Book 6, chapter 18

A geyser of steam burst up from beneath the rocky debris field below, shooting hundreds of meters into the sky. The raging current made the island tremble, a wall of boiling steam that rose and rose until it reached its apex. After a few long seconds, the wall of water came crashing back down, leaving the path to the next island clear. 

"Go, now!" Zee urged, taking a running leap, jumping towards a drifting rock. 

The others weren't far behind, jumping over the twenty meter gap with ease. The new island was only a hundred meters across, and completely absent of life, just like the others had been.

"There is nothing here," Bastion said, kicking a small pebble over the edge. 

Zee scanned the floating debris field, eying the islands that disappeared deeper into the thick steam ahead. 

"I say we keep going for at least another hour. This blasted steam keeps messing with me, but I think I sense something up ahead," Zee said, squinting as she eyed their surroundings. 

After flying for over two days in the drop ship towards a hellish planet dragged in by the storm, they had stumbled onto this debris field. 

It was desolate, a floating cloud of rock and steam, that occasionally erupted in torrential gysers. 

There might not be monsters in the debris field, but that didn't mean it was without dangers. Those guisers of steam were quite nasty, and falling off the rocks would lead to a very, very long fall. 

Even so, Zee wasn't going to back down because of a little scalding steam and some heights. 

"Come on, exploring this place might be a waste of time, but who knows, we might find something interesting," Zee said, pushing herself forward, the low gravity making each step carry her a half dozen meters. The others, after glancing at each other, begrudgingly followed.

Over the next two hours, they leaped from rock to rock, taking their time to search the area. They found nothing, but the further in they went, the more intense those geysers of steam became. 

By now, the steam was so thick that she could only vaguely make out the next island from theirs, and the energy was so dense it made her sensory skill nearly useless. Zee was just about to call it quits and head back when something moved in the mist, making it swirl in the wake.

"Somethings out there," Zee whispered, her voice carrying to the others through the crystal embedded in their environmental collars. 

Her friends, who had been vigilant and bored before, perked up.

"What is it?" Malden asked excitedly, hefting his war hammer from his back. 

"I don't know, but it's--" her voice trailed off as she saw more swirls above them and to either side.

"Nevermind, it appears we are surrounded. They are coming!" Zee warned, drawing her sword.

The first monster crashed through the mist several dozen meters aways. It was pale Grey, blending with the scalding mist, its wingspan about teen feet wide. Contrary to her initial thought, the graceful monster didn't attack them, flying gracefully through the steam. It wasn't alone either. First one, then two, then dozens appeared through the mist, their long barbed tails trailing behind them.

"Holy shit those are huge! They make the manta rays back home look tiny!" Bastion exclaimed. 

"They are storm rays, usually quite docile, but keep up your guard. Just because they are not attacking doesn't mean they wont," Allison warned, her steely eyes warily scanning the rays. 

Taylor leaned on his staff, pointing at one of the rays.

"Look at that. There must be something nasty in here. That bite mark didn't come from one of these rays," Taylor said.

Zee eyed the ray in question, noting not quite healed teeth marks on one of the ray's wings. Considering the size of these things, something that could take a chunk out of them had to be powerful. 

"Stay vigilant," Zee said. 

Her warning may have been superfluous considering how docile the monstrous rays seemed, but it couldn't hurt to be extra cautious. After all, these were not just some random sea creatures. No, they were monsters, the dimly growing crystals on their backs, and their dense auras making that crystal clear. 

As for why they didn't attack the rays, that was simple. These were storm rays, a well documented monster that roamed the endless storm. The missive she had bought said they rarely attacked explorers unless provoked, predominantly feeding on shoals of a squid like creature. The crystals on their backs, energy rich meat, and resistant skin were all valuable but not enough to attack a fever of rays this large. 

Zee was all for making money, and fighting but there had to be at least a hundred of the huge storm rays. It took a few minutes, but eventually the graceful rays had passed overhead. 

"What now?" Malden asked, seeming disappointed they hadn't got to fight. 

"We could continue deeper, the way those storm rays came from. If we do, we might run into whatever attacked them," Allison suggested. 

"I say we continue, I'm itching to blow off some steam," Malden said.

Bastion laughed. "Good one, Maldy,"

Allison rolled her eyes. "Terrible pun aside, let's cast a vote. All in favor of trying to find the monster who attacked the rays, raise your hand," Allison said.

A few seconds passed wherein most of the group did so, with even Yukna and Greg raising their hand. 

"Alright, let's go find this monster," Allison said.

