Kora POV

She was no stranger to healing skills or to people with powerful regeneration skills. She had one of her own. It wasn’t like a traditional self-healing skill, but it was very powerful, given how versatile it was.

Yet, Julius didn’t just have a powerful healing skill; he had a powerful concept and authority to match it. Which was much rarer and only available to dedicated healers. When she first met him, she had assumed he was acting like a healer but was primarily a fighter. But this revelation changed things.

If he were truly a healer, then it would help their group immensely. They were all chosen to venture deep in the wastelands because they all had some kind of self-healing skill, one powerful enough to help them survive in such a brutal environment. But none of them had any true healing skills or abilities. That meant Julius had automatically become someone they could rely on and needed to protect.

For example, the monster she had just killed was called a Duneflame Deathstalker. They were a well known threat in the wastelands and were extremely dangerous. Not only were they proficient ambush predators, they used an potent neurotoxin to paralyze their prey before, eating them alive. The fact that Marcel wasn't able to overcome it with his healing skill and a potion, led to her to believe that the dose he received was quite high. Still, to hold it at bay for as long as he could, spoke volumes of Marcel's tenacity.

Yet, the fact that Julius was able to heal it without much issue, spoke of his abilities and the quality of his healing skills.

“Wow, so you’re a real healer, huh?” Yelena commented.

“What? Did you not believe me?” Julius asked.

“Nope, not really,” she responded bluntly. “I believed you had a healing skill. I didn’t think Elder Huan would send a real healer out with us.”

“Why not?”

Kora decided to answer that herself. “Because most healers are a little fragile. They require a lot of support and protection, often becoming a hindrance on scouting missions like this.”

“What about Aaron, though? Isn’t he known to be hard to kill?”

“Sure, Aaron might be better off, but he is a special case. Even then, he isn’t able to keep up with us. He can take a hit and heal well, but his perception, strength, speed, and overall versatility leave a lot to be desired. He would only drag us down and can really only demonstrate his strength with a large group. Not one like ours, that has to move fast and analyze problems quickly,” she explained.

Aaron was a good healer. Any one of them would gladly fight alongside him. There weren’t many healers who would jump in front of a sharpened claw for their comrades, but Aaron would.

“What have you been doing?” She asked him suddenly, unable to hold her curiosity anymore.

She had been watching him play with his mana since they entered the wastelands. It was like he was creating small specks of shimmering blue mana. From what she could tell, there was no point or special reason why. It was highly condensed mana, but nothing else.

“Oh, you mean this?”

He held up his hand, and the specks of mana slowly floated into his hand. Then, in a messy and slightly awkward manner, the specks all congregated into an orb.

“Yeah, is there a reason for that?”

“I was wondering the same. Is that some kind of special technique or exercise?” Thomas asked excitedly, as if he finally had a reason to satisfy his curiosity.

However, to all of their surprises, Julius shook his head. “Nah, it’s just something I have been playing with. But it looks cool, right?” He asked with a bright smile.

“Eh, kinda looks weird,” Yelena commented honestly.

His shoulders deflated. “Yeah, it’s still a work in progress.”

Kora wanted to add something and tell him to pay closer attention to the surrounding area, but instead, she shook her head. If that’s what he wanted to spend his time on, then she wasn’t going to stop him.

***

They swiftly left the area where the scorpion had attacked them. She made sure to use her aura and authority to wipe out any traces of their presence. Her Flames of Purity were really good at that sort of thing. It hadn’t been what she expected as her advanced flames, and there were plenty of downsides, but she was pretty happy with how powerful they were.

One of the main worries of the wastelands was having another strong monster track and hunt you down. It was quite common since many species were decently intelligent in these parts. They were also incredibly dangerous. That scorpion was simply one example of the type of creatures they would encounter.

It didn’t take them long to come across another monster. This time, they spotted it before they were ambushed again. Thomas was the first one to spot it.

Kora had done several missions with Thomas before. They had all gone very well, and he had proven himself to be quite competent and reliable. She wasn’t surprised when she learned he had been grouped with her.

It also helped that he had some of his own protections against her aura. She still made sure to tone it down, but she wasn’t too worried.

She then took the time to examine the rest of their group. Next to Thomas walked Marcel. Since getting healed, he had permanently donned his suit of red fire armor. He probably didn’t want to do so because it was slightly tiring and wasted a bit of mana, but after almost getting speared in the chest, he probably thought it better to remain cautious.

Yelena was the last of their group, and the only other girl Kora had with her. She had almost never spoken to Yelena, and Kora was on bad terms with some of Yelena’s friends, but the two of them had never been antagonistic. So she tried her best not to make assumptions about Yelena. From what she could tell, the other girl was a very talented mage who not only excelled in debuffing attacks but could also go toe to toe against any monster in Tier 4 on her own.

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Then it was just her and Julius. And he wasn’t even technically a part of the team. According to Elder Huan, he was just someone whom they could ask for help and create a small alliance/agreement with. In fact, the Mission Hall Elder highly recommended they do so.

Kora didn’t need any encouragement to do so. She had already planned to do that the moment she heard he would be coming along with the expedition. Thera had told her a lot more than admitted to Julius the other day.

Thera didn’t complain about anything. She didn’t even complain a few years ago when a large group of inner disciples bullied her. She didn’t complain about her dead family, but she complained about Julius.

She insulted him and called him names like demonspawn and sadist. But this put a smile on her face. Thera needed to vent some frustrations from time to time. She bottled things up too much, and hearing her insult Julius meant she was also comfortable enough with the guy to do so.

