Though more interesting for Jason was the ecosystem as a whole. In the previous areas, sure, there were a bunch of animals, but overall there were the main monster species to deal with. He knew that his view on things was a bit warped. After all, he only really looked for monsters while in a danger zone, which tended to be characterized by the fact that they were areas overrun by a specific monster.

Here, though, there was a large assortment of middle of the pack monsters. Sure, the beaver frog monsters could kill any of them, hands down. All around these calm lakes where none dare tread are a large variety of monsters. Sure, most of them are beasts of some flavor, not even mixed beasts like the beaver frog.

Over there is a family of ducks, with one of the parents being a monster. Across a stream is a monster fox. There are even some rabbits with a few which have managed to get a few of the winged evolution tree. Besides the normal animals that have managed to evolve into actual monsters, there are some water elementals hanging around.

This is actually a rare thing. While most people have some knowledge of the neighboring elemental dimensions, the inhabitants are a rare bunch. In general, people only get exposed to descendants of elementals like the halflings. To see an actual elemental requires either a summoner or an elemental node through which they can enter NeoRealm proper and act as a connection back to their home plane to continue drawing power.

After all, it isn't like the main world has too much aligned power floating around. An undine isn't going to have enough water mana unless they're in the middle of the deep ocean. Not that they would stick around there as places with that density of aligned power are going to have some native beasts hanging around. An undine isn't going to have much luck against a leviathan.

Also, Jason wasn't going to even get close to any of the water elementals he could see. Sure, he felt that the beaver frogs were the most powerful foes around, but elementals, especially those based on water, tend to have a decent ability to mask themselves. When fighting, an elemental will take on their native form, but before that they could be anything, though only water elementals actively make use of this.

Yes, earth elementals are going to take on the shape of a boulder to rest and an air elemental is likely to become invisible. Even fire elementals will take on a more fluttery appearance. However, water elementals will actually take on the form of weaker water elementals. So if you see a small water elemental, it might be weak, but it could also be an elemental with enough power to wipe towns off the map. Only elemental royalty from the other elements even come close to this and with them they're going to be turning into a humanoid form.

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Not to say that Jason felt this particular elemental was some hidden boss or some such. It just wasn't worth the risk. What was worth his time though, was fighting the beaver frogs. After all, something must have caused the elemental node those water elementals were making use of and those beaver frogs are the only thing around that seem to be a likely source.

Though Jason suspects that the actual node is much deeper into their territory and guarded by the strongest beaver frog. Either because the original beaver frog to get to that point is still there or it died and another beaver frog took over. You would think an elemental might have moved in, but in reality the area right around a node isn't exactly healthy for them.

The node represents a connection between two areas with very different types and levels of power. For most beings, this simply felt like a slight increase in the local power field. For elementals, though? It felt like being in the middle of a hurricane that was on fire and those on the weaker end would just die if they stayed there too long.

Then Jason notices an extra level of challenge. He should have expected it, after all, beavers aren't a solitary animal. They form families and there is no reason that adding in a bit of frog would remove that. So while at first it looked like the beaver frog was alone, a closer look revealed more of them swimming around in those lakes.

He just didn't see them at first as one thing they did pick up from frogs was being amphibious. Oh, and having an absurd amount of children. Because one Jason was looking into the lakes, it became obvious that they were packed to the gills in there. On one hand, target rich environment. On the other hand, he didn't really have a good method of dealing area of effect damage.

So while fighting the beaver frogs was on his itinerary, it was going to need a better plan than just rushing in. Though as Jason thinks about it, he doesn't really care all that much about the beaver frogs. Rather, what is important is whatever they are doing to the land.

With that in mind, Jason begins to scope out one of the smaller lakes. Both because it got him closer to the big beaver frog in the center and there were less of the small beaver frogs in the lake itself, if only because there was less space for them to fit. Though in the lakes, no, ponds with the smallest beaver frogs, it was clear they had taken the area recently as the water was relatively empty.

Some of the ponds even had only a handful of the monster's spawn. It was in those ponds that Jason saw something different. At the bottom, right below the beaver frog on top, was another beaver frog monster of a similar size. He had assumed it was the case, but this just made it clear that each pond was a family.

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