However, I have been feeding all of the weaker essence to the spider’s essence so that may no longer be true. Unfortunately, I haven’t figured out how to sense the strength of an essence, hence the need for study. Lizzy catches up to me, but after a single sniff of the corpse she turns away from it.

  “What? Doesn’t smell good?”

  Lizzy says “The meat is poisonous.”

  “Oh, that makes sense.”

  I take a closer look at the body, but I am surprised by the hide of the thing, it isn’t separated. I was expecting croc hide on the body, snake scales on the heads, and chitin on the tails. However, the hide is consistent throughout the body, it seems like a mix of the three.

  It isn’t like any other materials that I have played with, so I take my time to carefully skin it. I scrape it and put it in my pouch for now, I will see about tanning it later. As I am scraping it, I find veins of black running through it, almost like a reinforcement structure.

  If the hide is a mix between the croc and the snake, then the veins would be the scorpion part. It is almost like someone put it together, but then it got free and this is the result several generations later. Considering what I have learned about the middle of the continent, that is entirely possible.

  I already know for a fact that the Ancient Ones did a lot of experimenting on beasts. However, I am on a time limit so this isn’t the time to get distracted by such thoughts. With the hide secured, I jump into Lizzy’s saddle and have her get back to hunting while I scan the area.

  I keep feeding the essences from Lizzy’s kills to the spider essence, I want to keep the croc essence as is. Once I have studied it, then I will feed it essence so that I can study the changes. For now, I don’t sense any strong beasts so I let Lizzy keep hunting, but I keep her moving mostly north.

  The odds of stronger beasts should increase the closer that we get to the center of the continent. On top of that, the further we move away from the kingdom’s border, the less the beasts should have been hunted. Lizzy finds and kills a small herd of boar-like beasts, but she only eats one of them.

  She asks me to store the rest of them for her to eat later, they must be pretty tasty. As tempted as I am to try one, I do as I am asked and store them in my pouch for her. Just as I am climbing back into the saddle I hear a scream off in the distance.

  Lizzy also hears it and she moves to her top speed almost instantly which almost throws me off. I just barely manage to keep my seat, I am just lucky that it is a smooth ride. The land is flattening itself out for Lizzy, even the ravines in her way even out with the surrounding ground.

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  She is basically running on a completely flat, smooth road and that allows her to move even faster. This allows us to reach the source of the scream only a handful of seconds after hearing it. When we arrive there are two scorpcrocs, one is already dead, there is another four legged beast, and a humanoid.

  The four legged beast is also down, maybe dead, and the last scorpcroc is standing over the humanoid. As Lizzy charges, I fire a blast of lightning at the scorpcroc which is enough to temporarily paralyze it. It is enough time for Lizzy to reach the beast and tackle it away from the humanoid.

  The scorpcroc ends up on its back with Lizzy’s teeth in the throat of one head. The other head twists around to try and bite her so I blast it with some lightning. Lizzy crushes the throat of the one head about the same time that my lightning pops the other.

  1 Scorpcroc defeated! 275,000 Exp gained!

  Lizzy yells “Ash! Heal her! Quickly!”

  Before I fully understand what’s going on, Lizzy twists her body and throws me out of her saddle. I land on the ground next to the humanoid, who I now see is a woman that is severely wounded. I trust Lizzy, so I immediately start healing her, which takes several heals and a cure poison.

  While I am healing the humanoid, Lizzy approaches the four legged beast, which I can now see is a lizard. In fact, the more I look at it, the more I think that it looks a lot like Lizzy did when I found her. Unfortunately, it was already dead when we arrived and I don’t think my resurrect will work.

  Still, once I am sure the woman is out of danger I rush over and try the spell on the lizard. Unfortunately, it has been dead for too long and the spell doesn’t work on it. Now that I am closer, I am convinced that this lizard is the same breed as Lizzy was.

  Not that it is identical, but it is close enough to be a direct descendant or a close cousin. I had thought that the old empire created them, but maybe they just found them and brought them to the peninsula. It could be either one, they might have made them and some got loose before they fled to the peninsula.

  It doesn’t really matter, I am just curious about which it might be, but I won’t find out anytime soon. The lizard’s body is tangled up with the first scorpcroc, it obviously died fighting. I notice that the lizard has a saddle and there is a lance piercing the body of the scorpcroc.

  That tells me that the lizard was her mount and it makes me curious about her tribe. If they have more of the lizards, then maybe they know their origin or history. I can ask the woman when she wakes up, which should be soon, but I have something to do first.

  I cut open both scorpcrocs before their essence can dissipate and add it to the one I already have. Removing the essence makes the cores worthless, so I hope that wasn’t what the woman was after. I am no expert, but from what I can see it looks like she was hunting the scorpcroc.

  It looks like her hunt was successful, but then the second one ambushed her and her mount. I have a hard time seeing how one could sneak up on someone, they are the size of a four-wheeler. Then again, it is night and not many people have my senses, so it could happen.

  Now that the essence is secured, I head over to check on the woman, she should have woken up by now. I run a scan of her and everything is healed, but she is still exhausted, which is why she isn’t waking up. I create a light to see by and use a clean spell to remove all of the blood so I can get a better look at her.