The head of the snake continued to open wider, a stone tongue slipped out between stone fangs. The empty eyes seemed to bore into Aurelia. She watched as first the head, and then the body of the snake began to move. The stone snake slowly began coming away from the wall, its stone scales shifting and grinding together. The sight of the previously still statue come to life made Aurelia take a step backwards, confused and frightened.

Aurelia glanced behind her to see that she had a foot at the edge of the light. Not wanting to step in a pile of slithering snakes, she paused. Glancing forwards again, she watched as the snake continued to come alive.

Her wand raised towards the snake and a mana bolt flew five feet through the air at the snake. Aurelia shrieked as the mana bolt blasted rock in every direction. The rock shrapnel bounced off her shield causing her to flinch, even if she wasn’t harmed. She heard a loud hissing noise coming from the stone snake and Aurelia looked back up at it. She paused, staring in horror. The stone scales had shattered, leaving behind the head of a black and gray scaled snake. About a foot of the snake from the tip of the snout to down its back had become fresh scales, while the rest was still stone. Before, the stone snake had been about six inches wide at the head, but now, it looked to be about eight inches wide. The mana bolt had shattered a layer of stone revealing fresh scales. The snake was alive, and very terrifying. The white fangs of the serpent gleamed in the light.

Aurelia clenched her wand tighter in her fist. Aurelia moved to the side, heart pounding as the snake tracked her movements.

Move Aurelia! You have to move! Aurelia glanced around her to see where the closest pillar of light was. There! Aurelia decided to risk it and she teleported away. After arriving, Aurelia spun to where she had come from. The pillar illuminating the animating stone snake was now gone, but Aurelia had a feeling that the snake was still making its way towards her. As she listened, she could hear the sound of cracking rock and plinking as bits of stone fell to the ground.

Aurelia glanced around, knowing she didn’t have a lot of time. The pillars of light illuminated new portions of the cave, including a large stone door.

“There! That’s the exit!” Aurelia felt excited at finding the escape route from the swarm of snakes.

The stone door stood at the far end of the cavern from her. She guessed she could make it over there in two or three jumps. As she was about to move to a light closer to the door, she paused. If she teleported now, the light illuminating the stone door would disappear.

Aurelia debated what she should do next. She could maybe throw a glow crystal near the door, but she really couldn’t throw that hard or that far away. She could also just teleport to the nearest light to the door as she could from where she was, and just hope she could find the door from there. She stood there, ignoring the sounds of cracking stone, when she heard thud noise, and realized the snake was finally off the wall and onto the ground.

“Great, I now have a giant snake after me.” Arelia grumbled to herself.

Aurelia set her mouth in a grim line, knowing she didn’t have a lot of time left, now the stone snake was free. Deciding to just go for it, she teleported as far as she could towards the stone door. The teleportation no longer made her feel disoriented as before. She glanced around her, seeing what was illuminated by the pillars of light. To her dismay, but not surprised, she found the light on the stone door was gone.

Behind her, the sound of hissing grew louder. She turned to find that the large serpent was slithering through a patch of light. It came towards her, no longer covered in stone, and followed by a swarm of snakes. As she watched, the pillar of light it came through started flickering, then went out completely.

Aurelia couldn’t help it, she panicked. She let loose a mana bolt towards the direction she had last seen the snakes. The orb of blue light let off a slight glow as it streamed towards the large snake. There was a slight explosion as the bolt impacted right behind the larger stone snake, hitting smaller ones behind it. The hissing grew louder as the bolt killed a few of the snakes. Aurelia got a notification about the kills, and saw she had killed four snakes in that one attack.

Aurelia heard some hissing closer to her and saw five snakes leaving the darkness to attack her. It was the retaliation she should have expected. She dodged to the side as one reached her and she let loose mana bolts as fast as she could. Three of the snakes died in quick succession, with one still in front of her and one coming towards her on the left. The next mana bolt missed and a snake thumped against her mana shield. Aurelia grunted in frustration and continued to attack, killing the two snakes.

Aurelia couldn’t see where the stone snake was but decided to teleport further away from where she had last seen it. As she stood under a new light she quickly read through the kill notification. To her surprise, she also received another notification.

Congratulations User [Aurelia], your [Spatial Mage] class has leveled up!

Level Six reached!

Stat points allocated, you have been given 9 free stat points.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

18 free stat points unallocated.

You have been given one free skill point.

She had leveled up, finally! And Aurelia could now get a new skill! She looked back towards where the stone snake should be, and grimaced as she saw the swarm of snakes passing through another pillar of light. She watched as the light first flickered and then disappeared.

