An Owl's Rise

Now that the battle with the foxes had reached its conclusion, Evelyn plopped over onto her rear and let out a sigh of relief.

It had been a harrowing battle where the odds were not stacked in their favor

Normally if you told two peak awakened beasts and a peak fiend beast to go and kill two high tier awakened beasts and three peak awakened beasts, they would tell you it would be impossible.

There was simply just a huge insurmountable difference in the power between these two groups.

Yet, with proper planning, Evelyn unnatural strength, and a bit of luck. They managed to come out victorious without any casualties.

Of course, that did not mean they got away completely uninjured, as both Katrina, and especially Anneli, were cripplingly injured.

They would need specialized medicine and healing to restore themselves and were certain to be taken off the expedition at this point.

"Evelyn, I understand that you are tired and worried about us but leave looking after Anneli to me. It is uncertain how long we will have before anymore foxes show up to investigate. As we are now, we would be killed easily." Katrina said after they had a few minutes to recover.

Turning her head towards Anneli, Evelyn looked at her with worry, but ultimately did as Katrina said.

She knew that if they failed to get the float stone she needed, all of their efforts would go to waste and the injures that her two seniors had suffered would be for naught.

Pulling her body up, Evelyn flapped her wings a few times to loosen up her stiff body, and then began ascending towards the massive floating rocks that were loosely attached to the top of the nearby mountains.

When she arrived at her destination, she could immediately feel a reaction not only from her instincts but also the Aethersphere.

'It really is what I need. Now I only have to break through until I make it to the area with pure enough float stone to act as a catalyst for my evolution.'

Landing on top of the largest rock which she had gotten a reaction from, Evelyn pulled out a pickaxe that she had specially bought just for this situation.

Lifting the tool up over her head with one of her feet, she braced all of her muscles before swinging down.

With a loud clang she broke through the first layer of rock and large chunks began to fall down.

Again and again, she swung her pickaxe. With each swing she broke through just a little bit more, and once she had enough magical energy back, she used her gravity magic to help increase the weight of her swings.

After twenty minutes of breaking through what was pretty much normal stone. she finally started making it to her goal.

Small chunks of the rock she broke off did not fall normally and had a weightlessness to it like a balloon.

However, what she had just reached was still only the weakest form of float stone which could do little more than keep itself from descending at a normal pace.

No, what Evelyn was after was the purest stone near the center, which could completely disregard the hold of this world's gravity.

Time seemed to blur for Evelyn as she repetitively broke through stone to get ever closer to her goal.

At this point she had a number of pieces of stone floating around her. But she disregarded it all since it was not receiving any reaction from her or the Aethersphere.

What felt like an eternity later she finally got in deep enough to find what she was looking for.

The stone at this point now had a blue tinge to it and glowed faintly. Showing that it was becoming much purer.

She could feel it in her gut that this was what she needed and the Aethersphere finally showed a reaction.

Putting away her pickaxe, Evelyn no longer needed the rough instrument and instead brought out a chisel and hammer.

Now the hard work began for her, as she carved out an appropriately sized piece of the purer float stone that she would need for her evolution.

With razor focus she completed the tedious work and carved out as perfectly round of a piece of float stone as she could.

Once it was free from the larger mass it used to be a a part of, it began acting as its name's sake and elevated upwards.

However, it was still trapped within a tunnel that Evelyn had created through the rock to get this far.

'Now I need only store it away and I will have what I- What the hell is that!?'

Suddenly a single ray of bright blue light began to shining through where Evelyn had cut out her chuck of float stone.

It was incredibly captivating and as she looked towards it, she could see some sort of blue gem at the center of the float stone.

For a few moments Evelyn just stared at it in awe before coming to her senses.

'I have what I need so it would be prudent for me to leave now. But I do not know what that is. It feels powerful and it is possible that I may need more float stone in the future. So, carving around it to get a better look should not be a problem.'

Convincing herself to keep going, she began taking out chunks of the pure float stoner around this gem and slowly opened up around it to get a better look.

Eventually she went the entire way around it and had collected around thirty time the amount of float stone she needed as a catalyst for her evolution.

'It is unbelievably beautiful.' Evelyn thought as she stared at the floating gem.

She was not sure what it was, but it had a breathtaking blue luster and was in the shape an octahedron.

And now that it was no longer being pressed against by the float stone, it began spinning around with about one revolution every eight seconds.

Staring at it, Evelyn was certain that this gem contained an immense amount of magical energy and was related to the float stones in some way.

'I do not have time to just sit here and look at it. I need to go. I can ask Melisandre more about it when I get back.' Evelyn thought as she reached out to grab it.

Yet as she did some sort of barrier repelled her and she was violently thrown back.

'That felt like my gravity magic!'

Getting a similar feeling from this gem that she did from the Aethersphere, Evelyn approached again, and this time activated her gravity field.

To her surprise, her power and the gem's clashed as blue and purple sparks flew as the two magics met.

Unfortunately, it seemed that Evelyn was not going to be able to break through with her gravity field alone and began weaving the strongest gravity trap she could.

'You are going to be mine.' She thought as she thrust her foot forward.

Her magic and the gem's fought once again, but this time Evelyn just managed to break through, and the gravity trap she had activated pulled the gem towards her.

When it was within reach, she quickly put it inside her storage cuff and the blue gem promptly disappeared.