Chapter 532 (2/2)

He truly wasn’t so good with the physical things. If he knew how to knock the man out more softly, he would have.

When he reached the group, Nathan raised his voice. “Bruya, can you put up an illusion.”

The woman didn’t even look up from her plate of stew, and the group was in a tropical rainforest. A multicolored parrot cawed loudly right into Nathan’s ear, causing him to jump a little, but he didn’t let that rob him of any enthusiasm.

“It’s time to move out! Who's up for joining the Ghosthound?”

Karlito and Bruya looked at each other. Bruya mildly scratched her chin. Karlito shrugged. And so it was.

*****

Hank curiously regarded the strange rabbit being that had been his constant companion. JJ, as Hank had named him, had been initially very unhelpful on account of being shot at. But as the memory of that faded, and JJ drew more energy from Hank’s body, very quickly more details regarding his Skill were opened to him. In addition, the population of East End had been invaluable in assisting him to develop a mastery of the new Skill.

The little bugger was rather trembly, but the more Hank worked with him the more reliable he became. He could produce stone spikes from the ground, send seismic tremors to detect enemies, and could raise small stone walls to provide cover for Hank.

Unfortunately, JJ’s Mana pool was based on Hank’s own and was therefore rather meager. Very quickly he would burn through his Mana pool and leave Hank with just a trembly rabbit for assistance. Still, his body was incorporeal and couldn’t really get hurt. And it wouldn’t take long to recover enough Mana to send some seismic tremors, so it was a relatively nice arrangement.

There were drawbacks to the elementals, however. Hank experienced a 15% decrease in Health, Mana, and Stamina regeneration, which apparently was pretty high for such a low Level elemental. Instead of regenerating his own attributes, that regenerated JJ’s. And that split would only grow as time went on. Although Hank was assured that JJ would quickly grow in power, that was still a hard pill to swallow, especially in regards to the Stamina regeneration.

Often, he had Health and Mana to spare, but that Stamina…

...especially with his new Skills…

But Hank felt the natural connection with the damn bugger, and it was hard to be mad at him for too long. Plus, he was told that he would gain a small amount more Health, Mana, and Stamina per Level now that they were connected.

After two days to familiarize themselves and shop around, Hank and company really needed to depart from East End. Apparently, there was plenty of political deadlock in Donnyton, so there was no real rush for the diplomatic meeting. But they couldn’t keep stopping places for Hank to learn new Skills.

They had arrived and spent time shopping in the mall, talking with the people of East End. Although they weren’t as big as any of the other Villages initially, they took in quite a few of the displaced people from the expanding Zone. Plus, several months ago, they had made a concerted effort to support the one Elementalist Class they had. Under her careful care, wild elementals had started appearing near the city. A lot of mages, interested in studying them or attempting to become an Elementalist themselves, had migrated into the city.

A large apartment was being thrown up next to the mall, now that they had run out of room beneath the mall. They hadn’t communicated at all with the leaders of East End, as they were away, but one of them was in constant communication with Donnyton so it didn’t seem necessary. So after he had familiarized himself with having an elemental, and Laurel had time to shop, they were prepared to move on to Donnyton.

Unfortunately, fate wasn’t with them.

As they were about to depart, a voice spoke from the roof of the mall.

“Mr. Ghosthound? Is that you?!?”

Ezekiel stopped, turned around, and looked up. He had been rather bitterly walking in the countryside around East End recently because no elemental had chosen him. At first, Hank had been worried the bastard was hunting people down to eat, but JJ was also excellent at scouting. His investigation had yielded nothing, which was a relief.

When he saw the person who spoke, his eyes widened. “Is that… Sydney Harp?”