Blood looked like she was in communication with Neph, likely just exchanging feelings through their bond at this point. Beth sat beside Sera and looked through some material for a little bit while they rested a bit and gave Neph time to adjust to, well, being alive. Luckily, the Path changed so much stuff, and Neph didn't need any time before she was basically ready to go, Beth recalling that Blood was ready to kill as soon as she was gifted to her by the Path.

  "Alright, she looks and seems fine, unless you think not?" Beth said as she stood.

  "She's fine," Blood said, standing with Neph on her shoulder.

  "Well, time to go, then," Beth said, leading the way out of the room.

  They still had nineteen or twenty days left on the room, but Beth didn't really care one way or the other. They headed down to the front desk to turn their keys in, the worker there double-checking they were done with the room before giving them half the remaining time's worth back in coins. Beth made them disappear and led them down to the teleporter room, getting a quick look from the person standing guard there, but outgoings weren't inspected with the same thoroughness that incomings were.

  They made a couple hops to arrive at where the Blue Rose Bar with the teleporter to the Royal Rose was located, undergoing screening every time. When they got to the entrance of the Blue Rose, the guards were different and didn't recognize them, but three of them had high-level roses. Sera's, surprisingly, was a pure, crystalline blue, and caused an even bigger reaction from the guards than the immediate respect Beth and Blood's white roses brought. They were courteously ushered inside and asked one of the two people at the front to escort them down to the teleporter.

  They made the jump to the Royal Rose, Beth noting that Neph didn't seem at all bothered by the jumps between teleporter pads. When they walked out of the little teleporter room, they saw nobody in the large area and so proceeded to the main lobby. There were four people behind the desk today and two separate groups of people checking in. Beth gave the groups a quick eye, smirking just slightly as she saw one of the groups was already in the spirit of the place, barely dressed and clearly eager to get inside. She walked up to one of the workers at the counter and stopped in front of her, returning the woman's smile.

  "Sera, it's good to see you," the woman started off with, looking at the dragon girl behind Beth.

  "Ellie, long time, or, well, not really that long," Sera said, grinning at the woman.

  "What can we do for you? Are you back for another stay already?" the woman asked with a grin.

  "No, we're here to see Laselle," said Sera, Beth seeing Ellie's eyes widen a bit at that. "Is she here?"

  "Yes, she's still here. You know the way, so I don't have to escort you," Ellie said with a small smile, gesturing deeper into the building.

  "Thanks, we'll head back. I'll talk to you before we leave," Sera said, Beth realizing with a sigh she should have just let the dragon girl walk over first.

  Sera led them back through the Royal Rose, taking them through hallways Beth hadn't gone down the first time she had met with Laselle. They arrived outside her office door to see there were still the standard two guards there, both of whom recognized Sera but still blocked them. When she quickly explained why they were there, the guards relayed it and immediately got the signal to let them through. Sera deferred to Beth here, letting her walk in first, considering she had the book and was handling the business anyway, probably for the best. There was nobody else in the room today other than Laselle and the two guards she kept inside. Beth had always thought her having so many guards around her a bit strange, considering just how much more powerful the woman was than everyone else, but she was sure there was a reason for it. Whether it was a good reason or not was a different matter, but Beth found that she didn't much care.

  "You've already returned?" Laselle asked, looking up from her paperwork with a raised brow.

  "We got what you needed," Beth said, taking out the book and handing it to the woman.

  "You have indeed," she said, not even needing a second to recognize it. She glanced at the cover, opened the book and looked at several pages, then made it disappear with a small gesture. "This will help the project Mortaine and I are working on immensely, one that will likely further involve you in the future."

  "Just what is it? Other than a book, obviously," Beth asked.

  "It's a record, or journal, if you will," Laselle answered. "It records the journey of the man who is rumored to have traversed the deepest and the farthest in the Eternal Depths and return alive. It will be quite useful for quite a number of reasons, and I had finally tracked down, with a bit of help from Mortaine, that it was likely involved in that Trial I sent you to."

  "I take it that expert isn't around anymore?" Beth asked.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  "Yes, but you can never make any assumptions," Laselle replied crisply. "People have been known to disappear for centuries, millennia even, and then suddenly re-emerge. They also might be 'gone,' but not dead, though you don't really need to know any more about that at this time."

  "I don't know what that last part means, but anyway, do you have anything else for us?" Beth asked.

  "No, not at this time. You can return to Mortaine and continue working with him," Laselle replied, giving them a dismissive wave as she returned to her paperwork.

  "Right, thanks, we'll see you later," Beth said, turning and leading the others out.

  "So, what now?" asked Sera once they were walking down the hall.

  "I had planned on stopping home in a bit, but I guess we can move that up now?" Beth replied. "But we should go somewhere else first so Neph can level. We should see if we can quickly get her to level one hundred, unless that would hurt her somehow."

  "Nah, we could do it in a few days and it would still be fine," Sera said, the bee, still sitting on Blood’s shoulder, buzzing in agreement.

  "Okay, so we'll find somewhere to level Neph for a while before we take it totally under control, and then we'll stop back home," Beth said. "Unless you need to stop home, Ser?"

  "Nah," Sera replied. "I don't really have any reason to stop and see my family; not like they're going anywhere. And, if I go back there, it's just a den of politics and headaches. Best to go...well, anywhere else for now."

  "Okay, well, do you have anywhere good to go for her?" Beth asked, gesturing at Neph with a thumb.

  "Yeah, let me take care of it. Let's go back to the Blue Rose Bar first and then we can use the CRA to get there," Sera answered.

