Chapter 73: Hunt and practice
Felix Sythias’ POV (continued):
Alex stood within the pile of corpses, looking down at the ugly things with an expression of disbelief, or maybe incredulity. I think I understood why. All that worrying, all the anxiety about the monsters, and here we finished a pack of twenty of them off in only a few minutes. And now we knew how these specific monsters fought. Next time would only get easier.
“Did anyone get hurt?” I asked.
Tiki shook her head. “No, but I did level up again. I’m level eight now.”
Alex shook out of his trance and quickly stepped out of the pile of corpses. “I’m fine,” he said. “And I leveled up again, too. Level nine, now.”
I nodded, then glanced at our guide, who had hopped down and was coming over. “I’m fine, too, and I didn’t level.”
The guide checked us for injuries, and spotting none, continued guiding us through the cracks and stalagmites. She made notes while she walked.
“So, I think that could’ve gone better,” Tiki said once we were a small distance away from the battle site. “We really shouldn’t have let Alex get overrun like that. It was fine now, but imagine if that happened with higher-level monsters?”
Alex shuddered. “I’d rather not.”
“She’s right, though,” I said. “We should’ve done more to keep them at a distance. Maybe if I hadn’t been stunned, I could've made a funnel using magic, forcing them to come at us one at a time.”
Tiki cocked her head, and Alex looked curious, too. “How would you have done that?” she asked.
I thought about it for a moment. Could I actually have done that? If there had been soil here, I’m sure I could’ve. I would’ve just turned the ground into mud, with one stretch of dry ground in the middle, effectively making a funnel. Most monsters took the path of least resistance, after all.
But there was no soil here, only stone, mushrooms, and bat shit.
I knew I could shift stone. I’d done it before, but it wasn’t something I did often. When did I come across stone after all? But here there was stone everywhere, here. Could I shift enough to make a wall?
“I might be able to use earth mana to create small walls. Nothing major, but maybe enough to limit these smaller monsters. I’d try it out now, but I think it would drain my entire pool. I’m not that great with earth mana.”
She and Alex nodded. “We’ll have to try that out next time,” she said. “And maybe you should practice with it when we get back topside?”
“I think I will, yeah.”
“There’s one problem with that plan,” Alex said. “How will he do that if he’s stunned again?”
I blinked. “Right, I forgot about that. I can’t exactly cover my ears with my talons without toppling over—I kind of need three of them on the floor at all times, or I need to lean on something else.”
“Oh, that’s an easy problem to solve,” Tiki said, and leaned down to pick up some… moss? “Here, put this in your ears.”
I took it from her, sniffing and eyeing it suspiciously. I even tasted it. But it was without mana, smelled good enough, and didn’t look harmful, so I bunched it up and put it in my ears. It tickled a bit, but it worked. The world was more muted now. And especially the sharper sounds were significantly less, well, sharp.
I nodded at them. “This works,” I said, and they winced slightly. Right, I’d need to make an effort to talk softer now, or I’d accidentally yell at them. “Sorry.”
They waved my apology away, and we continued walking through the cave. We didn’t run into any more monsters before we reached our destination. We had arrived at a large open field. It was a flat, wide open space without any stalagmites or ridges, only mushrooms and moss. Quite a few of the mushrooms were very tall, coming up to Alex’s knees. Just big enough for a smaller monster to hide underneath. We’d have to be careful.
Sadly, there wouldn’t be a chance to test out my theory of making a wall and funneling them in. Not when they could just go around it. Then again, maybe I could still practice. I could try to make tripping hazards, and other simple traps, couldn’t I?
“Alright, have fun,” our guide told us, gesturing to the field. “You have two hours, then you need to be back here so we can get back in time to the entrance. I’ll keep an eye out from here. Come to me if you get injured or need to rest.”
We agreed, left our heavy gear, like backpacks, with her and went out into the field.
It didn’t take long for us to run into our first group of monsters. It was a different monster than last time. A kind of lizard that looked eerily familiar to me, but without wings and with a different color of scales and no spikes… actually, maybe they were quite different after all.
They were about knee-high and walked on all fours. Their colors were quite vibrant and were quite similar to the mushrooms here. They were all a combination of yellow, red, purple, blue, and even orange. It was almost like some clown had vomited all over them. As such, we called them clown-lizards.
Their attack pattern was quite similar to the mole-rat’s. They screeched very loudly, then rushed us. The difference was that these lizards also sprayed a strong smelling substance from their necks, where gill-like slits sat. It smelled very sweet and probably wasn’t nearly as distracting as the lizards hoped it was.
I decided to try out my idea of making them trip, and Alex and Tiki waited while I reached with my magic to create small bumps in the ground immediately in front of the lizards. Normally it would be no obstacle at all, but with how little time I’d given them to react, their small feet caught on the bumps, making them stumble, slow down, and even trip. Especially the last time, when I really started to get a feeling for it, was great. A few lizards tripped right before they reached us, causing a massive pileup that we quickly took advantage of. The lizards didn’t last long.
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Aside from the clown-lizards, we ran into a few more groups of mole-rats. The field was mostly filled with clown-lizards, though. It made sense. With how they sprayed the scent, they probably were the perfect predators for the mole-rats with their strong sense of smell.
We continued battling the monsters for another hour, before taking a break. Tiki had gotten a shallow cut on her leg because she’d gotten tired, so we decided to rest for a few minutes. We treated the wound, then grabbed some jerky and water and went over the things that we did well and where we’d need to improve.
