The frog’s side was a bit bloody, but she didn’t have time to take a closer look at its injuries before she had to use a panicked {Dart} to avoid its tongue. Its tongue struck the tree behind where she had just been with enough force to crack the bark and send a few splinters flying out. Meanwhile, Elise used another two charges of {Dart} to get to safety behind another tree. As soon as it retracted its tongue, it leapt again, getting another angle on Elise, and forcing her to dodge again. This time, Elise was prepared for it, and was level-headed enough that when she saw the tongue stick to the tree trunk again, a thought sprung to her head.

She let it leap around and shoot its tongue at her again, dodging at the last second. Then, while its tongue was still extended, she cast {Vicious Bloom). The spell would normally not be fast enough to hit the tongue before it retracted, but her rudimentary mana circulation was bearing fruit. The purer mana flowed through her body more easily, allowing her to form and fire the seed, just barely hitting the tongue as it flew away. A {Magic Missile} would have been faster and easier to hit, but the reason she chose {Vicious Bloom} became apparent as soon as the frog closed its mouth.

It immediately opened again and gave a croaking scream of pain. Its tongue dangled out of its mouth, useless before the writhing vines entangling it. The vines were dying just as fast as they were growing due to its venom, but it gave Elise plenty of time to get closer and start bombarding with spells. Another {Vicious Bloom} landed on its back followed by a {Magic Missile} aimed at its eyes. That spell never hit, as the frog turned and leapt toward her. She saw its legs tense just in time to use {Dart} to avoid getting hit by the bull-sized frog.

When it landed, it turned back to face her, and she recognized the way its mouth inflated as a sign it was about to use its tongue again, so she dodged to the side, and when the tongue came, she hit it with another {Vicious Bloom}. It screamed again, and Elise flew toward it, but at this point, she realized that she had made a bit of a miscalculation.

The frog was not suicidal. It realized it was outmatched. Right when she was about to attack it again, it leapt to the side, away from her, and then made to jump again. Elise panicked for a split second, and tossed out a random {Suggest} to try to get it to stay. All she wanted to do was make it think something strong had appeared in front of it, but she accidentally timed it perfectly. Right as it was about to jump again was when her skill hit, and it faltered, falling straight to the ground instead.

She was on it in an instant, pelting it with another cast of {Magic Missile}. It tried to leap away again, so she used {Suggest} again, freezing it in fear. She continued her assault until she feared that she would run out of mana before it finally… croaked.

[ You have slain Colossal Jungle Frog, lvl 7 ]

[ You have leveled up! 5 -> 6 ]

[ Strength +3, Agility +3, Dexterity +3, Fortitude +3, Charisma +30, Intelligence +20, Willpower +8, Mana +10, Mana Control +15 ]

“Well done,” said Hans. “Excellent use of {Suggest} at the end there. A shame your foe was such a coward. The monkeys would be even better practice. They don’t run. Still, very well done.”

“Thanks,” said Elise. “But I was kind of panicking a little at the end.”

“Happens to all of us the first time,” he said. “You’ll be calmer the next time, and even calmer after that. I could tell you were nervous going in, but I’m sure you see now that you could have gone straight in without bothering to sneak.”

“I guess,” said Elise.

She still didn’t quite feel confident enough to do that, but the experience had definitely helped. While {Suggest} had worked well against the birds, she was using different feelings there, and didn’t realize how powerful raw fear would be. When she attacked the frog, she had used a specific sensation based on what she felt in the drow cave when Emilia arrived after saving Naomi. That feeling of dread, knowing that a powerful enemy had just appeared, froze her in her tracks, and it froze the frog as well, much more than she expected it to.

“Recovery meditation, then more hunting?” asked Hans.

“Yes,” said Elise.

She was nervous, but ready. After months of relying on stealth, a skill she was wholly unsuited for, she was finally developing a proper skillset of her own. One that would let her go toe-to-toe with creatures at her level, instead of having to fight indirectly. She wanted to master it as soon as she could.

Once Elise had replenished her mana, it didn’t take long to find a troop of monkeys. They were always screeching at everything, making them even easier to locate than the flocks of parrots. This particular troop had eleven monkeys, a number which Elise thought seemed too high. She could handle that many of the parrots, no problem, but the monkeys were a tier higher, and frankly much scarier. She had learned while hunting with Penelope and Maia that they were actually quite fragile, likely due to low Fortitude, but their movements were much less predictable than the parrots, and they were intelligent enough to throw things, making them threats at range as well. Hans trusted her to handle it though, so she steeled herself and flew toward them.

