Chapter 10 - Fresh Air

(A/N.: This is the first time I used a timed publish, hopefully it will work without any issues, as unfortunately I'm away from my PC and I'm unable to manually publish it. If it doesn't work, you shouldn't see this message anyways. :D)

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Slithering my way, I followed the source of the bright rays, while I was making sure the mapping feature was saving every little detail that I sensed in my range of vision. As I emerged from the cavern entrance, the bright light caused me a momentary blindness. This was the first time I felt the rays envelop me.

I could feel its warmth. The sunshine caressing my scales. Heating me up, providing me with a natural source of replenishment. The view that unfolded before me was incredible.

The forest that was before me, was gigantic, luminous and thriving. Its canopy was monopolized by poplar, hawthorn, and hickory and abundant dancing lights bounced through their crowns for a hodgepodge of shrubs to take advantage of the moist and fertile bottom layer below.

Bundled branches waved from many a tree, and a pot-pourri of flowers, which desperately tried to avoid the shadows, added some bright touches to the otherwise uniform forest floor.

I have not mentioned it yet, as I have not seen an ear, but apparently I could finally process sounds. I have to tell you; the world got so loud as I crossed the entrance. It was like I exited from a sound bubble. Suddenly I could hear a mishmash of noises.

A variety of animal sounds, predominantly those of foraging beasts, reverberated through the air, forming a chaotic orchestra with the sounds of a fight over dominance between most likely larger animals or maybe monsters.

In the distance you could also hear the trickling sounds of a gentle river stream. Thinking about the flowing stream of water, I suddenly had the urge to dive into it. The sound came from the east, thus after considering it for a moment I started making my way there. Judging by the sound, since it was outside of my vision, even if I empowered my Dark Sense ability, it must be quite a distance away.

Not that it bothered me. Making my way through the tall grass, feeling the moist ground around my body was quite thrilling. In the distance, to the north, amongst the tall trees and flower bed, I saw the occasional light grey and white tuft of fur popping up, alternating with a pair of large fur covered ears. I assumed it must have been some kind of hare that found some food there. The plant that it was near to was also rather unusual.

The plant the hare was focusing on was a small one. It had narrow needle leaves that were emerald colored. It had 3 small flowers on it, one black, one dark red and one light orange colored. I couldn't really tell but it seemed that whenever the hare attacked it, the plant grew small thorns around its body, that could be retracted back to its thin stem.

It was quite a scene; the hare kept trying to attack, while the flower thwarted it every time, with the suddenly emerging thorns. I made a mental note to later investigate this strange plant but, right now, I continued my way over to the river.

In a few minutes I was at the edges of the trees, hiding in tall grass, looking in front of me. There was a relatively small creature resting next to the stream. It was the size of a frog, but it had two legs and two arms, with a short, stubby tail. It had a thick, smooth oily looking skin, covered in small, black coarse scales with some occasional light blue and dark silver combinations.

The size of this creature was all around. For example, its relatively small head had a pair of small, hanging ears on top of it, while it had large eyes, which was closed currently, with a very wide, but simple nose beneath it. It had a large mouth, almost half of its head.

It did not seem to notice me, and it was probably resting after finishing his meal, which from the remains seemed to be some sort of fish. It also produced a high pitched rhythmic snoring sound.

I kept my gaze on it, while I slowly creeped closer to the creature. It either did not care, or its awareness was really low, as I did not notice any movement, not even a twitch.

In mere moments I was already behind the creature, in my attack pose. I was gazing down at the animal, I did not notice any reaction from it. Looking at it, I thought back to my earlier battle with my consciousness. I know I shouldn't feel sorry for every animal and monster I will hunt down. I'm a predator, I need to hunt them down. I need the experience; I have to become strong. If you are weak, no matter where you are, you will be at the bottom of the food chain. If I want to keep myself alive, I need to strive for the top. For that, I had to shift my mentality. I must become a true predator, not just a wannabe.

I slowly opened my mouth to its maximum capacity. Judging from the size of the creature, I could probably swallow it whole, but just to make sure, I planned to bite down on its head, sinking my fangs and injecting my venom into it. This served two goals. One, is that I wanted to see the power of my bite, and second, I wanted to test out the toxicity of my venom. Even if it destroys my prey, it would be a worthy experiment.

