Legendary Traveler: By Earning Progress Points I will Become Supreme!

Standing outside the cave, Aoni and Glacia kept their awareness up, watching for any signs of movement from either within the cave leading to the cavern or stragglers left over from the beast tide.

Although unlikely, since they seemed to charge in large packs toward the fort, Aoni wasn't taking any chances of falling into an ambush, and after 15 minutes, Nyria's voice entered the LoS.

{'Brother, it's a mess inside, there are too many buggies for me to count…'} her answer didn't surprise Aoni in the least, considering during their lessons they had only reached the 40s this morning, on the long hall to 100.

'More than 40, and its bugs; I'd be willing to bet the place is infested with those insects.' Kneeling beside the mouth of the cave with his back against the wall, Aoni thought about how to handle this situation rationally.

With all the tools and resources given to him by his parents, rushing in and flinging ice bullets like a machine gun wasn't out of the question, but he could do better.

{'Come on back, Nyria, I have an idea, and you'll need to pick up a few things from me first.'} He said while opening his inventory, sifting through the multiple items, and settling on a handful of small, smooth rocks.

'It's kind of wasteful to do this, but given I don't have eyes on how many 2-Star insects have taken over, I need a means of mass clearing that can work to my benefit.'

---

Within a minute or two, a soft gust of wind blew from above Aoni and Glacia, but neither reacted to it, as they knew it was just Nyria returning.

{'Listen carefully, you two, we need to stay quiet and do our best not to be seen.'} Rolling the stones around his palm while he spoke, Aoni began laying out a detailed yet simple strategy for his summons.

Yet once he got through the initial stages, a certain floof spoke up, voicing her grievances.

{'Brodder, no like fwoosh,'} Glacia whimpered while covering her mouth with both paws cutely after nearly uttering a gao.

{'I know you don't like flying Glacia, but you have to this time. I promise that I'll make you extra dessert with dinner tonight if you do,'} Reaching over and petting her head, Aoni calmed his afraid of heights floof.

Well, at least he assumed that was the issue because no matter how often she was "kidnapped" by Nyria, Glacia always seemed to freak out, leading him to believe it was a being high up in the air issue.

However, since she wasn't able to articulate why she disliked it so much, the real reason was left only to her mind as a broad excuse.

{'Dessert, more?'} Glacia asked with a bit of drool leaking from the corner of her mouth.

{'Yep, a promise is a promise, anyway, Nyria. Do you understand the plan?'} Rolling his eyes and giving Glacia a few headpats, Aoni then turned to look at his birb.

{'Yes brother, it's just like what we do during the early and late missions,'}

{'Right you are, my little fledgling, only this time you have to take extra care of your sister. Be sure to split the group properly and get them into good positions away from the rocks; then I will handle it from there.}

---

With the plan set in stone, Nyria hooked her feet under Glacia's armpits and held her in place, giving the comical image almost like the floof was hang-gliding and taking off to the sky before vanishing from sight.

Left alone, Aoni didn't bother pulling out his weapons; instead, he kept his left hand free for shooting ice bullets, while his right hand held the five small stones.

Then…he waited.

Sure, Aoni could have started making his way into the cavern the moment Nyria left, but that would defeat the purpose of her task, which was to draw the enemy's attention.

The plan was simple: Nyria would circle around the cave several times and create a commotion before dropping Glacia to the ground at some point, and then the two would work under his direction, splitting the horde of insects into more manageable groups, and that was where his task came in.

Although he'd cleaned up all the corpses, the Ice bridge, the side effects of his battle, and the scars left behind remained. So, in its present state, the cave wasn't exactly in the best condition to begin setting up his residence.

Looking at the objects rolling around his palm, now and again, they would turn right side up, revealing faint inscriptions.

That's right, each of the five stones being toyed with in the lad's hands was a Node of Terrain Manipulation, two Rising and three flattening.

Unfortunately, they were all 1-Star Nodes, and before you ask, yes, Aoni tried adding points to them, only to fail, with the reason behind the failure being that they weren't directly summoned from his Flume.

Mind you, the Attribute Notice was vague as usual in its description; yet, even if he couldn't increase the AOE effect of the nodes, they could still either wipe out anything within a 25x25 square foot area or shoot the same area upward by 1-10 feet.

This was the second part of the plan, kite as many insects as possible and smash them to shit with a flatten Node; in doing so, not only could Aoni wipe out a significant number of enemies at once, but he could also begin restructuring the basic layout of the cavern.

Two bugs, one stone, if you will.

At first, he'd played around with the idea of giving a stone or two to Nyria, but he quickly decided against it, as he hadn't had the time to explain such things to his summons yet.

Perhaps one day in the near future, Aoni could do that, as her height advantage would allow her to get a better picture than he could, but for now, the task fell to him.

{'We are in, brother, ima start making noise now!'}

Breaking Aoni out of his thoughts and spurring him into motion, the Lad smiled upon hearing that his birb seemed excited to be causing a little chaos, a far cry from the meek baby bird he had summoned not long ago.

{'Go for it, Nyria, stay safe, and remember these guys can shoot stuff from their butt and hands, so keep moving at all times.'}