Three large snakes against a massively oversized spider.

I liked the odds of that. It gave me the perfect opportunity to try out one of the skills I hadn’t used before: Cyclone. I cast it on one of the three large cobras that were on their way to fight me, capturing it within a small tornado from which it couldn’t break free. I then threw threads at the second creature and used my manipulation to chain it to the floor, so to say. My threads were incredibly tough, and it didn’t appear like this snake was going to break free anytime soon.

That left me with one opponent coming my way.

It was perhaps unnecessary to incapacitate them, but I wanted to know what I could do against unknown opponents. In my opinion, I needed to build up combat experience with this body, and I needed to know the extent of my abilities. In order to at least conserve some mana, I struck the last remaining enemy with two paralytic venom bolts.

It seemed to have the same idea of shooting venom at me, but I was prepared and summoned an air wall to block the projectiles.

A barrier consisting of air drafting upwards appeared in front of me just before the spray of venom reached me. The winds blew the venom upward and away from me, almost sending it back at my assailant.

My own attacks hit the target in its broad “shoulders”, and I skittered backward slowly as I watched the creature slow down, and, eventually, fall to the ground, where it tried to slither, but didn’t manage to move more than a couple of inches.

I approached it, and finished the creature off with a stab of my leg to the head.

You have killed a Titan Cave King Cobra: EXP+401

Level Up!

Kealyna has reached level 3!

You have been awarded 75 EP.

I then turned my attention to the creature that was now completely bound to the floor by my silken restraints. It wouldn’t be possible for it to even aim venom at me with its fangs. I closed in on it and finished it off as well.

You have killed a Titan Cave King Cobra: EXP+433

Level Up!

Kealyna has reached level 4!

You have been awarded 75 EP.

Now all I had to do was wait for the cyclone to dissipate.

Or did I?

I wondered if I could attack something that had been trapped by my cyclone spell. The winds that surrounded the target blew at an insane rate. I doubted any spells could pass through. I decided to try, nonetheless. I fired a high-velocity ice lance at the trapped target, hoping the extra speed it had would be enough to break through the wall of winds. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. The icicle bounced off of the cyclone and shattered against the wall to the left.

I guessed that meant that projectiles couldn’t penetrate the winds. I was glad I tried it out. This might imply that there is some defensive use to the cyclone spell as well.

I would have tried the earthen spike next, but the ground beneath my many feet was made of rock, so it was impossible to try that. Instead, I used my lightning arc spell to see if that worked.

The spell connected with my target in an instant, even with the cyclone still swirling strongly. I wasn’t sure if that meant it worked, but I could feel the mana cost and the damage of my spell increasing over a few seconds. I kept it up to see what happened until a message showed up.

You have killed a Titan Cave King Cobra: EXP+413

Level Up!

Kealyna has reached level 5!

You have been awarded 75 EP.

It was interesting to see that this worked. However, it would be wasteful to do this when it wasn’t absolutely necessary. I’d already found out that I could fight these creatures without too much effort. There was simply no need for me to spend mana on a cyclone and then more mana on a lightning arc to kill one.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

If I had a cyclone active, like now, it wasn’t a bad idea, though.

To be fair, my mana reserves were gigantic, now that I had evolved into an even larger spider. I hardly felt the mana missing even after firing off several spells. Confidently, I walked on.

I took a quick look at my personal information and noticed that the experience I needed per level had started going up far more than my previous evolutions. While looking at the blue square that floated in front of me, I heard a clicking sound as I felt one of my hind legs sink slightly into the stone ground beneath me, followed by a new message.

Achievement earned: It’s a trap!

Trigger or disable a dungeon trap.

You have been awarded 150 EP

You have been awarded 300 EXP

Hidden requirements for future evolution complete.

At the same time the message showed up, an explosion of light happened around me, and I felt something sharp stick up under my abdomen. Something had pierced my body, but it seemed that my barrier spell had absorbed most of the damage.

I still felt pain under my abdomen, but it was manageable. I turned around to see several metal spikes tipped with some of my blood sink back into the ground.

I cursed at myself for activating a trap like that.

I was lucky to have my barriers active. I quickly cast them again as they had been completely depleted by that trap. I followed up by casting healing light until the pain disappeared, which turned out to be two casts.

I skittered over to where my leg had sunk into the stone and noticed there was a loose stone. I pressed it down and saw the spikes shoot up once more. The stone in question was quite hard to make out from its surroundings. It blended in almost perfectly and it left me wondering.

Sure, I’d gotten the achievement I needed, which was a good thing, but these traps were nigh impossible to spot, even with my perfect eyesight. I’d like to avoid more of them as I didn’t know if they would be more deadly than this one.

I didn’t know what the best way to avoid them would be. Ultimately, I decided to spread my legs as far to the sides as possible, nearly touching the walls. Surely, there would be no traps there? I couldn’t imagine people walking that close to the walls.

I continued onward, and fortunately, the walk through the tunnel wasn’t a long one. Soon, I found myself in a massive, open area that was illuminated by a plethora of magical plants and mushrooms.

What stretched out before me was a giant swamp. It had everything one would expect when thinking of a swamp, filled with some additions that I am certain were due to the dungeon, such as the luminescent plants and fungi. There was some sort of ceiling far above me which was filled with all kinds of lights. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the light came from gems that had all kinds of different colors. Their colors blended together to create an eerie green light that descended upon the swamp.

Everything was easily visible, and I finally canceled my flame spell.

I stood in a large archway that led back up to the surface, and I took my time looking around. There was some sort of dirt path that led forward from my position. It cut a winding path through the swamp. To either side was dark, murky water that probably held dangerous creatures. I couldn’t make out how deep the water was, and I was not intending to find out.

Giant plants that I did not recognize grew out of the water, with pink tentacle-like vines that stretched out into the air around it. They seemed to be some kind of carnivorous plants, that is, if the giant insects that were seemingly stuck to the tentacles were anything to go by.

I noticed the water to my left bubble, and a pungent smell of rotten eggs entered my nostrils… wherever they were. The smell made me nauseous, but I remained where I was and kept looking around to see what this place had in store for me.

In the distance, I saw a colossal, blue toad extend its tongue to catch an equally oversized mosquito out of the air. The creature almost rivaled me in size, and I was certain it would give me the experience points I was looking for.

Then, to my right, I saw something that, at first resembling a tree trunk, rose up from the murky water, before I realized it was the snout of a crocodile. At least, that’s what the creature looked like at first. It dragged itself out of the water onto land and came running my way. It was then I noticed it had six legs and a spiky ball at the end of its tail.

It would seem my first opponent had arrived.