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This meant it was a peaceful time where they mainly just chatted about different things, and Jake also finally got to see Carmen “forge” her fists. She did so by making a golden liquid that seemed to almost have acidic properties, but Jake didn’t sense any poison from it. When Carmen submerged her hands, this golden liquid would slowly drill itself into them, and based on Carmen’s gritted teeth during this entire process, it was in no way pleasant.

Afterward, she told him that she had to control the energy and use it to form runes of sorts into her very Soulshape. It was incredibly complicated magic tapping into many different concepts, and Carmen also made it clear she only knew what the outcome of the rituals were and not how anything actually worked. However, she did say this golden liquid also had to do with the tributes, as the unique energy gained from doing them helped the forging ritual along.

It was interesting magic, that was for sure, but nothing Jake could use or even gain any real inspiration from. It required things Jake simply couldn’t get, and he also learned that forging her hands led to some changes Jake would not be a fan of – such as the inability to channel mana through them. Something that didn’t matter at all to Carmen, considering she didn’t even have mana, having converted it all to stamina.

The two of them did have some interesting discussions regarding the application of stamina, and Jake found out that Carmen really had no idea how to properly manipulate her own Soulshape or even properly perceive it. She just used the methods she had been taught.

She likened it to when she was training to be a boxer. She was no nutritionist or had any education in biology or physiology, so she just did as she was told and saw the results. Carmen said she didn’t need to know why something happened, just what she had to do to make the outcome she wanted possible. Rather than learn what lifting weights did to muscles, she would just lift weights and build the muscle.

Jake disagreed with this approach somewhat. He had always been all about feeling the changes on the deepest level possible. Even if he didn’t know all the biology about building muscle, he would still understand the process by feeling it. He would feel the muscle fiber break down and rebuild itself, feel the nutrients and protein feed his muscles to make them stronger and faster.

Comprehending concepts was also essential to upgrading skills. While it was possible to upgrade them without learning how they truly worked, it would never be to your own upgraded versions. Carmen would only be able to follow the teachings of others and upgrade through a linear Path defined by whoever trained her. Jake was very much the opposite, at least when it came to his class. He did follow the teachings of the Malefic Viper, especially with Path of the Heretic-Chosen, but his way of learning wasn’t by following a training regimen but by comprehending and understanding the skills. The true versions of these Legacy skills were also just so all-encompassing that borderline anything Jake learned using them was already an aspect of the “true” version.

This all resulted in an interesting dynamic where they each had something to teach the other - Jake teaching her a bit about Soulshapes and Carmen teaching him a bit about fighting.

“You have the most unbalanced melee fighting style I have ever seen,” Carmen said as she looked at Jake after they had a brief spar. They had decided to take a break, but their breaks often didn’t include as much rest as they probably should.

“How so?” Jake asked, but he already had an inkling himself.

“Well, first of all, you suck at attacking,” she said curtly.

“A bit harsh,” Jake muttered.

“No. Not really. Come at me, try to land a hit,” Carmen taunted him. “You can use your swords and daggers and all that too.”

Jake complied as he shot forward, Eternal Hunger and Bloodfeast Dagger ready. He swung, and Carmen dodged to the side but didn’t counterattack. Jake swung again, and he tried to pin her down as Carmen just kept dodging and weaving in between his hits, not even trying to strike back a single time.

He kept pushing as he picked up his pace, but he somehow couldn’t land a hit even when he was faster than her. Jake kept swinging until finally, Carmen leaped back, making Jake stop.

“You are good at dodging,” Jake nodded.

“No, not really. I am decent, sure, but the primary reason is how utterly predictable you are. It is like fighting a beast. You don’t fucking think. You are just swinging your weapon towards the nearest vital area. No feints, no baiting, no combos… nothing,” Carmen shook her head.

“Is it really that bad?” Jake asked. He had this conversation before, and he honestly felt like he had gotten better with Fang of Man. It was true the skill didn’t actually give him any fighting experience; it just allowed him to properly use any weapon he did pick up. There were no techniques or anything. Jake felt like it was fine as overcomplicating things just seemed dumb.

“It is,” Carmen nodded. “You have no technique at all.”

“Shouldn’t that make me less predictable?” Jake muttered.

“No, it just makes you suck. You know how to use your body and your muscles. Every swing is powerful and would be potent if it hit. You just have no way to make it hit,” Carmen shook her head.

