Chapter 36 The Scent Is Back

Comfortably sitting in a dark, almost pitch-black cave, a large and lengthy reptile was coiled on top of a bed full of grass and leaves. Occasionally, one could hear the inaudible monster cries echo from the outside and bounce off the walls, traveling deep into the cave.

Ethoss was still. His stationary position was flawlessly unmoving, albeit, his tongue flickered periodically.

Not to mention, his eyes fought day and night to stay open, and he was sleepy from eating as much food as he had. Like a baby; a giant scaly one, he battled his will to sleep. He tried his best to stay concentrated on his current task.

Blinking constantly to keep his eyes watered and wet, he listened carefully to what the mechanical voice stated.

[Would you like to purchase Crystal Scales +5, Mana-sight Eyes +5, Absorption Legs +5, Flamethrower Fire Gland +5, and Teeth +4? It will cost 40 Biomass.]

Hearing everything go as planned, he accepted.

Hiss…

As the frosty sensation surged through his body, Ethoss subconsciously released a low hiss. Similar to how it felt when he previously mutated, a cooling and chilly stimulation stroked the inside and outside of his body.

The cold energy crawled across his scales while traveling throughout all six limbs before entering his mouth and eyes, making its way down to his throat to caress the fire glands, it rested in place for just long enough for him to get accustomed to this new feeling before fading away and returning.

With every inhale came another wave of freezing coolness as if the air itself had become frigid water, but only within the confines of his own cavernous mouth and lungs.

Accompanied by the icey sensations, Ethoss could literally feel the changing of his body. Cracking sounds filled the air as his scales grew and scraped against one another, which reminded him of bones breaking. Fortunately, there was no pain, just coolness.

Ethoss had closed his eyes to endure the coldness that was assaulting his eyes, it felt as if a cold wind was constantly encompassing his eyes, and having them open just doubled the uncomfortableness.

The frozen stimulation could be felt all throughout his nervous system. Minutes later, almost as fast as it came, the cooling faded away.

As the icy feeling left his body, something else replaced it; hotter than anything ever experienced before in his life. His feet were burning. Snapping his eyes open, he glanced down only to be surprised; Ethoss's vertical eye slit which was yellow until this point had now changed into a light/dark hue of blue.

He could visibly see a blue mist being sucked up through his legs gradually, like roots from a tree sucking up water. Looking around the cave, it was much more apparent, he could see the fixed pace of the blue mist moving throughout the cave, however, most of the blue mist was hovering around him specifically.

He bent his neck, attempting to take a look at his new body. It was a pleasant surprise to see how thick his scales had gotten, each one closely knitted together like the perfect puzzle pieces. It looked more like armor now. Not only that, but greenish-blue crystals also grew around his body in tiny portions.

Sharp crystals that reflected light grew on his forearm and his tail, running halfway down his spine. They also grow around his head, almost looking like additional horns.

Ethoss pulled up the status in his mind.

Name: Ethoss

Level: 6(Red Core)

Strength: 60

Toughness: 55

Cunning: 50

Will: 27

HP: 50/50

MP: 36/36

Skills[Attack]: Lethal Venomous Bite level(II) 2, Reinforced Tail Whip(II) level 1, Pernicious Claw Swipe(II) level 1

Skills[Support]: Rapid Dash(II) level 2, Deep Night Vision(II) level 2, Discoloration Camouflage(II) level 2, Dig level 3, Mana Shaping(II) level 1, Mana Recycle level 1

Mutations: Unmasked Jacobson's organ +5, Absorption Legs +5, Mana-sight Eyes +5, Crystal Scales +5, Claws +3, Teeth +4, Flamethrower Fire Gland +5

Species: Draco Aeternus Lacerta(Male)

Biomass: 3

Skill Point: 3

Unfortunately, he couldn't properly see his upgrades, he blinked constantly, yet, his eyelids were too heavy.