However, there was an even more important detail.

Thera had gotten a lot stronger ever since she began those classes. Kora trained with her often enough that she could tell the difference. The steadiness and resilience of her skills were noticeably stronger. It required a lot more effort to disrupt or dismantle her skills. It was also harder to brush aside her skills and concepts.

As if there was more weight to her aura and soul compared to before. It wasn’t just simple willpower training or improvement; it was a fundamental change that affected all her skills and techniques.

Thera had already been strong for her tier. But now, she was becoming unstoppable.

So, of course, she had taken an interest and decided to approach him on her own time. He wasn’t like what she expected. He was younger and more relaxed than Thera made him out to be.

But she didn’t let that fool her. She hadn’t bothered to hold back her aura as much as she could have. She might not enjoy her aura and its negative effects on those around her, but it was useful sometimes.

It was useful to test people with it. The nature of it brought out the genuine side of people. The pure versions of themselves. She didn’t think he would deal with it so well. He might as well not even have been affected.

She was brought out of her reverie when Thomas shoved his spear into the monster’s skull. They hadn’t needed her assistance this time around, taking care of it themselves. Julius was on standby to help heal any injuries, but he was unneeded. They had only sustained a few scratches, and their own passive healing fixed them up.

He did go over and make sure nothing sneaked past their detection, but that was about it. They had been making pretty good time, and it helped that they hadn’t come across too many monsters yet. Which was slightly weird, since they had come here due to the large increase of monsters and reports of attacks from neighboring areas and sects.

She quickly used her aura to remove the traces of their mana once again. However, after she did so, she spotted Julius playing with his aura, and to her shock, he was replicating her own technique. It wasn’t exactly the same thing, but it was pretty darn close and getting even closer the longer he played with his aura.

She didn’t say anything, though, because she felt an odd disturbance not far off in distance. She wasn’t the only one who sensed it either. Everyone else perked their heads up at the sudden detonation of mana.

“Should we go check it out?” Marcel asked, voicing everyone’s question out loud. But everyone turned to her, since she was the leader of this mission.

“We were told to scout out this path for the expedition, so as much as we should avoid dangers when possible, we should also investigate in case it is something the people behind us will have to deal with,” she said after a few moments of thought.

They didn’t have any arguments about that, but she did notice that Julius had an odd expression on his face while they made their way there. She asked if there was something wrong, but he just shook his head and told her it was nothing. But she couldn’t help but suspect that he either sensed something or was worried about what they would find.

It took them a little while to finally get the location where the detonation of mana came from, and when they did, she enveloped the entire group in her aura, blocking out anything from making its way inside her area of influence, which included sensory or perception skills of all nature.

Everyone else was prepared too. Marcel had all of his skills already active, ready to meet whatever threat head-on. Thomas was extending his senses far out, and she could see his farsight skill active, scanning the area for any movement or monsters. Yelena had also infused all of them with a little support magic.

It wasn’t the most powerful support magic she had seen. Simple enhanced mana regeneration, passive healing buff, and a few protective enchantments that would blunt any surprise attacks. Regardless, it was very good considering that it wasn’t her area of expertise. Not to mention, she could tell the buffs would last a long time.

“I think we might have just missed whatever was here,” Thomas noted.

“Yeah, or they are hiding in the sands or something, waiting to ambush us again,” Marcel muttered with a suspicious glance at the ground beneath them.

“I don’t think they are here. They seem to have left in that direction,” Julius commented, pointing to his left.

“You can tell for certain?” Yelena asked, a little hint of doubt creeping in her voice.

“Not a hundred percent certain, they could be trying to trick my senses, but I don’t think they are.”

“I agree, there does seem to be a bit of remnant mana lingering in the area,” Thomas agreed with a narrowing of his brows as he bent over on the ground where the mana was. “How did you notice that so quickly, though? I can barely detect it even when you pointed it out.”

To be honest, Kora didn’t even notice it after they both did. She always thought her perception was pretty good. It was certainly better than most of the other inner disciples. Not as good as Thomas's, but the young man had a few very specialized skills that helped. So, it was a bit shocking that Julius had better senses than she did.

“Should we go check it out?”

Kora was the first one to shake her head. “No, whatever this thing was, it was probably dangerous. We have already scouted out a large portion and are past our allotted mission time. We should head back to the main camp and let them know what we found.”

“Aww, I kind of wanted to see what that thing was,” Marcel grumbled and turned to Thomas. “Are you sure you don’t have an idea what that thing was?”

“Not a clue, it was powerful, but there is such a mess of mana that I can’t figure out what happened here.”

Marcel clicked his tongue. “Well, if we are going to head back, we should do it sooner rather than later. The sun is setting, and I don’t want to spend more than one night out here again.”

The rest of them agreed. Nighttime in the wastelands was always dangerous; there were many nocturnal creatures, and at least one or two people were required to keep watch. And so they organized themselves before heading back to the camp.

While they were walking back, she couldn’t help but notice that Julius was staring off into the distance, where he had said the source of the mana went. There was a small frown on his face, and she suspected that he knew more than he led them to believe.

However, she didn’t push him. Not yet. She would let Elder Huan know about her suspicions and let him handle it. From what she could tell, the man had a good relationship with Julius and might be able to get some more information from him.

In the meantime, she just wanted to get back. She was tired; the constant heat and fire mana drained her energy. Not to mention she was smelly. A bath would be really nice at the moment.