With how full of creatures and alive the ocean was, it wasn't that surprising that Keith and Freddie were able to find a possible location for them to grind for levels so soon.

  Honestly, they could have just gone through the intel that they had, chose a location that had no strong monsters or known Navy activity, and they would have had a good hunting ground to work with. That put into perspective how thriving the ocean was.

  "What do you think about this?" Dan asked as he enjoyed the rare moment of sunlight, eyeing the encroaching dark clouds in the distance.

  The Dynasty's waters weren't as calm as the Empire's, with rain and heavy winds being the norm. Dan loved those just as much as he loved calm sunny weather, but he wouldn't lie, suffering through that for a long time wasn't something he looked forward to, and having these rare moments of sunlight now and then was appreciated by everyone on board. Especially with how they didn't last long, always being overtaken by another instant of rain.

  "It should be alright," Marcus said, enjoying the weather too. "It's not what I had expected when we started looking for a hunting ground, but it might be even better."

  Marcus had been there when Keith and Freddie told him what they had found, and Dan wanted to hear his honest thoughts about the area.

  Their target itself wasn't much of an area or location, it was a mix of specific timing and a path a certain type of creature took. Yes, it was a migration.

  Talia, just like Earth, had many great migrations, and the oceans themselves didn't miss those.

  The Crystal Whales' Great Migration, certain jellyfishes' Pink Tide, and the Death Pilgrimage of the Blue-Headed Penguins, all those and more were great migrations mentioned in many of the books they had, and it just happened that it was the time of one of those migrations.

  Obsidian Eels had a great migration that happened each year after The Calm started in the Empire's waters. The migration took the Eels from the Empire's inner lakes to the Dynasty's. At the same time, a similar migration would be happening on the side of the Dynasty with the endpoint being the Empire.

  Both sides would have left their eggs in their homes and would leave to fertilize the eggs the other side left. Though only the males were needed for that, even the females migrated, leaving only the unfertilized eggs behind. The reason the females joined the migration is that they played the role of protectors to the males. They were bigger and way stronger than their counterparts.

  "The plan in itself is sound," Marcus continued after he thought for a bit, "It's a concentration of animals that the people of this world generally leave alone. They don't have much going for them in terms of strength, except a ranged attack of some kind, so I doubt they would be of much danger to us. But that doesn't mean that there is nothing off with this idea."

  Dan listened seriously. They were already on their way to cut the migration's path, probably reaching it by midday the next day, so it wasn't like they were going to turn around at the moment. Marcus was probably just sharing his own thoughts about the plan, and Dan was going to take it all in.

  "The main point I'm worried about is the creatures themselves," Marcus said, his eyes focused on the away clouds, "The females have quite the hard shell and I don't know if our weapons are going to be able to go through that and finish them off."

  Dan just nodded at his security officer's words. Obsidian Eels were known as that due to the dark hard shells they had covering their bodies. Those shells were quite strong and gave anyone who set their sight on the eels a headache. They were the reason the eels were mostly left alone by everyone, both in the Empire and in the Dynasty.

  "I still believe we can take them," Dan eventually said, "We aren't only relying on our weapons after all, we have many support and buffing skills to fall back on. We are more than ready."

  "I know." Marcus nodded. "It's just something that we need to pay extra attention to, we don't want to be surprised by such a turn of events when we get there."

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  "There was also the fact that Linda was going to look into making some more advanced ammo," Dan said as something came to the forefront of his mind, "How is that going? Is she making any advancement in that regard?"

  "She is," Marcus said, "But I doubt it's going to be ready any time soon. She's quite talented and is taking quite well to her Class, but she still needs a lot more to come up with a stable formula from scratch, especially when something like magic is included."

  Dan thought back to their Master Alchemist, the woman seemed to be a bit off in those last few weeks, lost in her own thoughts and closing herself in the alchemy room a lot more than she was at the beginning. He hoped she wasn't in such a state because of the pressure that was put on her.

  Fortunately, she had Francis backing her up, and the man seemed to have got an inkling that she wasn't the best she could be, mentally speaking. He had been trying to get her to open and get over whatever it was that was weighing so heavily on her mind. So all in all, things weren't as bad as they could have been.

  Dan and Marcus talked some more, bringing up some of the gang's upcoming projects and what they should expect from the workshop next. He was looking forward to it.

  The rest of the day was peaceful, Voyager went on her way to the decided-on location while everyone else continued with their tasks or prepared for the coming hunt. Dan himself spent the day trying to find out as much as he could about the Obsidian Eels, calling for Arnold's help, the Nautical Archivist being the most knowledgeable person to approach with questions about different ocean creatures and phenomena.

  The morning of the next day passed peacefully too, Dan and the gang finishing the last few preparations before reaching their target.

  Dan caught a glimpse of the migrating eels while they were still miles away. They looked like nothing but a black line leading from a far-off distance towards the Dynasty's waters. As they closed in on it slowly, Dan finally understood just how huge the line was.

  "It's magnificent, don't you think?" Arnold said from next to him, eyes fixed on the sight ahead of them

  The weather was pretty clear at that moment, making the experience even more magical as the sunlight hit the Obsidian Eels' black shells resulting in shimmering lights that got reflected in the water. The sight wasn't the only magical thing about the experience, the sound that they made as they cut through the water was also pretty fascinating and scary, Dan felt as if he was next to a roaring waterfall.

  "So these are the females?" Dan murmured.

  The eels he could see were all huge, 4 to 5 meters long and 40 to 50 centimeters wide; he couldn't see any of the supposedly smaller males.

  "Yes," Arnold said, his eyes never leaving the migration, "The males can't even be seen from here, they are at the heart of the formation."

  Aiming to be as careful about this as they always were in such a situation, they had Voyager shrink her aura as they sent a tender and started harassing the Obsidian Eels.

  "Everything seems to be going well," Dan said to Robert who was standing next to him, both of them were at the disembarkation point watching as the tender carrying George and the others closed in on the migrating eels.

  "As expected." Robert shrugged unhurriedly. "Nothing pointed towards them having strong wills or ever ignoring Cornerstones."

  Dan knew that it was the case, but he couldn't keep his heart from beating a bit faster as he watched a few Obsidian eels split off the huge group and head towards the tender at full speed. As soon as they hit the borders of Voyager's aura though, he was relieved to see them stop dead in their path.

  "Well," he said as his heart calmed down, "All went well in the end, let's start preparing for what comes next."

  Dan was about to cut his connection to Voyager's auras when something caught his attention, the eels remained at the fringes of the aura as they looked towards the tender. As some apprehension rose in his heart, he caught their tails flickering for a split second. What appeared to be shards of obsidian flew from them towards the tender, which continued on its path as is, but who knew how things were inside.

  "How is everyone!" Dan shouted through the walkie-talkie as he saw the tender start speeding towards Voyager.

  "All are safe," George's voice came through, "We need to rethink our strategies though, that almost took me out. Over."

  Dan turned to Robert next to him, just to see the man's face was just as pale as he felt his was. That was too close.

  "Their attacks weren't supposed to be that strong?" Dan murmured in confusion.