She gave another big push, moving herself straight towards the orchid, and felt a palpable resistance, as the flower itself seemed to push back. That return push came, of course, with enough lightning to power a small nation, maybe one about the size of one of the bigger US states. That thought went out the window as Beth pushed forward and enough lightning to power a continent hit her next, physically pushing her back in the water from the sheer amount of force. Beth's body seized more than a little and spasmed, but she fought through the pain and her twitching muscles to push back, moving back towards the flower. The next blast drove some of the air from her lungs, but she could function for a while even with her lungs empty, so she didn't worry too much about it.

  The lightning became quite intense as she got within twenty-five feet of the flower, which was pretty crazy considering the lightning had already been powerful enough to push her back and smash through her resistance. She could feel the damage to her body starting to pile on now that she was this close, but she was determined to grab the flower. She gritted her teeth and pushed further forward, getting within a dozen feet of the flower as the damage to her body built. She ran Lordly Reconstruction while pushing forward, healing her body at the same time it was being fried. The pain was incredibly immense, overwhelming her senses until all she could focus on was the flower and moving. She had to fight for every inch as the lightning mana coursed through her muscles and caused her to spasm and jerk uncontrollably.

  She was getting very close, just a few feet away, but she could feel her muscles literally melting from the amount of lightning mana rocketing through them. She started to manipulate Lordly Reconstruction far more precisely, using more mana to get a bigger effect from the skill. Still, it was incredibly difficult to progress, the lightning so solid it was pushing her around in the water like she was a child. She had to change her approach and so decided to dive down to the floor of the pond, digging her bare feet and hands into the rocks. She moved forward by slamming her hands into positions ahead of her and pulling her body up to them before anchoring herself with her feet to keep from getting pushed back.

  It was slow, painful work, progressing a foot at a time or less, watching as the orchid got closer, and closer, and closer. She could feel her eyeballs bleeding as she got within just an armlength away, grunting and expelling the last bit of air in her lungs as a bolt powerful enough to melt half the skin on her body blasted through her. Her muscles were mostly goop at this point, her skills desperately working to counteract the damage as she felt even her bones cracking and burning from the excess energy. She reached forward, agonizingly slowly, more lightning mana shredding and melting her body, her fingertips slowly drawing close to the flower. The orchid couldn't help but give one last mighty blast right as she touched it, stashing it in her inventory as her whole body writhed, cracking several of her own bones from the contortions.

  She wanted to pant, but she was more than fifty feet underwater and didn't have gills, so that was a bad idea. She focused inward, not quite as concerned about her breath as she was about healing her organs and bones. She ran her healing skill all-out, pumping as much mana as she could through the skill, trying to haul herself back from dancing along the precipice of death. She had her organs mostly back together when she felt something grab her, turning and lashing out. Luckily, her hand was caught, Beth coming back up out of herself to see it was Sera in the water with her. She let go of the bottom of the pond and shifted forward, allowing Sera to fully get ahold of her and ascend. The dragon girl was just as quick in the water as she always was, breaking the surface of the pond in second before leaping to shore with Beth in her arms.

  "Beth! You're a fucking mess, sweetheart," Sera exclaimed.

  "You should see the other guy," Beth slurred out, her mouth still not fully fixed.

  "You shouldn't take such risks!" Sera scolded, walking over to a small clear area where Blood had brought the ship down to hover. She leapt into the cargo hold, not having to hit the button as Blood closed it behind them.

  "I got the flower, though," Beth huffed, leaning harder against Sera.

  "Stubborn enough to break the mountain," Sera muttered, Beth guessing it was some kind of colloquialism where she was from.

  "All kinds of compliments today," Beth grunted.

  "Sorry, you just had me worried," Sera said as she carried Beth onto the bridge.

  "Is she alright?" Blood growled from the pilot's seat.

  "She'll live, if barely," Sera replied.

  "Good. I'm taking us to the next point. We don't have to go down and look right away, though," Blood explained.

