Name: Natasha

Race: Mandrill matriarch lvl 10

XP: 0

Size: 75

Type: Beast

Faction: Unaligned

Armor: 0

HP: 100/100

Strength: 8/Speed: 11/Endurance: 8/Magic: 8/Plasticity: 5/Luck 10

Senses: Vision 4, hearing 4, smell 4, taste 1, touch 2

Abilities: Balance 2, omnivorous 4, aposematism 3, specialized innate magic 6, Voice 1, coordination 2

Skills: Piercing bite 6, Jab 8, grapple and strike 7, precise throw 7, agile climb 7, nimble sneak 6, hide 1, rapid dash 6, dodge 2, block 1, discern weakness and strength 6, mysticism 1, quickstep 1, tumbling 1, leadership 4, mystic channeling 1, adaptability 1, infliction 1

Spells: Wind drake breath 6, windfury 5, jetstream 1, cloud step 1, thunder missile 1, misty path 1

Boss ability: mob boss

Lao Tzu

Mandrill lvl 2

HP:10/10

Tony Luciano

Mandrill lvl 3

HP: 15/15

So, now that I’ve got everything settled in terms of the system, I really just need to start putting it into practice. There’s a lot I need to test out now that I have it, but the first and most important thing to test is this leadership ability. I glanced back at the two that were sitting behind me and thought about what I could get them to do. The main thing In my mind that I want from them is to be able to fight alongside me without getting killed. So I guess the best thing for them to do would be to practice their throwing skill. I walked over to the waterline and grabbed a pair of particularly smooth stones, and back to the two of them. Lao was yawning, and Tony was picking his nose out of the good nostril.

I came up to them and they both looked at me as I held out the stones to them. Tony was the first to grab one and sniff it before just dropping it on the ground. Lao took his and just licked the water off of it. Hmm, not being able to speak is going to be an issue. I can’t really communicate to them what I want. I guess it’s time to test the old adage of monkey see monkey do. So I walk over to the lake again and grab a stone. I give a little ook to make sure that the two of them are looking at me. I raised the stone in hand, and swiped it sideways across the water to make it skip across the top. It only skipped three times but still I’m just getting used to my new manual dexterity again.

Looking back at the other two, they were both standing now, mouth opened in what I assumed was interest. So I picked out another stone from the water. This one was not quite as smooth as the last one, but it would do. Then I repeated the motion again and tossed the stone as horizontally smooth as I was able. This one only skipped twice, but I could hear the both of them ooking behind me and padding up to the waterside. Lao came up to my right side and to his credit, did mimic the motion I made fairly well, though his stone only skipped twice. Still, he hopped up and started ooking louder. Tony on the other hand, just took the stone and chucked it overhand, landing with a plop in the water. I bit my lip slightly to stifle a chuckle before reaching down into the water to pick out some more stones for us to use.

After picking out three more, I handed them over, and this time both were watching me closely. I reeled back and this time when I threw it, the stone skipped across the water four times, which I was pretty proud of. Then Lao tried again, mimicking what I did fairly well, but still only skipping it twice. Tony, seeing the mistake he’d made, started throwing sideways like we were, though he threw it way harder than we did. It only skipped once, but it did skip. He practically jumped in delight before he started looking through the water for some more stones. Lao followed shortly after, looking through the water for rocks as I stepped back, watching them both picking up on their new game.

Once I was sure they were going to continue on their own for a while, I decided to get into my next line of inquiry. The temple. The inside of the temple had the title locked because I wasn't high enough of a level. So maybe now that I’m evolved it will give it to me? It’s possible. So once I was sure they would continue without me, I slipped away, back into the water, and swam up to the stone in front of the waterfall. Once I climbed up onto the rock again, I shook myself at least semi-dry, though my skirt was still soaked through. I huffed slightly as I cast jetstream again and launched myself through the rushing water to the other side. Lucky for me, jetstream is like a constant blow-dry, so I wasn’t soaked for long after.

