I slowly made my way forward, more careful than ever, now that I had to worry more about airborne predators as well. Weirdly enough, the second layer felt almost boring when compared with the first layer.

In the first layer, there was almost always some kind of monster nearby, but down here in the second, I could go for extended periods of time without seeing one. I wasn’t entirely sure why that was the case. Maybe the second layer just had fewer monsters in general. I seriously doubted that the layer was bigger, since I was technically going down toward the planet's core.

Although considering that going to the core should be impossible, as well as my whole situation being completely alien, I couldn’t completely rule out that the layers got bigger the further down I got.

The few times I encountered a monster, they were usually too fast for me, and I couldn’t even hit them with a poison needle before they were gone again. Sometimes I got passed by a monster being hunted by another monster too. And even if I wasn’t able to do anything to these passersby, it was still a learning opportunity for me.

Aside from the odd evolved monster from the first layer, I got to see more of the monsters that spawned here on the second layer. I did see a few more goblins, but also some kind of weird rat-dog mix, something that looked like a kobold, and a ghostly horse. I wasn’t entirely sure if I could even fight a ghost, but I deduced that poison probably wouldn’t work on a monster that didn’t have blood.

My only hope would be Giant Spike. If my theory was correct, this type of monster was only vulnerable to magic, but I’d much rather just steer clear of them and avoid the trouble.

I eventually arrived at a large pond that was being fed by a small stream to my left. There was a bit of a clearing around the pond, so I carefully hid on a tree where I could observe the entire pond.

Water sources such as these were usually gathering spots for thirsty monsters. I didn’t know yet if the second layer had the same rule of not attacking each other when sharing a drink, so I resigned myself to observe for now.

And since I’d just eaten not so long ago, my thirst had been quenched by blood anyway.

Contrary to how popular the water in the first layer was, I couldn’t spot a single monster around the shoreline. Could be because water was more readily available on this layer, or maybe I just came at a bad time. Whatever the case, I had to be careful, so I settled in for the long haul.

I waited for what felt like hours. Turret had activated a long time ago, but there was no movement around the pond. I did spot something moving in the water every now and again, but could never quite make out what it was. Probably just some tier-zero fish.

Or monster fish.

Eventually, a monster approached the opposite shoreline. Finally. The thirsty newcomer was a weird quadruped, somewhat reminding me of an alligator. It had dark green fur, though, and a curved, pointy beak instead of a tooth-filled maw. No clue what it was, but it looked stupid, that was for sure.

It reached the pond and started dipping its beak into the water, drinking it in a very bird-like fashion. From my vantage point I could see some slight disturbances in the water ahead of the monster, but nothing that could have caused them. I observed this with an uneasy feeling.

All of a sudden, a large lizard-like monster materialized behind the drinking one, seemingly out of thin air. The vigilant bird-gator got startled and its first instinct seemingly was to put space between its assailant and itself, which meant it leaped towards the water. I’d assume it could swim since it resembled an alligator, so that was probably a good choice to make.

Unfortunately for it, another one of the lizard monsters was waiting for exactly that to happen, as I watched it appear in the water. The birdigator jumped straight into the ambushers waiting maw, struggling as the lizard from the shore came after it to help out. I watched them wrestle with each other for a while, but in the end, the allavian didn’t stand a chance.

To begin with, these lizards were pretty big as well, almost as big as the penguinator. They ripped into their kill biting off huge chunks with their sharp teeth and swallowing them whole. It didn’t take very long, until only the inedible beak of the monster was left and the lizards dispersed back to where they came from, resetting their trap.

I kept an eye on the one at the shore, as the one in the water dove out of sight. The big lizard moved towards a closeby tree, climbing it until it was about halfway up its trunk. Much to my amazement, it turned invisible shortly after.

Amazed, I kept looking at the spot where it disappeared. This would certainly explain how they seemed to appear out of thin air earlier! I tried focusing on the tree where the lizard was waiting in ambush, and if I paid enough attention, I could faintly see some distortions around where it was.

These monsters probably had a pretty advanced camouflage skill, but it wasn’t perfect. The air seemed to shimmer a little bit around them, and if they moved, however little, you could see the air, and whatever was behind them, distorting a little. A terrifying ability, sure to give them an edge over almost anything that wasn’t paying close attention.

And with a pool of water to distract their prey, they had themselves a perfectly functioning trap.

Once again, the monsters on the second layer displayed some semblance of intelligence. I wasn’t sure how much of this could be attributed to instinct, but any monster of the second tier should at least have a decent intelligence score, right?

I briefly wondered how the system categorized a being as “intelligent” again. Some of the higher-tiered monsters probably had crazy intelligence scores, in some cases probably more than a so-called intelligent race would have. So what was the difference?

Then again, I was assigned the traveler type: Monster, so maybe the system disregarded anything in this category when it considered intelligence? If so, it was entirely possible that I’d eventually meet monsters that were smart, or could even communicate. An intelligent monster that could properly plan and use battle tactics?

