Limitless Path

The next few days were much of the same, with them helping Neph, though not directly. If they scouted for her and identified targets for her to hunt and kill, it wouldn't really count against her experience very much. If they did anything more to help, however, it would be a big detriment to her experience gain. It was a little frustrating to watch and not be able to do anything, but Beth simply had a book, or two, up in the edges of her vision while they let Neph level. The bee was even stronger than they had first assumed, and Blood gave her a solid foundation by assigning her initial free points the same way Beth had done for her years ago.

After a week, Neph had already hit level fifty, even faster then what Beth had predicted, and she decided they could let her keep going for a week, though they would change location. They moved to another city that was much closer to beasts in the mid and upper double-digits in level, allowing Neph to hunt and grind with beasts of her level or a little more. Another week passed as Beth observed but mainly read, the other two more active in finding beasts for Neph and watching her. Seven more days had given her thirty more levels under their careful management, as well as a slew of skills and skill upgrades. Beth had allowed her to use both the Swift and Spatial Step crystals, though Spatial Step was a bit awkward for her as it required a step to activate, which was hard to do mid-air.

Neph was finally ready for them to attempt letting her level in the gate, as Beth thought with her skills, she could kill level one hundred enemies. Even if she couldn't, the three of them would guard her, giving her the opportunity to train her skills. Fighting against level one hundred plus beasts would require Neph to push her skills to the limit, allowing her to rapidly level them through copper, perhaps even approaching silver. She set the first gate she opened to wolf enemies; Blood wasn't bothered fighting wolves, their speed could help Neph push Swift, and they didn't have powerful defenses or any abilities that could catch the bee out.

Beth was a bit surprised at just how powerful Neph was; true, she struggled with the first enemies she fought at level one hundred, but she persevered. While the going was slow, the experience was bountiful, and the level-ups in her skills were almost constant for a while. That only increased her power, her sting skill in particular allowing her to quickly dispatch high-level enemies with a single, powerful strike. Her level grew slowly over the first few days, but they were in compressed time, and only a few hours had passed in objective time. With three days of fighting under her belt, the bee was able to more easily and quickly kill the level one hundreds, but they had to take a break for Beth to reset the gate. Unfortunately, she couldn't just summon more enemies at will, and Neph had worked her way through all the level one hundreds in the initial area.

After resetting the gate, they let Neph train again for a few days. She became strong enough after a week of compressed time that she could fight up twenty levels or just over without any assistance, and her fights were progressing even faster. She had hit level eighty-eight and was able to deal with the enemies even better as her skills continued to improve. Once she hit level ninety, Beth had them leave the gate and take a break, giving Neph a day to rest, even though she indicated she was eager for more. She had leveled her sting ability to the peak of copper and had gotten several levels in both the movement abilities. All four of them were eager for her to hit level one hundred, as having a human form, including the opposable thumbs, was extremely convenient. Neph had already grown to be larger than Sera's torso, though she retained her fairly sleek overall body shape and look.

Resting for a little over twenty-four hours outside the gate, Beth summoned it for a third time, with the starting enemies set a little higher, to one hundred eight. Beth was confident that another two weeks or so of compressed time would be enough for Neph to hit one hundred, and that estimate was actually too conservative. The thing that really did it was Neph's sting ability hitting silver, which made it hit far harder and far faster. She could slaughter enemies with blinding speed with a single strike once the skill upgraded, and that pushed her leveling speed up by several notches.

Finally, after a few weeks of leveling, it was time. Neph killed several level one hundred twelve enemies by herself, slamming her stinger into the last beast's head so hard that it basically blew apart, which was impressive considering she hadn't done a rebirth yet. A moment after she killed the last beast, a faint glow suddenly surrounded her, brightening over time. The other three gathered around her, though still giving her a bit of space so they weren't too close, and guarded her while she underwent her first ever humanization. This was the very first time Beth had ever observed one of these from the outside, the times the others increased their humanization not being quite the same thing.

