Chapter 184: Dog vs Drake!

Qin Hua cautiously looked around to see if the water drake had come out to the lake searching for her, but the lake remained still and clear as ever. 

She then slowly tip-toed in, ready to flee at any moment. Her thoughts were running amok as she waddled back to the bottom of the lake.

Pshhhaaaa!

She let out a big gasp and sucked in fresh air after reaching the underwater tunnel. 

She half expected the beast to have stepped out of its cave, waiting for her with its mouth wide open but it looked like the damned thing hadn't moved at all.

[Fuck! Am I nothing but an insect in front of you! Grrrrr!] Qin Hua growled inwardly and peered in to see the thing lying lazily with its eyes closed.

The next second, the drake flashed its eyes open without any warning and Qin Hua immediately tossed all the three grenades at the giant beast, exchanging her position with the clone without bothering to wait and see the outcome.

BOOM! BOOM! KABOOM!

Just as her figure turned into a wisp of black smoke and she materialized at the other side, near the portal gate, a series of loud explosive noises filled the entire rift, shaking it up from top to bottom.

[Fuck. Coco, be ready to run out.]

Qin Hua could distinctly hear the rocks crumbling down and falling into the lake, making loud splashing noises. 

With every loud noise that she heard, she couldn't help but hope for the best results. Moreover, there was still no reaction from the drake at all which was near impossible.

[Woooooffff?]

[Did I really kill it?]

And as if answering her question an earthshattering angry bellow echoed from within inside.

ROAAARRRRR!

Both the cat and the dog trembled as the two looked at each other. A strong gust of wind came from within and swept their face and then a loud splash echoed.

Qin Hua shuddered. The grenades had clearly not worked. They had probably injured the damn thing and made it even more angry and hostile.

[Woof? Should we just run out?]

The wolf's feral eyes darted here and there, waiting for more to happen, perhaps the drake to chase after them but still, no such thing happened.

She found this really strange. [Hmmm… Is there some sort of restriction?] Steeling her nerves, she summoned out her clone again and then slowly walked back towards the cliff protruding over the lake.

Even from there, she could clearly see the drake swirling around the lake waters with an annoyed expression on its sharp and ferocious face.

It particularly lingered around the place where previously the underground tunnel was there, but now had fully collapsed with big rocks and boulders at the entrance.

ROARRR! The drake shouted in anger as soon as it spotted Qin Hua's figure, it sped towards her, lashing its huge tail at her, spraying the lake water everywhere.

[Oh no.] Qin Hua once again exchanged positions with her clone, absconding from her spot in the blink of an eye.

ROAARRR! The drake let out another enraged roar but still didn't come out of the confinement of the lake. It stood guard next to the rift's crystal core as if its life depended on it.

[What the hell are we going to do now?] Qin Hua was out of her wits. They were both at an impasse. She couldn't move forward and she didn't have the heart to take a step back.

She still didn't know all the rules of the rift core and she didn't want all her hard work of clearing all the other monsters to go to waste and lose the quest reward just because she couldn't kill this last boss.

[All this running back and forth is fucking exhausting!] She took out one of the eels' mana cores and absorbed it while thinking about what to do now.

There were several factors here and everything placed her at a disadvantage. 

First, she was not comfortable fighting in water and that beast's name was water drake. So obviously the other party didn't have that problem.

Second, was their size difference and third was the fact that her knowledge and experience was probably a lot lower than that drake's experience. 

For all she knew, that thing could be hundreds of years old like a mythical beast or not. She also didn't know what type of attacks it had.

[Hmmm. Maybe that guy also uses lightning magic like the eels?]

[No that can't be possible.] She shook her head. Otherwise, the drake could have simply ended her life by sending out a bolt of lightning. 

[Water drake... so maybe some kind of water magic or ice magic? Or perhaps it only has physical strength?]

Qin Hua sighed. She wondered if her shadow damage was enough to even penetrate its defenses. In front of that beast, she was just like those eels.

The drake was simply allowing her to survive as she hadn't confronted it yet directly. The wolf's ears suddenly perked up as she realized something important.

[Hmm… Hey Coco… Do you actually think that the drake allowed the eels to survive or was it simply helpless against them because of some reason?]

Perhaps the combined lightning attack from the hundreds of eels' was something even the drake feared and considering that it was a water drake, but resided inside the tunnel away from the water, this made sense.

Qin Hua quickly connected the dots as she formed a highly feasible plan. She had gained some amount of lightning attribute from eating the goblin chief's mana core.

After that, she hadn't progressed much in that element at all. So what would happen if she consumed all of the hundreds of eels' mana cores?

Could she also develop a lightning affinity?

As a fenrir, she was supposed to have infinite potential!

[Woof! Let me try this! This has to work!] 

Qin Hua growled and started pulling out mana cores from one eel after another. Just to make sure that everything went her way, she also grabbed Coco and placed her on her back.

[Let's go!]

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

Her paws moved swiftly as she began swallowing the mana cores one after the other. Thick dense mana slid down her throat and circulated throughout the body.

Qin Hua could feel her mana core at her abdominal center becoming fuller and fuller. She was brimming with energy and several notifications chimed in as well.

<Ding. Agility +2>

<Ding. Your affinity with the lightning element has improved>

<Ding. Strength +1>

<Ding. Your affinity with the lightning element has improved>

<Ding. Stamina +3>

<Ding. Your affinity with the lightning element has improved>

<Ding. Agility +1>

<Ding. Your affinity with the lightning element has improved>

<Ding. Agility +1>

<Ding. Your affinity with the lightning element has improved>

<Ding. Agility +1>

<Ding. Your affinity with the lightning element has improved>

…

…

…

And after a few minutes later, the notification that she expected the most popped out with a big ringing sound.

<Ding. Your affinity with the lightning element has improved. You now have an intermediate affinity with lightning element>

<Ding. Congratulations. You now have enough proficiency to use lightning attribute magic>

<Ding. New skills are available in shop>

<Ding. You are now able to use the skill [Lightning Bolt]>

Huff! Huff! Huff! Qin Hua panted roughly. 

[Woof! Finally!] She tossed Coco up into the air, but then stopped jumping around as she was only celebrating prematurely.

[TIme to test out the new skill!] The wolf grinned revealing her white teeth, which were now fully bloody with eel's blood smeared all over her furry face from having eaten so many mana cores.

She didn't bother checking the new skills in the shop for now as she was saving all her skill points for the mysterious 'Nether gate' skill.

She once again summoned out her clone and patted the cat with her paw, giving a sheepish smile. [Be ready to run!]

BZZZT! BZZZT! BZZZT!

Electricity crackled from her paws and mana overflowed from her body.

Materializing the lightning element felt a bit strange to her at first as it was a different feeling compared to when she materialized the dark shadow element.

If anything this was easier to command. She hadn't realized it until now but the mental exhaustion from using shadow attacks was a lot higher than when she commanded lightning.

[Growl! I will analyze this later. For now, it is time to roast that big lizard!]

She was chalked full of too much mana and adrenaline to pay attention to finer details right now. She was ready to fight!

Growl! The wolf then bounded towards the lake once again, to fight with the water drake once more. 

BZZZT! BZZZT!

She materialized currents under her paws summoning as much mana as she could and as soon as she reached the edge of the cliff, she immediately sent out her best attack.

[Eat this sucker! Woof!]