An Owl's Rise

The two of them had already met in one of the Ranking Hall's training rooms and it was only a short journey to where they were.

Inside Bylur and Rehni were waiting, and upon seeing Evelyn with her siblings, smiled.

"First introductions are in order." Evelyn said before having her siblings and teammates greet each other.

After that, things went surprisingly well, to the point Evelyn felt it was almost unnatural. Things never really went this easy for her.

Nevertheless, Bylur and Rehni easily accepted Evelyn's siblings, and in turn Verrader and Aralee got along well with her teammates.

For the rest of the day the five of them explained their individual magic and showed off a bit of what they could do. Albeit with Evelyn still holding back on her fire and gravity magic.

Naturally, if they were going to be working together from here on out, they needed to know what each other could do.

Their days went on like this, as the five of them got more comfortable together until Evelyn finally decided it was time for them to head out together.

'The magic spring will be active again soon, and we need to deliver the items Otis needs to evolve, and then return with him once he become a tyrant rank beast. The only question is whether to bring Verrader and Aralee along or not?'

Over the last few days Evelyn had been pondering if it was really the right time to introduce her siblings to Otis and the burrowing owls.

She felt like she could trust at this point, but there was a slight nagging in the back of her head that was holding her back.

At some point she had stopped begin suspicious of her siblings at all, but this had made her feel wary for some reason.

It was not something she could place logically, but one thing or another just seemed off to her.

However, she could not say it was more than a slight feeling of misgiving, and she felt it might be just from the unconscious resentment she still carried for Verrader.

'That must be it, right?' She thought.

Still, in the end, she decided to simply watch how her siblings did on their first foray out together and leave them behind when she went to visiting the burrowing owls.

Later she would need to show them to the magic spring in order to catch them up, but this time they would not be able to use it anyway, so she felt it was best to simply leave them out rather than explain everything now.

Trust was earned after all, and she felt it would take a bit more time before she was willing to open up about everything to her siblings.

Quickly Evelyn gathered up all the times she felt she might need and headed out.

She met up with Bylur, Rehni, and her siblings at the Warp Hall, and were transported to the closest point to the Velinis Desert.

"Hm, there does not appear to be much of anything here. Where exactly are we? I do not know where this desert is on the map." Verrader said, gazing across the desert with a scrutinizing look.

"Yes, there is less life here than other places, but there are plenty of hidden gems in this desert. Give it some time and I will show you where some of the interesting spots are." Evelyn said.

She then led the way to the cliffs where she had once fought and killed the desert sheep that were pretty tough.

At this point she figured that some other beast or beasts would have taken up residence in the area since it was a rare spot that had a greater concentration of magical energy in comparison to the majority of the desert.

However when she arrived at the cliffs she was astounded to see that they were very different than she remembered.

There were now several large holes in the cliffs and the surrounding area.

Looking around Evelyn eventually spotted the culprits that had caused this.

Dragging the corpse of a large hare was a sandy colored ant that blended in extremely well with the surroundings.

It was a massive creature compared to any ant Evelyn had ever seen before on Earth, but despite being a peak fiend beast, it was pretty small at only about a meter long.

'It looks like there are about eight of them around right now. None of the ones that are out are at the awakened rank, but they almost certainly have a leader that is. I suppose it must be their queen.' Evelyn thought analyzing the situation.

Immediately she was reminded of the spiders she had encountered during the first trail to enter the Roost in the jungle.

There had been an uncountable number of lower ranking spiders following one queen, and Evelyn imagined that these ants were similar.

'They don't really stand much of a chance against us though, no matter how many of them there are.'

Unlike in the jungle where the spiders could maneuver in three dimensions just like an owl could, here in the desert these ants were stuck on the ground.

All they would need to do was attack from above and use their superior maneuverability to pick the ants off one at a time.

"Rehni, do you know more about these ants? I remember reading about them, but I did not pay it much mind since the source said that they live prominently on the other side of the desert."

"Yes I believe that they are know as Ramil Ants. Their carapaces are known to be very hard, and I believe that they can naturally produce and fling a highly corrosive acid. The materials from them can be used to create sturdy weapons and armor and sell fairly well if we do not damage them too much. It is possible that their acid can also be used in alchemy, but I would say you would no batter on that front than me." Rehni respond.

She was pretty well studied and remembered everything she ever read. Making her an invaluable source of information out in the field when they could not consult the Records Hall.

"I suppose we will hunt here for a while as a decent warmup then. On the cliffs are some rare and valuable plants as well, so we will want to clear out enough ants so that we can get at those." Evelyn said, explaining her reasoning for attacking these ants."

"Now, Aralee, Verrader, since this is your first time out with us, show us what you can do. I want to see how the two of you handle things on your own. If you really get into trouble we will help you out, but do not expect our assistance otherwise."