cain said.

Sorin snorted and smirked. "That bad, am I?"

"Oh, the worst." Linx said. "Which of you bet on me blowing her up?" Sorin asked looking at both of them. They both raised their hand. "Cain said you will blow her up in the first week and I said it will be toward the end when you are fed up listening to the classic noble "wait til my father hears of this" line."

Sorin groaned. "Oh no....that trope is real?!"

"What's a trope?" Cain asked. "A commonly reoccurring theme. In the books I've read about cultivation, nobility, LITRPG; whenever you have rich, noble, or royal children involved...every single time they don't get their way they threaten to tell daddy, or they ask if the person knows who their father is." Sorin explained.

Linx and Cain both laughed a little too loudly for Sorin's comfort causing him to reactively hunch down.

"We see you know the type. It's just funny it's in your books." Cain said. "It also looks like from your reaction, I'm the one more likely to win the bet." Linx added.

Sorin shook his head.

"When do you guys' next hunt?" Sorin asked.

"We plan to get a little shut eye, then we will head right back out. We found an area with a lot of cinderpaws and we can farm them for days all in a five-to-six-kilometer radius around here." Cain said.

"Cinderpaws?" Sorin said looking at both of them. "They are C rank version of a wolverine. Instead of that white stripe they have on their face it's just fire." Linx explained

"Ah. yeah, count me in." Sorin said.

Sorin kept up the watch since with all of his energy infusion and pushing he wasn't tired, but in fact brimming with aether. After a few hours, Linx and Cain woke up, threw down some food and water, covered up all their supplies, taking a healing drought each, then they all left the camp.

It was only about a half hour of walking before they saw their first cinderpaw and they sprang into action with their usual tactics. Sorin would rush in swinging and gaining its attention only for his team mates to flank and rip it apart.

"Oh, this is so much easier!" Linx exclaimed as he ripped out the beast's core. Cain nodded his agreement, and the team continued killing every single cinderpaw they could find. It felt like hours they cut down beast after beast at a rate Sorin was told was at least twice as fast as yesterday for them. They began playing games and trying to take one on by themselves after they memorized how they fight but like with everything...murphy's law just couldn't mind its own business.

The group turned the corner around a rock outcropping and in front of them said the biggest cinderpaw they had ever seen. It was jet black with blue flames going along it's back. The group was out in the open due to their complacency and the beast had already seen them preparing to attack.

"Fuck....Complacency kills." Sorin said as he readied for what he was already think was going to be the biggest fight for their lives.