It turned out there wasn't all that much to see. Beth's eye power still wasn't quite at gold, and to her, the transformation very quickly just turned into a ball of light that her senses couldn't penetrate. It was interesting to see that the process took a couple minutes, as when it had happened to her and Blood, if felt like it had only taken a minute or less. When the light suddenly cleared, a young woman was crouching in front of them, quickly standing and moving forward to hug Blood. She was just a bit shorter than Beth, with dark golden hair, a round and pretty face, a well-proportioned body, and various areas with bits of chitin or small patches of fur. Beth noted, somewhat melancholically, that despite having plates of chitin covering her breasts, they were clearly even larger than Beth's, relegating her to still be the smallest of the group, though that smallest title was still held with a set of double-D's.

"Lookin' good," Sera commented after Neph hugged Blood.

"Now I can actually open doors!" Neph exclaimed, showing her human hands, though they did have chitin covering the backs of them. Her voice was a melodic buzzing that Beth found quite pleasant to listen to.

"We'll have to get you some clothes," Beth said, eyeing the naked woman. "And some armor."

"I also need weapons," Neph said.

"Ah, you use weapons?" Beth asked, slightly surprised.

"I want to try a couple different things," Neph answered. "But I think I'll use daggers, likely."

"Really?" Beth asked with some surprise.

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"I think I can activate my sting abilities with daggers," Neph replied, a bit unsure as she glanced between them. That was when Beth noticed her eyes had multi-faceted pupils even though she didn't have any eye powers.

"We'll have to see about getting you some kind of eye power, too," Beth said.

"We should get her the combined resistance skills as well, since she doesn't have any yet," Sera added.

"Is that something you can hook us up with?" Beth asked Sera in response.

"Uh, I don't have those crystals…uh, my family does," Sera replied a bit apologetically, scratching the back of her head.

"It's fine, Ser," Beth said. "How hard are they to acquire?"

"It's probably best we find somebody with a reusable one that we can rent a use of," Sera replied thoughtfully. "If we go back to my family, they'll have all kinds of bullshit about using it and doing stuff for them and politics…it'll be messy. There're plenty of factions out there that will sell crystal uses; we find one of them and buy a use."

"Okay, I guess we can check with Selene," Beth said.

"No need for that; I can get us one," Sera replied.

"A little jealous?" Beth asked with a smirk, the other two just watching the back-and-forth.

"Not at all, but it's good to use more than one connection," Sera answered with a grin of her own.

The dragon girl was true to her word, and quick with it, to boot. They didn't have more than an hour of rest after returning to the gate and back into the suite they were currently using before Sera had a location for them. They followed her through a series of teleports, using the CRA network, before getting to a highly developed world. That included developed technologically, Beth catching a glimpse of a ship so large it had to be a starship flying through a distant corner of the sky at one point.

"This is Addarr," Sera explained. "It's an ecumenopolis and a massive center of trade."

"An ecu-what?" asked Neph eagerly.

"It's a planetwide city," Beth cut in. "It's just a fancy, big word that describes a city that's so big it now covers the whole surface of the world."

"But, wouldn't that be awful? What about forests and rivers and the ocean?" Neph asked with a slightly petulant frown.

"There are provisions made," said Sera with a chuckle. "There're huge open spaces where there are still open sections of ocean, of forest, and so on. They also build inside mountains instead of on them, so all the mountain ranges are still pretty wild places on a world like this."

"Oh. I guess that's not so bad," Neph said, frowning more but looking more introspective now.

"Not everybody likes it, but it's a great place for crafters to live and work and a great place for traders," Sera explained. "Somebody here has a merchant house where one of their main businesses is renting skill crystal uses. Not only can we get stuff for Neph here, we can check and see if there's anything else interesting they have available."

"Not gonna be cheap, right?" Blood growled out, walking behind Sera and Beth and beside Neph while holding the bee girl's hand. They had gotten a couple sets of CRA clothes for her quickly just to have something, and they planned on a bit of an extended shopping trip on this world.

"Cheap is, uh, a relative term," Sera replied with a slight wince.

"It's fine, we have money," Beth waved away the concern as they entered a tram, Sera paying for them. "But, anyway, what are Neph's stats right now."

"I'll send it to you," Neph replied happily, sending the three her stat screen privately by briefly touching each of them. They would also have to get her a good communicator on their shopping spree.