Our teamwork was mostly good. We easily fell in tune with each other. Alex was great with his sword but had to work on actually using his Skills. He didn’t use [Draconic lightning magic] nearly as often as he could’ve. It limited his practice with the Skill, and would make for a nasty habit down the line. Tiki was eerily accurate with her arrows, but needed to join in using melee more. At least, if she wanted to get better at it. And I, while great at tearing things apart, had to work on incorporating my instinctive magic in my combat style more. Especially my recently improved water magic. While it wouldn’t hurt anything—yet—it could prove to be a great distraction. I could also use my wind magic to boost my, or any of my teammate’s speed. Though we’d need to practice that last one topside before we tried it down here.
Soon, we were rested and went back at it, keeping in mind the things we had to practice. And an hour later, we were on our way back to the entrance.
All in all, things had gone well. It had been a productive, and, in my opinion, fun morning. Tiki and Alex had both leveled quite a bit, both gaining another four levels each, on top of a bunch of Skill levels. It had slowed down quickly though, and the last half hour, they hadn’t gained anything. The level four and five lizards just weren’t enough anymore.
When we got back to the entrance, quite a few people were already there. Some had quite a few bandages, while others just looked exhausted. It seemed not everyone had done as well as we had. Then again, that wasn’t too surprising. Alex had consumed the head start potion, and I was a dragon. Even Tiki had above average Skill with her bow. It wasn’t very surprising that we fared better than the rest.
We waited for a little longer at the entrance until everyone was back. It took longer than expected, and it soon became clear why. Someone had taken a nasty tumble and had broken a leg. I winced at that. It would take at least a day to heal back to functionality. While we did have strong healers with us, none would be healing such injuries instantly. It was all part of the larger lesson they were trying to teach everyone.
Now that everyone was here, we went back to the elevator and went back up. Flying to the top without hitting the sides as actually quite a bit harder than going down. Keeping straight and in the middle with my head tilted all the way up to look where I was going was challenging. I managed, though.
The next group was already waiting to go down, so everyone quickly moved out of the way. Scott gave us a small speech about the importance of rest and relaxation after combat and told us all to take a break for an hour before joining any of the other activities.
We took our break by eating some nice lunch that the other students—the ones who had done the cooking activity—had prepared. Afterwards we went for a nice relaxing swim and also finally told Tiki about the potion of head start Alex had consumed. It turned out she’d also consumed one when she turned eighteen. It was yet another reason our team mostly got out unharmed, and also the reason she kept up with us as well as she did.
We really were a great team. We worked well together and were well balanced. If Tiki had been in any other group, she’d have outpaced them. The same went for me, and now Alex, too.
After the break, we went to the area designated for Skill training. It was a stretch of the forest where the underbrush was really thin, and lots of rocks and large bushes were placed in such a way that you had decent privacy no matter where you went.
Alex and I told the professor we didn’t need any help, while Tiki went and followed an assistant to work on her enchanting.
When we got to a nice little secluded spot, the first thing Alex did was to draw out his System status again, since it had changed quite a bit since the last time I saw it. He wanted me to be up to date before we started training his mana manipulation.
> [System Status Beginning]
>
> Name: Alex Sandclaw
>
> Species: Lizardkin
>
> Species subtype: Red-eyed Crocodile Skink
>
> Level: 12
>
> Mana pool: 310/310 (full)
>
> Attributes:
>
> Physical: 34
>
> Mental: 30
>
> Spiritual: 31
>
> Path one: Locked
>
> Path two: Locked
>
> Path three: Locked
>
> General Skills:
>
> [Temperature resistance]: 6
>
> [Blunt force resistance]: 13
>
> [Drawing]: 15
>
> [Mana manipulation]: 15
>
> [Draconic lightning magic]: 10
>
> [Empty]
>
> [System Status End]
The last time I’d seen it, he was only level seven. He’d grown a lot since then. Especially his Skills. His [Draconic lightning magic] had leveled up a ton.
“You’re doing great,” I told him, then patted his head. He shook my talon off and instead went to sit between my front legs. I put one around him and pressed a kiss to his forehead.
“I know,” he said. “But I still haven’t gotten the prefix for my manipulation Skill.”
I shook my head. “And that will probably still take a while. Do you want to continue practicing now? Or cuddle a little more?”
He hesitated for a moment. “Let’s practice. Not that I don’t want to cuddle, but I’m itching to get my mana moving.”
That was certainly something I understood. I grinned. “Awesome, let’s get started then.”
I guided him through the next exercise. Today we were going to be making a pyramid out of mana. It was a simple version of one of the exercises I sometimes did, where I molded my mana into a tiny copy of the actual ruins that dotted the Dry Territories. Using my mana to make complex shapes, like buildings or even terrain, was fun. It wasn’t too useful, though. There was a limit to how much control could improve your efficiency.
Alex was improving by the day and we practically flew through the exercise, gaining another two levels in his Skill while he was at it, pushing it to level seventeen.
“You’re fast,” I told him. “You’re learning this almost as fast as I did, and I was born with an innate understanding of the skill. You’ll unlock that prefix in no time.”
“I hope so. I really want to know what it’ll do for the Skill.” He looked at the sun and paused for a moment, thinking. “We still have quite a bit of time, what do you say we try to unlock that Skill you talked about?”