Chapter 50.

A day later, while walking peacefully at a regular pace, Nick, Enora and Rose stumbled upon a new battle. A deadlier one than the last was actually happening before them. The ten people of Arsenio's group were defending against a wave of more than twenty Grey Devils, retreating little by little towards the trio. They would most likely win. It would just be a really costly victory.

(Enora) Look, there's an exit to the left.

(Nick) Let's leave them here, they can take care of themselves.

Unanimously the trio simply walked past the whole fight, only glancing at it once to make sure the monsters did not change target. As they did, Rose noticed the carcass of a monster archer not two meters away. Swiftly she moved, taking possession of the quiver and bow before exiting the cave. The other two were surprised but not alarmed, as the reason for this act entered their mind soon enough. The blond just wanted to fight with a bow since the moment she had been wounded by one previously, but at the time she had felt weird about it.

(Rose) Isn't it 'peculiar' to want to do something that you suffered from in the past ?

(Nick) Don't know, I'm no shrink.

(Enora) Me neither, but really you shouldn't care too much : if you wanna do something that hurts no one beside our enemies, just go for it.

With a renewed determination she began testing her new weapon, drawing the bowstring without wild magic first, then with it, and only stopping when she thought it could not endure more. It felt quite good to use in a way, like she had finally found an interesting subject apart from magic. She decided to call this an Ashen Bow, because of the colour of the wood. What was nice too was that, since the weapon was relatively small, it could fit inside the quiver with the arrows, almost like it was made for it.

Rose was very satisfied as, in truth, she had been looking for something new for quite some time since the three of them had been stagnating in the mastery of Mystic Arts. They only had time to cultivate and amass more energy, but not to experiment on its uses. Not a lot at least. Like when it came to Basic Energy, they had not discovered anything by themselves, mainly using it to run faster and hit harder. They believed it was its most effective use for their situation after all. As for fire and light, there was small progress : they managed to be more efficient with healing, learning to identify injuries and wounds, and apply the magic faster, while their handling of the flames got finer. They could control thin strands of fire to hit farther targets, and, even if it was less powerful, it allowed them greater versatility during dangerous encounters. For Rose, taking a liking to archery was a way to learn new things and maybe add a tool to their arsenal.

(Enora) You'll have to train a bit to be useful in fights.

(Nick) No shit. You say some obvious stuff sometimes sweetheart.

(Rose) It's cute really.

(Nick) Yeah !

Enora felt lightly flustered by the sudden bullying, something she had never truly experienced. The two knowingly tried to put her in that situation, enjoying her momentary surprise. It was delightful to them ! Being able to crumble the great warrior's stern attitude. And as much as Enora 'hated' it, she was also happy. Happy that their relationship kept getting better and better, to the point that they could pretty much share anything and talk about it with minimal judgement. Their mind link was truly a test of honesty. Also, they spent more and more time with a Nexus of Minds at its highest sensitivity, sharing pretty much everything. Not all the time of course as that would be mentally tiresome, but they tried to get used to it, to avoid the dangerous situations when they would have to completely merge, like in a difficult fight. They did not want to lose focus from an unexpected feeling, disturbing their link at a crucial moment.

Soon enough, they made camp in a small cave, surrounded by trees under a warm light, with the singing of flowing water a few meters away. They were relaxing a bit, and cultivating while Nick stood watch. An event came to trouble them though : Rose felt something different from usual inside her appendix. She shared the feeling, this new sense of fullness, of being complete for the first time in her life. The three of them were quite astonished until Enora flipped open one of the Grimoires to the last pages, quickly reading its content. Then she explained :

(Enora) You just hit the cap for light energy. Unless you find a way to expend your limit for the quantity of this specific School, you can't absorb more.

(Nick) Well that's a bummer. With what she has she can only cast like eight or nine Sunlight Beams.

(Rose) The Sunray School is not supposed to be combat oriented I think, and that beam is only meant as a last resort for healers in a difficult situation.

(Enora) Anyway, it says that you'd need to train your body or find a special technique to surpass this limit. I guess you can only focus on Blaze School and Basic Energy for now.

(Rose) Probably …

What was very surprising was that even if Rose began cultivating at the same time as Enora, she did it way faster, while Nick began weeks before and felt in no way close to full with wild magic. There were still many mysteries in magic that the trio did not know how to uncover. And the circumstances did not allow detailed research.

After a few hours punctuated by exterior silence and bad meat, the three of them prepared for the night. The idea of waiting for Rose to sleep before getting busy with Enora crossed Nick's mind, forgetting that they were actually at high power for the Nexus. Rose giggled lightly with a hand in front of her mouth while looking at Enora's face. The tanned woman would usually feel embarrassed about sharing that kind of detail with her, but not that evening. The constant contact with the other two made her change little by little into accepting that Rose was an adult with knowledge of private matters.

She simply laid on her pelt and very obviously began waiting. Nick smiled a bit before returning to his watch while Rose accepted to fake sleeping. Even if she was to fall asleep, the activity would definitely wake her up, mostly because of the mental changes and wild emotions that would be exuded. Unless they decreased the Nexus's sensitivity, which the two naughty people did not want to do, as it would make things less … well less a lot of adjectives. Anyway, they all spent a lovely night.