“Any advice?”

“I am not good enough to give any,” Carmen shook her head. “I am a pugilist. I can teach you how to punch things and be a boxer, but I don’t know shit about using a blade or any weapon for that matter. No, it is better you find someone more qualified. You got a lot of the things down that most find the hardest, like proper footwork and efficient movements, so you just need a good teacher.”

Jake nodded in understanding. It seemed like he would actually have to get some lessons in proper fighting when he returned to the Academy.

“But… just one thing, how come I did manage to land hits on people before then?” Jake asked, still a bit confused.

“Well,” Carmen began, “ because while you suck at attacking, you are a fucking monster defensively. Attacking you is a nightmare, and that will inadvertently lead to exposed weaknesses you take advantage of… I don’t get how you don’t understand this? Actually, don’t answer that. I don’t wanna know.”

Jake just nodded. “I get it… I will find someone to give me some pointers.”

He actually felt a bit bad as while Carmen did give some serious advice, Jake couldn’t actually give anything proper back. Explaining how to “feel” something related to your Soulshape wasn’t really easily described, but they did make some progress. Jake advised her to try and feel the stamina moving through her body – something she already had experience with – to map out her Soulshape and slowly imagine it.

Sylphie also chipped in asking what a Soulshape was, at which point Jake learned that Sylphie didn’t have one… well, she did kind of have one, but not really. She had several “states” of Soulshapes as far as Jake could tell, but honestly, it was all a bit too complicated for him. Sylphie’s own explanation was that she could just be windy and not windy, so that was very useful.

On the third day, they finally made it to the red zone known as the Grand Mangrove River. They had seen the mangrove much earlier, and Jake finally understood why Arnold had said flying over it wasn’t possible.

“How the fuck is that even possible?” Carmen asked as she stared at the sight before them.

“Magic, system-fuckery, and probably a bit more magic,” Jake answered, also staring.

“Ree!” Sylphie explained very accurately.

What they saw was indeed a mangrove. The trees that made up the mangrove had large root nets and crowns that began rather far up. This meant that above the surface of the river, there was space between the many roots to move. The problem appeared further up where the crowns of the many trees were.

The many branches had formed an impenetrable wall that shot into the sky further up than Jake could see. It was a barrier of pure greenery that seemed to extend infinitely, and Jake quickly formed the personal theory that the mangrove that gave name to the Grand Mangrove River connected to something up there. Potentially another cloud island.

From what Jake could see, the only way to pass the river was at the bottom and through the net of roots. At least there was a lot of space there. The roots had different sizes, with some being as thin as a finger and others nearly four meters in diameter. At places, the roots were also well-spaced out, and with how much they wound and bent, traveling on top of them and avoiding the river below was entirely possible, if not kind of easy.

“This seems like such a shitty place to travel through,” Carmen complained.

“No other way,” Jake shrugged. “The river cuts off everything. According to the notes in the tablet, this mangrove even makes teleportation incredibly difficult, explaining why no network has been established with the port city.”

“Has anyone made it through before?” she asked.

“A lot. If you go straight, use stealth skills, and just generally try not to cause a ruckus, it shouldn’t be too dangerous as the local denizens shouldn’t be that aggressive. That is if we want to stick to the safest path.”

“Which we don’t,” Carmen nodded. “Oh well. Just to check, how are you in water?”

“I can swim,” Jake answered.

“I mean fighting in it….“ Carmen said, taking a deep breath. “Does your archery work underwater?”

“No, not really,” Jake said. “I would definitely prefer to stay out of it. How about you, Sylphie?”

“Ree!” Sylphie screeched.

“She isn’t a fan of water either?” Carmen asked. She had an oddly hopeful gaze as she waited for Jake to confirm or deny.

“Yep, something like that,” Jake said, getting a small cheer out of Carmen as she triumphantly celebrated her increased ability to understand Sylphie.

“Ready?” Jake asked as he checked the tablet. “We are heading straight for a Prima that should be the closest to our side of the river.”

Carmen and Sylphie nodded and flapped their wings respectively as they headed into the danger zone.

