Considering the injuries involved, the group chose to rest a little before making their way deeper into the platform. However, considering the amount of damage, churned earth, and spilled blood in their vicinity—along with the slow-to-dissolve corpses—the group were trudging a short distance away to a nearby stream. It was not far at all and was where Uswah had gone, bypassing the main hive in her search as she had scouted out the stream while the group followed the deer trail.
Bad luck overall, that she had pulled away at the moment when she should have been ahead. It was perhaps why the nest had managed to last so long—either teams stumbled right onto the nest or were distracted as they went towards the stream, skipping around the hidden nest.
"Eh, boss, bagi sini lah. I need a distraction," Jan was whining as she limped along beside Arthur. Arm slung around Yao Jing's body, she was mostly being carried by the bigger man as she'd otherwise pull open her barely-clotted wounds. Still, she reached for the document in Arthur’s hands.
"Maybe focus on the walking," Arthur said, refusing her grabby hands. Not that she was trying very hard.
"Come on, lah, boss," Jan continued to whine.
"Yeah, if you aren't reading it, let one of us," Leia chimed in.
"You all know we're still in the middle of a platform, right? Keep watching for trouble," Arthur growled. "Do you want to be attacked?"
"I'm watching, I'm watching," Rick drawled. "But got to admit, I'm mighty curious."
"Children," Arthur huffed.
He could understand their feelings though. He barely had time to scan over the document, but the new cultivation technique was something he certainly wanted to delve deeper into.
Arthur knew that mental defense techniques were uncommon, same as with mental attack techniques. The ability to read minds was considered a near impossibility, outside of a few unique individuals who had lucked out. Emotional manipulators, those able to read micro-expressions or covertly influence individuals via body language and other subtler methodology was, however possible. It was not, of course, mind control or mental reading; but it sometimes felt like it.
However, just because cultivators were not able to influence others did not mean that monsters were as limited. It was well known that techniques like fear, enraging, freeze, and even certain stealth techniques influenced cultivators directly. Some of these were not, of course, mental manipulation directly, just emotional. The line between direct mind control and thought influence and emotional alteration and influence was thin at best.
“At least tell us, is that a one-use document? How complete is it?” Casey asked, curiously. Arthur looked over and just gave her a side-eye, at which point she shrugged. “Got to try.”
“Even if I knew, I can’t say right now,” Arthur said eventually with a sigh. “Need to read it over more. But it didn’t feel like a Tower technique.”
She grunted at that. “You know, we haven’t really discussed distribution of such things…”
“We’re keeping the technique,” Arthur said firmly. “Your family probably has something just as good, if not better.” He hesitated, then added, “Also, frankly, there’s a lot more of us. But the other items we picked up, we might be willing to give you. For a higher share.”
“Don’t need it,” she said and held up her own arm, waggling a bracelet for Arthur to see. Lam on the other hand cleared his throat. “Well, okay. Maybe…”
Arthur couldn’t help but grin. He, of course, wanted the bracelet too. Who wouldn’t. Any edge was better than nothing, but a single piece of equipment wasn’t a huge advantage and it was only individual-use. The cultivation technique, on the other hand, if he was right, would allow their whole clan to progress further. Even if they restricted who could study the cultivation technique—and they would have to work out restrictions at some point, depending on the strength and refinement of the techniques—it was still going to benefit more than one person.
Never mind the fact that Arthur really, really liked the idea of being able to control how much information was being taken from his brain and protecting himself against any outside influence. If it helped with those social manipulators out there, it could be a very powerful technique when he was out.
If.
“We’re here,” Uswah said, popping out from the side of the tree and making Arthur jump. He growled a little, though she just flashed him a grin before pointing to a nearby tree with a comfortable and convenient branch. “I’ll be watching.”
Arthur paused and stared at her a little, trying to read her face and intentions. As expected, there was a trace of guilt there, for missing the hive. She hadn’t merely missed a single, stray animal that wandered in from the sidelines; nor was the nest something she could trust the team to handle. But the hive was something she could have, should have, noticed.
And so the guilt was eating away at her.
“Mel…” He looked around, only to find her looking at him. There was a look on Mel’s face, one that he had trouble reading, but after considering it for a moment, he realized what it was. Expectation. And then, disappointment when he mentioned her name.
He realized, belatedly, that perhaps there were things that he should not just pass on to her without thought. Things that he should at least try to do as clan head. Managing the feelings and emotions of his subordinates, at least some of them, was probably part of that.
“Yes?” she said, arching a single eyebrow.
“Ah hell…” Exhaling, Arthur reached for his pack. Then, realizing it might take a little longer, tossed the entire thing to her, wincing as he pulled his wounds open a little. “Here. Check it out, report on it, will you?”
“Sure, boss.”