On the other side, I used the few seconds of jetstream left to zoom about half way down the bridge before it died down and I started walking again. Once I was to the land again, I started to wonder where the light was coming from here anyway. It wasn’t lit up, but it wasn’t pitch black like the other cave was, so light had to be coming from somewhere to leave everything in this dim light diffused throughout the cave. I walked through the pavilion (or at least I think that’s what this central building is, I don’t have a dictionary to reference) and out the other end to look up at the temple proper.

Now, I have a goal here. I need to climb up into the boss room, and stand in the ring again. However, I was suddenly overcome with a mighty temptation to visit the hot spring again. It was only a short walk away, and I wasn’t in any rush, after all, why shouldn’t I? I felt like Bilbo looking at the ring in my hands for a good ten seconds before quickly shaking my head and getting back to business. Climbing up the pillar actually seemed much easier now than it had been just a short time before. Though I’m not sure if it’s the higher climb skill or higher strength. Either way, I zipped up to the roof in no time. Even walking across the shingles seemed easier, now as I made my way around, climbing over to the open window and hopping through again. The simple room hadn’t changed since I’d last seen it, so I stepped up to the ring in the center and hopped up onto it. The very instant my feet hit the ring the message popped up.

You have conquered a dungeon. You have earned the title “Shifu”.

Wait, Shifu? Isn’t that Chinese? That raised a whole bunch of questions. Like one, is it actually Shifu, or is it just like all the other words, being translated for me? Though if that is the case why did it get translated into Chinese? Maybe just because it is a word that I know? In that case it wouldn’t be translating it into English, but into whatever I can understand. Which is possible, since it is a word I’d learned from kung-fu movies. Though the alternative is that the title of this place is actually Shifu, meaning someone from China was brought here too and built this place. Both of which would have quite a few implications. Though those thoughts were interrupted by another message.

Claim dungeon? Accept/Decline

Now hold on, I was in the middle of contemplating the mysteries of the universe, and now I’m given the option of having my own dungeon? I haven’t even gotten used to my new evolution yet. Though I do find it funny that I couldn’t buy my own house after years of effort back home, then I became a monkey and I got one by accident. I do suppose this saves me the effort of trying to build my own place. Though I was hoping to actually get around to genuinely testing out my new skills rather than more system management. I sighed slightly before hitting accept, and a new tab opened on my menu. Now I have my status tab, inventory tab, and dungeon tab.

The dungeon tab however looked mostly empty and only had two real options to pick from, and the name. Abandoned temple lvl 0. The two options below were traps and spawners. First I looked to traps to see what it said, and there were only two options available. Locked doors, and secret doors. Both had an xp amount next to them, which I assume means I can spend xp on them. I looked at the other options to see what there were in the spawners, but there were only two options here as well, as well as a number in the top, 0/1. I assume that means I can only have one spawner. My options were mandrill spawner 100 XP and archer fish spawner 200 XP. I have no clue what an archer fish is, but obviously I want to get a mandrill spawner if I can. Though I don’t have the xp for it yet. Something to plan for in the future I suppose.

Once I closed the menu however I noticed a faint glow in the room. In the center of the ring, the ground ever so faintly had a yellow sheen to it, and so I pressed my hand to it to see if it would do anything. It popped up a marker designating this the Boss Room. Then an upgrade button, but it was grayed out. So I can’t upgrade it yet. My guess is it has something to do with the level of the dungeon why the options are so limited right now. So I’ll have to figure out how to upgrade the dungeon’s level too somehow, but that’s not exactly my top priority at the moment. Though, now that I have this free space, it’s a good place to practice some of my new skills a bit.

I got quite a lot of changes so I opened up my menu to look at the different changes. Vision, I already noticed the difference, but smell I’d forgotten to try out. So I walked up to the window, sticking my head out and took in a long slow breath. Interestingly I could in fact smell more vividly, but even more than just that, I could smell more distinctly. I could differentiate the smell of the musty wood, petrichor from that of the dirt below, or the algae smell of the water in the distance. It was actually really comforting to just close my eyes and enjoy for a second. But, after that I had to move on to my next item of interest.