Zee wasn't all too excited to venture deeper into the steamy debris field, as it blocked out her senses, but she had been out voted. 

They searched the debris for a few hours, yet, whatever attacked those rays was proving to be elusive. Just when she thought there was no monster hiding in the steam, they didn't need to find it, as it found them. 

"Somethings coming, above!" Zee shouted, as something large rocketed towards them through the steam. 

A forty foot long eel appeared above them, bursting through the thick steam. It was quick to attack, spitting out jets of boiling steam from a tooth filled maw down at their group. Judging by how all four orbs short directly towards Taylor, the monster intended to take out their healer in one fell swoop. 

The clever monster might have succeeded too if they didn't react in time. With instincts honed by war, they all reacted immediately. A barrier of blood sprung up to surround Taylor, enforced by a thick wall of sand. 

At the same time, streaks of darkness lanced upward as Greg riddled the eel's body with arrows. The eel shrieked as a perfectly timed arrow punctured its left eye, throwing off its aim on its follow up attack. 

Not a second later, a tremendous explosion pushed back the thick steam, as one of Yukna's hunter killer bombs ripped a hole in the eels side. 

It gushed out blood and entrails, flailing madly under the combined assault. Still, the middle stage beast king wasn't done yet. It let out an ear piercing screech that rattled them to their bones. 

The bone shaking shreek made the six of them falter, giving an opening for the giant eel to strike. 

Wait, six? It realized too late that one of the tasty morsels had disappeared, and reappeared above it. 

The steam surged, and it screamed as a hole to the void opened up beside it. It flailed madly, but couldn't escape the tremendous pull imposed on the area by the gravity well. Unable to escape, it was helpless to avoid a pillar of white hot flames that burst up from below. 

Allison finisher skill, flames of purgatory, empowered by the embers of tinder and ash roasted the eel alive, turning it to burned crisp in seconds. Shielding her eyes from the blinding flames, Zee fell back towards the ground, the extra crispy eel crashing on the rock nearby. 

Bastion appeared next to the smoking eel, eddies of mist swirling around him as he nudged it with his boot. "Well, that was anticlimactic. I thought a middle stage beast king would put up more of a fight than that," Bastion said. 

"It was plenty strong. It almost broke through both my and Maldens barriers combined," Taylor said, striding over to stand beside Bastion and the massive eel.

"I guess it seemed strong enough, even if it was a bit of an idiot," Bastion said. 

"What even is this thing?" Malden asked. 

"It's a storm eel," Allison replied, scanning the mist distrustfully. 

Malden raised an eyebrow. "First storm ray, and now storm eel? Whoever came up with these names had no creativity," Malden said.

Allison snorted. "Don't look at me. That's what the information crystal we bought calls them," Allison said. 

"Whatever… Let's just harvest it, and keep going deeper," Malden said.

They set to work, with several on watch, while the others harvested the fangs, meat and the monster's beast shard. It was dirty work, but had to be done. 

Lastly, once everything worth harvesting was gathered, Zee stood in front of the harvested corpse. She was kind of excited to test out a new ritual she had been working on. 

Well, technically it was the same ritual that would harvest the monster's soul and feed it to Dern, but with a caveat. It was a ritual that allowed her to store an already-formed ritual inside it. 

Once the soul-sucking ritual was formed inside the stasis ritual, she could essentially instantly use the soul-sucking ritual. Zee was excited at the possibilities. If this worked, as the ritual implied, Zee could finally use rituals in battle. 

The only problem was that the tenth-tier stasis ritual was fiendishly complicated, as she would have to store it inside her body. That was the only way she could keep a ritual active for so long without it falling apart. 

Testing it now on the dead eel was as good a time as any. First things first. She formed the soul-sucking ritual, which went quickly. Then, while keeping it stable, she split her focus and started forming the stasis ritual around it.

Sweat beaded on her forehead, as her energy reserves drained rapidly. Minutes past as one construct after another formed, eventually all linking together to complete the diagram. 

The combined rituals hummed with power, looking like a spider had gone mad and built webs randomly around her.

The combined rituals might have looked random, but each line of energy had a purpose. Zee let out a shaky sigh of relief as she studied her work, looking for flaws. The description in the living book said she could drag the stasis ritual and the ritual it contained inside her body for use later but she was hesitant to do that. 

Over half her energy reserves were dumped into forming these two rituals and it could blow her up if it malfunctioned. 

