An Owl's Rise

After hearing about the aberrant fungus' powers, she had formed several ideas on how to use it as an alchemical ingredient. Of course, she would not be able to get to experimenting until she had finished up her business in the Inferno Field and returned to safe place where she could brew in peace.

'I think that will do for the parts of the main body. I'll want to collect some of the offshoots as well, but first I want to extract the mushroom's growing out of the mind slaves' heads and gather all of the beast cores.' Evelyn thought, planning out everything she wanted to gather from her defeated enemies.

When she returned to the surface, the first thing she saw was Krunnen splayed out on the ground looking sick.

His strongest attack had taken a lot out of him and left him low on magical energy and dizzy from how rapidly his body had been spinning.

Thankfully there were no enemies remining to threaten him in his weakened state. Nearly all the beasts that had been under the Mind Manipulating Mushroom's control had been died, either due to Evelyn and Krunnen's attacks, or from the psychic backlash they received when their master perished.

Nevertheless, some of the beasts that had stronger constitutions or had not been enslaved for long and had less fungal growth in their brains had survived. There were around a dozen former mind salves still breathing and unconscious.

Evelyn had no intention of letting these survivors live though.

Each of their beast cores would be useful for upgrading her own rank and it was likely that were not already aberrant beasts would soon be corrupted by the elemental if left alone.

Mercilessly, she flew over to each of the still living beasts and plunged her talons into their vitals, killing them near instantly.

Once that was done, she went around collecting the beast cores of those she had killed and taking certain valuable parts from the high tier and peak awakened rank beasts that she deemed to be useful.

'Not a bad haul. I promised Krunnen thirty percent of the beast cores, so that will leave a little under five hundred for me. But the real prize is the material I gathered. I'll be able to make plenty of potions, pills, and other items with them.'

Wearing a smile on her face, Evelyn flew around collecting the offshoots of the Mind Manipulating Mushroom.

Now that the main body was dead, these smaller versions had lost their lives as well and no longer looked nearly as appealing as they had when Evelyn first saw one.

Not only had their luster grown duller, but the tantalizing scent they emitted was practically gone.

Still, they retained most of the magical energy they had in life, and Evelyn was confident that their properties would still be potent enough to create the special brews she had envisioned.

When she had finished the last of her gathering, Evelyn returned to Krunnen and found that while he still looked fairly nauseous, he had gotten back up on his feet.

"Here, these are your spoils. Don't worry about the quality. I made sure not to just give you the weakest thirty percent of the cores." Evelyn said, pulling out a large basket from her storage cuff that she had stored Krunnen's share of the beast cores in.

Sitting right on top was that core of the giant star nosed mole and one of the four peak awakened rank beasts under the aberrant fungus' control. Krunnen's eyes were naturally drawn to this core as it was the largest and possessed the greatest amount of magical energy.

After the battle had ended, he imagined that Evelyn would have given him thirty percent of the cores only in terms of quantity, but from what he could see, Evelyn had given him plenty of stronger cores as well.

"Thank you. I suppose that I made the correct call in trusting you. I'll be able to put these cores to great use."

Krunnen then stored the cores and took out the magic tool he sued to communicate with his superior. He needed to inform her that he had successfully destroyed the Mind Manipulating Mushroom.

It did not take long before a return message that clearly showed how shocked and suspicious his superior was.

"Looks like she is going to come here in person to assess the situation as soon as she is free. She wants me to stay here until then." Krunnen said, relaying the message to Evelyn.

In response she simply nodded and looked for a place she could wait out of sight. Naturally if she stuck around his superior would learn that he had outside help and would not get nearly as much credit for the accomplishment of taking down such a dangerous creature.

However, before she could go, Keunen stopped her.

"I know we agreed on you assisting me for three days, but that won't be necessary now. After this I'll probably be dragged back into base for some questions and my duties will be cut short. There will be no need for you to stick around and help me anymore and I think you have already done more than enough.

So, before my superior gets here, I'll tell you everything I can about the Inferno Field and give you an emblem that lets the other Rangers know that you are a friend."

For several moments Evelyn simply stared at Krunnen with a blank expression on her face. She had already prepared herself to stick with him for a bit longer and did not expect to get the information she wanted early.

Still, she wanted to evolve into a tyrant rank beast as quickly as possible, so she accepted his generosity and prepared to listen to what an expert knew about the hostile environment she found herself in and the creature she had come to kill.