Book 1: GRIM Adventures - 2 (Version 2!!!)

Another Chapter?! Nope, sorry! 

This is the same chapter, but its been run through another Editing program I recently found. I wanted you all to take a look at it and compare it to the "old" version and tell me what you think. 

Do you feel like it cleared it up better and made it easier to read? 

-----------

The small furry animal and the young woman sat on the large boulder, passing the bundle of nuts and berries between each other.

However, the peaceful moment was abruptly interrupted as two figures rounded the corner for the umpteenth time.

//AAAAAAAHHHHHHHAAAAAA—//

“AhhhhhhhhhaaaaaAAAA!!!”

A large metal blur and a young man in web-covered robes rushed past them, screaming at the top of their lungs. Soon after, a third figure, about the size of a dog, appeared and gave chase. Cords of twisting mycelium formed eight spindly legs that extended from the puffball-shaped body. Eight glowing red eyes blazed with fury as it pursued its prey.

“SKKKKKRRRREEEEEE!!!”

Jill sighed and turned to the small gopher sitting beside them. Her voice was flat as she asked, “Did you want to deal with it this time, or should I?”

Mr. Gopher paused mid-bite and tilted his head, considering the offer. After a moment, he waved his paw toward the three screaming figures and popped the rest of the berry into his mouth. Jill stood up with a grunt and turned to face the path.

She counted down silently, anticipating their two companions rounding the corner once again.

//—AHHHHHHaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!//

“AAHHHHHaaaaaahhhhh!!”

Jill slammed her foot into the ground, causing a line of frost to erupt from her heel. It traveled several meters before stopping and forming a small ice patch directly in the path of the oncoming young man. Surprised, he hit the ice at full speed and spun uncontrollably, desperately reaching out for support. The closest thing within reach was the large metal creature flying beside him.

Jack wrapped his arms around a protruding section of the metal creature’s body, pulling it down as he fell. Their pursuer screeched in triumph, then leaped onto a nearby boulder to gain momentum. With legs spread and fangs bared, it launched itself directly toward the fallen Jack.

Wide-eyed, Jack turned and cried out,

“No! Stay away! STAY AWAAAAAYYY!”

He reached out his hand, and a vibrant green spell circle formed almost instantly in the air between them. Thick roots erupted from the ground on either side of him, colliding just as the [Second-Circle] Puffspider passed by. The area, including Jack, was showered in a fine mist of maybe-mushroom juice.

Jill approached him, clapping slowly. Her voice remained flat as she spoke.

“Good job, Jack. Next time, try not to take 20 minutes to defeat a little spider, especially one several circles lower than you.”

Jack pointed at the remains of the Magic Beast and protested,

“Little?! Did you see the size of that thing?! The small ones are bad enough! No spider has any right to be that big!”

She glanced at her sticky brother and sighed, waving her hand to summon a waterball that washed away most of the sticky substance. Jill responded in a sharp tone,

“Well then, maybe you shouldn’t go poking at random giant mushrooms you find on the side of the road! Dealing with that Crag Tiger already set us back an entire day! If you two trouble magnets—”

Both Jack and the recovered metal Spirit Beast had the audacity to look away.

“—would start behaving, we might actually get out of these mountains by the end of the month! Why were you even running, Jack? You should have just squashed it and been done with it! You even made me spill my lunch!”

Jill pointed to the small white puddle by the wayside. Jack turned back to Jill, pointing as he spoke.

“Hey! I can’t help it if those abominations freak me out! And who brings junket on a mission, anyway?!”

Jill pinched the bridge of her nose and pulled her older brother up.

Jack was promptly tackled by the large metal Spirit Beast, who continued to rattle on in that incomprehensible language, even as her brother struggled to breathe in its crushing embrace.

Jill only shook her head and walked to the remains of their campsite to pack for the day. She still wasn’t sure what to make of their new “companions.” Jack liked them, but then this was the same man who’d brought home a Sparkadile hatchling because he “thought it was cute.” It had taken the entire tribe to calm and appease the mother, even if half advocated feeding the idiot to her.

After being dragged into the chase with the Crag Tiger, it had taken all four working together to chase the Magic Beast off. That, in itself, was strange; Crag Tigers, while not docile, didn’t bother with most creatures. They were lazy, sluggish creatures that would almost starve rather than hunt. She had to wonder what had got it so angry that it would chase them for so long.

Then again, Magic Beasts were strange like that. Mana did… strange things. Where Spirit energy reinforced the existence of things, Mana altered them. Spirit energy made something “more” than they already were, whereas Mana transformed things into “what they could be.”

The philosophy and relationship between the twin energies was a topic that had been explored by far wiser people than Jill and for more lifetimes than she could fathom. All she needed to know was that at the end of the day, it boiled down to Spirit Beasts being stronger, faster, and smarter, while Magic Beasts were… weird.

A famous pearl of wisdom in the Adventure’s Guild was “Spirit Beast that kills you will be the one you didn’t study enough. The Magic Beast that kills you will be one you thought you knew.”

Not that the opposite couldn’t be true either, but the idea held some truth. Spirit Beasts were predictable; they were heavily reliant on their bloodlines and innate nature. You could counter them effectively once you knew what a Spirit Beast could do.

On the other hand, Magic Beasts seemed to be constantly mutating and changing. Even within the same species, two individuals might show vastly different variations in skill or ability.

Some suggested this was because Spirit energy favored stability and reinforcement, while Mana encouraged adaptation and change, but again, that was delving into subjects Jill never had the mind for.

Whether the Crag Tiger was a mutation or just really, really peeved didn’t matter in the end.