  "I think Blood and I should check them for a while," Sera said, sitting in the captain's chair while holding Beth.

  "It's fine," Beth insisted, sitting up in Sera's lap. "Most of my organs are fixed and look, I'm not even bleeding out my eyes anymore. Mostly."

  "Beth, just…" Sera started, sighing. "Just take a day and rest, it won't kill you. It will do the opposite, quite literally."

  "Fine, I'll take it easy, honey," Beth assented, slumping back against Sera and closing her eyes. She didn't pass out, but was fully focused on the…quite extensive repairs she still had to make. Finishing fixing her organs was going to take some effort, as would getting her bones properly back together, and that wasn't even mentioning all the muscle and skin damage she still had to go. Luckily, her mana reservoir was starting to get to a slightly better size, and she had just spent a ton of time researching the operating principles of mana and how to make skills more efficient, so she might not even need a mana potion. Nor would she use a health potion, as this was very valuable experience for multiple skills.

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  Blood piloted them to the next point they had to check in the meantime, hovering them close over it to analyze it more thoroughly before anyone leapt out of the ship. The place was a thick tangle of brush in the forest, not looking like anything that special, but it had a very powerful mana signature on the scanner and radiated a huge amount of at least two different types of mana. The place had a very strong signature of nature mana, as well as a strong signature of life mana underlying it. Blood took a few readings before moving them off target a bit, as there wasn't any good way for them to drop down from the ship into the tangle, nor was there any space to land.

  It had been over an hour, and Beth was mostly patched back together, having at some point healed all her skin. While it wasn't as vital, she didn't want to get an infection or have to spend a ton of mana later if it started healing wrong to correct it. Still, she sat, after Sera placed her on the captain's chair when she stood up, and continued to heal. She pulled up a couple screens in front of herself, a capability of the captain's station, monitoring everything going on while the other two went down to the hold to hop down to the ground just below.

  She watched as they moved off from the clearing Blood had found to the west of the latest anomaly, tracking their mana signatures when they disappeared from sight. She could tell that they got into combat at least once, though it seemed like they just fought with the random beasts roaming the forest. That could still be dangerous, as the levels of the beasts in the woods fluctuated wildly, from the high double digits to the low three hundreds, and they could encounter a pack of high-level beasts if they weren't very careful.

  She watched as the two of them proceeded for a bit before they slowed down and abruptly stopped. She couldn't really do anything other than worry, not wanting to call them if they were in the middle of some big fight or something. The minutes ticked by and, eventually, the two started returning to the ship. She waited until they were close before ordering the cargo hold ramp to lower, allowing the two to leap in. They soon rejoined her on the bridge, where Blood resumed her seat and Sera picked Beth up and resumed her place in the captain's chair.

  "Well?" Beth asked as Blood lifted them off.

  "Dungeon entrance," said the wolf.

  Beth looked up at Sera when Blood didn't elaborate further. "Entrance to a nature and life-based dungeon, from what we could tell. Entrance level labels it as two hundred and ninety, so not somewhere we're going for a while. Considering the mana it was putting off, it's basically guaranteed to exceed level three hundred before the final boss. Being dual aspected between nature and life also means the rewards will be really, really good, so it's a great find. I'm almost tempted to remove it from our data packet and not tell anyone about it so we can have it all to ourselves for a while."

  "I don't think that's a good idea," Beth replied with a shake of her head.

  "I'm not seriously suggesting it," Sera said with a chuckle. "It would just be nice to have exclusive access to something like that."

  "Remember, we do have tricks of our own," Beth said a bit cryptically.

  "That's true. If we defeat some of the beasts and then you do your thing, we could get quite a harvest. Still wouldn't beat the clear rewards for a dungeon like that, but it would be something," Sera admitted.

  "Yeah, the clear rewards are nice, but we have and will have plenty of opportunities," Beth said. "Besides, how many people are there on this world right now that could actually take advantage of that dungeon? A thousand? Less?"

