Doug looked at the group that afternoon when Hawk confirmed that there was still nothing to fight. He had eliminated a small group of Goblins with a fireball while scouting, but their zone was otherwise barren.

"Do you think that we actually scared the monsters away? Most monsters will avoid the territory of a more powerful monster, so it's possible that either Hawk or Rae have scared them off. No offence intended to Thor, but the Lightning Cerro isn't known for being dangerous enough to chase others out of their territory." The cleric asked, while sweeping his dark curls back from his face.

"It is possible. We have patrolled this same area for so long that there should be a scent trail around the perimeter. If they sense that we're that much more powerful than they are, they will naturally avoid the area." Danni agreed.

Bob smirked. "To think, we were sent here to deal with the monsters, and now they're too afraid to come to the zone that we're assigned to. Is that a total victory or some sort of failure? Our orders are to hold this zone, so we can't just leave."

The mages shrugged.

"It's a win for us. If the scent of Rae around the perimeter was enough to scare off almost all the monsters, then we did our job. The zone is secure. But how is that tea doing, Doug? Is it almost steeped yet?"

Doug nodded. "I added one of the fire elemental stones to the mix and let it infuse. The mixture should be quite potent with that quality of flower, but it needs to be boiled down a bit more still. According to my alchemy book, it needs to be as thick as milk before it's completely extracted."

Hawk had noticed that the tea only involved the core of the flower, and that Doug had only reserved three petals from the flower. He had put one each into three vials, but that left almost the whole flower for Hawk, and he was getting impatient to try it.

As the tea rendered down into a proper potion, it began to glow with a soft orange light, and the stone that Doug had set in the kettle began to lose its lustre.

"There we go. All done. Now let me portion this. I've got five cups and three vials, since some of us aren't good with cups." The Cleric explained.

He passed everything out, and Karl passed the vial to Thor in his resting space. The Cerro just grabbed it in his beak and tipped his head back, swallowing it in one shot. Rae did the same, but seemed intrigued by either the taste or the effect.

Karl took the shot of potion, and it felt like fire was running through his veins as the effect spread through his body. He could feel it strengthening his body, but he couldn't quite grasp the power that it had.

Doug had said it was a Fire Element resource, and he didn't have any Fire skills. But the excess was being siphoned off by Hawk, who was happy to take anything he had to spare, as well as the remainder of the flower, whose petals he had started to chew on like bubblegum.

Everyone settled back to let the potion digest, and Karl returned to meditation while Rae volunteered to watch the area, in case something tasty came to her webs.

An hour later, Hawk decided that he had absorbed as much as he could for the day, and he stored the remainder of the flower in his space so that it would be safe until he finished scouting again.

He had a good feeling about the power of his fireball attack now, and he had every intention of finding something to test it on.

Unfortunately for him, they really had scared off everything, and there wasn't a single monster to be found in their zone. But that didn't stop a determined Hawk, and with only one more kilometre of flight, he found a group of Lizardmen skirting around their zone.

A single fireball from the sky exploded in their group, killing three and maiming the others. Then Hawk saw the group that was working the area and flew away, leaving the rest to them now that his curiosity was sated.

[Is that your Hawk, Mackenzie group? We just saw a Dragon Hawk ambush a group of Lizardmen and fly away like it was nothing.] The group asked over the radio.

[Yeah, that's ours. There's nothing left in our zone, so we let him scout a bit further out to see if they were just avoiding us or if the whole area was clear.] Doug replied.

The other groups didn't have to key up the microphone for everyone listening to know that they were cursing at the Mackenzie group. Their entire area had been cleared? What sort of nonsense was that? Most groups could barely walk a circuit of their zone in a day, and he was claiming they had killed everything by lunch?

[The Fireball works much better now. Almost as good as Rend, but over a much larger area.] Hawk informed Karl.

That likely meant that Fireball was far superior to Rend at this point, but Hawk would not easily admit that. If he could single shot ambush Awakened Lizardmen, it was good enough for Karl. That would allow them to take care of anything they were likely to come across on an Academy mission.

The group waited as Hawk scouted around their borders, occasionally attacking and killing monsters that were trying to avoid them, but mostly just marking them for the other groups that were in the area. Seeing Hawk circling and either sending fireballs or just screeching at them was enough to bring the groups over now that they were familiar with him.

Their team was the envy of the region by the end of the day, and everyone was wondering what sort of superstars Command had sent that could report multiple Ascended Rank monster kills every hour all morning, until they cleared their area.

There were Commander Rank monsters in their reports nearly every day, but it was the efficiency of the group that caught everyone's attention after that radio conversation.

Karl meditated through the afternoon and the evening, as did the mages, who were still working to absorb the gains that they had made from the potion. Doug had prayed to his goddess for a while, but Bob didn't seem to believe in meditation, so he was the only one paying attention to the radio when the next round of replacement messages came through.

[Mackenzie group, hold position for replacement. Your time slot is noon tomorrow.] The Command group informed them.

[Understood Command. We will do our best to have the morning clear finished before they arrive.] Bob replied.

That meant one more night watch, and they would be headed back home for a break before their next mission, or their return to work, in the case of the mages and Doug.

Karl wondered what it would be like to be back in the Academy with the first years on the second floor after this mission. He had been ahead of them before, but he hardly felt connected to them anymore. The older students seemed much more relatable, and Karl totally understood why they were less interested in what was going on at the school than their next chance to go out and grow their powers.

The advantages of training in the wilderness were just too good. There was little doubt that he would make it to the Ascended Rank the next time that they were tested, and he already knew that he could square off against most of the lower strength Commander Rank beasts with the help of his partners.

Doug sighed and leaned back against the tree trunk. "It looks like we did too well. But if we get to go home early, that's never bad news. We will have to go over what we have collected on this mission so that everything is split properly.

The gold is easy enough to split on its own, but we've collected a number of magical items as well, and that will be much harder to value and split."

Karl shrugged. "What do you usually do when it's just family?" He asked.

"We just split the money and everything else goes to who needs it." Doug replied.

"That works for me. We've already split everything else by need, so it doesn't really have to get mentioned again. Just split up the precious metals and gems we collected when we get back, and it's good by me.

I've got these nice gloves, Hawk is happy with his flower, Thor got armour for his tail. Rae might have gotten the short end of things, but at least she got some good snacks." Karl suggested.

Rae laughed as she looked at all the Commander Rank beasts caught in her web. That would be enough to allow a regular Bloodbath Spider to grow from a hatchling to its full strength, as long as it didn't go bad.

That wasn't a concern in the space, so she was certain that she had all the basic resources she needed, and now it was just a matter of increasing the speed, which meant either rare things, or making Karl meditate more.

Of the two options, it was obvious which was the more attainable.

[You know, if you just stay here in the fort we could go fight while you meditate all morning...] Rae suggested.

[We're not in that big of a hurry. It's better to have everyone together, in case of a surprise attack.] Karl replied, while wondering if she had forgotten that he could hear her plotting in his mind.