Only that they got away, and as her brother said, “make some friends along the way”…

sigh…

The large metal… box… creature had instantly bonded with her brother. She’d never seen anything like it before and couldn’t name it. But it seemed intelligent, at the very least. From the moment it met them, it had continuously spoken to them in some unknown language. Her brother hadn’t even questioned it and nodded along knowingly the whole time.

Great, now she had two of them to keep an eye out for…

As for the peculiar Root Gopher, it remained an enigma, and its intelligence and expressiveness puzzled Jill. While Spirit Beasts like it were classified as “Minor” creatures with basic earth manipulation abilities at most, they weren’t typically known for their intellect or communication skills. If it weren’t for the innate ability of Awakened Beasts to sense each other, Jill might have thought that the Root Gopher possessed some level of sapience.

Jill had never heard of a Root Gopher tribe. Sure, in theory, it was possible, but the chances of a Minor beast like them forming a Beast Core were astronomically small, likely having never occurred in their species’ entire history. If it did happen, the Beast Core would have been highly sought after for its novelty alone.

In contrast, no Awakened Beast tribe could trace their lineage back to a Minor beast, as the chances of such a creature becoming a true Progenitor were minuscule. Even Jill’s own ancestors, the Iron-Tailed Oreplanter Squirrels, were fully-fledged Spirit Beasts capable of forming cores and ascending beyond the lower [Mortal Foundation] realm, although it was a rare occurrence.

Their Progenitor, Jonny Rubyseed, was renowned for planting treasures in the surrounding mountains. These stories had fascinated Jill in her youth, despite having devolved into mere myths and legends after tens of thousands of years. Jonny was an Iron-Tailed Oreplanter Squirrel like any other, a common species found throughout the Skybreaker continent known for hoarding various Spirit materials, much like ordinary squirrels hoard nuts and seeds.

Over time, Jonny’s hidden caches would grow and give birth to valuable treasures. Many fortunate individuals had stumbled upon these old squirrel’s nests and made fortunes. The legends said that Jonny’s caches could even intertwine and form powerful natural formations, increasing the level and quality of Spirit energy in the area, thus enhancing Jonny’s own growth.

Yet, at the end of the day, Jonny was just a squirrel. Soon, he would be pushed out of his home by stronger, more fierce creatures seeking power there and forced to start anew. In such a way, thousands of Spirit-rich “hotspots” were created in the surrounding mountains, many of which remain even to this day. In time, Jonny would grow to such power that he could no longer be so easily pushed from his home, and so began the story of the Squirrel Tribe’s Progenitor.

But unlike most of his kind, Jonny remembered all the treasures he had hidden in his old homes. Instead of reclaiming them himself, he left clues and riddles for his future descendants to find, hoping that they would help elevate their people to greater heights.

Unfortunately, Jonny’s descendants were not as wise or forward-thinking as he had been. Many of the clues and riddles had been sold off over the generations, benefiting only a select few. In Jill and Jack’s generation, only a few of these treasured secrets remained within the tribe, contributing to their current impoverished state.

One of these stories had revealed the existence of the mystical [Pure Water Spring], located in the deepest cavern on the tallest mountain. Jonny had left this treasure behind before his ascension, describing it as a “physical manifestation of cleansing power.” Rumors circulated that the spring’s waters possessed the ability to unblock a person’s meridians and cleanse their body and Spirit of impurities, regardless of their realm.

If the [Pure Water Spring] had been widely known, clans and sects worldwide would have fought bloody wars to obtain it. However, Jonny had taken precautions to safeguard its secret, entrusting the knowledge only to his wisest and most talented descendants. It would have remained hidden for countless more generations if not for Jill’s… accident.

In retrospect, Jill realized her mistake in challenging Coldfinger, the most powerful figure in the criminal underworld of Halirosa. Coldfinger’s rise to the top was a testament to his strength, and Jill’s decision to defy him, especially considering their town was a haven for Adventurers, was foolish. But she had grown weary of his constant threats and mounting debts.

Even Coldfinger’s punishment of freezing her cultivation rather than killing her was a mockery, a way of belittling the squirrels.

The memory of her defiance ignited a fiery determination within her, briefly thawing her perpetually icy hands.

Despite her family’s efforts to rectify her cultivation deviation caused by Coldfinger, Jill found his methods to be devious. Even if she were to abandon her current cultivation and start anew, she would face significant obstacles as the Spirit energy moved through her meridians like a sluggish, icy slurry, severely impeding her progress.

Fortunately, there was a glimmer of hope offered by the old tribal matriarch, now three generations removed. She’d recognized Jill’s struggles and innate talent from an early age and had shared a secret tale with her, one she had kept hidden even from her own children for fear of its misuse. For the first time in a long while, Jill felt a surge of hope akin to discovering an old cabin amidst an unrelenting blizzard.

However, Old Jonny Rubyseed was an eccentric old soul. Jill understood that locating this treasure would push her abilities to their limits. Yet, she saw no other viable option but to embark on this quest.

Together with Jack, she ventured into their ancestral mountains, armed solely with an ancient seed and vague instructions to find the place where “the roots meet the sky,” a cryptic riddle whose meaning eluded them.

Snapping out of her reminiscence, Jill finished packing and turned to find Jack stuffing vials of spider goop into the spatial storage area within the metal creature’s shell. Yet another surprising discovery.

She called out as she hoisted the heavy pack onto her shoulder, her voice filled with determination.

“Are you finished playing in the mud? Let’s get moving! I want to reach the mountain’s base before nightfall. Who knows what other dangers lurk in these parts?”

With those words, the Root Gopher hopped onto her pack, and together they set off toward the mountain road.