At first, she tried to think of different strategies on how to handle them. If she could get close enough without them noticing, she could take out two or three with {Magic Missile} before they could react. However, she rejected that plan almost immediately. She was trying to learn how to fight normal fights, not ambushes. If she kept starting with an ambush, she’d never figure out how to open a fight normally. Besides, her stealth was actually terrible. The only reason it even kind of worked was that her wings were largely silent, so they could only tell she was coming by sight.

She flew straight toward them, not even trying to disguise her intent, and it wasn’t long before one of the monkeys noticed her and screeched a warning to its companions. Simultaneously, they all began climbing their trees to get up closer to her level while also swinging to nearer branches. A shiver ran down her spine as she saw their claws digging into the wood like it was clay, but she shook it off.

The nearest monkey was to her right, so she quickly changed her trajectory to meet it. It took her change of direction as a challenge, and with a mighty pull, it launched itself forward, pounding its chest in midair. Right as it was about to grab the next branch, Elise used {Suggest} to freeze it in fear, causing its hand to miss. Its screeches turned from angry to terrified as it plummeted toward the ground. It grabbed another branch on the way down, but only barely slowed its fall, breaking as it picked up speed.

Meanwhile, Elise had turned to face the next closest monkey which was doing an excellent imitation of the first, so Elise did the same thing. As she used {Suggest} a second time, she heard a ding and received a new System notification.

[ You have slain Giant Fanged Macaque, lvl 9 ]

Seriously? she thought.

She glanced at the ground to see that the first monkey had indeed died when it hit the ground. It made sense, since they were nearly 200 feet in the air, and the monkeys didn’t have great Fortitude, but she still didn’t realize that killing them would be so simple.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The second fell to its death as well, but the third managed to catch a new branch on the way down, slowing its fall. Then, rather than learning from its mistakes, it launched toward her again, so she just repeated the same trick again and this time, it wasn’t as lucky.

For the next two minutes or so, she dashed around the trees, making the monkeys fall as they performed their suicidal attacks until it was down to the final one, at which point she just used {Magic Missile} to finish things more quickly. She didn’t receive a level for this feat, probably in part due to the fact that the monkeys had mostly killed themselves, but it gave her a big boost in confidence.

When Hans reappeared, it was with a frown on his face.

“Well, I suppose that worked,” he said. “Next time, fight them closer to the ground though.”

“Alright,” said Elise sheepishly.

The next fight with a monkey troop went roughly the same way, but instead of making them fall to their deaths, she used {Magic Missile} instead. She circled around the edge, waited till they were in midair, used {Suggest}, then shot them with {Magic Missile}. The stress and worries that she was having about her combat abilities vanished.

Is it supposed to be this easy? she wondered as she finished off the last of them.

She supposed being able to use {Suggest} and other mental abilities with no limit was probably helping her out quite a bit, but even so, that only extended how long she could fight, and didn’t seem to affect her actual ability to do so.

It’s probably just because the monkeys are stupid.

She got another level from that troop of monkeys, but wasn’t able to get any more that day. The next day, they went a bit deeper and fought some Greater Giant Fanged Macaques and Greater Spear-Beaked Parrots, but even then, the fights were easy. The main differences between the ordinary and Greater variants were raw size and stats, but their habits and attacks were still the same. While they were technically stronger, Elise was more practiced and stronger as well, and the slight speed and strength increases weren’t enough to overcome her.

On the third day, she only gained a single level, and none on the fourth. They could have gone in deeper where the monster groups increased in number, and sometimes even variants spawned, but the problem with that was that Elise simply didn’t have enough mana for that. A single fight with a medium-sized monkey troop or parrot flock was enough to almost completely drain her, forcing her to take time to recover. Even with the higher mana density in the Jungle, she still had to stop and meditate for an hour after every fight.

Hans didn’t have a problem with any of this, and Elise supposed that even though it had gotten slower, her leveling speed was still plenty fast, but she was starting to get bored. She hadn’t mastered {Suggest} to the level that Hans had, but she felt like she didn’t have much to gain from the monsters of the Jungle. She had tried everything she knew, and some things she didn’t, and her targets were all so weak that they could barely resist.

On the fifth day, as she fought her second parrot flock that morning, she found herself distracted, wondering about the future. The distraction wasn’t enough to cause her any issues, but it was enough that even Hans could tell that something was up.

“Grinding levels can get boring sometimes, huh,” he said.

“Yeah…” replied Elise.

“But, you’re still low enough level that it’s effective, so it’s something you need to do,” he continued.

