The morning was a slow one for Dan, and considering what was awaiting them and all they had to do that day, the slow start was welcomed.

  Dan woke up, went through his morning routine and headed to the Skyline for breakfast. It hadn't been his shift the night before, so he was free to sleep on a bit. Not that he could, as soon as it was 5 am, he found himself wide awake.

  After a light conversation in the Skyline with Arnold, he couldn't really remember what they had talked about except that it might have had to do with the young man, he made his way to the bridge.

  "Morning everyone," he greeted as he entered, "I take it none of you could remain asleep, huh?"

  The bridge was only supposed to have Francis and Linda for the last shift, but Dan was also met by Robert, William, Marcus, Freddie and Keith, all of them were around the screens that had Keith and Freddie's skills linked to them.

  "Well, I wanted to see how our new hunting ground is as soon as possible," Robert said after everyone returned the greeting.

  "I understand." Dan smiled. "How is it then, was everything alright?"

  "The trip was good, none of the people in the shifts before us mentioned noticing anything off," Francis said as he yawned, "And the same goes for us."

  "So that's it then?" Dan looked at everyone around. "We go in?"

  "Yes," Marcus said, "Same as last time, we will go in slowly while keeping an eye on how the situation turns."

  "Okay, everything is good," Keith said, "We are going in."

  While they started the Voyager's journey through the Sticky Reefs, Dan was busy contacting the ship herself.

  "Okay, good girl," he murmured, "Tell me if you notice anything wrong, or if the sticky weeds are, well, being slippery."

  Getting an affirmation from her, Dan focused again on the screen that showed Keith's skill. Being quite close to that area, the skill already showed some creatures here and there, but as they moved closer and closer and the skill had more of the area under its range, the number of creatures increased. They showed up as orange dots, meaning that they were a bit dangerous, but couldn't really do much damage to the Voyager.

  As the dots entered the Voyager's range, they moved away as they had expected. Dan found himself letting out a small sigh of relief. They expected the Voyager's protective aura to be effective on the Sticky Reefs' monsters because there was no mention about them being able to ignore Cornerstones, but that didn't mean that they for sure wouldn't just ignore the Voyager's aura.

  "We are at the edge," Keith called out, even though everyone's eyes were already on the screen, it was most likely just a force of habit.

  "Good," Dan answered, "Keep the speed as is and let's see how things are going to turn out."

  At the same time, Dan kept his attention fixed on what the Voyager was feeling. A few seconds later, she made contact with the weird weeds and Dan held his breath in anticipation.

  "No change in speed, nothing seems to be holding us back," Keith gave her update before he could pass on the Voyager's, "We didn't get stuck."

  "Voyager is sending the same," he added, "She's perfectly fine, propellers are good too, nothing is off."

  With that development, the last bit of stress Dan was feeling went away and he found himself relaxing.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "Good job, everyone," he said. He then turned to the chief security officer, "Marcus, prepare for the upcoming tests and let's see what we are dealing with."

  "Everything should be ready on our side too, Old Raily should be helping the others with the final preparations." Marcus nodded. "Let's just head deeper so we aren't under the sight of anyone before starting."

  "Good." Dan then turned to Keith. "Keep us going, the sun should be rising soon, get us deeper fast."

  "Understood," she said as she raised the speed of the Voyager.

  They still weren't going that fast though, just a bit more than before. Things could turn bad fast and they didn't want that to happen to them. Half an hour or so later, they were in position just as the sun started peeking from under the horizon.

  By that point, Marcus and Old Raily had everything on their side ready to go, so as soon as the Voyager was in position they left on a tender that Rose worked on the whole trip there. It had higher-level and stronger rune combinations than the one she used last time, after all, she did have the recommended dyes and tools needed for her Class, not whatever she managed to throw together.

  The tender had Marcus, Ricky and George on it, and like the last time, they wanted to find out how the monsters that inhabited the Sticky Reefs would react. Dan and some of the others brought the idea of just attacking from atop the Voyager, but both Old Raily and Marcus were against that. They said that if the real hunts were going to happen from the tenders, then their experiments should happen on them too.

  Fortunately, nothing unusual happened, they didn't have every creature in the area gunning for them, and the group was soon back to the Voyager with the bodies of two of those monsters with them.

  Dan was awaiting their return alongside Arnold and some of the others who came to take a look at the monsters the gang brought back.

  "I'm not sure what I was expecting," Annie, Dex's wife, said as she looked at the 2 corpses they threw from the tender, "But it sure wasn't this."

  Dan found himself nodding. The monsters looked like a horror movie's stingray. They were big, more than 3 meters from one tip of the wing to the other. Plus they didn't only have that one stinger extending from their behind, they also had another two, one extending from each wing. Those two stingers were extremely flexible, Dan would have called them tentacles if not for the fact that they were plated by some hard yet elastic material.

  That wasn't even the weirdest part about them, that went to the fact that they had extremely fine fur covering them. The fur was coated by a sticky viscous liquid, Dan guessed that that must have been what they used to keep themselves from being caught by the Sticky Reefs.

  "So these are what we are going to be hunting?" Dex asked as he kicked one of them lightly.

  "Yes," Dan said as he watched Arnold and Linda each take samples from the viscous liquid.

  "At least being ugly makes it easier on the heart," Annie said to her husband, "Imagine them being cute little gold fish? That would have been too hard for me."

  Dan found himself shaking his head at the conversation, he was at least happy to see that the pair of husband and wife were dealing with things well. He wasn't that surprised about Dex, the man had been with him for years and he knew how he was under pressure, other than that instance at the beginning when they had a bit of a disagreement about whether they should go after the debris, which Dan understood as the man had both his wife and a little daughter on the ship, he seemed to be doing well.

  His wife was a strong person from what Dan had seen, she even seemed to be taking the role of Tiffany's, Jackie's daughter, mother figure. She was a strong-willed person who didn't shy away from speaking her mind, which wasn't surprising considering that she had been a lawyer back on Earth.

  That little bit made him remember her Class, and he found his mind wandering. She was one of those people whose Class was put to the side solely because they didn't have the opportunity to use it at the moment. In the future though? He could see her being a major player in their plans.

  The lawyer's Class was Oath Mistress, she had been one of the people that Marcus had considered taking on their last mission but they decided against it eventually. That was mainly because she was too low-levelled, as was the case for most of them really, but it was quite apparent for her as the skill she got took into account the target's levels and tiers too.

  The only skill she got was called Soul Oath. It was a skill that made it so the holder could make an oath with someone and that person wouldn't be able to break it without harming themselves in one way or another. The penalty for breaking the oath would be decided on before signing it and it could be any number of things; from the person losing levels, to them losing their lives, all of it could be arranged.

  There was a downside though, if the other person was stronger than her, level and tiers-wise, they could survive the fallout of the oath being broken. The bigger the difference in levels the lower the backlash would be.

  Marcus had added her to the list of those they needed to power level, she wasn't at the highest priority, but the usefulness of her skill wasn't lost on them.

  Dan dragged himself from their plans for the future and focused on the present again, the hunting was about to begin.

  PATREON!!!