Just as Bellod had promised, despite Asher turning down the more than generous offer to venture to the Hojon Empire and become little more than a living source for Spatial enchantments, they received their payout for the greater demon corpse once they’d finished up with their meeting. Though with Samantha continuing to refuse to touch the shards earned from the sale of the greater demon, the vast majority of their newfound wealth went into his own pockets.

  Shards: 13,149,617

  After giving Samantha the shards for the Knowledge element, splitting the earnings from the book collection and lesser demon corpse, and accounting for Bellod’s three percent fee for acting as their appraiser, Asher walked away from the Grand Auction with a little more than twelve million and two hundred thousand shards for their efforts. Combined with the shards he already had, which had largely come from betting every shard he’d owned on Moxy taking down Brutalizer, he was now somewhat rich.

  Or as Samantha called it, ridiculously wealthy.

  “This is the weirdest feeling in the world,” Samantha muttered as they made their way back to the palace. They could have just Recalled, but Samantha looked as though she needed a little fresh air. Her eyes were glossed over slightly, revealing that her focus was on her interface rather than the world around them. “I just made over six hundred thousand shards in an instant. That’s more than half a million shards. Someone just handed them to me, just like that!”

  “Yes, that tends to be how selling stuff works,” Asher teased, unable to stop himself from laughing at the almost nauseous look on Samantha’s face. While she could have collected her winnings yesterday, as she wasn’t accepting any of the shards from the greater demon, she’d asked the Grand Auction to temporarily hold onto her shards to give herself time to mentally prepare. Though it would seem a single day hadn’t been quite enough time for her, based on her expression. “I wouldn’t get too excited just yet. Don’t forget, you have fifteen skills waiting for you to evolve, and each of those costs a hundred thousand shards. Actually, you told me a while back that you’d already hit the level cap for your five Forest skills. It’s going to burn through most of your newfound fortune pretty much instantly, but I’d recommend evolving those five skills up to the next tier now that you can. I think you’re already beyond the potential benefit of trying to keep all your elements balanced seeing as you only had the one for so many years.”

  Naturally, Asher would be more than happy to give Samantha the shards she needed for her skill evolutions, but he was well aware by now her preference to handle things like this on her own whenever possible.

  “Actually, I did recently evolve one of my Forest skills from some of the shards we collected already,” Samantha admitted, finally dismissing her interface just in time to dodge walking headfirst into a lamppost. “Though I’ll be the first to admit that the skill’s second tier effect isn’t anything too crazy.”

  “Even better! That means you’ll still have a few hundred thousand left after evolving the other four!” Taking Samantha’s hand, Asher changed direction and pulled them down a dark alleyway away from the main throng of people. “Here, can you fly us out to one of the nearby forests? Let’s get those skills unlocked and see what you get!”

  “Are we really doing this?” Samantha asked, shaking her head at the thought of evolving the remaining four skills she’d had stuck at the first tier for most of her adult life. “What am I saying? Yeah, let’s do this!"

  Manifesting her wings, Samantha made sure he was secure on her back before she shot up into the sky with Flight Burst, sending a burst of air down the alleyway that would have made Moxy proud. It didn’t take them long to make it to one of the nearby forests, where Asher hopped off with a quick slip into the astral, taking a seat beside a nearby tree as he whistled and clapped.

  “Alright, let’s get this show started!”

  “Your enthusiasm is appreciated,” Samantha snorted, her ears turning a faint pink as she cleared her throat and summoned her interface. “Which one should I even start with?”

  “How about you start with telling me what cool new effect you got for the skill you actually evolved?” Asher asked, raising an eyebrow. “I can’t believe you didn’t say anything!”

  “I didn’t say anything because it was sort of lackluster,” she admitted, turning even more red. “I started by evolving Nature Sense. The tier-one effect helps me find things I need in the forest, like if I’m looking for specific herbs or creatures. It was the skill that came with my origin element, and one of the ones I relied on most for hunting and herb gathering.”

  “Alright, so what did evolving it do?”

  “The second tier made it more expansive,” she tried to explain. “Before, I had to focus on basically one thing at a time. Now, I sort of know roughly everything potentially gatherable in my immediate vicinity, all the time. The skill only stretches out a few dozen feet, but in the thicker portions of the forest, it’s pretty useful.”

  “It’s no giant glowing wings, but I could still see how that would be useful,” Asher tried to reassure her. “Enough stalling! Evolve another one!”

  “Alright, I’m going!” she giggled, hesitating for only a moment before evolving her next skill. Of course, Asher couldn’t actually sense when she spent her shards, but it was pretty clear from the movement of her eyes she was reading from her interface.

  “Which one did you evolve first?”

  “Woodland Stride, my second skill. It’s how I’m able to move so easily through the forest all the time.”

  “I have always been jealous of that one,” he muttered, recalling all the times he’d witnessed her seem to glide straight through dense underbrush or slide down trees like she was holding a rope. Even with the skill only in the first tier, after practicing with it for eight years, Samantha traveled through even the thickest forest like a ghost when she needed to.

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  “Okay, this is pretty cool,” she grinned, looking up from her interface at him. “Before, the skill helped me move more easily through the forest. Now it has an active component that will let me move quite literally through the forest if needed.”

  “That makes absolutely no sense, so maybe you should just show me.”

  With a nod, Samantha took a deep breath, before turning and sprinting at a nearby tree. Asher didn’t even have time to shout before she hit the tree dead on.

  And phased straight through it.