Terrifying.

Be that as it may, I was now aware of several things. First off, watering holes were not off-limits for fighting like in the first layer. Contrary to the small puddles of drinkable water up there, the water down here was deep enough to house aquatic monsters.

Second off, there were invisible ambush hunters about. These guys were doing similar things as I did, but they had more ways to defend themselves should their ambush fail and a scuffle start. Compared to me, they were regular fighting machines.

Then again, I was more of an assassin than an ambush hunter.

Now that I knew what to look for, I started checking all of the trees I could see for hiding lizards. And it didn’t take very long for me to find them. Their invisibility wasn’t very good, all things considered. Maybe they’d completely turn invisible if they evolved a few more times, but for now, I could still spot them easily enough.

The closest one was hiding just two trees away from me, and since it was not moving in order to not give itself away, it was basically a sitting duck for me. I could see several of them among the trees around the pond, and decided to start a little experiment.

I had recently bought the upgrade to my poison needle which allowed me, in exchange for costing more MP, to concentrate my poison so that it’d essentially become tier-four. I wanted to see the difference in lethality, so I’d kill one of them with a regular poison needle, check how long it took to kill it and if it even would be enough, and then kill another with an upgraded spell and compare the results.

Since I already knew that upgrading my poison to tier four would cost me four mutation points, I was expecting a lot. Since it was so expensive, I could only assume that it would be pretty strong.

Just in case, I decided to move closer by one tree so my horrible aim wouldn’t be as bad. I quickly located an overlapping leaf, on which I could cross over, and slowly made my way to my new position. On a whim, I decided to do my testing without waiting for my turret passive to activate. This way, I’d get the raw data.

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

Not wanting to waste any time, I started lobbing poison needles at the invisible lizard. Even though we weren’t that far apart, I got unlucky and only managed to hit it with my fifth needle. I really needed to make unlocking my agility stat a priority, because this was just a waste of time and resources.

Satisfied with my successful hit, I just sat there, waiting for the poison to show some visible results while mentally counting the time in my head. Eventually, the lizard dropped out of the tree, apparently having lost the strength to hold on. It also dropped its camouflage, revealing a struggling, tiny dinosaur.

Well, tiny in comparison to the big dinosaurs, anyway. I’d wager that if these guys stood upright they would probably be taller than most humans. And by extension, a lot bigger than me.

The thing was really struggling down there, a lot more than my poison victims usually did. Maybe this was an effect of the higher-tiered poison? It seemed to try and go towards the water, but well before it reached the cool pool, it puked out what I assumed was everything in its stomach. Shortly after, it stopped moving and I got a notification from the system that I’d killed it.

Damn, tier four poison killed pretty fast.

I didn’t level up this time, but I always welcomed the DP that came with a kill. I also learned that these lizard monsters were called “Saurian” and that this specific specimen was level seven. So in exchange for a bit of MP, I could pretty much one-shot these guys, which was good to know. Then again, I didn’t plan to engage in a brawl with them, so the fast kill time shouldn’t be relevant.

Assume the best, prepare for the worst.

For now, I’d stay here and farm these saurians for all they were worth, while keeping a healthy MP pool in reserve, just in case they actually found me.

While I was considering the new information, the water near the dead Saurian shifted, revealing another of its kind. This one was probably the dead one’s hunting partner that came to check out what happened.

This would be a good opportunity to take some potshots, but I’d just wasted a ton of mana trying to hit with my enhanced poison needle, leaving me with barely fifty mana. For now, I’d stick to recovering my mana to full. I could use the time to crawl along the treetops, looking for my next victim.

The ones clinging to the trees were ideal prey for me since they didn’t move while stalking their own food.

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Quite some time had passed, and quite a few Saurians did as well. The small lake was lined with dead Saurians and puke, although some of them had been pulled underwater. I assumed that these monsters weren't beyond cannibalism so they probably ended up as food for their brethren.

I’d have loved to collect them into my inventory, but I wasn’t about to go anywhere near the water. That’d just be suicide by lizard.

For my effort I gained another two levels, putting me oh so close to level twenty, which was supposedly the cap for now. The moment I reached level nineteen, I immediately purchased the poison and venom immunity from my skill tree. Considering that I was only getting one more skill point in this tier, and I still needed to do whatever quest awaited me in the third layer, this was going to be my last purchase for a long time.

But it was oh so worth it, in my opinion.

I put the two attribute points I got into constitution to buff my HP a bit more. I’d probably need as much of it as I could get on the third floor, otherwise, I would probably get squished by one attack since the monsters there would be an entire two tiers higher than me.

As it was, I couldn’t see any more Saurians clinging to trees. It still pained me that I would have to pass up all the food down there, but I’d just have to move on for now looking for other monsters I could ambush. My mana was almost full, and I hadn’t seen any movement from the saurians for a while now, which meant it was time to say farewell to this watering hole.