The creature died peacefully. It did not even make a sound, as I bit into its head with lightning fast speed. Its ears twitched momentarily, but as my venom made its way into its body, the movement quickly died down. As the creature's movements stopped, I slowly closed my mouth, as I bit down its head completely, and swallowed it down. I did not want to swallow it down whole, as while its size was small, it would still cause a rather big protrusion in my belly area.

After the first bite, I bit down another large chunk and after a few more bites, the entire creature was now taking its final rest inside my tummy, slowly being converted to energy. I took a rest in its previous spot, while focusing on the conversion. I wanted to see the amount of energy it provided and then compare it to the mushrooms and bugs.

However, my momentary rest was disturbed by the system's notification.

[First successful hunt completed! Hunt (level 1) ability granted!]

[Forest Stone Frog hunted! Received 5 xp!]

This reminded me, I still had 100 xp from the rewards, which I have yet to spend. Although it's not much, but I already had an idea where I wanted to use these points.

'Enya, please convert all the experience points I have towards my level.' I ordered.

Instead of a reply, I got a new notification.

[105 XP used. Level 2 reached. 10 XP granted to Might and Agility.]

So the increase in level, also provided a small boon to the physical attributes. I wonder if this will always be the case, or there would be other benefits in increasing levels, other than reaching the threshold. That was my main goal now, but if it provided other benefits, all the better.

Keeping my sense active, and constantly scanning my surroundings for movement, I closed my eyes, and rested my head on a nearby rock while lulling myself to a daze listening to the sound of the flowing stream of water. Processing the frog was a slow process, and while that was going on, I decided to just enjoy this idyllic atmosphere. It was incredibly peaceful.

I have no idea when I fell asleep, but with my belly full, the soothing sound of the flowing river eventually won the battle over my awareness. I just couldn't help it. When I woke the sun was already setting, and the temperature was slowly dropping. It was actually this colder weather that caused me to come back to awareness. A cold breeze blew through me, causing me to shiver momentarily, and groggily awaken.

I raised my heads and sent out a series of invisible energy pulses to scan my area for any dangers. Registering that there were no immediate problems, I had a few options ahead of me. The day had sadly passed, which was not my intention, but I could still follow my initial intention and dive into the water. However, since it's already so cold outside, I wasn't keen on that idea anymore.

The other, and safer option would be to return to my cave for the day, and while I'm not that tired anymore, continue resting up till morning rises and follow up my plan tomorrow.

The third option, since I had completely consumed the frog now, and I felt full of energy, I could continue to explore the surroundings and check that weird flower, the hare was attacking earlier the day. It was such a unique-looking plant, and its defensive mechanism was so interesting, so unique, that it might provide me some benefits.

Since I could now constantly keep up my radar with my empowered Dark Sense, I gave myself time until the sun completely sets. Not sure how much time that would be, but since I do not want to take any risks right now, that seemed the best route.

Leaving my new luxurious resting place that this river provided, I made my way back into the thick and tall blades of grass, and made my way towards the weird plant that I could already sense it was still standing proud, in the middle of the flowerbed, now devoid of any small mammals pestering it. The small hare gave up eventually since it couldn't get past the prickly thorns.

'Wonder if it's poisonous? I can't think of any other reason for being victorious against the animal.' I contemplated. This fragile looking small plant, with its 3 different colored flowers, won against that small creature. If it was not poison, I don't know what it could have been. Maybe it got scared of a larger animal?

While thinking of various reasons for this rather uncanny ending, I was already near it. I slowly slithered around it, I tried not showing any hostile intent, since it seemed to be able to sense and react to it. I still wasn't sure about this, neither of the fact that the thorns could cause me any damage at all, but I did not want to test this theory.

Using my usual attack stance, once my mouth was wide open, I bit down and ripped it out of the ground. It did not react to my attack at all, so I quickly swallowed it down. I was experiencing pain, if it was poisonous, but other than some dull pain that quickly subsided, there was nothing else.

However, the notification confirmed my suspicion of the end of the previous battle.

[Poison Resistance (level 2) received 25 XP!]