I regretted my decision.

This was horrible.

I felt my mana flow to my eyes and grow warm as my vision changed. Colors disappeared and were replaced by shades of grey. When I turned to look at animals, I saw them as red figures, surrounded by a yellow outline, which in turn was surrounded by a green outline. It wasn’t hard to tell that the warmer something was, the closer its color would be to red.

Closer to red?

It felt weird to think about it like that. I was just referencing a rainbow now where I knew that yellow was on the inside of red and then green was on the inside of that.

Elysa, how am I supposed to see anything like this?

This vision would certainly be able to spot creatures within the grey that was the surroundings, but I didn’t like this vision. I preferred to see colors over this. I would not sacrifice my normal vision to walk around like this. The world, as cruel as it was, was still beautiful, in a way.

Would you like to combine this with your normal vision?

Wait, how would that work?

Your brain has the capacity to show you what you want to see. You could see the world like this, or use normal vision, if you prefer to. You can also choose to use both at the same time.

If I can have my normal vision back, and still be able to make out other creatures that I would not be able to spot normally, I’d like that, if possible.

Affirmative.

My vision slowly changed back to normal, which came to me as a relief. This skill had turned out to be more complicated than I’d anticipated.

I looked around the area and saw animals going about their business on the forest floor. When I looked at one, I could see its normal colors, but I could also see it as a thermal vision image at the same time!

I stand corrected. This was FAR more complicated than I’d thought.

How was it even possible to see those things at the same time and still have them make sense? My head hurt thinking about how it was possible.

I checked my enhancement list one last time to see if I could upgrade anything useful with my remaining 72 points. Concluding that there was nothing immediately useful, I decided to wait.

I then climbed down from the tree and continued onward. I didn’t plan to travel too far out as I was as yet unfamiliar with this part of the forest. I wasn’t keen on getting lost.

I tried out my new skill by trying to spot things that I could easily miss. Even if my eyesight was better than it had been when I was an elf, it still was fairly easy to miss the smallest details in the forest as my eyes were continually bombarded with a plethora of stimuli.

This new type of vision that was now added on top of my normal vision seemed to fix some of those issues. I could easily spot far more creatures now, since their body heat made them stand out so prominently. No camouflage was good enough to hide from me.

It was both comforting and scary at the same time.

I was quickly solidifying my place at the top of the food chain. I wondered what those humans would think if they saw a monstrous spider, like me. Did such animals even exist here?

I would definitely have to check with Cellestra. I would like to make sure there weren’t any other creatures like me. I didn’t want to imagine what would happen if a giant spider would see me as its mate. I’d seen that happen once already. Never again.

On second thought… They wouldn’t stand a chance against me.

I was getting more and more comfortable with the new sensations that my brain had to process. It was quickly becoming less awkward and more natural. That was one thing that this blessing had somehow managed to do all the time.

Nothing this body could do was strange to me. For some reason, I had adapted to a body that worked completely differently without too much effort.

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I imagined I’d be long dead if I had had to learn how to be a spider without help. I should be thankful to Elysa for at least taking care of that struggle.

I traveled for about two or three hours before I reached a clearing that was abundant with life. An open grassy field lay before me. All sorts of colorful flowers bloomed and scented the area with a sweet smell. The area was filled with otherwise adorable critters such as rabbits, squirrels, hedgehogs, and I believe I even saw a fox darting away as it spotted me.

In the middle of the clearing was a tree that was larger than the others that surrounded this tranquil place. Its leaves seemed to sparkle with some kind of magic as the air around them drew in my sight.

The area was simply amazing to lay eyes upon. This was a little piece of paradise in this forest that had turned into my hunting grounds.

And I was about to desecrate this place as well.

It felt wrong to do so, but in front of the giant tree in the center, in the grass, lay a large female deer that seemed to belong to the same species as the one I’d killed earlier. I could tell it was female due to the lack of antlers. It was also about the same size, although it was hard to judge now that my perspective had changed.

I hoped it would still offer experience. I wouldn’t know if I didn’t try. The animal was still quite big, even with my new size. I carefully skittered in range of my new spell, high-velocity ice lance, to see if I could take it out in one hit. If that didn’t work, I would scale the large tree and use lightning arc instead.

I approached the animal from the opposite side of the tree so it couldn’t see me coming. I then lined up my spell and fired an icicle, about a third of a foot in diameter, at the unsuspecting animal.

The spike flew far faster than the previous version of the spell. It cost slightly more mana, but its effect was evident. The projectile pierced the animal’s behind and sank all the way inside its body. I quickly fired another one as I was confident these spells would be enough to finish it off.

The animal never even got the chance to stand up. It died almost immediately after the second spike.

You have killed a Large Royal Forest Deer: EXP+310

Level Up!

Kealyna has reached level 5!

You have been awarded 75 EP.

I was glad to see the creature still gave experience, but was saddened to see it had been reduced heavily. It meant that I had to kill quite a few of these creatures if I wanted to acquire my next evolution. I wasn’t looking forward to that, at all…

Then, thanks to the sensations in my legs, I felt something move around in the dirt beneath my feet.

I quickly jumped away to see a vine shoot up from where I’d just stood. It had grown out of the ground at an insane rate. I was certain it was some kind of attack that had been aimed at me.

I then saw the tree move…

I felt the ground tremble as I heard some kind of voice. I couldn’t quite make out what it said or where it came from, but it sounded… angry. I quickly skittered away from the tremors, which led me away from the tree.

It wasn’t hard to add one and one together and ascertain that the vines belonged to the same entity before me.

Then the voice came again, impossible to understand but definitely belonging to the tree as well. I was wondering what language it was when an idea popped up in my head.

The only language this could possibly belong to of the ones I could enhance would be the spirit language. Was it worth gambling on trying to understand this tree that was trying to kill me?

If anything, I was willing to fight it, but I didn’t know why it attacked me. Maybe I’d done something to upset it, like killing that deer?

Before I killed it, I’d like to understand what it said. I wasn’t sure if this was the correct language, but for only 20 points, well… it couldn’t hurt to try, right?

I confirmed that I wanted to enhance the spirit language. And skittered backward slowly.

Pain built up in my skull and faded just as quickly as it had appeared. The voice returned as more vines spouted from the ground. It looked like they were going to stab me.

The tree spoke angrily, and very slowly, “Insolent monster. You will die here.”