Richard had just discovered one of the most annoying fights he could encounter as a young lightning hatchling dragon.
A fight in the water when you're familiar is in the water with your opponent!
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The day was just your average day touring the forest, with a touch of anxiety as Richards started reaching his next evolution, with his level finally reaching 24. So he was looking for something to push him to level 25.
Though, he couldn't actually tell his progress on level 24, and wished there was a better way of noticing the progress on a level.
[Noted. The suggestion will be put forward to Guide 0]
Well, hopefully that'll go somewhere. It's anxiety inducing killing something, hoping it'll push you to the next level, only to find it had in fact, not reached that level.
He'd spent a whole evening hunting monsters hoping to reach that next level killing weaker monsters, only to remain level 24.
So here he was, looking for a big game monster to hunt.
Maybe it was the overkilling the day before, but there was nothing to hunt. Or its possible that he was ignoring too many monsters in favor of something stronger.
So he went to the pond to get himself a drink.
What he found there was definitely a sight.
Krackle was out of the water, locked in combat with a giant snapping turtle.
Whenever Krackle tried to latch onto the beast, it snapped at the spot, clearly trying to take a bit out of Krackle, forcing Krackle to swerve out of the way.
The turtle was easily Richards size, rather large for a monster.
Its back was plastered with moss, glowing dimly in the day.
If Krackle was reckless enough to fight it, then he should certainly try.
It is his familiar after all, he should go help!
Of course, as he flew down, ready to spray it with lightninng, he quickly realized the issue with trying to spray the giant turtle monster with lightning.
They were in a river.
Rivers conduct lightning.
Huh.
Switching gears, Richard decided to instead activate berserk rage, and promptly rammed into the turtle monster, earning a groan from the turtle monster which turned to give him a fierce glare, clearly just a bit angry about that.
He said a bit, because he didn't see much of a dent in the shell.
Bam!
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The turtle used it's thick tail to swing into Richard's face.
The monster had chose to position itself between Krackle and him, dedicated its head to the octopi, while using its tail to fend off Krackle.
He had to admit, that kind of hurt his pride a bit. It had deemed him the lesser threat in favor of his familiar. But he could see why.
If Krackle got on, who knew if she'd come off, and the turtle would be at a clear disadvantage.
Richard, as strong as he was, wasn't a serious threat when faced with the shell.
He couldn't really tear at his neck if it wasn't open, and the tail was still a perfectly workable distraction.
Perhaps it was instinct, but it was good instinct. There's a reason monsters thrive despite few being sapient.
Richard found himself at a loss because of his inability to use anything for fear of hitting the lake and hurting everyone involved. Turns out breath attacks don't work as well when you have friends in the very absorbent lake.
He didn't want to shock everyone,
He didn't want to freeze the lake,
Growing a tree wouldn't help right now,
blowing didn't seem appropriate on the heavy turtle,
and he most certainly didn't want to boil the lake with him in it.
Eventually he settled on imbuing his claws with heat, and gripped the tail of the turtle.
This time he earned a loud screech, as the monster very much was in pain now, with burn marks and bubbling flesh seared into the tail.
The turtle struggled, but Richard refused to give up, instead choosing to bypass the tail in favor of the shell, because while the tail was a giant chunk of the turtle, clearly the real goal was the turtle itself.
The claws dug into the shell with great resistance, as the shell refused to easily give way, leaving gashes, but nothing lasting. The moss on the shell reached out and stuck onto Richards, leaving him entangled, and forced to use his molten claws to burn through the moss before being freed, but leaving him now more weary of the rather innocent looking moss.
The shells too goddamn tough!
The shells too tough...
So lets go under.
As Richard thought these words, he began using his cloud manipulation skills, and creating cloud golems to aid in this endeavor. Perhaps he could do this alone, but he wasn't taking chances. Going overkill is better than missing the mark.
The turtle, unsure what was happening, bared its fangs at the cloudy figures, and resisted when they grabbed, but being distracted by both Krackle and Richard, the turtle was helpless to stop what was next.
Even with it's strong arms, the arms meant nothing to the clouds, which could feel no pain.
The cloudy figures, seemingly having grabbed the appropriate ridges and legs, flipped the turtle over, revealing its under shell.
Richard prepped his molten claws and dug into the shell.
The shell was still hard to dig into, but there was another advantage to the current scenario, and that was how exposed his foe was.
Using his molten claws, he grasped around the turtles head, twisted, and yanked!
Blood splattered a little, sure, but no different than it usually was.
The turtle, having been promptly decapitated, stopped flailing about as it did moments ago.
[Congratulations! You have slayed a lvl 35 snapping moss turtle!]
[You have reached level 25! Feel free to open the evolution menu when you're ready.]
And he would eventually open it, sure, but first, he wanted to eat.
Using his molten claws, he dug into the shell of the corpse.
He could probably just reach through the spot where the turtle's head had once been, but that was just a bit too much for him.
He wasn't squeamish, just uninterested in shoving his arm as deep as up to his shoulders for the magic stone.
When he exposed the mana stone, it wasn't that large, but it was a pretty green, with twinkles of less appealing greens.
Biting into it, he found the texture was fine, but the taste was a weird mix of fish and chicken.
Truly, everything tastes like chicken.
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Seeing Richard, sister's first comment was:
"You seem about ready to evolve; you're practically bursting with mana right now."
Richard nodded. "I'll do it later. I'm trying to figure out how to cook turtle right now."
Shifting her eyes to the turtle, she grinned. "Don't worry, a friend taught me how to prep turtle. Just sit back and watch me do it!" She said confidently.
And so they had turtle stew that night, and Richard had to admit it was quite good, though he wondered where she learned to cook such a weird dish.
Richard put off evolving to tomorrow. He was tired after pulling that turtle out of its shell.