Chapter 42 - 42: Into the woods

I eventually figured out how to properly ride Rakka without falling off the saddle, so my mother and I proceeded to ride our respective monster mounts into the sunset...not really. We rode our mounts into the spring side of the Valley to go monster hunting.

The reason why we went spring side, my mother explained, was because of two reasons: the nature of majimonsters and balance.

"A majority of majimonsters were once mundane animals with aether infused into their existence. This means that despite their nature defying powers and outlandish appearances, for the most part they act just as animals do. Take Bola here for example. I found him among a herd that was a mix of mundane mountains goats and majimonster goats. In essence, we're more likely to find a majimonster spring side than snow side".

"Alright, but what do you mean balance?", I asked. There might've been less of them due to the nature of animals, but the ones that were active during winter were abnormally tough. I might've also been a little biased due to two of monsters being winter related.

[~Winter Asthetics~]

"Well your current monster Rakka is rather strong, but as I'm sure father pointed out it has a few glaring weaknesses.", my mother pointed out.

"He did mention Rakka was weak against more than just fire affinity monsters...".

"Indeed. Rakka is an ice, fire and lightning affinity monster, which means it's vulnerable to the fire, water and earth affinities but resistant against ice, verdant and wind affinities. Additionally, the techniques of affinities that matches his should be much stronger than if he didn't have those affinities".

"Wait, how can Rakka be weak to an affinity he is made of?", I asked confused at the contradictory nature of his vulnerabilities.

My mother shrugged as she answered, "It's the contradictory nature of magic I suppose. If Rakkas' affinities were different, he could be weak against nothing yet resistant against nothing or only have one set of resistances and vulnerabilities".

[She's not wrong. Even us maji were subjected to the balance of the elements. Of course such weaknesses can be only considered a factor with small power disparities. I being an archmaji of ice can soundly trounce a master maji of fire. By the logic of your majimonster rankings, a gold grade ice majimonster can soundly destroy a bronze grade fire one], Voxea commented.

"Regardless Silvia, it'd be wise to have you bind a monster that can directly counter the affinities your Ragnaceros is weak against", my mother lectured on.

"Right... which would be...".

" Water, Lightning and Verdant affinity majimonsters. We can ignore the Lightning ones however due to Rakka. Meaning we can focus on finding you a Water or a Verdant majimonster, possibly one with both affinities. Now pop quiz, what are the characteristics of both?", my mother asked.

"Hmmmm. Verdant majimonsters tend to look like plants like father's Brushpyre or have plants growing as part of their bodies like a Scorpvine. Water affinity majimonsters tend to be aquatic creatures like fish or ducks and or, blue for some reason", I answered.

"Very good".

[Why are some water majimonsters blue anyways]?

[I was gonna say asthetics, but honestly it just sorta happened. We didn't care, it was a good indicator that the ritual worked], Voxea replied.

My mother and I rode for a few hours after that and spotted all sorts of majimonsters from Aquadukts to Raindeers to an Arbear. But we promptly ignored or avoided most of them due to them being to numerous, too strong or because it felt wrong to separate family units.

I was just about to give up, right until the answer to our problem quite literally jumped out of the ground and tried to kill me.