Even though only his base attributes were shown on his status screen, the increase in power he felt was welcome. A few more days of waiting later, his leg was finally fully regrown. It did look a bit strange with all the fur missing from it. That would grow back in time. He really didn’t want to go through that again though. It was just way too itchy, but he hadn’t been able to scratch at the growing limb. Now that it was all healed up, it was time to grind some levels. He wanted to be [LEVEL 32] before he left this floor.

Naming four separate monsters, including himself, had made him lose a decent amount of stats. This meant he was essentially a few levels behind where his actual level said he was at. The higher his level got the less this would matter in the long run. If he got one extra point for each assigned attribute every evolution, then the few points he lost now wouldn’t really be a big deal in the grand scheme of things. He assumed the next evolution was at [LEVEL 40], if it went according to the regular pattern anyway. Well, he’d have to grind levels to get there first. After finally exiting the temporary burrow, he set out to do just that. The next four days were a blur as he slew [BEHIR]s and [QUIPPER]s.

*DING*

Behir – Level 27 has been slain x2

Behir – Level 28 has been slain x3

Behir – Level 29 has been slain

Behir – Level 30 has been slain x2

Quipper – Level 26 has been slain x13

Quipper – Level 27 has been slain x14

Quipper – Level 28 has been slain x16

Quipper – Level 29 has been slain x5

Quipper – Level 30 has been slain x2

Quipper – Level 31 has been slain

*DING*

[LEVEL UP] You have reached Level 29.

[LEVEL UP] You have reached Level 30.

[LEVEL UP] You have reached Level 31.

48 Attribute points have been distributed according to the natural inclinations of your race.

You have 44 Skill points and 12 Attribute points to distribute manually.

Sometimes he would get assistance from a nearby [HIPPOCAMPUS] or [KELPIE], which made the fights a lot easier. There was even one particular [KELPIE] that seemed to be fond of him, and after two days, began to continuously follow him around. He had no idea why the horse had grown so attached. He’d just shared some of his cooked meat one time and patted its neck while sitting on its back to get a better vantage point. This was totally uncalled for. He could already feel the falling stats from naming the seemingly devoted monster. Would he name her? She was such a gentle monster, nickering at him for attention. This wasn’t the plan!

*DING*

[UNNAMED] [KELPIE] has accepted your name suggestion: [ULA].

[PROCESSING]

Your Title: [VISCOUNT] gives you the ability to name any being below or equal to your current rank.

A [NAME] increases a beings Attributes by 15%. The amount increased is not set and resets each level to allow a constant 15% increase of stats even as the being grows stronger.

Do you wish to sacrifice 10% of your attribute points to name the [KELPIE] [ULA]? This is a one-time sacrifice and does not reset as the named being levels.

[Y/N]

You have 397 Attribute points total

40 Attributes are required in order to [NAME].

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Select which attributes to sacrifice:

STR – 62

VIT – 15

AGI – 67

DEX – 67

CON – 67

INT – 35

WIS – 35

CHA – 20

PER – 17

Spare Points: 12

You have chosen to sacrifice 17 [STRENGTH], 7 [AGILTY], 7 [DEXTERITY], 7 [CONSTITUTION] and 2 Spare Points in order to [NAME].

Confirm?

[Y/N]

This was just another way in which his [WHIMS OF THE WORLD] skill was useful. He could tell the meaning of names and where they originated from. Very overpowered. Ula was a Scandinavian and Irish name that meant, jewel of the sea. Didn’t that describe his newest companion perfectly? Ula seemed to agree as she had accepted the name. Before moving on he wanted to distribute the spare points from his level ups. He allocated the rest of his points evenly into [INTELLIGENCE] and [WISDOM]. [ULA] then followed along behind as he finished gathering the needed experience for his final level of this floor. He could feel the compulsion to descend once again. He just needed a little longer.

By the time he had reached [LEVEL 32], [ULA] was still only [LEVEL 29], but she had decided to follow him to the fifth floor anyway. It made it slightly harder to do recon for a while. That is until he had the bright idea to use [LIGHT] and [DARK] magic to create an illusion that would hide her. It took quite a bit of concentration. He suspected that if he’d had less than thirty [INTELLIGENCE] and [WISDOM], he wouldn’t have been able to pull it off. As he was though, he could manage. It did require multitasking though. Luckily, man he was really lucky wasn’t he, he had received a skill that helped him with just that.

