An Owl's Rise

\'Ugh, this bastard is tough.\'

With her talons pierced through the flesh of the giant frog Evelyn was doing her best to butcher the beast.

But its skin was quite tough, and its huge size made it difficult for her to get through it all.

After the battle she had stored the bodies of the frog and bat into her storage amulets and then proceed to sleep the day away.

Then when she woke up, she got right to work and was now hours into the process of dismantling the frog\'s body.

It was back breaking work for her and even with her talons that were like swords, cutting through a beast that was a rank above her was not easy.

Though while she was having a difficult time of it, most other beasts at the same level as her would never be able to pierce the skin of this frog.

By the time the night was almost over Evelyn had finally separated out all of the parts of the awakened rank frog.

It had yielded several hundred pounds of meat, not to mention its bones, blood, and entrails.

Certainly, Evelyn was unsure if this particular beast\'s parts were going to have any use in alchemy. But seeing as it was at the awakened rank, she was not going to waste anything just in case.

\'I will have to do the bats tomorrow. For now, it is time to see how this frog meat tastes.\'

Picking out a large slab of meat Evelyn roasted it up and began tearing it apart with her beak.

Immediately she was met with a delicious flavor and her entire body felt a sense of warmth flow through it from the magical energy that was in the frog\'s meat.

\'This is pretty good. Not at the level of what Melisandre has given me. But for something I killed and cooked on my own, it is the best I have had.\' Evelyn thought while savoring her meal.

Soon she had eaten the entire dozen pound piece of meat she had pulled out and was feeling quite satisfied.

Yet before it was time to pack it in and get some more rest, she pulled out the frog\'s beast core and swallowed it for desert.

\'Whoa.\'

As her body started to break the core down, she felt a wave of magical energy wash over her and she a sense of elation as she absorbed its power.

Very rarely would a beast be able to consume the core of anything higher rank than it, but when they did the effects were always impeccable.

\'I am starting to feel pretty tired now.\'

Exhausted from the long hours of working on breaking down the frog, and now having a full stomach and a beast core to break down, fatigue hit Evelyn all at once.

Quickly she flew towards her temporary home in the hollow of a tree and fell into a deep sleep.

During her rest the Aethersphere began working, as it directed the immense magical energy from the frog\'s core to where it needed to go.

When she awoke Evelyn felt amazing.

She could tell she was stronger now even if she did not go up from the high tier to the peak of the fiend beast rank.

\'I feel like I am close. Just one more little push and it will be there.\'

Swiveling her head around and flapping her wings she limbered up and prepared to get to back to work.

She still had all the bats\' bodies to carve up before she could get back to her missions and that was her goal for the day.

\'I only have one more beast that I need to hunt, and then the rest are just ingredient collection. Though most things of value normally already have something sticking claim to them.\' Evelyn thought while she was carving through the venom bats.

It took her a few tries before she was able to successfully extract the venom glands from them, but the ones she messed up had all been low tier fiend beasts, so the loss did not really bother her.

Once she made it to the final one at the peak of the rank, she was pretty confident in her ability to disassemble the bats and obtain their valuable materials.

Finally, she had only the bat at the awakened rank to do.

When she took it out though, she frowned. Its body was far from in pristine condition.

Its head was crushed and shredded where the frog had gotten ahold of it with its mouth, and its torso had deep cuts and burns through it where Evelyn had struck.

\'Well maybe the venom gland is still intact. Worst case scenario, I still get its core.\'

Luckily by some miracle the bat\'s venom gland managed to not be damaged, and with careful precision Evelyn extracted it and placed it into a jar for use later.

She then nearly discarded the rest of the bat since its other parts were not of much use with its meat being poisonous. But she stopped before she did.

\'Just because the ones at the fiend beast rank are not valuable other than their core and venom gland does not mean the one at this rank will be. I might as well keep it just in case.\'

Putting the butchered body back not her storage amulet Evelyn had a satisfied expression on her face.

Her haul from this trip had been quite impressive so far. And while her life may have been on the line yesterday, she had made it out fine and with more materials than she could have hoped for.

\'Now I think I should focus on the sapphire fruits of the venairier tree. They will be necessary for magic recovery pills and the like.\'

With her next goal set Evelyn set out into the forest in search of the tree.

From what Melisandre told her it was a type of plant that could not really absorb magical energy from the ground like most did. It had to be fed magical energy directly from those that were picking them in order to enrich them, but it was well worth the effort.

\'Oh, there is one.\'

Spotting a tree that had sparkling blue fruits on it that had a similar shape as a lemon.

On the tree there were a few beasts but none of them were even close to as strong as Evelyn, and just her presence had them scattering.

\'That looks like the best spot.\'

Sighting an area with a denser quantity of the fruits high up towards the top of the tree, Evelyn chose that as the place she would get to work.

As soon as she landed and locked herself in place with her talons, she began allowing her magical energy to flow into the nearest fruit.

The thing naturally wanted to absorb magical energy and all she had to do was let it flow and the fruit would take it in.

Quickly the one she had chosen first began to swell, before she heard a loud popping sound and it burst in her face.

\'What just happened?\' Evelyn thought as she wiped the fruit juice from her face.

She had been doing as she was told, but suddenly the fruit she was focusing on exploded.

While shaking her head to get the exploded fruit off of her, she thought about what the problem might have been.

\'Maybe it was not fully matured and that had some adverse effect?\' Evelyn thought, figuring that might have been the problem.

Next, she tired the ripest looking fruit of the bunch and allowed it to drain her magical energy.

Unfortunately, the results were the same and it ended with her receiving another round of exploded fruit all over her face.

\'What is the problem!?\'

Frustrated Evelyn moved onto another fruit and got the exact same results.

At this point she realized that she must be doing something wrong and thought heavily about what the problem might be.

\'It either has to be the speed or quantity of the magical energy the fruit is taking in. Either it is going too fast, or I am letting it have too much.\'

Testing out her theory Evelyn allowed the fruit to take in only a bit of her magical energy before she pulled back an cut off the supply.

It has swelled a little but not burst. And its bright glowing began to dimmish, and it shrunk a little when she cut off the supply.

She did this a few more times until she was confident she had given this fruit more of her magical energy than the others before they burst.

\'I see. I must have been going too fast. They can take more, just not all at once.\'

Now that she knew what the problem was Evelyn went back to work, but eventually she found the fruit\'s quantity limit as well and it exploded again.

This time however, since it was filled with more magical energy, the explosion was far more violent and some of the seeds actually embedded in Evelyn and knocked her out of the tree.

\'Ow.\' She thought as she crashed into the ground.

At the very least the fall was not too bad as she had lowered her gravity and created a wind cushion, but she still had around a half dozen seeds that had embedded themselves in her like bullets.

Once she had healed and removed the seeds from her body she went back to work, now knowing the limits of these fruits.

Soon she had collected around forty of them which as much more than she needed, but she wanted to get what she could while she was in the area.\'

\'Okay. Time for bed again, and then tomorrow onto the next item.\'