The map Erin had bought was on a specialized electronic paper that displayed the locations of the local area. The map was colored from green to yellow to red, with it transitioning from green, being the safest areas where the shelters were at, to further away to the red areas, which would have more powerful beasts.
There was also a name at the top right corner, one that listed the name of the planet.
Planet Caladi.
'Where have I heard that name before?' Erin thought to herself.
"I believe Caladi is the name of the planet that Sam fellow got his cape from," The system spoke.
Suddenly, both Erin and Quinn's heads perked up, indicating that the both of them had actually heard the system speak at the same time.
It was strange. The system could speak to the both of them at the same time, and could even read their thoughts, but neither Quinn nor Erin could reach each other's thoughts in the same way unless they used the chat function. It could also occupy one person's mind, and not see what the other person was seeing.
The system and the system users were operating on different rules when it came to mind communication, and honestly? They preferred it to stay that way. Privacy was always appreciated.
{Quinn} If its possible to get beast crystals and make gear in the form of a cape, then we can get you armor that should be able to cover you up and block the sun!
{Quinn} Actually, who's Sam?
{Erin} A guy I met while playing Power Fighters.
{Erin} That actually isn't a bad idea, but I never figured out what beast he got the crystals from.
Quinn grabbed the beastiary from Erin's hands and started cross referencing the beasts listed on the paper.
"There's teethworms, winged lizards, burningsnakes…" Quinn listed out, "Winged lizards… Has wings, can't fly, weak point is the underbelly…"
"Where should we go to first?" Layla asked while Quinn was reading the beastiary.
"We should head to the red section. With the 5 of us, even if we counter an intermediate beast then we'll be able to beat it," Erin said.
"No!" Peter blurted out before all eyes went on him, and he nervously shrank a little.
"Why not?" Quinn asked.
"Well… Uh… Shouldn't we stay closer to the green zones?" Peter tried to reason.
"What? But that's no fun!" Fex replied.
However, Layla and Quinn could see that despite the heat, Peter was shivering in fear.
"Its too dangerous," Peter said, adamant about the whole thing. His voice seemed a little tense too, like his throat was clenched.
"We should listen to him," Quinn said, "and besides, it'll be better to test out our strength first on some weaker beasts. We might be biting off more than we can chew in the red areas."
"Fine, we'll head to the green zones for now, and push later into the red zones," Erin commanded.
The group agreed, and on their way out to the green hunting zones, Erin looked for an earth time clock. Sometimes, shelters on other planets would have a clock on them to indicate how far into the day night cycle they were, as well as what time of day it would be on earth. These devices were stationed around a shelter to help its inhabitants maintain a healthy sleep schedule as the human body was built for the typical 24 hour earth day.
While Erin didn't see the earth time clock, she did find a clock which kept track of the time on the planet, and from what she could tell, they had just missed the night time yesterday. It was going to be 3 days until night would fall.
At first, it was frustrating that she would need to deal with the sun, but afterwards, she could spend the rest of the week at her full power. With nothing holding her back, there was no doubt in her mind she could achieve a high grade once the later half of the week started.
Before they could leave, they had to head to one of the exits where several guards stood watch at the walls. They were built using galthreium, as was standard for most shelters. Their group had to declare that they were from the military before the guards opened the gates, and were allowed to leave.
After traveling in the desert for a while, they arrived at an area with several pear shaped cacti which was named "Cacta plains" on the map. Most of them were quite tall, 3 ft taller than the average human, and had flowers growing on their sides instead of on the top as was usual with cacti on earth.
Quinn, upon looking at the cactus, couldn't help but feel both right at home, and also a little nostalgic. He once vaguely recalled eating a plate of cacti that had the needles cut off and was cooked into a type of salad, but didn't remember if it was something his parents made, or was something that was bought.
Surprisingly, not a lot of other groups had gone to this spot, but it was likely because it was bordering on the yellow zones.
A few teethworms were already jumping out of the soil, and the team got into their positions.
Quinn was stationed at the front alongside Fex, Peter was in the middle with Erin, and Layla was in the back, shooting arrows as she could, but was finding that her aiming time was a little slow.
'There's just a lot of them. I cant shoot all of them that quickly,' Layla thought.
While she was trying to use her telekinesis to direct the arrows to land in different directions better, the teethworms were just too fast for her. It made Layla kinda wished she had gotten a different kind of ability instead, or at least improved upon her current one.
After punching some teethworms, Quinn got an idea, and opened his mud pouch. He poured it onto the sandy soil, then dug his hands in and created some sandy gauntlets.
"Sand is a kind of earth," Quinn explained then casually punched a teethworm that jumped at him, "which means…"
Quinn dug his hands into the soil again, and he could feel the general direction of where all of the teeth worms were at. He then shifted the ground, causing it to shake, and forced 15 teeth worms onto the surface.
"Go, go, go! Capture them before they go back in!" Quinn commanded.
Everyone rushed in to do their parts. Fex tied up some with string, making it harder for them to escape, Layla shot out the furthest worms away from them, and even Erin was stabbing her rapier down like a needle into the worms.
[7 Basic Tier Beast killed]
[70 Exp granted]
[You are now level 11]
[You have received 2 free stat points]
[First time killing Teethworm]
[100 bonus Exp granted]
[100/200 EXP]
The only one who was struggling to do his part was Peter.
He was trying to smack his club down onto the worms while they were tied up, but he was the slowest of the group to kill them, needing to smack the teeth worms several times before they died. Eventually, once everyone else was done, Quinn had to come in and pierce the last worm Peter was struggling to kill.
Peter couldn't help but feel a little disappointed with himself. Looking at Quinn's watch, it listed a level 3, just one day after he got the level 3 earth ability book. Meanwhile, Peter was stuck at level 1.
'He's only learned the earth ability book in half of the time I've learned it, and already he's 3 steps ahead of me…'