She didn’t have much time, at the pace the snakes were going and the distance, she had maybe a minute or two. Aurelia quickly pulled up the skill menu and realized there were more skills this time around. She scanned through the list as quickly as she could.

“Area spell, area spell, where are you?” As she muttered the words, the skill list changed, showing only five skills. She realized they all were area skills, and read each one quickly.

“Okay, gravity aura, spatial distortion, mana bomb, mana arrows, and lightning chain.” Each spell seemed to look useful, but the first two didn’t actually cause any damage, so she ignored them for now. The other three had different damage types, but it was the fifth spell that seemed to be exactly what she needed at the moment. She chose the lightning chain skill.

Congratulations! You have learned [1] new skill.

Lightning Chain: skill level 1

Lightning Chain:

Casts a high damage lightning based attack at target. Target needs to be within six feet of User. If a struck target dies from the lightning chain attack and other enemies are within one foot, the spell will continue to them. Chained attacks will continue until there are no more enemies nearby. Has a 5 percent chance of stunning the target for 10 seconds. Cost: 60 mana. Cooldown: 5 minutes.

Aurelia glanced at her mana, realizing the recent teleporting and mana attacks had really drained her mana pool. She hadn’t taken the time to really let her mana fill up again, so she was only at about half of her available pool.

“Well let’s see what this new spell can do.”

Aurelia pointed her wand at the darkness in front of her and cast lightning chain. What happened next was almost breathtaking. The lightning attack streamed out of her wand and hit a nearby snake. The low level snake died instantly from the attack, unable to withstand the damage it brought. The snake wasn’t just nearby other snakes, it had been moving in and around the nest of snakes. So when the first died, the lightning moved to four nearby snakes. Those snakes all died from the crackling energy and the lightning moved again. And again. And again.

Aurelia watched as the lightning chain spread around the room. The lightning flashed in colors ranging from yellow and white to blue, red, and violet. It covered the cavern, lighting up every inch of the darkened space. The lightning flowed around Aurelia, reaching snakes gathered nearby. Through the sparks of light, Aurelia could see the stone snake.

It was still alive, its head lifted off the ground, and seemingly very angry. The stone shell cracked and split apart, as the lightning coursed through the snake. But, as the snake nest continued to die off, the stone snake continued forward. For the first time, Aurelia scanned the stone snake with her identify skill.

[Cavern Stone Snake] Level 12

Health: 821/1200

Mana: 425/800

Stamina: 1300/1400

The [Cavern Stone Snake] is a rare monster usually found underground. They are an evolved form of the [Cavern Ground Snake]. The [Cavern Stone Snake] is commonly found in nests together with other [Cavern Ground Snake]s. They are able to manipulate stone to better dig and protect itself. They can dispel light using dark and shadow skills.

Aurelia widened her eyes at the description of the snake. Level 12? And its health and mana seemed so high as well. As Aurelia read the description of the snake, ignoring the dying nest of snakes around her, she missed something important. The stone snake was no longer slowly moving forwards. In fact, it had used a movement skill and was now flying at Aurelia’s face.

The snake slammed into Aurelia, making her fly backwards out of the pillar of light and into a pile of charred snake corpses. Aurelia screamed as the snake hit her and as she hit the ground.

Aurelia rolled out from under the snake, narrowly missing another strike as the head of the snake smashed into the ground. Aurelia pointed her wand at the snake and let loose two mana bolts at point break range. The stone snake made a shrieking noise and she scrambled away from it. She looked up to find the nearest light and teleported to get more distance between her and the snake. Aurelia looked back towards the stone snake and saw it was already barreling towards her. She raised her wand and began firing mana bolts at it. Unfortunately for her, the snake was just too fast and it dodged most of the magical attacks aimed at her. It moved quickly forwards, eating up the distance between them. Aurelia waited until it was in range before she let loose a lightning chain attack. Not waiting to get hit by the snake she teleported again to another pillar of light. As she appeared she groaned in pain as she got a sudden and intense migraine.

"What is happening?"

Aurelia tried to move past the pain as she turned back towards the stone snake. She couldn't really see it in the darkened cave so she brought out a glow crystal and tossed it to where she thought the snake was. To her luck, the crystal stopped next to the still snake. It seemed to be frozen in place. Aurelia realized the stun chance from the lightning chain had stunned the snake! With only a couple of seconds before the stun would wear off, Aurelia cast a spatial slash at the frozen snake.

She cried out as the pain in her head intensified. Not knowing what was happening, she pulled up her stat sheet. Glancing through, she realized what might be wrong. She was down to only 5 mana points. Aurelia panicked for a moment, looking back at the stone snake. That's when she realized that it was dead. The stone snake had been cut in two.

Aurelia collapsed to the ground exhausted. She had done it.