I can’t really test omnivory or aposematism. Though with the latter I did notice that my skirt isn’t quite fitting as well any more, though I’m not sure if that’s because of the change in size either. Either way, I don't see how a bigger bluer butt helps. Though next on the list is voice, and that I actually can test. The ability does describe that it’s mostly about volume though, so I should probably just try yelling as loud as I can. I haven’t actually used my voice much in the past couple days, so I should probably warm up a bit to be safe. I gave a few basic tries at vocalization, but they weren’t anything neater what would pass for talking. Still it was a decent warmup to try it out. Then one long breath in before opening my maw in what sounded less like the yell I intended, and much more like a monkey's shriek amplified by echoing off the cave walls. Though I will admit it would have intimidated me had it not come from my own mouth.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

It would probably be useful in scaring things off either way, assuming that I can remember to do it when needed, but other than that, probably not all that useful. Though, the option of trying to intimidate something larger than me is an option now at least. Next on the list, to test these new skills. First is the piercing bite, which… well the thing it gives is puncturing armor, so there’s not much I can do to test that unless I find something armored. Jab however I can test easily. I raised one fist and let out a swift punch as fast as I could and retracted it just as quickly. The jab was nice, it felt like it would be useful for poking down enemies at any opportunity.

The grapple and strike would be easier to test, given that it was something so easily done. I made my way over to the window and grabbed onto the ledge, just hanging off it by the one arm. It was pretty easy to do, but I wanted to be sure my assumption was right, holding on with one foot as well as I had with my hand, though hanging upside down wasn’t exactly comfortable. I hauled myself back up and plopped myself down on the windowsill to open the menu, checking what was next.

Precise throw, right. Well technically I did throw something earlier when I was out with the other monkeys, but I didn’t exactly try hard to test my precision. Looking around for something to throw, I climbed down again to the ground, picking up a bit of chipped stone and tossed it up a few times to test the weight. Now to judge my throwing ability I just need to try to hit a target. The only thing I wouldn’t mind hitting would be the giant bell near the front, so I walked myself over to the odd… water dripping room, and sat there. I raised my arm and with a combination of my newfound coordination and throwing skill, I watched the small stone sail over and hit the bell with a faint ding. Now aiming seemed fairly easy compared to my first try on day one. Though if I want any power I’m probably going to need to use thunder missile.

Now, agile climb I sort of have been using already to get around, but I will need to challenge myself a bit more with it, and also, I can add to that by testing nimble sneak at the same time. So I climbed up to the roof again, but this time instead of going up to the top, I hung off of the ceiling beams and just started swinging from one to the next. The first swing from one beam to the next was longer than my wingspan, so I actually had to swing and jump from one to the next. It both felt natural and terrifying to swing from one beam to another, but I could do it with an almost practiced speed. Suppose it’s just in my monkey dna. Though after getting used to it, I switched it up to see how quiet I could be while swinging. To my surprise it was markedly easy, all I really needed to do was slow down how quickly my weight went into the swing. I wasn’t as fast obviously, but I was barely making a noise. I hopped back to the pillar and slid down, switching into a quick tumble at the bottom, and still quiet as ever. I felt like a monkey ninja.

Rapid dash I already tested outside, discern weakness and strength I’d need to test out on an enemy, or maybe the monkeys out there. Either way I need a target. Leadership I did earlier. Next up is mystic channeling. This one seemed pretty easy. I already had mysticism, so now I just needed to move that energy that already exists. So I sucked in my gut, taking in a long slow breath, just like I’d done with my pseudo-lung and gave another jab out into the air again. This, I could feel had an effect, but outwardly I couldn’t see any difference. Maybe I need to hit something? I came up to one of the wooden beams, taking in another slow breath before trying another quick jab when suddenly my fist struck the wood with a loud crack… and then I pulled it back and started shaking it quickly, bouncing in place as the dull throb of pain filled my knuckles. My punch certainly didn’t feel any stronger, so I’m not exactly sure what mystic channeling actually does for me yet.

