A few hours later.....
They were now close enough to the university, encased in a green barrier for Jade to be able to see it clearly. The journey shouldn't have taken so long but they had to avoid a few Rank Two beasts in their direct path. As well as fight off a few H-S R2s. Other than that, it was quite fun for them, especially when they saw people run away when they saw the mansion approach. I an, who would stick around when a floating mansion approaches them?.
The experience also made the group realise that there were quite a number of people outside of the safe zones. Interestingly, all of them were Rank One!. This made sense, really; unranked people wouldn't be able to survive so long outside in the current world. It seems like humans were always adapting to the situation despite the many chickens in the safe zones.
"I think we should stop here. Can't get too close to the university with a floating mansion after all", Muku spoke up after Jade told him that they were around three kilotres away from the mansion. He then slowly placed the mansion on the ground and sighed in exhaustion. Despite the sufficient mana provided by Audrey, his body still felt sore from the continuous of such pure mana. This is sothing he only found out after they began: that Audrey's mana was a lot purer than the rest of them. It was likely due to being a higher rank, so his lower-rank body couldn't handle it too well.
....
"So getting here took more ti than we thought, because of that, we'll have to go check the university out tomorrow. It's better to show up in the morning so that we can be sure to make it back before sundown. Wouldn't want to travel at night, after all; put your hand down, Jade; I know you got perfect night vision". Muku addressed the group after they gathered in the lounge.
"I wasn't going to even talk about that...it's true, I'm aweso but I was going to talk about sothing else. We already got the beast at, can I take Emily out to roast it now?" Jade explained herself, to which Muku didn't even know what to say and waved her off. He then got up and headed to his room to rest.
"Yay!" Jade scread in joy and dragged Emily away while Audrey, Layla and Chloe followed behind. Hope headed for Muku's room instead.
...
"Big brother, should I cast Hallowed Ground on you?" Hope softly asked when she got into Muku's room and saw him massaging his head with his eyes closed.
"No, it's fine; you don't have proper control over the spell yet, so you'll just be wasting most of your mana. I can handle this slight headache; it should go away in an hour or two". Muku replied, still not opening his eyes.
"If it was just a slight headache I know you wouldn't have been resting here but outside with the others instead. From your body language, I can tell that you're having trouble with your whole body; it's likely painful from using Audrey's higher-rank mana". Again, Hope displayed her absurdly high observation ability.
"....You know, sotis it really scares how observant you are". Muku replied while smiling wryly.
"Hehehe, I'll take that as a complint. Also, as you said, my control over the spell is really bad, and I waste a lot of mana, but how will I improve if you don't let practice?". Hope took what he said about her observation ability as a complint; after all, without it, she might have died a long ti ago with Mr Swindon's group. What she didn't know was that it also helped her escape being violated by them; there was no way they would have first targeted the middle-aged lady if she had been there. After she expressed her happiness with the unintended complint, she gave Muku a reason to use her spell that he couldn't deny.
"Sigh, fine, do what you want. You're lucky you're my cute little sister or I'd have given you the Jade treatnt for being so persistent." Muku relented, he didn't know how to argue with her logic after all.
"Hehehe, Hallowed Ground!" Hope giggled a bit then cast the spell. A gentle green as majestic as before radiated from her body and covered the whole room. Muku was enchanted by the sight, it was the first ti he'd seen it after all. He could think of only one word to describe how Hope looked right now, and that was "Holy".
As soon as the light touched him, he felt his muscles imdiately start to relax along with the rest of his body. Then his mind was targeted next, and his headache imdiately stopped. He never felt so relaxed before in his life; I was so addicted. Sadly, the glow didn't last too long and started to fade; then, a weakened Hope fell onto her knees, barely keeping her eyes open. Muku quickly got up, picked her up and laid her on his bed.
"You should sleep for a while okay. Thank you for making feel better". Muku said with a soft voice while sitting beside Hope and caressing her hair.
"Hehehe, big brother's bed". Hope said before drifting off into sleep, an innocent smile on her face.
"So this is how it feels like to have a little sister huh...her smile, I'll protect it with everything I have". Muku said before getting up and preparing to leave the room. He gave Hope one last gentle look before walking out.
