Snoor-
GAH!
Where- what happened?!
…
Ah, now I remember.
I smelled some of Mushthew’s spores, then passed out. Right.
Well, time to check and see if it worked.
>
Oooh, level six already!
Looks like it’s working super great!
There are some other skills here I don’t recognize, but I’m pretty sure they’re from whatever Fir’s doing, so I’ll just ignore them.
At this rate, maybe I won’t even pass out from the spores soon!
But wouldn’t that mean it’ll also be harder to level the skill..?
I know! I’ll just start making bigger cuts, and inhaling more spores at once!
Hehe, I’m a genius.
Now, I think it’s about time we leave. Ready to go Mushthew?
Leaving behind a home is always a little scary, even if it was just a quickly assembled temporary one. But we have no choice!
If we just always stayed in the same place, scared to leave, we’d never get anywhere!
So, with a just a little hesitation, I set off once more, Mushthew in tow.
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Fifty seven times eighty three equals…
Four thousand seven hundred and thirty one.
Six… ah screw it, I need a break.
I don’t even know how long I’ve been doing this at this point. Maybe I should start keeping track of that too.
At least it’s been working, both the concentration and calculation skills are growing at a nice rate.
I don’t think calculation will be that useful of a skill, so I’m really just working on it in hopes it becomes a more useful, all-purpose skill later.
Concentration is the one I’m really after.
I don’t think I need to explain exactly why concentration will be as useful as it will be, it’s pretty self-explanatory.
I have my eyes on a few more skills I want to get my hands on, so I think I’ll switch over away from calculation soon.
I found the skills I want to get using the skill terminal. I just attempted to use it with various different skills I thought could possibly exist, and it either told me they don’t exist or asked if I wanted to buy them.
I said no to buying them all, of course.
It isn’t efficient to waste resources that we don’t know how to get more of on skills we could get just by training for a while.
Like, why buy calculation when you could just do some mental math for a while like I’m doing.
A much better use of SP would be to buy something like magic skills, which can’t be reasonably obtained down here, if at all.
At least, we won’t waste our SP on obtainable skills until we figure out how we get more of it anyway.
If we find a way to get a ton of SP easily, then obviously we’ll start buying up everything we can get our hands on.
Until then though, we don’t have the budget to be pay-to-win.
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Hm? I think I see something weird ahead of me.
A glowing rock is jutting out of the Gaul vines.
I’m gonna check it out.
The rock glows a light, pale blue. It can almost be mistaken for white light with how pale it is.
It illuminates the area around it, revealing that the vines of the Gaul plant around it are a different color than the area I came from.
Before, the vines were all one shade of green, but here, they’re a sickly, pale white, with putrid green undertones. They’re glossier than the vines from before as well, shimmering like an oil spill against the light of the rock.
Now that I’m seeing it in light, the whole cave looks the same. I guess it changed without me realizing at some point. Maybe we’re almost out of this area?
I kinda hope we are, I’m a liiiittle sick of this place. The food’s alright I guess.
Guess it’s not the end, it’s been a little since I passed that glowing rock and I’m still not seeing anything different.
Same old giant mushrooms everywhere.
Oh well!
That said, it is still gradually changing. I’m seeing more and more of those big glowy rocks as I go further.
The mushrooms and stuff are glowing more too.
I bet Fir would find this interesting. He doesn’t wanna be bothered though…
Eh, his loss I guess.
Ah, and one thing that I didn’t mention, there are some new monsters I don’t recognize.
AKA, new prey!
First up, this little bipedal lizard thing. It almost looks like a T-rex! Much smaller, of course.
It has a big fin on it’s head that runs all the way down it’s neck, with some glowing patterns on it.
Now, let’s see how it fights. Stay here Mushthew, I’ll be back soon!
As I approach, it notices me, and enters an aggressive stance. The fin on it’s head moves, and two fins on the side of it’s head that I didn’t notice before expand outward, forming a circle around it’s head.
Ahhh~ Veeeery scaaary. But is this all bark, or do you have some bite?
I’ll let you make the first move, c’mon!
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
It inches closer, holding the aggressive stance and hissing angrily.
Come ooooon. Hurry up, or I’ll start thinking you’re weak and take the first attack myself!
Right as I’m about to give up on throwing it a bone, it stops getting closer, hissing as loud as it can. Then, a streak of purple liquid shoots out of the top of its mouth and hits me right in the face.
