The challenger's ring quickly became a favorite amongst the young gladius lupin as another form of proving their worth, as well as a way to train safely, even when Richard wasn't there. It also allowed them to receive tips from their elders, although there were some that complained that training in a ring lack the same danger training in the forest did. Richard had no place to argue, because he basically got his first 10 levels for free.

Thankfully, the amount of cubs looking to pick fights in the middle of his hunts did decrease, though Smolderfang did still pick fights, before running back to sister Alexandria, begging for cuddles, leaving Richard more stupefied than anything else. Richard could see Silverwind's exasperated expression, and relate to it.

Now with more time to hunt, Richard had managed to reach level 22, which meant he was beginning to close in on his next evolution, and so was Atlas, since him and Atlas were going to evolve around the same time. Krackle was already at level 25, leading Richard to wonder what she'd been fighting for her to reach that level already, but he chalked it up to Krackle being more active than he was.

Krackle in the water was vicious, not only good as an active predator, but had gotten good as an ambush predator. Although Krackle was fine on land, ultimately Krackle lacked mobility on land, which Richard would have to fix eventually, but he was still contemplating solutions. In fact, he'd been considering using the shop, which possible could have solutions for that.

Pandamonium on the other hand, was leveling rather slowly, only reaching level 13 recently. Of course, apparently demigod blood slowed down growth rapidly, but this was rather confusing. Was the gap between the blood of the storm monarch and Ratatoskr that great? The response he received from the guide was:

[Evolutions are usually meant to jump a creatures strength to another level once their limit has been reached in the current form. Despite having a bloodline, this merely alters your direction and increases potential in turn for a change in capacity necessity.

As a demigod, Pandamonium has a far higher limit than you do, before needing to evolve in order to increase his "container" so to speak.

In other words, your potential is not lower than his, merely your capacity and current strength. ]

And that was interesting, and in a sense, made sense. He was a demigod. Born half god, so obviously the requirement to evolve would be higher.

And Pandamonium didn't seem to care.

"Paah! Unlike you, little lizard, I'm already practically perfect. I mean, look at this luscious fur! All you have are those plain lifeless scales." The arrogant rat makes a pitying face.

Richard disagreed of course. Panda couldn't fly. And he thought his scales were great, and he could control clouds. All the squirrel could do was scream good.

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He was also named after a dumb black and white bear.

"Hey!!!"

Richard had found out from system.

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The caves had become a recent piece of exploration for Richard. Recently, the hatchling had learned from sister Alexandria that all the tunnels underneath the Ymir ranges extends miles downward, and were all connected. Richard speculated that the tunnels could be a dungeon, only to receive an amused look.

"As if a dungeon could contain half of what is down there."

Richard, being the young human/hatchling he was/is, thus decided to go exploring again.

And the deeper he went, he found her words to be well founded.

Richard had spent most of his time in the caves at the higher up caves, not daring to go to deep, for fear of running into something he couldn't beat.

Thankfully, sister Alexandria babysitted him, using a magical form of camouflage to watch, but not interfere, which was appreciated, since without the attempt to hide, more likely than not, the monsters he fought would not have attacked him.

A lot of worm like monsters showed up for one thing, though they were seemingly mindless, merely trying to eat him. They were easy to draw, to distract.

The tunnels they resided in were far larger than the ones higher up, leading Richard to ponder what could dig such tunnels. Perhaps these worms had larger relatives?

At some point, Richard witnessed an inspiration, a muse for what he should do to help Krackle.

In the deep caves, where darkness was prevalent, he discovered lights hanging in the dark.

A feral beast mayhaps have walked to the little light. As a creature with an ounce of common sense, Richard had a light on, generated by his own sparks of electricity.

"What is that?" he asked in equal awe and fear.

The light was attached to a thin tendril, dangling like a lure to prey, temptation (or perhaps disorientation?) for creatures who live in darkness connected to a gruesome beast, vile in appearance. It's skin a horrid white, likely to have never seen the day. The creature had a protruding jaw, mangled teeth, and ... is that a second head?

[It's mate actually]

Why's it's mate glued to it? What the hell kind of creature is that!?

[The cavern angler is a monster descended from the anglers of the sea, having taken on the additional attribute of air, allowing them to swim through the air as if it is its secondary nature, maintaining it's previous nature of using light to hunt its prey. Dark caves, are just as receptive to this form of hunting as the deep sea.]

Richard had to admit that this was all very interesting. Departure into the deep sea was not a thing often done, in no small part due to the monstrosities that lived down there, like krakens, which were the bare minimum and the thing they knew most about, maybe dragon turtles. This angler creature was an exotic treasure worth observing.

The cavern angler clearly didn't see him the same way, lunging at Richard when it was exposed, the creature was far stronger than it looked, using wind magic to quickly dash into the darkness, and blinding him from unsuspecting angles. Frankly, Richard found himself outmatched.

Thankfully he had a sister who could watch over him.

After sister Alexandria killed the cavern angler, Richard could not help but ponder this monster, this angler. It was clearly once a sea monster, but just now, it didn't swim in the sea, but rather swam through the air, using lights to blind foes in the murky abyss.

A thought began to form in his mind, and as Richard opened up the system shop, his eyes glowed with revelation. This might be the solution to Krackle's problem.

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"eat this."