Zee wasn't ready to take that risk. First things first. She wanted to see if it actually worked. With a mental gesture, the stasis ritual shrank from ten meters wide down to fit in the size of her palm. She grinned, staring down at the two compressed rituals hovering over the palm of her hand.

So far so good, they both still seemed stable. Eying the eels corpse, she flicked her wrist, tossing the compressed rituals at it. With a mental prompt, the stasis ritual released the stored soul sucking ritual. 

A wide smile spread across Zee's face as the eel corpse turned to ash. Its squirming ethereal soul was dragged out, and into Dern's waiting maw. 

"What was the point of that? Took way longer than normal to accomplish the same thing," Malden said, standing with the others nearby. 

Zee's smile only grew wider. "You misunderstand what just happened Maldy. That ritual I just performed is a game changer," Zee said.

"Looked the same to me," Malden muttered.

She shook a finger at him, adopting a lecturing tone. "That's because you are a blockhead. What the ignorant, like yourself, do not know is that I used a stasis ritual. When using a stasis ritual correctly, I will be able to store an already formed ritual and instantly release it on command," Zee explained. 

Malden's ears twitched doubtfully. "Uh, huh... And how is that going to be useful? From what I have seen, you don't even have any combat rituals. At this point, you might as well take up painting, it's just as useful in combat," Malden said.

Zee grinned.

"Just wait and see, you will swallow your words when you see what an amplify ritual can do," Zee said. 

"I will believe it when I see it," Malden said, rolling his slitted yellow eyes. 

Nearby, mostly obscured by the steam Allison 

waved.

"That's enough slacking off you two. I want to see what else we can find deeper," Allison said, her voice echoing through the steam. 

"Coming," Zee replied, leaping over the pile of ash that was once a giant eel. 

They ventured deeper into the steam shrouded debris field, with visibility growing worse by the minute. Nearly an hour after the first attack, they were attacked by another slightly larger eel, and several smaller ones. Being ambushed from all sides by boiling vapor was not a pleasant experience, especially with visibility so poor deeper in. 

It wasn't all bad though. Six hours in, they found their first signs of plant life growing on the debris field. Given the recent attack from the eels, this was probably their home. 

It looked alot like an underwater reef, with towering coral, and dark green kelp that towered above them, swaying in the steam. The island of life in an otherwise desolate debris field was small, and didn't take too long to search. 

Eventually they found a narrow cave, which was guarded by several juvenile eels. They were only ten feet long, with early middle E grade auras but still fought the intruders down to the last. 

 Zee wiped the blood and gore off her sword, her heartbeat quickening as she spotted something in the deepest ends of the cave. It looked like a coral, but radiated immense fluctuations. The steam swirled around it, with the natural treasure releasing waves of the potent energy each second. 

With delicate care, she harvested the coral, putting it in a sealed container that Yukna made.

None of the team could use the treasure, as none of them cultivated the concept of steam, but it was still valuable. The treasure was also only middle quality, not useful for forming a stable shard anyways. Anyone who tried to break through with such a sub par treasure would be stuck with a poor quality shard that couldn't withstand being condensed into a core. Even so, this treasure would still fetch a hefty price on auction. There were many cultivators who would dump their whole savings for a treasure that could help them step into the D grade even if it had so many impurities.

 After the excitement with the eels, they decided to head back to the drop ship, and leave the steam covered debris fields.

Fighting monsters would help advance their skills, which was important, but they really needed to be searching areas of the storm attuned to at least one of their concepts. 

They had three years to scour the storm in search of at least seven supreme treasures based on their concepts and couldn't waste time. After all, supreme treasured didn't grow on trees, and finding them was for the most part sheer luck.

They proceed back the way they came, following the signal using an array Yukna had linked to the ship. Zee also had one end of an anchor stone on the ship, but that was for emergencies. 

Opening a brute force gate and leaping through it was likely to be very rough on everyone including herself. Also, she was wary of causing another incident like she did in the academy. This time she wouldn't have master Anton and the other academy professors to contain something like an abyssal gate. 

Zee had ironed out those kinks, but it was probably better to be only used in emergencies. Or at least that is what she kept telling herself. What was the point in being a spatial cultivator if she didn't get to open gates, or twist the fabric of space?

Zee let out a tired sigh, idly watching the display as the drop ship left the steam shrouded debris field behind. 

The debris field was a good testing ground of their teamwork. But now, they were headed deeper into the storm where the energy was denser, and the monsters stronger. Based on the information, the lava fields were not a place to venture into lightly. It was recently spat out from the cosmic river, with its riches untouched by cultivators.