Checking out her surroundings with a curious expression on her face, Scaly soon spotted what looked like a human town located close to the base of the mountain she found herself on top of, countless forests all over the places and a few other mountains along with a sea of sand not far from the human town at the base of the mountain. Seperated by a large forest.
Although she had no idea where she was nor how she had ended up on top of a mountain, she was at least certain that it was somewhere inside the third floor of the dungeon from the large spiral staircase piercing through the sky not too far away.
As for how she had ended up on top of a mountain that seemed to be on a completely different island from the one she had been on, Scaly decided not to think too hard about it. Feeling that she wouldn’t be able to find an answer no matter how much she searched the mountain.
For now, she instead decided to make her way down the mountain in the opposite direction of the human town. After all she had no plans of trying to mess with the humans after her near death experience the last time around.
Along the way down, she also decided to take a look at her status to see how much it had changed now that she had reached the hallway point to her next evolution.
Name: Scaly
Race: Ancient Water Dragon Lizard
Level: 15/30, 53%
STR: 78 |VIT: 160| DEX: 63 | M: 162
Skills: [Dragon Bloodline lvl 3], [Flight lvl 1], [Water Magic lvl 7], [Poison Resistance lvl 2], [Claw Strike lvl 4], [Swimming lvl 1]
And not disappointing her in the slightest, her magic had managed to surpass her vitality. Although her claw strike skill had not leveled up, it was made up for by the fact that a new skill had appeared.
[Swimming lvl 1]: You can now swim to some extent; it’s still recommended to avoid large bodies of water.
Swimming!? I can finally swim!
Seeing this skill and reading through the short description of it, Scaly wasn’t the slightest bit disappointed and was instead overjoyed, as she now didn’t have to fear falling into water and ending up like she had done when trying to escape from the terrifying human. Even if she still had to avoid larger bodies of water, it increased her survival ability by quite a lot.
Whoosh~
Feeling a cold breeze sweeping over her as she was happily looking at the new skill that had appeared in her status, Scaly could not help shivering from the cold.
I-I have t-to get down f-from this place!
Shivering as she only now noticed that she wasn’t the slightest bit suited to the cold temperatures on the top of the mountain, Scaly wasted no time as she turned her attention away from the status screen and began rushing down the side of the mountain.
Making sure to keep an eye out for any humans and monster she might along the way. After all, for there to be a human town so close to her, it meant that there should also be monsters and humans roaming nearby. Possibly at the lower parts of the mountain, which had mostly been obscured by the nearby forest that had crawled up the side of the mountain and covered it up to the halfway point where it got too cold for it to continue expanding upwards.
Rustle~
As she reached the sparse foliage around the edge of the forest. Prepared to avoid any humans she might encounter, Scaly was surprised to discover that there wasn’t a single human or monster around.
Not just that, but there wasn’t a single sign of life, like the entire forest was empty without any life outside of the plants and trees that made up the forest itself-
Whoosh-!
Ptsh-!
Bang!
Or that was at least what she thought before a root shot up from the ground in front of her and directly pierced through one of her legs before snaking around it and pulling her down to the ground.
Ahhh!?
Not able to form any words in her head as she was overwhelmed by the pain of her legs being pierced before being violently pulled to the ground by the root that was still going through her leg, Scaly instinctively used her full strength to cut the root with her claws-
Whoosh-!
Whoosh-!
Whoosh-!
Pulling away just in time to see three similar roots emerging from the ground where her three other limbs had been located a short moment ago. Making her graceful for her rapid instinctual survival response of cutting the root and pulling back before her mind had the time to comprehend what was happening.
What was that just now...
Narrowing both her eyes cautiously, Scaly scanned her surroundings while keeping an eye on the three roots that were now flailing around randomly in the air after missing their target.
[Wild Root Flower, lvl 13]
And soon enough, she managed to spot the culprit behind her now heavily injured leg bleeding profusely.
Although it wasn’t enough to kill her and she would be able to recover in time with her strong vitality, it was still painful and would affect her combat ability until it recovered.
[Description: A monster taking the shape of a normal wildflower, the wild root flower is known for its terrifying ambush ability using its root manipulation ability and the terrifying root network it has below ground. Outside of its abilities to ambush, it doesn’t have any strong defensive abilities and is incredibly weak if it doesn’t succeed in ambushing its target. Stepping on it is more than enough to kill it.]
Glancing through the description of the wild root flower as it still seemed to be preoccupied with its roots having lost their target, Scaly was happy to discover that it was weak outside of its ambush ability.
Swish-!
Feeling emboldened by the information, Scaly swallowed the pain she felt in her leg and rushed towards the wild root flower. Intending to kill it before it had time to attack her again-
Thumb~
[Gained 271 Exp]
Stepping on it like the description had told her to do. Killing the small yet dangerous wild root flower in an effortless manner.
It really died just from me stepping on it...
Feeling a bit bewildered over the fact that the monster that had managed to land such a deadly blow on her had actually died just like that, Scaly could not help feeling a sense of embarrassment over the fact that such a weak monster had somehow managed to injure her.
At the same time, she also kept glancing around herself looking to see if there were more monsters like the wild root flower close to her...
[Wild Root Flower, lvl 9]
[Wild Root Flower, lvl 17]
[Wild Root Flower, lvl 14]
[Wild Root Flo..]
And to her horror, she discovered that there were countless such flowers all around her.
The only reason why she hadn’t been attacked yet should be due to the fact that she had somehow been lucky enough to stand at a place too far away for them to reach with their roots.
It was also at this moment that Scaly finally realized why she hadn’t seen a single human or monster when first arriving at the forest, it should be because of these small flowers covering most of the forest floor.
Not to mention the fact that it would be hard to even walk with the danger lurking just below the surface, it didn’t seem like killing the wild root flowers had any use outside of experience used for leveling up, but... Even the exp provided by these small flowers was far below what she could get from killing a single human.
Even worse, after killing the lone wild root flower that had attacked her, Scaly discovered that the rest of the wild root flowers seemed to be gathered together in groups numbering the hundreds further inside the forest.
The lone one she had just fought could be considered an abnormal case, as it was among a small dozen wild root flowers located at the edge of the forest that were isolated from the rest of the wild root flower groups.
Killing the lone ones might be doable, but killing the groups of hundreds of them was impossible, as she doubted that her water magic would do much to them with the thousands of roots that should be ready to pop up from the ground to protect them.
Even then... I should at least give it a try and see if I can break through. After all, though one doesn’t give a lot of experience, putting hundreds together at once... I would only need to kill a few groups before I can undergo my next evolution!
Narrowing both her eyes as she thought this to herself while thoughtfully staring at the closest group of wild root flowers, Scaly decided to at least try and see if she could kill them from a distance while waiting for her leg to recover.