Chapter 389: Blushing Butcheress
Chapter 389: Blushing Butcheress
Leo contacted Howl through his soul link and told him to use his skill [Thermal Pulse], strictly instructing him not to affect the water pool, magic plants and treasures.
Tavian and Kaelion were confused seeing Leo distracted all of a sudden, then suddenly, the ground below them began to heat up.
"Why is it so hot all of a sudden?!" Aina came running out of the bunker, her body faintly steaming. But she wasn’t alone—one by one, the other territory members and beasts followed, equally sweaty.
Lily understood what was happening and used her wind power to elevate everybody nearly 20 meters above the ground.
"W-what is happening?" people struggled to maintain their balance mid-air, but since Lily wasn’t paying much attention, they slowly began to rotate in place.
The ground temperature continued to rise as the muddy terrain dried rapidly. Steam billowed upward, brushing against the faces of the territory members—they were essentially experiencing a sauna in the open.
But since Howl was controlling his skill with high precision—leaving certain areas untouched and heating others less to avoid damaging vegetation—his skill proficiency began rising rapidly.
[Thermal Pulse] - Low 89% -> 91% -> 92%... -> 99% -> 100%
Ding!
[Thermal Pulse] - Mid 5%
- The body can generate more heat
- The body can generate heat at localized regions
Soon, the process was complete. Amidst the muddy forest, a completely dry and comfortable living area had been formed.
"Woah..." Brok exclaimed, staring at the transformed ground.
"Generally, after such heavy rain, the students face a lot of trouble with living conditions and even moving around their territory," he added, shaking his head in disbelief. "But it looks like the boss already had a solution."
Even Tavian was amazed. He briefly considered asking Leo to do the same for his territory, but refrained, thinking it would be inappropriate to trouble him on the very first day of their alliance.
Thankfully, he didn’t ask. Leo wouldn’t have been able to do it anyway—[Thermal Pulse] was limited to his own body, and revealing Howl’s existence would have been risky.
When the ground finally cooled down, Lily gently brought everyone back to the surface.
"Alright! Everybody, get back to work. You all had plenty of rest yesterday—today, no slacking!" she said as the morning sunrays spread across the territory. The storm had lasted for nearly a full day.
The elves quickly resumed their patrols as Lily called out to Sylrael.
"Sylrael, this is a spatial ring containing an adequate amount of sturdy metallic feathers. You can use them to craft your arrowheads. As for the crafting equipment, let’s go shopping and buy what you need."
"Lady Lily—"
"Sister," Lily corrected, her tone firm.
"S-sister Lily, we only require a small amount of feathers for our primary arrowheads used in stronger attacks. This spatial ring is too precious, please take it back."
Sylrael herself possessed a few spatial rings obtained from a previous raider of her realm, but they were insignificant compared to Lily’s. The one Lily offered had a capacity of 30 cubic meters, while Sylrael’s ranged from 1 to 5 cubic meters—barely enough to hold some small handful of feathers.
Lily shook her head.
"No. Why reserve stronger arrowheads only for stronger attacks? Use these feathers even for your normal arrows. Later, I’ll provide even better materials for stronger ones. And keep the spatial ring—it will make things easier."
As Lily and Sylrael spoke, Leo approached from behind.
"On the topic of arrows, I still have the ones you used to trap us at the entrance of the secret realm. Thousands of them—mostly wood and stone. I want you to rebuild that trap system around our territory. Something we can activate against intruders."
Leo had previously stored all those arrows.
Sylrael flinched at the mention of the trap but relaxed when she noticed Leo didn’t seem angry.
Leo scratched his cheek, glancing around.
"I guess I’ll dump them in a new location after clearing some space..." Then he turned to Lily.
"You’re going shopping with Sylrael in the academy?"
"Yes," Lily replied.
"Alright. Be careful—your looks can attract unwanted attention. And don’t hesitate to bash some skulls if someone steps out of line."
"Of course. You don’t need to worry about that," Lily said confidently.
Soon after, Tavian’s men arrived. They were visibly shocked upon seeing so many elves moving around the territory. Just yesterday, there hadn’t been a single one in sight—now, they appeared everywhere.
Before their thoughts could wander too far, Tavian stepped forward.
"You three—if I even get a hint that you’re planning something, I might just trap you in an illusion array for the rest of your lives. And do you know what you’ll experience there?"
The men gulped at his cold expression.
"Yes, exactly what you’re thinking. The same things you might have been planning to do to the elves. Now go back to the territory and return only when I call. I don’t want to hear a single word about the territory of the 1st-ranked fresher. Otherwise... it won’t be me dealing with you."
He paused, his voice lowering.
"It’ll be the Blushing Butcheress."
At that title, their faces went pale. Their bodies tensed as if struck by fear itself, and they immediately turned to leave.
But of course, Tavian’s expertise in illusion wasn’t high enough that he could make ’such’ vivid illusions, but there was no rule he couldn’t fake it to scare people.
They departed swiftly after handing the spatial ring to Tavian. He summoned his crescent staff and began walking toward his first location to trace the arrays.
Meanwhile, Leo and Kaelion headed toward the area where lightning had been striking repeatedly.
That’s right—they were heading toward the Thunder-Crest Elk Antler.
But as they drew closer, both Leo and Kaelion felt the hairs on their bodies rise, their skin tingling from the dense static energy saturating the surroundings.
The closer they got, the more tingling sensation they felt all over their bodies.
"Looks like the treasure that you planted has really advanced," Kaelion muttered.