Mantle of the Gods

Ether took over.

Honestly, Rix probably had more insight, but the former Bandit didn’t care to have everyone’s attention focused on her. I wasn’t surprised when the redhead used the distraction to slip into one of the bunks and close the screen. She’d managed to escape the makeover that had been started, but I had a feeling Oz wasn’t going to let her go that easily.

“If we’re going to fill out our team before the end of the semester, then we have seventy-six days to do that. With four cities to visit and it taking at least a full day to travel between cities…” She was reading something. "It’s two days from Tres to Mive, one day from Mive to Klix, and two days from Klix to Juel. That’s about eighteen days maximum that we can spend in each city.”

“We don’t want to spend that much time in each place.” Gesai had started to compose herself. "If we do it that way, then I won't have any time to bring the person from Juel up before the second semester starts.”

“Exactly, we need to spend as little time as we can at each location, but…” Ether looked around the RV. "We all need gear upgrades.”

“Slece would be a much better place for that, but we can make do with Tres…” Gesai pulled up a screen. "We’ll need to focus on gear that can be upgraded.”

“Shouldn’t we get gear that will help us with the monsters in the dungeons?” I wondered why she was pulling up so many screens.

“If you are going to farm a specific dungeon, then getting gear that is good for that dungeon is a great idea.” The assistant teacher pointed at the screen.

It was a fuzzy monster with two large eyes and eight tentacle legs. “This is a monster on the first floor of the Tres common dungeon.” The redhead pointed at the place right between its eyes. "The crystal is right here. Overall, it’s not too bad. The boss on the other hand..” She changed the picture. "Is more of a problem.”

The monster still had tentacle legs, but this one had a hard shell covering its body and an insect-like head. The first monster, the Desert Crawler, was only about knee high, while the floor boss, the Desert Goliath, was a full six feet tall.

“The main thing to worry about with the little one is that it can latch on to you and those suckers will hurt, but as long as it isn’t on your face, it won’t kill you.” Gesai pointed at the monster on the screen. "This thing on the other hand only needs one tentacle to wrap completely around you and it can spit a liquid that’s like soupy tar.” She made a face. "Ether, you’re going to need a better shield and we probably need to get Aelin and Ren a protection spell to minimize that.” She looked at Oz and Fray. "The two of you will have decreased mobility, since the floor is going to be sticky, so….” She turned to me as she remembered something. "That gunk is highly flammable, so no fire spells.”

I nodded. "Which element should I get?” I leaned forward. "Wait, I meant to ask Trent this, but you might know the answer. I keep learning shot spells, but they don’t seem very powerful. Should I look at switching to a different type of spell?”

Gesai thought for a moment. "I think you’ll be fine once we can get you a better medium. Honestly, the shot spells are usually learned by Shooters, but they can be used by Casters as well.”

“Ok, then back to my original question. Which element should I try fighting it with?” I settled back into my seat.

“Your Earth Shot will do the most damage to it, and Electric Shot can be useful to trip it up if needed.” The assistant teacher looked at us. "Any other questions?”

“What are our groups going to be?” Oz looked around. "Even if we break up into two groups to farm for a little bit, we’re still going to have to fight the boss twice and we might as well do it with a full team.”

“We’ll have to see if we want to try out a new person, but right now, without Rix, you’re going to want to keep both Hitters, so Aelin and Ren will need to cycle out.”

“HEY!” Aelin looked back at us. "I can do damage!”

“You’re going to do damage to us if you don’t keep your eyes on the road.” I pointed out the windshield. "Eyes on the road.”

The blonde stuck out her tongue, but turned back to focusing on her driving.

“Let’s start making a shopping list…” Ren started a blank panel on her screen.