Equipped with the rest of the elemental attacks Gardenia was able to teach her, they finally made their way towards the gate. Their destination was nearby enough that it was easier to walk than try to rent a mount to use and they wouldn't all fit on Yarrow's wolf. As they walked, Ash's eyes slowly shifted through the colors as a rainbow sheen slid through them from time to time. She was looking at everything with her Unicorn Eyes skill to see what she could learn from it.
Any time she found an interesting plant she examined it first with the skill, her intent to learn more about it. For some small items descriptions would appear that told her their base properties while for others there was just the glow of their assigned rarity. They were nearly to their destination when a notification appeared that the skill had grown closer to mastery.
There was no indication of level or any change to the description at first. She kept looking at items as she perused it, being startled slightly when the description changed between appraising a fruit on a tree and a flower on the ground to add that she could identify uncommon items as well as common ones. She hadn't even noticed the earlier change that told her she could appraise common items, likely because she hadn't been trying to do so before and had only been curious about the light they emitted.
She deactivated the skill, aware that they were heading into a part of the forest where monsters might be roaming and that its slight shifts to her vision could be a liability until she was more accustomed to the skill. Almost without thinking about it, she started playing with her Spellweaving skill again. She held a Starflame spell and a Starstrike, curious if there was more to learn from them though she hadn't started messing with the magic of either quite yet.
Her foci, with the enchantments put upon them, seemed like it drastically slowed the mana drain from holding the spells which was a pleasant surprise. Ash's keen ears picked up on movement ahead and, without really thinking about it, she conjured another instance of Starflame to attack with.
Her eyes took in the three spells, trying to set the difference between them in her memory so she'd know which was castable. The only difference, though, was that one spell had no element to it while the other two were flames. She'd assumed that holding spells with her skill rendered them unusable but had clearly been wrong.
She dismissed the notification and resisted the urge to look more at both the Spellweaving and Spellstorage skills, instead summoning another spell that she immediately had to dismiss. The mana-drain had increased to a point her foci could no longer mitigate it effectively with the fourth spell, making three her current limit.
Behind her, Luna was entirely unaware of the change and spoke up to remind her gently, "Ash, you'll need your mana to fight all too soon."
Ash straightened and almost glanced back but her attention was drawn once more to rustling ahead, they were very near their destination. The first wind rodent burst from the bushes ahead, drawing a groan from Luna that Ash had likely already made a mistake that could cost her quite a bit of injury.
The wind rodent made a sound that could have been mistaken for the large rat's version of a roar as it temporarily forced itself upright, seeming to be declaring that they were intruding upon its territory. Ash didn't wait for it to summon its own magic, instead launching one of the flame spells at it. The rat tensed as if to jump out of the way, but wasn't fast enough on two feet instead of the four it was meant to walk on. Ash's spell hit it head on and took it out immediately.
The casting had startled Luna, considering Ash had only used the ability earlier to tinker with the magic in order to change it, "Did you know you could do that, Ash?"
Ash shook her head slightly and stalked forward. She needed the distinctive green tinted tail of the rodent but was uncertain if anything else on it was useful.
"Ro," she said quietly, not trying to attract the attention of more of the rodents though the singed remains of their friend might do so shortly, "Is there anything worthwhile on the remains or do I just remove the tail and move on?"
"Meat's useful for travel rations. Fur, in good quality," he stressed those three words as if to scold Ash slightly for toasting it, "Can be used for small crafts. There's plenty of uses for most of it and its body can attract worse if left lying around. Take it to the guild if you don't want to learn to dismantle it yourself, though you might want to learn anyway considering it can be useful to get yourself dinner in the wilds."
Ash reached out to brush the creature ever so slightly with the tips of her fingers, storing it in her inventory and moving on. As she stalked forward, senses straining to listen for more enemies, she swapped out the second Starflame spell for the water spell Starsoak. She also conjured Starstone as her third spell.
Two rodents lunged from the bushes. Ash didn't give them a chance to growl at her territorially, instead launching a spell at the location where each of them was going to land. One landed and was struck immediately by the non-elemental attack while the other managed to use wind magic and was only clipped by Starsoak.
The still-live opponent conjured its own magic to attack Ash with. Ash cast Starcloak and spent a few moments just watching the way the rat attacked. It would dart about as it gathered magic for the spell, pausing slightly as it launched it. Ash waited for another pause before sending the earth based spell flying at it. Her barrier had successfully taken the first wind spell without falling but dissolved as the spell it managed to launch just before it died struck.
Storing the two in her inventory, she cautiously made her way forward again, finally stepping into the clearing that held the flowers she was after. She needed at least two more of the rodents to take back for the quest and ten or more flowers, with a slight boost in reward for bringing twenty or thirty but a stern warning not to take more than that even if she was going to use the extras for her own alchemy. While they weren't exactly a rare resource, they needed some time to replenish. Others seeking the same flower would be sent to other clearings containing it.