Jake scanned his surroundings as they dove under the canopy of the many mangrove trees. Somehow it didn’t turn dark as he noticed how sunlight seemed to some-fucking-how still make its way through the many-kilometer wall of leaves and branches. Perhaps it was absorbed somehow and then released at the bottom? Jake could feel the sun affinity energy coming from the leaves as he reckoned they somehow emitted it for the river below. Likely to feed its own roots and underwater plants to not kill the ecosystem in the river.

“Ree! Ree, ree, ree,” Sylphie suddenly chirped.

“Okay, I did not get any of that,” Carmen muttered, disappointed, while Jake realized how the sunlight reached them.

“She said that she can feel the wind pass down from above… meaning the sunlight reaches us through a net of reflected sunlight,” Jake explained, having understood and confirmed this himself by inspecting the structure of the leaves.

“How the hell is that possible?” Carmen asked. “Are you telling me these trees all agreed to set up a huge net of reflective leaves or what?”

“No,” Jake shook his head as he inspected some of the trees very carefully. “There is no need for agreement… this entire mangrove is one single plant, or at least this section is.”

Carmen just looked at him. “That is just-“

“Left!” Jake yelled as his danger sense warned him.

A few spears of wood flew straight toward Jake and Carmen both. Carmen just caught one with her hand, and Jake dodged the others easily as he saw where they had come from.

A small, lithe form was sitting on a root as it looked towards them. It was surrounded by five of its brethren as they just stared. Jake recognized the creature as he sighed. “Really?”

[Mangrove Monkey – lvl 140]

The monkeys seemed to have heard him as they bolted off, frightened in the other direction. Sylphie screeched towards them, making the monkeys pick up their pace even more.

“I thought you said the wildlife wasn’t that aggressive?” Carmen asked as she snapped the small sharpened wooden spear she had caught.

“Monkeys are assholes,” Jake just answered, shaking his head as he motioned for them to move on.

His assessment did prove to be correct, and luckily the monkeys didn’t make Jake commit another monkey genocide. They weren’t attacked at all for the next hour or so as they slowly made their way through the Grand Mangrove River, though they did have a few times where they had to diverge their path.

The biggest danger didn’t come from the roots or hidden in the lower layers of the canopies but could be found down in the river below. Incredibly powerful beasts roamed down there, but they luckily seemed to primarily compete amongst themselves.

Jake had taken out one of the Prima fragments again. He hadn’t merged his three into a key in case it made it harder to track the energy signature of Primas. He wondered if he would find another monkey, but he and the others hadn’t encountered any of the fuckers besides in the outer perimeter of the Grand Mangrove River.

By now, they were perhaps a third of the way to the center of the danger zone – a sixth into the river as a whole - and the levels had already grown significantly. Jake saw several beasts around level 170 in the waters below, and he could feel the presence of a C-grade somewhere further in. Maybe more than one.

“Are we avoiding C-grades?” Carmen asked.

“Do you have confidence fighting one?” Jake countered.

“Alone? No. But with you and Sylphie, maybe we can take one down if it is on the weaker side,” Carmen assessed.

“In that case, I am up for giving it a shot,” Jake nodded. He did believe they had a chance, and Sylphie seemed to also agree.

As they kept moving forward, Jake felt several presences five hundred meters or so in front of them. “Be careful. Potential ambush ahead.”

Carmen’s face turned more serious, but she didn’t change her pace. Jake and Sylphie also followed as their guard was up. Soon enough, they reached the area Jake had noticed, and his guess had proven true.

A torrent of water fired out from the river below, making Carmen block as she was blasted up into the leaves and branches above. At the same time, Jake was forced to dodge as a pink appendage shot towards him, barely missing as it smashed into a root, breaking it into splinters before retracting again to its source.

Sylphie also dodged her attack as Jake saw the beasts that had attacked them. Three large and fat frogs were hidden just a bit below the river’s surface as they launched their ranged attacks again, Jake barely managing to Identify them.

[Acidtorrent Frog – lvl 191]

[Pummel-tongue Frog – lvl 194]

[Acidtorrent Frog – lvl 192]

Two green and one brown frog. Jake checked on Carmen and saw her skin had been seared by the acid, but she didn’t seem to care as she shot down at one of the frogs. Jake also pulled out his bow as he prepared to engage.

This would prove to be the first fight of many, as clearly, the natives of the Grand Mangrove River didn’t see the three of them as anything but prey, all trying to turn this mangrove into a man-grave.