Fina was currently holding her own against an Armamite Golem. Although the golem was on the smaller side, the size also made its speed somewhat quicker than the previous golems she witnessed her other friends fighting.

It wasn't only this. What made Lucia stand there in surprise was the 2 wolf shaped blobs of water that were standing by Fina's side.

"What are those things?" Lucia mumbled in thought.

"Blu! Lake! GO!" Fina shouted and pointed her staff at the golem that was charging her way.

The two wolf shaped blobs of water dashed to the sides of the golem, initiating a pincer attack. This caused Lucia to be somewhat worried since this left Fina wide open.

She was relieved the next instant since Fina casted a large Ice Rampart in the golem's path.

"Ice Rampart!"

CRAAa.s.sSSSHHHH

The golem didn't stop and just smashed right through the rampart and was about to continue charging towards Fina, but the golem couldn't find its prey.

"HAILSTORM!"

Fina was already on top of one of the trees just ahead of the golem. Earlier, she used a small ice platform that she created using ice rampart and floated her way up to the branches. Once she was up there, she immediately began casting the Hail Storm spell and just as the golem smashed apart the earlier Ice Rampart, she finished her spell and immediately sent it towards the golem.

The hail of ice bombarded the golem's body and on the side, the two wolf-like water apparitions were attacking it with aqua bolts.

Once the aqua bolts made contact with the golem's body, the icicle hailstorm immediately froze the drenched body of the golem.

Fina knew that this wasn't enough so she quickly jumped down from the tree before the golem broke free of the ice. She sprinted her way behind the golem. When the golem broke free of the ice, it charged towards the tree she was once on and knocked it down.

It stood back up and glanced around. Seeing that its prey had once again escaped, the golem began to thrash around in a rage. Suddenly a flurry of Ice lances landed on its body.

It turned around and saw the girl with her two apparitions standing not far from it. It roared in rage and charged towards the three.

Lucia was confused seeing this. 'Why is the golem enraged?'

When Lucia continued spectating Fina's battle she finally found the reason. It turns out Fina was repeating her strategy over and over again on the golem. Except every time, she would only open up with same moves, but freeze it using different water spell combinations.

It seems like Fina was testing out some spells to optimally take down the golem. The repet.i.tive battle and hara.s.sment that Fina caused towards the golem was what enraged it.

Lucia thought it was okay, but was worried that Fina might exhaust all her mana before she could even destroy the golem. It was an unfounded worry however since the golem was visibly slowing down its a.s.sault as time pa.s.sed on.

The continuous bombardment of ice and water spells caused it to weaken and eventually after another 5 cycles of her strategy, Fina was able to safely take down the golem, although she too, was visibly spent.

Fina took her time to rest. She floated her way up towards the tree branches and had her apparitions watch the surroundings. Seeing this Lucia smiled and began searching for her last friend.

"Oh! Eli's already that far into the mountains huh." Fina exclaimed in mild surprise when she found her last friend.

Eli was already high up into the mountains and was currently facing off against 2 golems simultaneously.

Once Lucia arrived at the battlefield, the fight was already over.

"Awww..." Lucia began pouting. She really wanted to see how strong Eli had become after undergoing Cecil's initial h.e.l.l-like training and magic theory lessons that were well above what the academy was teaching.

Just looking at how much stronger her 3 other friends had become, she really antic.i.p.ated to see how far Eli had progressed since from the start, she was already the strongest of the bunch.

Lucia turned to look at the sun, it was already above her head and it seemed it was going to be another couple of hours before midday.

"Let's go hunt the 5 golems quickly and go back to the carriage and prepare lunch~"

Lucia quickly made her way further into the mountain range and quickly spotted 5 golems crowding around a cave.

'Oh, what's this?'

Lucia beamed at the golems and snuck towards them. She peered into the cave and saw that there was a clear glistening pond inside. The walls of the cave also seemed to be rich with ore veins.

'Let's get rid of them?' Lucia rushed towards the golems and flickered in between each golem, felling each golem with a single strike of her aura enhanced blade.

