The air didn't get any better as they descended, but it didn't really smell any worse, at least, not to Beth's rather insensitive nose. That was the thing about fire mana, unless something like an active volcano was causing it, it didn't usually lead to a buildup of sulfur or other noxious elements in the air. As they leapt down, she did see Sera start to frown a bit and scrunch her nose, but the air still smelled fine to her at that depth, if a little damp.

  "Does it smell bad?" Beth asked Sera as they got deeper, noticing her increasing discomfort.

  "Yeah, you can't smell it?" Sera asked in response.

  "Nope," Beth said. "My senses are a bit better than they were, but I never had a really amazing sense of smell, and clearly it's not anything like a wolf or dragon would have."

  "It doesn't smell like sulfur, it smells like old coal," Sera said. "Like a forge that was still using coal or coke to smelt stuff. It's not terrible, but it's also not great. Smells like it hasn't been cleaned it a while."

  "Hmm, I don't really get it," Beth said, breathing deeply through her nose. "I'll just trust you on that."

  "Better that you don't get it," Sera grumbled.

  Blood led the way down, a handful of ledges in front of them, scouting the way and working on her Stealth at the same time. She eventually reached the bottom or an area where she couldn't leap further down, sending back to the other two that the chasm opened up to a small cave at the base and that it was clear. The other two leapt down beside her, looking around and finding little out of the ordinary in the cave, apart from the very high temperature and the odd smell that Beth still wasn't picking up.

  Beth tossed a relay beacon onto a jut of rock sticking out of the wall before saying, "Learned my lesson about coms already. Let's head further in."

  Blood trotted off, following the areas where the mana grew denser, careful not to move too fast or make too much of a disturbance. They had no idea what was down there or what they could encounter, and it was much better to be cautious than it would be to be sorry. The wolf was also not particularly adept in the environment, the combination of cave and extreme heat not something she could operate very efficiently in.

  Beth suddenly stopped Sera as she got a telepathic message from Blood warning them to stop and be as quiet as possible. 'What's happening?'

  'Uh, this place out-levels us…by a lot,' Blood sent. 'Back up carefully.'

  'Understood,' Beth replied, tapping Sera lightly and pointing back up the tunnel. Sera tilted her head slightly but followed Beth, the shorter girl motioning for quiet.

  "You know we can just talk locally on the communicators," Sera said after connecting a call to Beth.

  "Didn't want to risk it, but I guess beasts wouldn't be able to sense it," Beth replied, trying to keep from clomping back up the tunnel.

  "What happened?" Sera asked.

  "Blood and I have a telepathic link and she sent me a thought saying we need to bail, and fast," Beth explained as they continued carefully making their way back up the tunnel.

  "Fast and quiet?" Sera asked, somehow making far less noise than Beth.

  "Does everyone else know how to move quietly?" Beth huffed through their call.

  "You're not exactly subtle, sweetheart," Sera replied, the humor evident even across the com line.

  "I don't usually need to be," Beth returned in an annoyed tone, but she still grasped Sera's hand when she reached out all the same.

  "We're back to the initial cleft," Sera commented, recognizing the terrain as well as getting a ping from the relay Beth had just placed a bit earlier.

  "Let's wait for Blood. If whatever spooked her chases, I'd rather be closer to her than up on the surface or something," Beth said, hopping up onto a ledge and squatting down, watching the way they had come. Sera hopped up to a slightly higher lip of rock across from her and began to scan the surroundings, watching for Blood or anything unusual.

  After a minute passed, Beth started to get a bit worried, knowing Blood's speed and skill. She hadn't heard anything from the wolf, and just as she was about to ask her if anything was wrong through their bond, Blood spoke from right next to her, "What are you staring at?"

  "Jesus Christ!" Beth shouted, nearly falling off the ledge. "Don't fucking do that."

  "Do what?" Blood asked, face scrunched in genuine confusion.

  "Sneak up on me like that," Beth exclaimed, clutching at her breastplate.

  "I thought you saw me," Blood replied with a frown, one ear flicking. "Weren't you watching for the enemy."

  "No, bitch, we were watching for you!" Beth grumped, exasperated. "We don't even know what 'the enemy' even is."

  "Oh, yeah, it's some kind of fire elemental," Blood said. "Pretty sure it didn't follow me, thankfully."

  "I think we'd feel if it followed you," Sera said from the opposite wall.

