“Wow! This creature has a really high magical defense level!” I said after studying the display for a moment.

With such high magical defense, taking down the Flesh Munchers would require either shooting them with regular projectiles or attacking them up close with ordinary weapons, although the latter would be very high-risk.

I looked up at Astrid. “You took this creature core yourself? You hunted and killed this Flesh Muncher?”

She gave me a proud, fierce grin. “And the cougar, too. The Flesh Muncher was actually pretty easy—I just shot it in the face with a 12-gauge at twenty yards. The cougar was more… challenging. Particularly since I took it on solo.”

I looked thoughtfully at Astrid. I had already developed a healthy amount of respect for the sexy lycan beastkin woman and her awesome fighting skills, but this made me look at her in a new way.

“You soloed a Frostbreath Cougar?” I asked. “Wow!”

She shrugged, looking a bit bashful now. “Hey, it’s not that big a deal. It was a challenge, but I can do more than that. Come on, let’s work on your monsters and I’ll show you what I can do.”

We walked together out into the training hall. Astrid stopped beside the assault course with the pits and traps, but I pointed at the strange glittering waterfall which was nearby. It streamed with what looked like some kind of holographic liquid, pouring down from a ledge high up on the wall and landing with a steady splashing noise in a deep pool built into the floor.

“What’s that thing for?” I asked. “I’ve never seen anything like it before in my life.”

“It increases Magical Defense attributes and can level up Magical Defense based skills,” she replied. “You stand under it for as long as you can last, or you could place a monster under it. The water isn’t regular water; it’s some kind of mixture that Kyrine cooked up. It adapts to your level, and then deals a very small amount of magical damage, causing your magical damage resistance to increase over time.”