There was a treaded path going up to the hill. And indeed, after a few minutes of trekking, they found dozens of the red six-winged creatures. The group could hear the bald birds' ear-splitting shrieks from a distance as it flew in circles. It was confirmed that they were now in dangerous territories. Luckily, they hadn't been seen by that flock yet.
All eight went to hide behind one of the rocks that gave them cover of the sky. Julian said, "We should probably focus on finding the rocks that have the titanium first, shouldn't we? Once we have enough, we'll do some practice fights with these beasts. What do you all think?"
"Sounds like a good plan," answered Klea.
They start going up the hill further, using the large yellowish rocks to avoid detection. Eventually, they found a huge clump of rocks that were black in most parts but had silvery white substance on it.
"Okay, that should be it," said Julian, double checking the titanium description through the symbol on his hand "That white part should be the titanium, I guess."
The rest nodded as they spread out and stood on the corners of the other rocks, keeping a lookout. Julian summoned the copper-colored token from his storage ring, he pressed on it and poofed out pickaxe on his hand. He started hitting the rock, but his first hit didn't even do anything. It was harder than he thought. Pulling back the pickaxe for more power and holding it with two hands, he struck the big black rock and caused a large clank!
One of the flying creatures seemed to have heard it as Emery saw it turn its head on their location. "One of them is coming!"
The symbol on Emery's hand issued a notification and he read the following:
[Skyglazer]
[Level 3 beast]
[Battle power 30]
Emery remembered that the incoming creature had the same battle power as the angler vine he had fought with Cole and the others in Elder's Respite. Although he could say he was now much stronger than he was before, he decided not to be reckless in dealing with this creature, since there were more nearby.
It was nearing them and finally, Emery could see the reddish six-winged creature better than earlier. It had a worm-like ugly face that was filled with sharp teeths inside its rounded head and mouth. Its claw seemed to shine with extreme sharpness as well as its wings, which was splitting the air as it flapped toward them.
They were getting ready to fight it but before it could even get near, a sharp woosh erupted from behind them and they saw an elongated object thrusting straight into it and pierced the skyglazer right in its ugly rounded face. It fell down with a hard thud and they knew it was dead then and there.
"Nice throw!" praised Klea to Thrax who had thrown the spear. Thrax opened his arm as if he was saying 'give me more praise'.
Julian shook his head, he said, "I hope that was a pila and you have more. It'd be quite stupid if you threw your only weapon, idiotic barbarian."
"Hah, did you think I only have one, pig?" said Thrax, summoning another pila from his storage ring.
"Boys, stop bantering and get to work. We better finish this as soon as we can. I don't like this place," said Klea with a slight disgust looking at the flying worm-head red winged creature in the distance.
"Okay, you guys do that. I'll take care of these creatures. They're nothing to worry about. So, let's get our free contribution point quickly," said Thrax, watching the sky.
Emery and Chumo nodded to each other and also started taking out their little pickaxe. The three Zaiueo decided to stand guard, which they were fine with, since there were still dozens of the skyglazer hanging around.
More and loud clanking resounded in the area.
Klea, Thrax and the three weirdos saw three more skyglazer heading toward them. This time, Klea shouted as a sharp crackling emerged from her fingertips, "My turn!"
[Lightning bolt - Tier 3 spell]
She waved her hand and crackling shot out a bluish and purplish bolt of lighting, searing two of the skyglazers into crisp. With just one spell, two creatures fell from the sky. The remaining ugly beast however managed to dodge by swaying sideways, before it turned around heading toward its flock.
Thrax ran, trying to throw another pila, but the creature had already flown out of his range.
That was when one of the Zaiueons took out a strange weapon from his storage ring. It looked like a spear but it was as big as a club. Emery, Julian and Chumo stopped mining as they stared at the weapons used by the three identical young men.
"Aim! Shoot!" shouted the one in the middle, which was Zuna.
A loud bang shocked the five youths from planet Earth as the tip of the Zaiueons weapons lit up and spewed forth a ball and traveled in the air like Klea's lightning bolt hitting the flying skyglazer down.
"Wow! What kind of weapon is that?" Julian asked as he watched the skygazer crash into one of the large yellowish rocks.
Zidi, the one on the right, answered, "Our world calls it a firearm. It can hit a target with maximum range of maybe twice that we just showed."
"How does it work?" followed up Julian, making his way while with amazed eyes at the weapons.
"Energy stored in a container, makes it shoot. Ion, we call it, is stored in the magazine here," said Zaku, the one on the left, showing them a piece of metal that can be attached and detached on the lower part of the weapon. Knowing we will be sent here again, we have prepared, we did, quite a bit of the battery. Hopefully, enough for the whole three months," Zaku explained.
Because of the loud noise the weapon had made, however, the circling skygazers noticed it and flew headed toward them. The beasts were making nasty shrieking for it was only now they had noticed several members of their species dead on the ground.
There were two worm-headed creatures leading the flight and once they were in range, Thrax had once more thrown another pila that killed one of the creatures, and the three Zaiueons aimed and shot, sending another burst of light killing the second one.
The rest of the six-winged creatures became more enraged as they seemed to flap their wings harder, shrieked louder, and drew nearer to them faster.
The three Zaiueons once more fired their firearms and that was when they noticed they needed to hit a single target two or three times before they could kill the creature. Nevertheless, the three people continued firing their firearms with great speed and power, occasionally stopping to replace the ion container that popped out with steam. With just those three, they had managed to eliminate the flock of skyglazer that had come near them. The weapon's range and simplicity of use really amazed the group of five for they watched them fire that weapon by pulling something with just one finger and then the light bursting out of it.
Emery became interested with the weapon as well and began to wonder if they really were from a lower world like them. If not, then it was probably really like what Rowe from Kalios had said. Emery and his friends' world were truly the lowest of the low worlds. And they needed to catch up as soon as possible.
From one of the carcasses out of dozens that had laid on the ground, Emery noticed a shiny stone glimmering, wicked seemed to burn away a part of the creature's back head.
He went closer to it, checked one more time if the creature was still alive by throwing a rock, and once he confirmed it was dead, he scooped out the shiny stone and said, "Is this… is this a spirit stone?"
"I believe so it is. For a level three creature, sometimes it would drop a spirit stone," said, Zuna, "or so we've heard."
Zaku and Zidi nodded.
Emery inspected it closer, it indeed appeared similar to what Klea had given the half-giant, half-man from earlier.
"The spirit stone is the core energy of the universe. Its usage ranges from powering up artifacts, items, machineries to powering up humans as well as many other things. It's very useful that it is the most used currency for trading, similar to what she had done," said Zuna, no longer holding the firearm weapon.
"Powering humans? What do you mean by that?" asked Emery, still holding up the shining white stone.
Zuna nodded. "One can consume a spirit stone in its raw form. After consumption, it'll increase your spirit force and in some cases battle power. However, doing so people will view you as some kind of barbarian, since it is indeed barbaric. What we have observed so far, we have seen it processed before consumed."
The task was starting to become more interesting with every minute passing. Not only Emery was confident they would be able to finish this gathering mineral task and receive contribution points afterward, but they would be also training and receiving spirit stone as well by eliminating these skyglazers in the process.