Lizzy says “Alright. I haven’t scented anything strong, but maybe there is something deeper in the forest.”

  “We can check. I don’t need to sleep tonight, but we need to make sure you get enough rest.”

  Lizzy says “If we are going to be moving at the same pace as today, then I will be fine with just an hour or two of rest.”

  “Yeah, it will be the same speed. So, we can hunt for at least several more hours.”

  Lizzy doesn’t need any more encouragement than that and she begins hunting seriously. Luckily, the snailboars seem to be fairly common in this forest and within an hour she has killed five more. I have no problem staying in the saddle and can even play with the essence while she hunts.

  As I add each essence, I manage to confirm that the volume of it increases by more than what is added. I have no idea why that is, but it is a good thing since it means I have more to play with. However, I am careful to make sure that the bubble of mana around it is never breached.

  I already found out that the essence will evaporate instantly if it isn’t encased by the mana. Luckily, that only happened once with a single unit of essence and not the main bunch. Currently, I have merged the essence of six boars, but it is as big as I expected ten to be.

  I really wish that I had something that could measure the essence, having to guess is annoying. Out of curiosity, I take the essence of another weak beast and add it to the essence of the snailboars. This time it doesn’t merge together, it is more like the larger essence consumes the smaller.

  The confusing part is that after consuming the other essence, the boar essence doesn’t seem to change. It definitely didn’t grow any bigger, but I can’t tell if something else changed. I guess I am just going to have to feed it more other essence and see what happens.

  During the hunting Lizzy has been steadily heading deeper into the forest looking for something stronger. After getting me the essence from two more boars she finally finds something interesting. It looks like a mix between a rhino and a spider, it would have given me nightmares in my old life.

  It has the armored body of a rhino, either armored legs, and the head of a spider with a rhino’s horn. It is obviously a higher rank beast and it looks like the hide would be quite useful. I stop Lizzy from attacking it, she would destroy the hide if I let her fight it.

  Instead, I dismount and move ahead so that the thing focuses on me, but I don’t attack yet. For now I just dodge its attacks while trying to figure out how to best kill it cleanly. Like a spider, it keeps trying to bite me, so I decide the best way is to just fire some lightning into its mouth.

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  1 Horned Spider defeated! 15,000 Exp gained!

  That worked even better than expected, I didn’t think that a single attack would kill it. With it dead, I quickly extract its core and surround it with my mana before I start skinning the beast. I offer the meat inside to Lizzy, but she turns it down, I guess it doesn’t smell appetizing.

  I carefully clean and store the hide, then I let two essences meet within the mana. The essence of the spider is about half the size of the essence of the eight boars. However, it is actually the spider essence that consumes the boar essence, the opposite of what I expected.

  The spider essence grows a tiny bit once it is finished consuming the boar essence. So, I learn a few things from this, like the fact that the size isn’t the only determining factor. The spider essence, coming from a higher ranked beast, is obviously stronger even if its volume is smaller.

  Another thing is that essence can grow by consuming other essence and probably also improve in quality. It is like the essence acts similar to the beast core that it comes from, beasts also grow stronger by consuming other beasts. That makes me wonder, do beasts work that way because that is how their essence works?

  Or it could be the other way around and their essence works like that because they are beasts. Since there is no way for me to find out, there is no point in thinking about it. Just knowing that they act in similar ways is enough for me to figure a few things out.

  If my guess is right, then if I keep feeding the spider essence, it should eventually evolve. That is important to confirm, because for me to make an essence my own, it is going to have to be close to me. Unless I can manage to find a dragonling somewhere and steal its essence, which isn’t very likely.

  The best idea I have right now is to take a drake’s essence and then feed it a ton of dragonfish. However, that won’t be possible until after this trip and I plan to learn more before trying it. For now, I just let Lizzy keep hunting and feed whatever essence I get to the spider essence.

  We encounter a second spider, but this time I let Lizzy fight it while I just watch. As I thought, she does ruin some of the hide, but there is still some for me to claim. After adding it, the ball of essence is about the size of a baseball and it actually helps.

  As the ball of essence gets bigger, it gets easier for me to see more details about it. It was not visible when it was smaller, but the essence is constantly in motion. I have no idea why, but I am sure that knowledge will come in handy at some point.

  All in all, I have learned a lot from just one night’s hunting and I still have plenty of time. With that in mind, I tell Lizzy to start heading back to camp so that she can get some sleep. Of course, I also tell her that is fine if she wants to keep hunting on the way back.

  Although, with as many beasts as we have already hunted, she really shouldn’t be hungry. Of course, I am not stupid enough to say that out loud, even if she is a lizard she is still a woman. I know better than to ever make a comment to a woman about how much they are eating.

  That statement is doubly true when said woman can actually eat me, so I keep my mouth shut. Lizzy only kills two more beasts on the way back to camp, they are probably the best tasting. I feed their essence to the spider essence and spend the rest of the trip back studying it.

  Once we are at the camp, I get Lizzy settled in and then talk to Amn’s servants. Luckily, when I ask for glass they have several empty wine bottles that they were planning to throw out. I melt them down and then reform the glass into a big, lidded jar and then enchant it.