Just as I was about to turn away from the water and leave, I spotted a shadow coming up from the depths.

Was one of them coming up to get some food? Somehow I didn’t think so, since I could see its outline pretty well. The saurians really loved to stay camouflaged, so maybe this was something else? As I watched it, I realized that whatever it was, was quite a bit bigger than the other saurians.

Probably some other aquatic monster that came from below. Well, the invisible hunters would probably take care of it soon enough, so I wasn’t too worried, but I was still curious to maybe steal a glance at whatever this was, so I kept my eye-stalks trained on the water.

What eventually broke the surface, was another saurian. But this one was different. Probably twice as big as his tier-two companions, and looking a lot deadlier. Was this a freshly evolved tier-three saurian?

Once it arrived on land, it looked around a bit, taking in the dead saurians along the shore before quickly dismissing them. It seemed to be looking for something as it kept turning around on the spot before eventually deciding on a direction and walking toward the trees. I could feel the reverberations as it thumped past my hiding spot, its hulking form almost reaching the same height as the leaf I was hiding on.

I made a mental note that it seemed to roughly go in the same direction as the bear I saw earlier, which probably meant that there really was a way down where they were going.

Shortly after reaching the tree line, the saurian bent down and picked up a long stick from the ground. The thing looked almost comically small in its large, clawed hands, but it seemed to regard the piece of wood with high interest. After only a short time, the large saurian suddenly whirled around and threw the stick with a frightening speed… directly at me!

I was too baffled to react, and even then, the spear was flying way too fast for me to dodge. In a lucky turn of events for me, the makeshift spear missed me by quite a bit and embedded itself into the tree trunk behind me. I watched it wobble a bit as panic started to set in, how the hell did I get discovered?

And why the hell did this massive monster feel the need to bring the hurt down on a lowly tier-one slug?

I probably wouldn’t get a chance to ask, for when I turned my eyes back to the large saurian it was already barreling towards me. Mentally cursing my bad luck, I activated both of my defensive skills. I lost a lot of my already abysmal agility when I did that, but at least I’d have some decent defenses.

They’d need to prove their efficiency because the saurian jumped the last few meters between us, its claws ready to maul me into pieces. Contrary to the improvised spear, this attack hit me dead on and I could feel my entire being strain as I got launched off of my leaf and into the ground below, crashing hard.

I didn’t know just how much damage this attack did to me, but the pain coursing through my body told me it would be a bad idea to take another one of those. My build really wasn’t made with consideration of close-quarters brawl-outs. So now that I was being pressured by something that could probably swallow me without chewing, I only had one option left to me.

The saurian was already coming in for a follow-up attack, so I cast giant spike as fast as I could.

I anxiously watched as the murder train drew ever closer before, much to my delight, the giant spike shot out of the ground impaling the wannabe dinosaur straight through its stomach.

The saurian completely spazzed out while it was impaled, its huge maw open wide, presumably screaming bloody murder. Yet another time I was glad that slugs couldn’t hear. I watched with satisfaction as the saurian's movements got more sluggish, the spike slowly dematerializing.

The saurian flopped to the ground, but much to my horror wasn’t dead. It probably was in the same situation as me: Hella hurt, but not quite dead. With the difference that I didn’t have a gaping hole in my stomach.

I had never seen anything survive my strongest spell before, then again, I never had to use it against a monster that was two tiers above me. I briefly considered what to do next. The lizard was slowed down significantly, but I was still in danger. A quick check of my stats revealed that I barely had enough MP to cast a second spike, but that would leave me with just eight MP.

So it was either, pelt the opposition with poison spear or needle, leaving me with some MP with which I could potentially defend myself from other monsters. Or cast another giant spike, which would kill it dead for sure, but would leave me defenseless after my victory.

I could see the saurian angrily snarling at me from the ground. It clearly wanted to remove me from the food chain and I was startled by the speed it was still able to charge me with. Waiting for my poison to do its job clearly wasn’t an option anymore, so I immediately started casting the second giant spike.

Moments later, I was staring at a mouth filled with sharp teeth mere centimeters away from my face. The saurian was stopped in its tracks by yet another giant spike piercing through it from below, this time through the chest.

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You have killed a T3 Lv. 1 Giant Saurian

You have been awarded 400 XP

You have been awarded 63 Data Points

You have leveled up!

Congratulations on reaching level 20! You may evolve to the next higher tier!

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It would seem that this specimen was indeed a newly evolved saurian, seemingly continuing the trend of level one monsters not being worth a lot when killed in terms of XP. Though, I quickly had to dismiss my joy at reaching the level cap.

The reason was the slew of movement coming from the small lake. I watched on in horror as a whole bunch of regular saurians crawled out from the water, eyeing me like a tasty snack.