  "That's true," Blood said. "It was so hot down there I couldn't think. Here, this is what I got."

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  She sent them both a picture and some details on the communicator, showing the elemental in all of its glory. It was a block of molten magma with massive arms and a thick, square head that sat directly on its shoulders. The room it was in had a ton of dark red crystals gathered in clumps around the place, and Beth could practically feel the energy radiating from them just through the photo. She glanced at the data Blood had included, noting the temperature was through the roof and that the wolf had heard more movement not too much further in, meaning that guy likely wasn't alone. It was also over level three hundred, which was still a no-go at their current level of strength; another rebirth or two and some more stats and skill levels and they might be able to fight level three hundred and above enemies without prepping beforehand. They'd have to start venturing into that territory either right before their fifth rebirth or during their sixth, but that was still some time away.

  "Alright, we don't have to be crazy precise with everything," Beth said. "Let's get out of this hellhole and back to scouting."

  "Agreed," Blood growled, already starting to leap up the walls.

  "It's not that bad," Sera commented.

  "We don't do well with hot," Beth answered, following the dragon girl as she reluctantly leapt back up the walls of the chasm.

  When they popped back out, it was late evening, the last rays of this planet's sun just fading over the horizon. Beth summoned the airship and they hopped aboard, Blood skillfully piloting them up and through the trees before steering them towards their next destination. The darkness didn't bother the three of them, their empowered eyes more than enough to counter for low light settings, as long as there was some light.

  The next destination was a small pond, not the lakes that they were scanning earlier, but a little thing about a hundred feet across buried deep in the woods. It was releasing some unusual mana signatures and, as they came to hover above the small clearing it created in the forest, Beth could certainly see why. Little bolts of lightning and electric discharges arced above the pond's surface, shifting in color from a light blue that was almost white to a dark blue that had a faint trace of purple in it, if Beth could judge colors rightly.

  "Not taking a swim in that," Sera muttered, looking at the information on the screens about the mana density.

  "Let's just go down and take a look," Beth said, getting up from her seat and walking to the back of the bridge.

  "Have fun," Blood growled, glancing over her shoulder as Sera joined Beth in leaving the bridge.

  They moved down to the cargo hold, waiting for Blood to be ready, but the wolf was already in position and opened the doors as soon as they were in the hold. Sera walked out first, leaping down confidently and landing near the pond with barely any sound. Beth thumped down next to her, frowning a bit at the slight cracking of the ground under her feet. Falling a hundred or so feet without any flight skills or powers and nothing that cushioned her impact really helped emphasize her weight and strength.

  "How do you land so softly?" Beth asked.

  "Practice," Sera replied calmly.

  "You fall a lot?" Beth asked with a raised brow.

  "Beth, I'm a dragon," Sera said slowly.

  "Yes, and you're incredibly beautiful," Beth said, giving Sera a kiss on the cheek before the dragon girl facepalmed.

  "Beth, I'm a dragon. I have a dragon form. You know, a huge lizard with WINGS!" Sera explained, not-so-patiently.

  "Oh, riiiiight, that," Beth replied with an 'ah-ha' look on her face.

  "Beth, did you forget that part of me being a dragon is having the form of a dragon?" Sera asked, resignation in her voice.

  "Well, I haven't seen it yet, so…it kinda slipped my mind?" Beth replied a bit demurely.

  "I don't even know what to do with you," Sera sighed, wrapping her arms around Beth's shoulders and leaning her head against Beth's for a moment.

  "I think I'm perfectly fine the way I am," Beth replied, muffled by speaking into Sera's huge breasts.

  "You're certainly something," Sera muttered, letting her go to look at the pond.

  "I don't know what you mean, but I'll take it in a positive way," Beth said with a grin, still paying more attention to her girlfriend than the sparking water.

  "I think there's something down there," Sera commented as she stared into the water from a few feet away.

  "Something as in a beast or monster, or something as in something valuable?" Beth asked, eyes lighting up.

  "Something valuable," Sera replied slowly, scanning the whole pond with her eyes. "I think there's a natural treasure down there."

  "Seeing any beasts?" Beth asked, scanning the area while Sera continued examining the pond.

  "Doesn't look like anything's in there right now," Sera said as she continued inspecting the pond. "Not that there's nothing in the area keeping an eye on it."