Lucia began whistling happily and she collected the broken monster cores. "Whoops... oh well, the guild only wanted the cores, so it doesn't matter if they're broken or not~"

Lucia walked over the golems' bodies and proceeded into the cave. Inside the cave the ceiling was littered with ores that were radiating light. She also noticed that there were smaller sized versions of the large Armamite golems that she had just felled inside the cave.

They were harmlessly roaming around the interior. Even as Lucia walked close to them, all the small golems did was look up at her and walk past. She also saw some of them eating the ore that were embedded in the walls of the cave.

"So it's a golem nest?" Lucia smiled while looking around, she also bowed in apology. "Sorry, I think I just killed your parents."

She went towards the pool of water and found that it was radiating mana. She took a sip of the water and found her depleted mana recovering.

"Hmmm, let's gather some~"

Lucia took out a couple of water jugs from her spatial ring and stored some of the water into it. There was so much water in the pool that even after she filled up 10 jugs, the water level of the pool hadn't changed one bit.

She found it odd, so Lucia used a sensing spell to search inside the pool. It was unfortunate however, since the mana radiating from the pool of water prevented her sensing spell from reaching too deeply into it. The good thing however was that she detected no danger inside the pool, so Lucia took off her clothes and immediately dived into the pool.

'OH!'

The pool of water was actually pretty deep, but it wasn't all that deep since the light from the ores embedded in the cave's ceiling was able to illuminate the pool's floor.

She cast another sensing spell, but she found that the mana in the pool was interfering with her spell. She frowned and finally noticed that the density of mana in the water at the floor of the pool was awfully dense, so dense that the mana began to permeate into her body.

'Urgh...' Lucia felt her body p.r.i.c.kle with pain, but she didn't float to the surface since she noticed that her mana level was rising quickly.

"!" Her eyebrows raised in surprise. She began circulating the mana inside her body according to her mother's mana cultivation manual and the mana inside the pool of water began rus.h.i.+ng vigorously into her body.

"AH!" Lucia became startled at the abrupt change. She opened her mouth in surprise and the water quickly rushed in. She started suffocating and she tried to swim out of the pool only to find that her limbs had become stiff.

She could only helplessly cast her eyes, that were tearing up in fear, upwards. 'Cel! Help...'

Lucia soon fainted and fell to the pool's floor.

*******

High up on one of the mountains in the Alka Mountain Range, Cecil was startled awake from his meditation.

He had kept his Mana Sense on all his party members and found that Lucia's presence was suddenly erased. Normally, even if Lucia used her illusion magic to disguise and camouflage her presence, she still wouldn't be able to escape from his Mana Sense.

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But oddly enough, this time Lucia's presence was completely erased when she entered a small cave on the mountain side.

Cecil frowned and stood up. He disappeared from his spot and flashed towards the direction where he last sensed Lucia.

It didn't take him long until he found the cave that Lucia disappeared into. He noticed the five golems that were collapsed motionless at the entrance. Cecil rushed into the cave and found that the cave was full of smaller golems.

They were harmless so Cecil didn't attack them. He looked around the interior and found it rich with ores and minerals. He also spotted a deep empty pit in the middle of the cave.

When he got closer to the pit, he peered inside and saw Lucia collapsed unconscious in the middle of the pit.

"LULU!"

He quickly used Blink and appeared at her side in an instant. Cecil carefully held her up, he was relieved to find that she was still breathing. Lucia had only fainted!

What he found odd however was that Lucia was naked. It wasn't the first time he saw her naked so he didn't pay it any mind. He plainly took out a spare robe from his spatial ring and wrapped her up in it.

"What the?"

Once Cecil picked her up, he finally noticed something odd about Lucia.

"1, 2, 3...4? 5???" He counted and exclaimed incredulously.

Somehow, Lucia had gained 2 additional tails. With her 3 initial tails, Lucia now had a total of 5 tails that were presently wrapping around Cecil's body the moment he picked her up in a princess carry.

"Uehehe~ Cel~" Cecil was startled and looked at the sleeping girl's face. Her eyes were still peacefully closed so she was only sleep talking.

'What in the world?'

Cecil could only stare in wonder at the sight of Lucia's 5 tails wrapping around him.