Ow! Fuck!
So you had a hidden card, huh? But if that’s all, then…
Ah, it burns.
Poison?!
So you’re not that much of a weakling, huh?
Too bad though, your poison isn’t fast enough, so all you did was make me angry!
Come here!
Ouch, ouch, ouch…
The monster itself wasn’t strong at all, but this poison suuucks.
As soon as I killed it, I did my best to wipe off all the poison, buuut…
I don’t exactly have any protection for my hands…
So now I’m stuck with a burning face and burning hands too.
It’s super hard to walk, it hurts to put any pressure on my feet. It’s not impossible, but I’d just rather not.
I don’t think I’m gonna die though.
Health regen is such a hard worker, already helping out before the poison’s even all gone.
What would we do without it?
Well, I guess I should give this new kind of meat a try. I hope it’s not tainted by the poison.
The scaly skin probably won’t be very fun, so I’m gonna try my best to peel that off first.
Ouch, ouch, damn it. Still hurts to use my hands.
That should do it. I took the skin off a nice big chunk. Maybe I should have started with a smaller piece, just in case it’s bad.
Oh well!
*Munch*
Hm. It doesn’t taste poisonous.
But it’s definitely a bit weird. I hope Fir isn’t paying attention to his sense of taste right now, if he hated how those ants tasted he’d probably rather die than eat this!
Yeah, it’s definitely not very good. It’ll do in a pinch, but the Gaul pod goo is better.
Not gonna let it go to waste though, I’m gonna eat as much as I can.
Huh?
Maybe it was a little poisonous.
Or maybe there was just a little bit left in my system from when I got hit by it.
Meh, I’ll be fine.
I was gonna hunt the other things I saw and try them, but I don’t really feel like it now that my feet are injured. Also, I already ate.
They can wait, I guess.
I can’t really think of anything else to do right now, so it’s time to work on leveling confusion resistance.
C’mere Mushthew!
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Poison tolerance…?
Why do we have that?
What has Gloria been doing…
If we’re still alive, we’re probably fine, and our health is slowly going up.
I wish I could keep an eye on her while also training concentration…
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*Pat pat*
Hehe…
I’m all healed!
No more pain whenever I take a step!
Great timing, because I’m just starting to get hungry again.
Alright! My next target is a snake, It didn’t look very meaty but it was long, so that should balance out.
Hopefully I get lucky and this one isn’t poisonous too.
Target spotted!
Let’s see what you can do, hopefully a bit more than that guy earlier!
When it notices me, it begins making a rattling noise. The rattle itself is a little too far for me to see, but it’s suuuper loud.
You’ll have to try harder than that to get me to go away though.
Get over here!
It lunges at me as I run to attack it, but I manage to just barely knock it out of the air before it can sink its fangs into me.
Too bad!~
Huh? That’s weird, the very end of its body splits off into two. One side ends with a rattle, and the other side- Crap!
The snake’s tail flies at me, and I feel a sharp, burning sensation as it reaches me.
Damn it! Sneaky fucker!
One tail has a rattle, the other has a giant spike.
I don’t think it hit anything vital, I can still fight.
Let’s do this, asshole!
It lunges at me with its head again. This time, I put my forearm in its way, and allow it to bite into it.
It doesn’t even hurt?
Does it even have fangs?
In the moment of hesitation from the confusion of the lack of pain from the snake’s bite, its tail shoots at me again.
Not this time!
I jump above the tail spike before it reaches me, resulting in it flying past, uncontrolled.
*Snap!*
Wha-
The snake falls off of my arm, limp.
Is it… dead?
It seems like the momentum from its tail flying past me caused its neck to snap, because it was still attached to my arm at an unfortunate angle.
What a dummy.
Well, better check out that wound.
Oof, yikes. It’s worse than I expected.
Not by much, but still worse.
There’s a hole, maybe around an inch and a half wide, in my side.
It seems pretty deep, too. Lucky it went in at an angle.
I wonder if any of the plants or mushrooms around here are medicinal?
If not, we might be in a biiiiit of trouble.
Should I get Fir…?
No, no, this is fine, I can handle it.
Besides, if we do die from this, I’m sure he’d want to go out without realizing. Probably.
Just gotta let ol’ reliable, health regeneration, take care of it.
It’s bleeding pretty bad though, this might be a little much for poor health regen to handle…
Well, I’m sure it’ll turn out fine, somehow!