  Popping out the other side, Samantha laughed as she patted herself down, as if checking to confirm she was still solid. Satisfied with the results, she turned and walked back, phasing straight through the tree a second time on her way over.

  “Okay, now I understand why you like using Astral Dip to go through things so much,” she said, her smile wider than ever. “That is such a weird feeling. I can actually hold the skill active for a few minutes if needed, so I could even hide within the tree if I wanted to. And despite the fact that I can’t see anything while in there, with Nature Sense, I have a decent understanding of what’s going on outside.”

  “That’s a serious winner in my book!” Asher said, clapping once more and laughing as Samantha took a mock bow. “Come on, three to go!”

  “Next is Natural Camouflage,” she said. “I can’t really show you this one, because it’s a passive that helps hide me whenever I’m moving through the forest on my own. I know from accidentally scaring the nine hells out of other hunters that it works on other people, but from my understanding, you need to not know that I’m using the skill for it to work. Basically, I need to catch you off guard.”

  Dropping another hundred thousand shards, Samantha nodded as she read over the new effect. “Honestly, that’s about what I was expecting. Still passive, but it looks like if I stop moving completely, the skill now makes me all but invisible while I’m actively hiding.”

  “Seeing as we have all sorts of powerful things after us near constantly, a passive invisibility skill sounds like a fantastic pick up,” Asher chimed in. “But it only works in a forest?”

  “Yep. I mean, it is from my Forest element,” Samantha pointed out. “Okay, two left. Next would be Natural Guide, the skill that gives me a mental map of everywhere I’ve explored within a forest.”

  Asher nodded, excited to see what this evolution would do. Samantha’s Natural Guide was the only reason they managed to make their way back from the lich’s tower all the way to Horntho village after they’d escaped. The skill had mapped a trail over a hundred miles long for them to follow, which made it incredibly impressive in his eyes.

  “Oh!” Samantha said, blinking in shock as she reread over her skill’s new effect once more. “This is really cool! It added an active component to the skill. I can focus on something specific, like a source of water or a tree large enough to climb, and Natural Guide will highlight the nearest one in the forest if it exists, even if I haven’t discovered it myself just yet!”

  “I don’t know much about wandering through a forest, but the ability to have water and shelter pointed out to you sounds pretty awesome,” Asher said, matching her excited smile. Seeing Samantha so happy with all of her new skill effects that would make her an unrivaled forester brought him no end of joy. If he had been the one getting these skills, he would have been a bit let down by the lack of combat potential. But Samantha was simply excited to be able to navigate the forests she loved more efficiently, and seeing her glow as she unlocked skill after skill filled his heart with warmth.

  “Come on, you’ve still got one more!”

  “Right! Sorry!” she said, laughing as she stopped turning this way and that, presumably using her new skill effect to highlight distant locations within the forest she hadn’t even been to yet. “My last skill is the only one you’ve never really seen me use. Not for any sort of bad reason, I just don’t really make a big show of using it in front of people, and I don’t like demonstrating it for no reason.”

  “Alright, well now I’m intrigued,” he said, wondering just what this hidden fifth skill could be. Having known about her other four, he’d always wondered what her last Forest skill was. He’d figured she had a reason for keeping it a secret, so he’d never asked before now.

  “The skill is Tree Mender,” she said, walking back over to the tree she’d phased through and lightly brushing a hand against the bark. “It’s a healing skill, and an incredibly fast acting one, but it literally only works on trees. Perfect for helping a forest stay healthy, not so much when it comes to people.”

  “Ah, that explains why you don’t like showing it off for no reason,” he said, nodding as it finally clicked. “Unless there happened to be a damaged tree nearby, it would require you to hurt a tree in the first place.”

  “Exactly. I’ve used it around you a few times here or there to fix things like claw marks or when I yank my arrows out of trees, but all it takes is a quick touch and it’s done.”

  “Sounds like the perfect skill for a forest-loving hunter,” he smiled. “Though I’m curious what the evolution will do to it!”

  “Guess we’ll find out,” she said, dropping one last chunk of shards as she evolved the fifth and final skill of her Forest element. Blinking in surprise at her latest skill effect, her brow furrowed in confusion. “...Huh. Sort of a weird upgrade. It looks like I can temporarily make trees… indestructible?”

  “Indestructible?” Asher repeated, surprised by the specific word choice. “Not ‘harder,’ or ‘more durable,’ but indestructible?”

  “That’s definitely what it says,” she said with a shrug as she laid her palm flat against the tree. “Here, try attacking this tree with something.”

  Curious, Asher pulled a random axe out of his Personal Rift. By now, he had a collection of pretty much every basic tool he could think of, along with spares just in case. Getting a nod from Samantha, he hefted the axe over his head, before smashing it down against the tree with all of his strength. The axe wasn’t exactly of incredible quality, so he certainly wasn’t expecting to cut through the tree in a single swing. But it was still a sharpened iron axe.

  Which made it all the more shocking when it shattered upon impact with the tree’s bark.

  “Woah!” he shouted, reflexively slipping into the astral for a moment to dodge chunks of iron from hitting him as he laughed. “That’s crazy!”

  “Not a scratch on it,” Samantha muttered, bending down and carefully examining the tree. “Well, not sure how much use I’ll get out of that, but it’s a pretty neat skill to have.”

  “I’ll say!” Asher laughed, his hands still stinging from the recoil of striking an indestructible object with all his strength. “You might not think that’s all that useful, but I know one thing. We are definitely going to make sure our big fight against the greater demons takes place in a forest if we get the chance!”

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