*DING*

Skill: [MIRAGE] granted.

*DING*

Skill: [SIMULTANEOUS MIND] granted.

When checking his skill logs, he noticed that these skills were levelling pretty fast, they were already up to [LEVEL 5]. It was probably due to the amount of effort he had to put into controlling the magic, he did only have twenty-five percent proficiency in each of the affinities used. As he continued to conceal [ULA] and travel, the effort decreased with the skills’ rise in level. Three hours later, both skills had reached [LEVEL 10] and he could control the magic with relative ease. The time spent traversing the new terrain didn’t just help his new skills. He now knew the key monsters of this floor as well.

Monster – [COCKATRICE] – [LEVEL 30]

Monster – [ROC] – [LEVEL 31]

Monster – [ANZU] – [LEVEL 31]

Monster – [AXEBEAK] – [LEVEL 33]

So, this was basically the bird floor. It was just as dark as the previous floor, but the cavern roof was much higher than any of the others. The terrain was low rolling hills with trees here and there. It was mostly just grass as far as the eye could see. Of course, that trend changed around the four mana lakes. All of the glowing, bright blue lakes were set in valleys and were surrounded by lush vegetation.

Each type of monster guarded a lake, but there was no teaming up this time. It was a free for all. The only rule seemed to be that they wouldn’t go near each other’s territory, where the nests were. All the younger and low levelled monsters stayed around the lake as well. That was okay. He wasn’t after monsters too far beneath his level. He wouldn’t gain very much experience from them anyway. He tested three of the monsters once again. Only the [ANZU] passed, the other two failed. He couldn’t afford to test a [COCKATRICE], due to their shared trait with [BASALISK]s. A look that could turn you to stone. He wasn’t worried about if they had kinder tendencies though. Out of all the bird monsters, the [COCKATRICE]s were the most vicious.

As he studied his future experience, he took in their characteristics. A [COCKATRICE] had the ten-foot-tall body of a chook, but the tail and wings of a dragon. White or light brown feathers, with green or dark brown scales. Their eyes also matched the colour of their scales, but they weren’t the eyes of chickens, their pupils were slitted like a lizard’s. [ROC]s were just giant fifteen foot long eagles that were covered in light grey feathers to match their light grey beaks and legs. An [AXEBEAK] was a flightless, eight-foot-tall bird with either dark blue, yellow or red feathers and a big beak in the shape of its namesake that could literally chop its target like an axe.

At first, he couldn’t figure out why they weren’t taking to the air like the three other key monsters. Their wings looked plenty big enough for flight. Then one ran straight through one of the trees, splitting it in half length ways. To give a clearer picture, let’s mention that the further he went into the dungeon, the more gigantic the environment became. This eight-foot-tall bird split a three-hundred-foot tree in two, vertically. Sure, their beaks were sharp, but not that sharp. After some investigation he found that every step they took sunk half a foot into the ground. These things were heavy. Extremely so. Give them enough momentum and they’d be able to charge beak first through just about anything.

The final key monster that he’d decided not to hunt, the [ANZU], was the least bird like monster of them all. It was basically a lion with wings. A lion with wings that was three times the size of a normal lion. The [ANZU] were the only monsters that hunted in a pride together. They were the main predators of the floor. Strangely enough, these monsters didn’t hunt for levels. Well, maybe they did, but they only slew what they could eat. Although they were the strongest on the floor, they actually killed the least compared to any of the monsters [ROGER] had met before. He was kind of inspired by them. He had been eating what he could from what he slew, but he still left about half of his kills behind, especially those ‘meh’ [QUIPPER]s.

The [ANZU]s made him reconsider why exactly he was taking this path. The answer came immediately. He wanted to be strong enough to protect his family and himself from threats. That was it. It might feel wasteful now, but when he came up against something much stronger, it wouldn’t feel like a waste then. With his actions reaffirmed he set about hunting his experience of this floor.