"Idiot," Leia was grumbling at Eric, as she waited for Arthur to finish resetting his shin bone and strapping everything into place. The muffled groaning as bone was manipulated back into place, before the flesh could swell too much and cause first aid difficulty, was just a little distracting for Arthur.
Then again, he deserved it.
"Why didn't you take to the sky?" Arthur asked.
"Can't. Still... learning," Eric said.
"You've had weeks," Arthur pointed out. "Have you been lazing?"
The glare that Eric turned on him was answer enough. Leia saved him too, adding softly, "Not that easy, boss. We have our own movement technique too. Can't use both of them, don't want to get rid of one entirely. So we're trying to integrate and not break it, you know?"
Arthur knew. You could, theoretically, learn multiple techniques; but the increased chance of mixing up energy flows could cause real problems, especially when one was in the middle of a fight. It was the same way people had preferred martial styles or movements, why someone who was good at hip-hop might not know ballet well, and learning both could be troublesome. The body remembered, and when stressed, had a tendency to revert.
Unlearning old habits was tough, refining old techniques even harder. It took time to work out bad habits, to relearn new ones.
"Whatever." Finishing the strapping down with the ivy, he stood up. "Cultivate and get it sorted. We can't wait forever, you know?"
Of course, saying it was one thing. The simple fact was that they'd need to wait a bit, since Uswah was out of refined energy entirely and so were a number of the others. He was doing okay, having kept a decent amount of reserve but only because he was moving towards another point allocated.
Abandoning the pair, Arthur checked on Jan who was being watched over by Yao Jing, then the rest of the team. Most were fine, Casey already seated against a tree with the latest monster core acquisition already being sucked dry. Lam was doing the same, though with a smaller core not far away, as was Uswah.
"Huh. Who's on guard duty?" Arthur said, looking around. It took him a moment to spot Rick, the man walking a circuit and checking out the undergrowth on the third platform.
Arthur had to admit, there was a lot to check. The foliage was tinted a weird purple, almost like eggplant, but along the wood and shading the leaves just a little. It made for a strange sight and led to even weirder colored fruit and flowers. The undergrowth crackled with every step that Rick took, and the occasional buzzing insect and hanging spider or lizard that scurried around were also weirdly shaded to fade into the surroundings better.
Straightening up after poking under the foliage, Rick caught Arthur's gaze. He raised an eyebrow in enquiry and Arthur found himself strolling over, sweeping his gaze about for problems as he did so. Finding nothing, he spoke immediately as he neared the other. "You need a break?"
"I'm fine," Rick said. "Just trying to do my part, you know?" He tapped the barrel of his pistol against his leg, finger off the trigger even if he was carrying it with him. Arthur idly noted that instinctive fear he had on seeing the weapon had died off a little, the concern about it accidentally firing and killing him, of ending his life, had faded. Maybe getting stabbed, bitten, gutted, and punched around had made him more callous. Maybe just knowing and being familiar with the weapon, watching it used over and over again, had made it as familiar as his own kris and spear.
"I can see that." A slight pause, then he added, "Thank you. For everything."
"Not done much."
"Which is a benefit, when you've got troublemakers in the clan," Arthur said. He carefully did not turn around to stare at his seniors or Yao Jing and Jan. "But you've also made offers and not pushed on it."
Rick grunted, then glanced over to Casey and Lam, who were meditating. He opened his mouth and then shut it, choosing to be silent for now rather than pursue that line of conversation.
"Exactly. Later."
Arthur waved after that, pointing to a nearby tree where he took a seat underneath, after carefully inspecting the ground and surroundings. After all, you only needed to sit on one wong mama ant nest, the big red soldier ants with pincers a centimeter across, to remember not to do that again.
Extracting a monster core of his own, he got to cultivating and refining. They'd run into the monsters on the third platform soon enough.
***
Spitting toads. Purple and green, hidden in the mushy ground that littered the floor. Once they managed to make it a few hundred feet, the footing underneath had gone from firm ground to a mixed marshland. Not the mangrove swamp of before, where they'd had to wade through water at knee or waist height, but mushy flooring that was a mixture of sucking mud and overgrown moss.
The toads loved sitting in the water, waiting for someone to get close enough before they spat acid and poison, striking with unerring accuracy. The spit stung a little when it touched open skin, burnt and inflamed underlying layers, and even made breathing difficult if one breathed it in too much. Their favorite tactic was to aim for the eyes, striking around the mouth if one dodged. Those struck had to wash the spit away as quickly as possible or be left blinded as their eyes watered, leaving them prey for a second assault, where long tongues darted out and pulled the struggling creature into the mud while more toads launched poison. In the end, suffocated as the lungs closed out and the heart over-exerted, their victims would be dragged over and consumed.
Or at least, that was the plan. The reality was that with such a large party, the group more often only suffered some minor splattering and stinging eyes before the toads were murdered. It did slow the group down though, as they waited for eyes to heal and breathing to steady before moving on.
Which, of course, left them open to the next monster.
The bondegezou really came as a package, a nasty paired package, but since they always came first, Arthur figured they deserved their own little addendum. In particular, the brown-black furred creatures with a pale tummy and snout-like faces snuck along the tops of trees, often passing slowly from branch to branch before crawling down the trunks, their curved and elongated claws sunk deep into the bark. Once they reached a sleeping or resting climber, they struck, claws sinking into neck and ears and scalp and tearing away.
The monsters were tiny, relatively speaking. Just about a foot and a half tall, but their claws were sharp, and their ability to sneak up on Tower climbers and camouflage made them dangerous opponents. Luckily, there were never more than one or two of them at a time; and if the bondgezou failed to make a lethal strike, they fled.
If not for the fact that the team moved in groups, they might have been outright lethal. A single successful attack, when someone was blind and suffocating, would have ended a climber's journey. Which was, of course, why everyone moved in groups. You couldn't stop them from sneaking up on you, not without elaborate precautions, but having an extra set of eyes to watch out for one another or an extra pair of hands to kill and pin one of the creatures left them as annoyances, not fatalities.
All fair and well. Of course, while you were dealing with the bondegezou, their handlers came along. Monkey-men, grey-furred, about four and a half to five feet tall. They wielded crude weapons, clubs, and sticks roughly sharpened to a point, stones strapped to the end sometimes. Plus loose stones, used to throw and cause chaos as they entered the fray, while their “dogs” were killed or were killing.
For every bondgezou, there were four or five of these orang monyet. Colloquially known for their similarity to the local legend of Bukit Timah Monkey Men, they were better known as timah monyet. Once they engaged, they never chose to back away. Despite their small size and lack of cultivation techniques or skills, they were theoretically a difficult, if not impossible, fight for most solo cultivators.
The wiki had large warning signs that groups of at least three climbers were recommended to engage timah monyet. Three, because if one or two were taken down or otherwise engaged by the previous monster threats, there was at least one more Tower climber that could handle the final monsters.
Of course, the more the better.
All of which was to say, with the entire team consisting of nine members, the Benevolent Durians and their allies were overpowered.
It still didn't mean they were moving fast through the floor, though. Just steadily.