  "Well, that's also true," Sera answered. "It's packed with mana and can handle multiple instances at once. We wouldn't exactly be fighting a million people for runs of a limited dungeon to do it…"

  "Yeah, so might as well just report everything the best we can and then see what we have to work with," Beth said with a shrug, surprised she didn't have to wince afterwards. She was almost fully back in one piece at that point, and happy for it.

  "Let's check what's next," Sera said with a nod.

  That's how it went for the next week or just over; flying to various locations across the broad swathe of forest and lake areas, scanning anomalies closer and inspecting them in person. They found two more dungeons, neither as impressive as the nature-life dual dungeon, and plenty of other oddities, including more high-level beasts than they could shake a stick at. They also found one more natural treasure, this one thankfully not as hostile to anything around it, allowing Beth to nab the strange ball of gel without sustaining horrific injuries.

  Blood finally piloted them back to the city, landing them outside the city's walls just a little distance. Beth packed the ship up and led the way into the city, the three once again submitted to heavy scrutiny at the gates. She'd rather have that than have some unsavory types infiltrate the city, especially since it might fall on the CRA to clean up the mess after the city guard messed up. Better to deal with the guards an extra minute or two than have to handle such a situation.

  Back in the city, still as drab and depressing as ever, they quickly hoofed it to the CRA Hall, making their way into the lobby and to the main counter. Beth didn't recognize either of the workers on duty today, but she still hadn't seen all the people responsible for manning the Hall anyway. Today's roster included both a man and a woman, the man pretty clearly of elven lineage just from his appearance and the woman some kind of humanized beast. If Beth had to guess, based on the physical traits she could see, the woman was descendant of some kind of cat beast, maybe a type of lion, though Beth couldn't be positive without an Identify.

  "What do you need?" the woman growled in a low voice, though it wasn't threatening; Beth got the impression that she just had a deep, rumbling voice naturally.

  "Reporting missions," Beth said, nodding at Sera and Blood. The two pulled out their emblems; Sera could just hand hers over, which she did first, but Blood needed to turn in a report.

  "Great; good to have these done," the woman said as Blood filled in the last pieces of her report and submitted it.

  "What do you have left?" Beth asked.

  "I don't know that you guys want any of the Silvers," the woman said. Seeing three heads shaking no, she continued, "Then we have one Plat, which would likely be too much for your group, and no Gold or Diamond missions. The other Hall has three Gold currently available, if you want to teleport over there…?"

  "No, that's alright," Beth replied with a shake of her head. "We're good for now. We've got other stuff we need to take care of for a while. Maybe we'll go handle whatever's available after taking care of our business."

  "Cool. Anything else you need?" the woman asked.

  "No, thanks, we're good. Thanks for the help."

  "I'm here if you need anything," she said, waving as they walked off.

  The three went back to their room, Beth still struggling to remember to go up instead of further back and down. When they were inside, they took care of some housecleaning first, so to speak, with them getting some trash out of their storage spaces and some laundry started. They circled up on the couch after they had everything at least prepared, ready to discuss their next plan of action.

  "So, what's next?" Sera asked.

  "We focus on Laselle's task now," Beth said. "We push to our next rebirth, and fast, and then level to at least two hundred. If the two of you need a break, now's the time."

  "I think it would be better to take a break after we hit max level," Sera countered. "We'll need some time to secure True Rebirth materials, even if we're willing to pay out the nose for them."

  "Right, forgot about that difficulty. Okay, then, our plan will be to spend time grinding to max, get it done fast, take a short break to get mats while we prep for our next rebirth, and then do a grind to at least two hundred before taking care of Laselle's task," Beth said.

  "How long do you think we'll need?" Sera asked.

  "With our…advantages, maybe a month to hit max? Maybe just longer than that? And then a couple day break, likely involving a trip off-world, and then another month to hit two hundred? So, maybe something like nine weeks, with some padding added in," Beth replied, a little unsure of the times.

  "Sounds about right," Sera said with a pensive look. "Let's take care of all our chores and stock up on some food, then we can get started."