When everyone is done eating and ready to get moving, I shapeshift into my beastman form and mount up. If I didn’t know better, I would say that Lizzy starts purring as soon as I am in the saddle. As the convoy gets moving, she paces along beside the carriage and doesn’t even complain about how slow they are.

  Although, I don’t expect that to last for long, Lizzy really hates having to go slow. While the carriage and wagon are now able to go at close to the beasts’ top speed, it is still slow compared to Lizzy. Then again, she has been working alone for a while now, she might just be happy to be around people again.

  She has never been what I would call all that social, but maybe she has been a little lonely. I can’t say that I blame her if that is the case and it might explain why she was in human form. I wonder if she was just playing around, or if she was actually interacting with humans.

  However, I don’t ask, if she wants to talk to me about it she will, but I am not going to pry. She easily trots along next to the carriage and after a bit she starts chatting with Shiro. When they start talking about dresses, I completely tune them out and think about other things.

  Before long we reach the empire’s border, but we are able to cross it without much fuss. Not like I really expected the border guards to give an emperor trouble, especially when he is expected. The crossing brings me out of my thoughts enough to notice that the terrain has changed.

  We have entered a much drier area and it makes me remember that the desert should be close. I check with Amn, but he tells me that we are going to pass to the south of the desert. In fact, it seems that our trip would have been longer before I figured out how to make the desert shrink.

  Still, we are going to be passing fairly close to it and I am a little tempted to go play. However, the beasts of the desert are unusual and can’t be used for the experiments that I want to do. It would be better if I found some normal beasts to hunt and experiment on.

  “Hey, Lizzy.”

  Lizzy says “Huh? What?”

  “If you smell any beasts let me know. I have some experiments that I want to do.”

  Lizzy says “Well, alright. As long as you aren’t experimenting on me, I guess it’s okay. What kind of beasts?”

  “Normal beasts, the weaker the better. At least to start with.”

  Shiro says “We are making better time than expected. Thanks to that, we should be camping close to a small forest that is normally teaming with beasts.”

  “Alright. Perfect.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Lizzy says “Do you want me to rush ahead and they can catch up?”

  “No. Part of the mission for this trip is to keep Amn and his daughter safe. We will stay with them and I will find some beasts once we make camp.”

  Lizzy says “Oh, alright.”

  “I can stay with them if you want to run around for a bit and stretch your legs?”

  Lizzy says “No, it’s fine. I will stay with you.”

  “Alright. You can do some hunting once we stop and set up camp.”

  Again, Lizzy surprises me by not complaining and just going back to chatting with Shiro. Lizzy seems different, but I am not sure yet if it is temporary or permanent. Considering that this trip is going to take weeks, I will have plenty of time to figure it out.

  Once again, I quickly tune out the conversation between Lizzy and Shiro and start thinking about other things. Mainly I am trying to think of things that I need to do that I can accomplish while traveling. There are a few things that I could craft, but like an idiot I only grabbed stone for platforms.

  All of my other materials are still in the workshop in the castle, which does me no good. If I want to do any crafting, I either need to make a trip back, or I need to gather new materials. However, for the kinds of things that I want to craft they are going to need to be decent materials.

  Those from low level beasts are not going to work and that is what I plan to hunt. At least for the first few experiments, which I hope to get out of the way tonight. Until then there isn’t much I can do, so I spend the time chatting with Amn while Lizzy chats with Shiro.

  Amn informs me that the first two stops are the other kingdoms that border the living desert. As such, I am going to be fairly popular with them once they find out who I am. After that, there are two move kingdoms along the southern coast that we have to collect.

  These four kingdoms are Amn’s allies and once we gather them we will head to the Magic Kingdom. The kingdoms don’t worry me, it is just going to make the trip take longer to collect them. At the same time, that is going to give me time to conduct my experiments and maybe figure some things out.

  Luckily, time passes fairly quickly and soon the soldiers are stopping and setting up camp. I wait until the camp is set up, put wards around it, and then head off towards the forest. Of course, Lizzy stays with me, although she does put her saddle away and just walks beside me.

  As I enter the small forest, I start looking for some beast to hunt and it doesn’t take long to spot one. It looks kind of like a deer, although its body is covered in thorns like those of a rosebush. As soon as I spot it, I jump across the distance to it and grab its head, which collapses in my hand.

  1 Thornzelle defeated! 50 Exp gained!

  I was trying to capture it, but that works well enough and I drop to my knees beside it. I quickly focus my vision on its life force and watch as it dissipates from the body. I pay attention to how it dissipates and also pay a lot of attention to the beast’s core.

  The core only has a tiny amount of essence in it, but I get to watch the turn into life force and dissipate. That tells me that essence is actually distilled or condensed life force. My core, which looks perfect as far as I can tell, does not contain any essence.

  I compare the beast’s core to my own, but I cannot find any differences in how it is constructed. I don’t think that my lack of life force is due to any mistakes I made with my core. However, that lack of essence is probably the root cause of why my body doesn’t produce life force.

  Which means, if I can just figure out how to have my own essence, it should fix everything. At least, that is the theory that I am currently putting my focus on as my best bet. I still need to do a number of experiments and try to improve my understanding of essence.