Moving onto adaptability, that one sounded useful, but I’m not sure what exactly I could use to test that one out. After all, it’s basically just that I won’t be totally useless if I get dropped into a new place. Infliction was mostly just knowledge which was now available to me, which was statuses and how they are inflicted, which is really useful, and probably worth actually stopping to think about for a second.

Poison, burning, frozen, fatigued, dazed and numb. That wasn’t all of them, but they are the ones I know about now. Poison is pretty obvious, you take damage over time if you get something poison in you. It also only ends when your luck manages to beat it, or if you are tough enough to outlast it. Also it tends to be paired with other statuses. Burning you get from fire obviously, and does more damage but wears off faster, and you can manually stop it by putting out the fire. Frozen you only get from ice, but it is hard to contract. It’s a slow build up over time until you are just totally incapacitated. Though it is almost always paired with numb. Fatigue massively drains your stamina, and is usually only inflicted by lack of sleep, but some poisons do it too. Dazed disorients and confuses you. The only way that I know of to contract it is by a poison too. Numb makes you gradually lose control of your body, and reduces your stamina. The only way I know of to contract this is cold, poison, and that “king of havoc's" breath. So mainly what I’ve learned is that being poisoned really sucks in this world. Though it sucked in the other one too I suppose.

Alright, last two to test. My new spells. Wind drake breath, and misty path. First on the docket, my new breath. I bring myself over to the edge of the water beside the bridge, looking down over it, and took a deep breath in before releasing the bluster as I always would, but instead of the sudden shock of wind, it came out like a gale, and as I turned my head with it, I saw the force of it impacting the water and sweeping it away. After about five seconds it ended and I paused to catch my breath afterwards. I realize that I don’t need to use my actual lungs for this but it kind of comes instinctually to breathe it out. Still, it feels strong. Like I could use it to knock away a whole group. Though now I wondered, it might sometimes be overkill to blast a full drake’s breath at them, can I just use a normal bluster if I still wanted to? So I waited for the cooldown and tried again, this time with the idea of a normal bluster in mind. And yes, one sharp bark of wind shot out again and hit the water, which I only then realized came out in a cone. When I watched the impact from it rippling outwards.

Lastly was this misty path spell. So I took another breath in as I waited the ten seconds needed for the cooldown, turning away from the water this time. My chest puffed out, and then huffed quickly as I focused on the area in front of me, and I saw a brief swirl of air before a single transparent disk appeared. Now I could feel the cooldown already going, but I knew I could still make more of them, but first I wanted to test this one I had in front of me. So I hopped up on top of it, and it felt like I was standing on a solid tile for a few seconds before it disappeared again, and I dropped to the ground. Luckily it wasn’t but a foot above.

I tried again, but this time I made as many as I could, which turned out to be four. So I jumped on the first one, and tried to hop to the second. However, as I did a sudden burst of wind came from below me, and launched me way higher in the air than I had intended. Instead of landing on the second pad, I landed on the fourth, quickly grabbing onto it tightly. Okay, so they aren’t just little platforms. They give you a burst of wind after you leave them. So like jump pads. That could be even more useful than I thought. It’s like a bluster but also a minefield. Plus it gives a ton of options for mobility if I need them.

So this time I cast them again, but faced them sideways beside the palanquin chamber. I hopped up to use the step as a handhold, and jumped off it, launching myself upland landing on top of the roof. I grinned widely, hopping in place as I hopped down from the roof with a quiet pat on all fours. This was a really good decision for my newest spell. I found myself involuntarily hooting with excitement as I practically pranced forwards towards the bridge, trotting across it once more as I brought myself back to the waterfall.