  "Is that why you're a higher member than copper in the CRA?" Beth asked.

  "Is what why?" Sera asked in reply.

  "The family politics," Beth replied.

  "Oh, yeah, that. Yeah, if I'm high up in a big organization, then I can take myself out of a lot of that bullshit with my family. When it comes to size and power, basically nobody beats the CRA and, even better, they're a neutral party, so I can give excuses about maintaining my neutrality and the CRA will back me up on those excuses," Sera explained.

  "Clever," Blood growled.

  They had gone through the teleporter and arrived back in the Blue Rose Bar. There was nobody in the basement to watch the teleporters, at least, not that was made obvious, and they made their own way up to the main entrance and out onto the street. Walking to the nearest CRA Hall, Beth took some time to people watch, seeing that most of the people around them were civilians. They all wore common clothes, no armor, and few if any of them had any weapons on or about their person. They were also all rather low level and she didn't get a feeling of strength or power from anybody they passed. All those things could be masked or obscured, but she really did think all these people were regular civilians just going about their day.

  Returning to the CRA Hall, she followed Sera through the building and down to the teleporter room. The dragon girl set the destination, Beth not really paying much attention to what she entered, though it would be logged on her communicator when they were teleported. They all got on the teleporter and Sera signaled readiness before they disappeared from one Hall and reappeared in the next. After undergoing the interrogation at the destination, Sera led them through the Hall and out into the city, Beth immediately noting that it was somewhat hot. It wasn't enough to really bother her, considering her stats and resistances, but it was definitely well into the tropical range.

  Sera confidently led them out of the city, a process that took quite a few minutes given its size. When they were outside of the city walls, they could move even faster, though they did have to limit their speed to something Neph could withstand. They still had residential areas outside the wall on this relatively safe world, plus farms and industrial areas to traverse. That took them almost an hour, and Beth wished they had used the airship, but there hadn't been a good place to take it out. Blood also wasn't a qualified pilot and this world was rather highly populated, so that could spell some additional trouble.

  Finally, Beth sighed as they got out into the wilderness, though it wasn't all smooth sailing at that point. She was rather surprised to see there were quite a few people around, including a lot of lower-leveled people eagerly running around and looking for weak beasts to hunt. She was even more surprised to see them jumping on beasts even five levels lower than themselves, killing it and taking its corpse. She supposed even these extremely low-level beasts had value for their meat and hide, though it wouldn't really provide much other value.

  They had to move out even further to find a place that didn't have a ton of people trying their luck or running out to get one beast. It reminded Beth just how well-off they were, with their spatial items and powers. If the people trying their luck wanted to salvage the meat to eat or sell, they had to take the beast back right away and butcher it. She had noticed there was somebody with basically a popup shop at the edge of the farms who was processing beasts for people, likely charging a couple coppers or even a cut of the carcass to chop it up and wrap it for people. It might not be super profitable business, but it would certainly get a butcher more business than normal by doing that, and if they were somebody strong that did it in a higher-level area, it could be immensely profitable. Just cutting up kills and processing them was time consuming and arduous work, and a skilled worker would be able to salvage more of the beast without ruining the hide or meat or organs and so on.

  Blood was rather helpful in finding them a place away from others where they could get something to kill. Neph was level one with decent stats and a single skill, from what Blood said, though it would still be tough to kill anything above level one for her. They managed to find a level two spider crawling across the ground, something that Neph could likely handle. Beth wasn't sure why the spider wasn't in a web, but then again, beasts weren't really intelligent, and they were very rage/battle driven. Whatever the case, Neph's ability to fly also helped tremendously, allowing her to fly over the spider and sting it. Her first few efforts weren't great, and she finally landed a blow, but it was on the abdomen, not something that would be fatal for the spider. It took some time, but she was finally able to sting the spider in the head, piercing one of its eyes and driving her stinger all the way out the bottom of the beast.

  After that, it was all about finding more prey for Neph to slaughter, and they were very careful about finding her level one and two beasts to fight. Against many of the opponents, Neph's ability to fly in her beast form was practically a cheat code, allowing her to hit the enemies with very little danger to herself. She could also attack from odd angles, blind spots, or reach places that were less armored more easily. She could kill the level two beasts fairly easily after a bit of practice, and it wasn't more than an hour for her to get all the way to level three. That progress was nothing for their group, but for a brand new being that they had to carefully find low-level prey for, it was amazing progress.

  They took plenty of time to rest and Blood fed Neph a bunch of the royal jelly from the crystal. The little bee sucked up an amount equal to one of Beth's fists in just twenty seconds before buzzing quite loudly and happily. They gave her more time to rest and relax before they started their hunt again, trying to find any level four or five beasts. That was a bit easier, and Neph had also leveled her stinging skill, Golden Sting, twice, which gave her attacks a lot more power. She was able to kill even tough opponents with one use of the skill to their head or chest, assuming she even nicked the heart when she hit the chest.

  The four spent the whole day hunting, which was quite a few hours, as this world had a day that lasted roughly thirty-one Earth hours. When it was getting dark, they headed back to the city, Beth rather impressed with Neph's eight levels, putting her at level nine. If they could average even half that over the course of the next number of days, the little bee would hit fifty in less than two weeks. If they could boost it a little more, she might be able to get to seventy or more in two weeks, which would then let her start challenging beasts in Beth's gate. Beth booked a room for them at the CRA Hall for fifteen days, assuming they could reach their target in that much time, and they headed down to their suite to clean up, eat, and rest.