Ignoring Casey’s look, he turned around, spotted Rick and pointed to him and the watch area that Uswah was headed to. “You’re on watch. Uswah, with me.”
She tensed then, probably expecting to be told off. He chose not to clarify the matter just yet though, knowing that the conversation they’d have was better off done in privacy. He led her up the stream, walking for about five minutes before he finally found a comfortable spot to slump against.
“So.” Arthur started off, then winced, mostly internally. Wasn’t the best starter for a conversation.
“So.”
He found himself annoyed by her follow-up but pushed it away. A part of him wanted to tell her it was fine, mistakes were human. However, instinct told him that might not be the best method with her. After all, that was the kind of thing you said to children. That mistakes were made, but it was fine. Everyone made mistakes.
“You missed the nest.”
“I did.” She hesitated, then lowered her head. The pink-flowered tudung she now wore was a little grimy after all this time, one of three that she had stored and patched rather sloppily with thread. “I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”
“I guess you will,” Arthur said. “Or you’ll try.” He saw Uswah flinch at that, the guilt increasing. “But how?”
“Huh?” she replied, surprised by his change of direction.
“How are you going to do better?” Arthur chuckled softly. “Sifu used to say, it was fine to screw up, because everyone did. Everyone needs to improve. But just wanting to improve isn’t enough. You need more than want. You need a plan.”
“I’ll work harder.”
“Wrong,” Arthur said, firmly. “Not harder. Smarter.” He raised a hand before she could interrupt him again, already knowing that she was getting annoyed with the vagueness of his comments. Which, truthfully, was fair enough. “What did you do wrong?”
“I left the trail because I was looking at the stream.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s where monsters sometimes congregate. We also hadn’t reached any water in the last few hours, and we needed to refill our water skins.”
“So it wasn’t a mistake to move off the trail, right? Your job is to scout and that means sweeping the area around and finding things that might be of interest,” Arthur said.
“I… but I missed the nest.”
“Right, because you weren’t here. But what you chose to do wasn’t wrong, it was just bad timing.”
“I should have ranged out further, then doubled back,” Uswah said, waving a hand forward and then curving it as though to demonstrate the area she’d be moving through.
“One option, for sure. Sounds like a tiring one, though.”
“What else could I do?”
“We could have more scouts out,” Arthur said, slowly, thoughtfully. “Or keep one scout dedicated to our pathway and another roaming. That way, we wouldn’t be reliant on you entirely.”
“I…” She frowned. “But…” She stopped talking and started thinking, considering their newly expanded numbers. “I guess. Who?”
“It’d have to be either Leia or Eric.” Arthur rubbed his chin. “I’d lean towards Eric.”
“Why?”
“He’s more likely to make things more interesting.” At her look, Arthur shrugged. “He’s… lucky. That’s the immediate problem solved. What else?”
“I… don’t know.” But she said that automatically, though her brows were furrowed as she considered the problem. She kept going over it, again and again, till she nodded slowly. “I think I need to expand my sensing skills. Maybe my traits.”
“Don’t you already have a trait like that?”
“Just one. But something wider,” she said as she stared at her feet, at the shadows pooled there, and then nodded. “If I can sense through the shadows better, maybe use them to map the surroundings. I think I’d be a better scout.”
“I’d think so too,” Arthur said. “So, do that. Save up points for later.” As Uswah began nodding, looking not less guilty but at least happier with a plan of action, that was when Arthur figured he should complicate matters. “That is, if you want to be our scout still.”
“What?” she said, startled.
“I never asked. I know you took it on, but I never asked. And basing more of your techniques around scouting, well…” he shrugged. “Might limit you.”
“I can’t do much else, now can I?” Now she held up her missing hand, waving it around.
Arthur let his gaze fixed on it briefly before he turned to look back at her face. Ah, that was the other reason Mel wanted him to speak with her. That bitterness, that exhaustion and pain and anger and grief, that could be dangerous.
“Bullshit.” He held his hand up, forming a Refined Energy Dart. He let it form there, hover before him before he pulled the energy back. “You could learn ranged attacks with Tower energy. Train to blast people from a distance. Increase those shadow tendrils of yours, so that they become a second, third, fourth limb. You’re not crippled. It’s just a hindrance.”
“Not what you said to Kim.”
Arthur flinched, then shook his head. “I didn’t say it. She did. Or acted like it. She decided her lack of an eye was her problem.”
“Mmm…”
Guilt flickered through him, and he wondered if he really had done that. If he had chosen to exploit someone’s self-loathing for his own good. For the clan’s good. Perhaps he had. But… “It doesn’t mean I’m wrong about you. I don’t need an answer, but perhaps you should be thinking about what role you want to play in the future.”
With that said, he stood up. He could have said more, but he figured it was good enough. At least for now. After all, she had a lot to think about.
And perhaps, so did he.