His head subconsciously fell slowly to the ground and before a minute passed he fell asleep. The rest was dreamless, as if all the thoughts were completely wiped clean from his mind as soon as they had come into existence.

***

An unknown period of time passed as the reptile rested. All anyone could hear were faint growls coming out of his mouth. A low rumble sounded from inside his belly every few minutes but other than that nothing else seemed to happen for a while.

Suddenly an extremely loud thumping sound rang out within the forest expanse, more specifically Ethoss's territory.

Another powerful impact came moments after the first. It felt like an earthquake. The ground shook slightly causing some of the leaves that Ethoss was sleeping on to rattle and fall onto the ground.

A series of booms followed one another, echoing through the forest like rolling thunder. They made no difference whether Ethoss was sleeping or awake; not even his eyelids flinched.

He was deep in his sleep, he didn't even move once. Seconds later, the thumping sound began to echo loudly throughout the cave, and the sound of mumblings rummaged the cave.

Either by coincidence or through luck, Ethoss subconsciously flicked his tongue while sleeping. What assaulted his taste buds were extremely disgusting, so much so that upon tasting the grotesque scent, Ethoss instinctively woke up to vomit.

However, when he opened his eyes and peered down the cave's tunnel, he could clearly see a light. It was pretty far down the tunnel but an orange-yellowish light was definitely there. It glimmered on and off constantly.

With difficulty, he flicked his tongue to taste the air once more, he immediately understood how predicament after tasting that familiar nasty scent that hung so thick in the air.

'Humans!' He thought.

In contrast to the last time he had sensed this horrible scent, this time it was extremely thick, so thick that he could literally see the brownish mana condensing in the air.

'What is this?'

Ethoss jumped onto his six limbs and headed straight toward the entrance of his cavern. His long neck extended itself forward with all its might, stretching out from side to side as fast as possible as if he were trying to grab something out of sight.

Questions plagued his mind. Why were the humans here so fast? How long had he been asleep? How did they know where exactly to go, to find which cave he was in? It made no sense, this cave was hidden by trees so it was odd that the humans would know where it was exactly.

Ethoss quickly activated his camouflage.

He began to think of a new plan now since he couldn't execute his previous one anymore. It was okay, if it was just another small group of six humans, he could find a way to deal with them, besides his body had just experienced a significant amount of mutations.

However, as soon as he reached close enough to see past the orange light, what he saw completely and utterly destroyed any plans he had cooked up within these past few seconds.

Humans. Tons of them, it seemed like a whole army was packed into the cave. In their hands, they carried wooden sticks that were lit with flames, possibly to see inside of the dark. Now, the sounds of their metal armaments clanked and rustled loudly due to the mass amounts of humans present.

'What the hell is this?!' He thought.

There were too many humans. Although Ethoss felt confident in his prowess this was too much, and he knew that he wouldn't win in a fight against these humans. He had to switch up the plan once again, if he wanted to survive he would have to run.

The embarrassment that he felt knowing that he needed to run away again drowned his heart. He hissed in frustration. Shaking his head, he became firm with his decision, there was no time to think, he had to move. If he didn't, survival would be a pipe dream.

Still, he had nowhere to go, the only exit was infested with humans, and there was a very low chance of him sneaking past a group as big as that. His large frame would also play in the downfall of that plan.

Suddenly, an idea entered his mind, he had forgotten about a skill that he had all this time due to it not becoming useful until now.

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Ethoss immediately activated Dig, and with all his force he clawed at the ground. The hard rock ground made it hard for him to dig effectively but he couldn't give up. Each time he clawed into the ground sparks flew and fell.

As if to spite him, he heard the loud footsteps of the humans creeping closer. In his desperation to escape, he began using all four of his free limbs and grabbed his claws together as tightly as possible as he dug into the ground.

Just like that, a large crack opened up near where he was clawing through the floor. With one last surge of power, he ripped away the rocky ground revealing the dirt and soil underneath it.

'Finally!'

Now he could dig more easily!