"Now it's ti to go see what that troubleso green cat is doing right now. I'm sure she's causing so kind of trouble right now". He spoke to himself as he walked downstairs.
...
"Oh my god, it's ruined!?" Jade's loud cry was heard from the backyard.
"What's the problem?, Jade, what did you do?" Muku's voice was heard from behind them.
"Hey, why do always think it's causing problems?". Jade imdiately complained with a pitiful expression on her face.
"Simple really, because you're always causing trouble!". Muku replied, his expression unchanged by Jade's pitiful expression.
"Hmph!, well this ti it's not . It's Emily who has no control over her own fire. Instead of roasting the at, she's burning it to a crisp!" Jade unhesitatingly sold Emily out seeing that Muku wasn't believing her when she said she wasn't the one causing trouble.
"Hey!, how could you!?" Emily shouted at Jade with a surprised expression from the unexpected betrayal as well as so embarrassnt.
"Hmph! You think I forgot the tis you betrayed ?. And not like he wouldn't have found out as soon as he looked at the at coal you made?". Jade replied with a disdainful look on her face, as well as so satisfaction from getting a little revenge.
"Okay, let see....oh my!". Muku got closer as he spoke; as soon as he saw the at Emily "barbecued", he couldn't help but exclaim in surprise. Jade wasn't exaggerating when she said it had turned into coal. Luckily, she's only tried to roast a little part, or all the at would have been burned to a crisp.
"I'm sorry, my control is a lot worse than I thought. I had only been practising how to make the flas hotter, not less so." Emily apologized with her head held down in embarrassnt.
"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be able to control it better when you reach rank two. For now, why don't we try sothing else?" Muku spoke, trying to cheer her up.
"I'm open to suggestions" Emily replied, already feeling better.
"Why don't I try?" Chloe chid in.
"Ah, right! Chloe can just electrocute it until it's cooked!" Jade exclaid in excitent; she really wanted to eat the beast's at.
"Okay, but try it on a smaller part first...here" Muku said while cutting off the other drumstick off the bird.
"Okay, here I go". Chloe said as she held her hands out, lightning ca out of her hands and hit the large floating drumstick. Smoke quickly started coming out of the drumstick, along with an enticing aroma. Everyone couldn't help but gulp down so saliva, wanting to dig in at that very mont. Then they blinked; the at went from undercooked to almost charred in less than a second. Chloe had lost her concentration due to fantasizing about how the at would taste.
"Oh, crap! I'm sorry!" Chloe, noticing what had happened, imdiately apologised. Emily then ca forward and patted her shoulder in consolation, a look of camaraderie visible in her eyes.
"It's fine, it happens. I got another idea we could try" Muku said with a smile on his face.
...
"Tsk!, why didn't you do this earlier?" Jade complained while thinking of the two wasted drumsticks.
"Keep talking, and you won't get any", Muku replied without looking at her.
"I'm sorry, it won't happen again" Jade imdiately apologized with a fearful expression on her face. He wouldn't refuse to give her so at when it was her idea, and she caught it, right?
Right now they were all looking at the makeshift stove Muku made. It was a silver flat surface where sliced-up pieces of at were roasting. The heat was coming from Emily's fla that was burning below it. If the heat beca too much, he'd either add more layers to the tal or Emily would stop fueling it for a bit. With this new thod, the at was perfectly roasted without wasting any more.
After a while of roasting, all of the at was cooked. And everyone was looking at the large dish full of at, especially Jade and Audrey. Both unwittingly let out their canines and fangs respectively. It was actually the first ti Jade managed to let her canine teeth out without a full transformation. For her control to improve so much due to food made everyone roll their eyes at how much of a foody she was, but they didn't say anything.
"This slls so great, although I want to make Jade the genie pig to see if this is poisonous or not. I think that will be unfair, so let's all take a bite at the sa ti". With those words from Muku, everyone took a piece from the dish and bit down after giggling at what he said. Jade just rolled her eyes, feeling like arguing would be wasting ti right now.
As soon as they all bit it, they all felt a weak stream of energy co out of the at and enter their body. Not to ntion that it was the tastiest at any of them had ever eaten.
Surprisingly they didn't eat even a quarter of what they usually ate before they felt full.
"Ahh!" Emily scread in surprise, then everyone imdiately looked at her.
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