  "Blood, you picking up anything strong on the scanner?" Beth asked the wolf over the com.

  "Nothin'. Some beasts in the two hundreds in level somewhat close by, but nothing registering as extremely powerful or unusual," Blood replied.

  "Then I think we should try to take it," Beth said definitively.

  "Get in there?" Sera asked skeptically, looking between Beth and the pond crackling with energy.

  "Don't worry, I got this," Beth said, taking off her armor before swapping her clothes with one of the bathing suits.

  "I don't know that a bathing suit helps, here," Sera said, eyeing her girlfriend with a raised brow and a frown.

  "You never know," Beth replied with a shrug before walking to the edge of the pond. A stray strand of the lightning energy touched her right shin and she grunted lightly, saying, "This is probably going to suck. A lot."

  "I really don't want to train my resistances today, so don't make me dive in there after you. If you can't take it, just come back out," Sera pleaded with a slightly frustrated look on her face.

  "Relax, I know what I'm doing," Beth replied.

  "Strangely, that made me do the opposite," Sera muttered as Beth stepped into the water.

  "It's cold," Beth commented, wincing just slightly as another bolt of lightning tapped her.

  "Cold and lightning bolts; not for me, thanks," Sera commented, watching Beth step further into the pond, the water up to her knees.

  "It's really cold," Beth said.

  "You have such lovely, complex descriptions of things," Sera snarked.

  "I don't need this from the peanut gallery," Beth huffed, stepping forward into water up to her waist.

  "The privilege of being the one not doing the stupid thing at the moment," Sera replied.

  "It's not-ouch, fuck!-it's not that dumb," Beth replied.

  "Very convincing," Sera said, crossing her arms as she scanned the area around the pond, on alert that Beth's antics wouldn't attract some extremely powerful beast.

  "Going under now," Beth growled, diving forward before Sera could reply, at least that she heard, and slipping beneath the water.

  The pond was seriously cold, enough that it started pinging Beth's Ice Resistance as she moved deeper. She felt frost forming on the ends of her hair, sighing as she figured it was about time for some attention paid to her frazzled ends. The lightning was far more powerful than the cold, however, focusing Beth's mind back on the task as she got hit by a beam that felt like what a regular lightning strike would have been before the Path. She scanned the water, finding it dark but not impermeable to her sight, able to faintly make out the bottom of the pond. She gave a big kick and pushed herself down and forward, stopping herself from grunting as an even stronger blast of lightning slammed into and through her body.

  Thankfully, the cold didn't get any more severe, as her Ice Resistance was already at the peak of Silver and she was concerned about pushing it to Gold before she could do the skill merge. Her Lightning Resistance, on the other hand, was only at Silver[2], and it was definitely going to get the workout of a lifetime from this. That thought was proved more than true as three hits of lightning mana smashed into her in such rapid succession that they felt like a single strike, Beth's muscles tensing but her resistance helping her fight through it. She gave another powerful kick while swinging her arms in a breaststroke-like motion, pulling herself down towards the bottom of the pond.

  The bottom was rocky and sloped almost evenly towards the very center of the water, with only a small outcrop sticking out on the northern end of the pond floor. She gave the outcrop a glance but didn't see anything special about it, nor did she see any beasts hovering around it, so she refocused her attention on scanning the rest of the pond. It became obvious pretty quickly what the source of the lightning was, as there was a bright purple flower, looking very much like an orchid, sitting on the bottom of the pond in the very center. A cloud of blue and purple lightning bolts swirled around the flower as it sat there calmly, Beth watching as larger bolts expanded outward from it and through the pond. As she scanned the rest of the floor, she got ready for a fight, thinking she had finally found the beast guarding the treasure, but then quickly dropped her guard.

  True, she had likely found the beast, but it was already dead, a large skeleton settled on the floor of the pond near the orchid. It looked like some kind of amphibious beast, though one with a hell of a set of teeth, something resembling a square-headed and thick-bodied crocodile. Or alligator, Beth couldn't really remember how to differentiate them; something about the ways the jaws aligned. She could look it up later, considering she had more important things to do at the moment, such as survive ever more powerful blasts of lightning. The orchid was sitting close to fifty feet from her current position in the water and she was already being bombarded by lightning mana and lightning strikes, wincing heavily even through her Gold-level Pain Tolerance. This was going to be highly unpleasant.