“I know,” sighed Elise.

“Is there something else you think you should be doing?”

Elise considered for a second before speaking.

“Well…” she said slowly. “After I find the Grays, my goal is to live as a human. Obviously, I need to reach my next evolution before I can do that so I can stay in human form indefinitely, but what about after that? Another changeling was telling me that I can take a profession with my next evolution, but… All I’ve done is learn and fight.”

“Do you enjoy learning and fighting?” asked Hans.

“I don’t know.”

“I think you do,” he said. “You’re bored now, but before, you seemed to be enjoying yourself. You were scared, but excited.”

“I’m pretty sure I was just nervous, not excited,” said Elise, though she wasn’t quite sure if she believed herself.

“But you liked winning in the end?” he said. “And you liked confirming the results of your work. You were the one taking initiative to go deeper and fight the Greaters, not me.”

True…

“However, if you don’t want to spend your life fighting, there’s nothing wrong with that. You can live a peaceful life among the humanoids for as long as you wish. There is nothing wrong with that. But you need to keep in mind that you are a fey. Fey do not age. We live until we die or ascend. Even if it isn’t fighting, it’s best to find another goal or else you will stagnate and grow bored.”

“I see.”

Elise had considered her lifespan briefly in the past after learning how old Emilia was, but she hadn’t really had much time to think about the implications. She would indeed grow bored if she just lived forever as a human. But she had no idea what she wanted to do. In her previous life, she had been getting a degree in biology, not because she was passionate about biology, but because it would take her to med school, after which she could make enough money to live comfortably.

Now though? If she cashed in the rest of her gold from Hallbjorn, she would have enough to live for quite a while. And she was powerful enough that she could make a decent living as a monster hunter after that. But did she really want to do that? Living for eternity as she had the past few days? Absolutely not. She needed a goal. One beyond rescuing the Grays, or getting revenge on the warg.

She thought in silence while she recovered her mana, and then more as she fought the next group of monsters, and couldn’t come a conclusion. She couldn’t even decide if she actually enjoyed fighting like Hans thought she did. It certainly wasn’t fun at that moment, as she repeated the same motions for the hundredth time, but she couldn’t deny that she still got a little bit of pleasure when it was done, knowing how easily she had done it.

She continued on through the Jungle, going deeper than Elise had been before until soon, they came across a group of monkeys that was different than the others. Like all the ones this deep in, the Greater variant was the most common, but this time, there was one that was different.

[ Giant Fanged Macaque Screecher, lvl ??? ]

Elise felt her heart rate increase. Her first thought was that she was scared, but remembering her conversation with Hans, she reconsidered. She was definitely a little scared, since it was an unknown, but more than that, she was interested. Maybe even excited. She found herself running through the possibilities of what its abilities would be, and how they would affect her, and how she would counter them, and how its presence would change her tactics, and more. When they noticed her and started swinging through the trees to reach her, she noticed that she was baring her teeth in a rabbit grin.

Maybe Hans had a point.

***

“Done? Is she done? She’s running out of time. Is she close.”

“Can you just get out of here?” asked Sophie. “I can’t concentrate.”

Sophie felt a little bad about how rude she was being, but she pushed it aside. She was stressed. Very stressed. She had unlocked her class upgrade four days ago, but her {Mana Circulation} was stuck at level 44. Just one more and she would be able to unlock the class Iris wanted her to, but she was getting worried that she wouldn’t be able to do it. Her head hurt and her body ached from overusing the skill, but she couldn’t stop. If she failed there, she would have to wait until her next class evolution to be able to escape the island.

“Did she just give me an order? A request? Shut up, I’m not annoying! You’re annoying!”

Iris continued muttering to herself, but thankfully, she drifted away, leaving Sophie in silence. Sophie meditated until her head felt like it was splitting, and then meditated even more, and when it felt like she was about to pass out, she finally got it. The last System notification she needed.

[ {Mana Circulation} has leveled up! lvl 44 -> 45 ]

“I did it!” she shouted.

She jumped to her feet in excitement, then immediately regretted it. Her whole body hurt, and the sudden movement sent a wave of pain through her head. She stumbled back to the ground, but the smile never left her face. A moment later, Iris appeared, back in her right mind, based on the look on her face.

“Good,” she said. “Check your class evolution options.”

Sophie did so, and while most of them were the same as before, there was one new one, as promised. A mythical class with connotations that Sophie had some concerns about.

I want to evolve my class, she thought.

“Which class would you like to evolve to?” asked the System.

{Dragon’s Goddaughter}.