Now having tested all my new abilities and having claimed this dungeon for my own, I needed to check back in on my fellow monkeys to see how they’re doing. I check my status and see both of them are unchanged, but I wasn’t expecting much of a difference, just making sure their hp didn’t drop. Though looking at them both, they have different levels. I wonder. Can I level them up? If I can, then that is going to quickly become my top priority. I don’t want them dying on me just cause they only have 10 hp. I came up to the waterfall again and cast jetstream again, holding my breath and throwing myself out of the waterfall at an angle to plunge once again into the cold water.

I used as much of my time left on jetstream as I could to swim towards the shore but it still only lasted five seconds. Though once I did resurface I actually had to rub my eyes to make sure I understood what I was actually looking at across the beach. Where I had left Lao and Tony were both skipping stones, upon my return I did not see the two of them, but only because now all of the monkeys were skipping stones together, and no doubt the two of them were somewhere in the crowd. It seems that the practice caught on quickly and everyone wanted to get involved as soon as they could. I could even see some monkeys swimming out into the water to gather up every smooth stone they could into a pile on the beach so that they could keep going.

I walked slowly back into the group, quickly shaking myself dry again as I looked around for my two boys. Then freezing when I saw big ol’ Boris was part of the group, throwing his stone along with them. And he was actually pretty good, getting around five skips with each try. Makes me wonder if Boris had coordination too. But that’s not important now. I’m looking for my boys. It took a bit of scanning but the quickest one to find was Lao, as that big beard stuck out quite a bit. He was actually part of the group that was swimming out to get more stones, dropping a bunch at his and Tony’s feet.

I walked up to both of them and gave a hoot to get their attention. They dropped their stones and came up to me without question (not that they were capable of really asking questions, so that’s actually kind of unnecessary to say). I turned and started walking with them in tow, my plan at this point is to see how this is going to work with xp and everything, so that means we need to go out hunting together. And that also means I might get an opportunity to test out this new bite skill, as well as my discernment. Plus, the two of them will probably actually eat what I kill, instead of just letting it go to waste like I have been doing so far.

I looked back at them and they were coming along, though I also noted that both of their faces were pointed the same way. Then I let out a slight frustrated sigh. Right. So that was what the big blue butt is for. It’s like a follow me sign for the other mandrills. That’s… Nevermind. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. It means that they’ll have an easier time following after me without needing to be told, so I’ll just appreciate it for that at least.

We headed out into the woods, and I climbed up the tree, making my way up to the lowest branches in a moment, but the both of them took a bit longer to get all the way up. It must be the difference in climb levels, or perhaps strength. Once they were up, I walked out across the branch and hopped across it to the next, pausing to look back to make sure they both made it across as well. Tony was the first to jump across and did so without issue, but Lao on the other hand was hesitating, and only jumped after crouching a few times to prepare himself.

The two of them I was starting to get a feel of their personalities a bit through their mannerisms, but I’ll need to get to know them a little more before I start making judgments. I hopped a bit quicker from branch to branch, trying to urge them both to pick up the pace so we can get to hunting faster. Though as I did, I also noticed how much noisier they were than I was. Thinking about it, this must have been how I looked when I got here. It’s weird to think that it’s only been three days, but even so, I’ve grown quite a bit in quite a short time. Actually, thinking about it, I’ve only been alive in this world for a couple days, and I’m level 10. Why is it that everything isn’t way stronger than this?

I suppose there’s the fact that most things probably die before they can get strong, but like the centipedes, why don’t they just grow into unstoppable monsters in a week? Maybe that’s what normally happens. Maybe there are a few big things like the mantis and centipedes out here and they just get stronger and then the adventurers are the only thing that can kill them? Then why aren’t the adventurers these unstoppable trains of death? Clearly they don’t get killed out here if they go trotting into dungeons every day.

I paused my thoughts as my eyes settled upon a suitable target for us to hunt. One of the lizards, clinging to the side of a tree. Normally the scales blended into the bark fairly well, but my newly upgraded eyes were able to spot them. Makes me wonder how many times I actually missed them before. I looked back at both Lao and Tony behind me, and they were still catching up, and as soon as they were both here, we were going to get our first team kill.

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