Chapter 14

My Target is the ice region. Underwater combat with a hammer is no go. The forest area is dense like a rainforest and volcano area is…. hot. After my time spent in the dry land I realised something. That bison looking thing was not a mini boss. There are these other monsters that are more powerful than a regular level 40 monster but weak compared to the boss monster. I think it was one of them.

I say this because both times I was near the boss monsters, I felt chills throughout my body. That's an indication that I am in danger. I did not feel that while the bison attacked me. Secondly, judging from the casual fireball that tiger boss tossed toward me I am pretty sure I would have died if that was a boss monster. Third and last is the fact that boss monsters don't roam around that much. I was in constant lookouts for the gorilla boss but it did not come out. Neither did the tiger.

"How do they sustain themselves? Even normal monsters don't go near them. Ohhhh…. right the flame lion tactics."

With a convenient excuse I am invading the land of eternal snow. This place reminds me of the snow maidens. I know they are not here but I can't help but imagine. At this point something remotely human looking would do.

The most prominent species in the ice region was white ice wolves and the big fuck off bison deers. The wolves were really pretty. The animal variety was very high. Rabbits, deers, squirrels, ocetional bears and some other small games I could not identify.

Wolves always hunted in packs. Without attacking each other. Fighting them was a nuisance. I did not want to waste a single pallet, so fire was out of question, and they kinda spammed two moves. One was, bite and another was, frost beam. Standing as high as me they were the prettiest monsters I had ever seen. I really wanted one as a pet but the red eye screwed me over.

Bison deers were ugly. Just their face that is. They were herbivores so they had this weird mouth like a dog. It creeped me out. After killing one I decided to check how that bison impaled me with its antlers. Turned out their antler tips were fitted with very sharp transparent crystals. It was not ice. I tried to roast one in lava heat, nothing happened. They had an upgraded version of the speed boost but clever placement of the gravity field was their doom.

I did not search for the boss monsters. It wasn't every day that I wanted to poke a hornet's nest.

This area took me a longggggggggggggggggggg time to clear. It wasn't hard or anything, just that most things tested good and their furs were warm and comfy. I made coats, boots, blankets, beds, tents and a few other things with them.

What took that much time was transportation. I made a hand pulled cart with trees and pulled the raw materials all the way to my storage facilities. I made a few toys too. Some arrows with antler tips. A few javelins, harpoons, small knives and a few spears.

"Now the water park is covered."

I learned 2 new magic. Frost beam from my mouth and frost arrow. None of which I can perform on my own. I just can't find the thing that propels them. I can create the frost arrows and throw them with my hand but they are obviously slower than the spell, and frost breath is just pure cold molecules thrown in a direction. There is nothing wrong with using the pattern but it has a maximum output limit.

Everytime I ponder on it, I feel something is missing. Something essential to performing them. I feel this close to finding out then it shatters. This is really bugging me.

__________

My next objective was forest. I was able to kill things with my bare hands again and I had some small weapons. Namely short spear and knives.

Honestly the forest was super lacklustre. Too many snakes and lizards. No monkeys, no Jaguars, no birds, not even the staple tree monsters. Just snakes and lizards. They were big though so it worked out somehow. I can't even imagine searching for small animals in that kind of dense forest. All the abilities I got were either poisonous in nature or incompatible with my body type. There was one particular ability I really wanted. The camouflage but I did not get it. Now that I think about it. Camouflage is not really a magical ability. I did get a few great wood and vines for my bow though so It was okay.

With a heavy heart I went toward the water area. 'I am not going in the volcano area without an AOE water spell.' That area was too hot, and lava just started coming out of seemingly nowhere.

Standing on the gravelled shore I sucked up a lung full air. The refreshing scent calmed my anxious heart. 'It's so peaceful.' As long as you are not in the water that is. I love being in water. It's cold, relaxing. Fighting in the water is none of that. You can't move well. You can't use traditional fighting techniques, and the weird way of breathing.

Well, it's gonna be like fighting in those ponds and the air fire buff will generate enough force to dodge. It will be alright. I have harpoons too. Huh.. huh.. hu...let's do this.

I jumped into the water, wearing a small pant, carrying a harpoon, a short spear, a long spear, and 4 small knives. It was time to hunt some fish.

Water breathing technique kicked in and I swam for the bottom. I knew it was a big lake but the sea would have been better. Unreal as it may sound, I never had any seafood. I like fish, but I wanted to try out some seafood.

My first enemy was a crab. Around 2 square meter in size. Big juicy pinchers. Moss covering its back giving it an ancient look. Wiping out my drool I watched it from afar. 'The shell is going to be my biggest problem.' I have learned some potent poison from the snakes but that will make it unreadable. I thought about boiling it but I was skeptical about its potency with this much water around.

"Idea, Instead of hunting, I should prepare it for cooking."

Where I lived we have these freshwater crabs. What we do is hold the crab between the two pincher hands from behind with one hand. Put the other thumb under the armor and split it apart. That's obviously not gonna work. It's too big and it's shape is different too. More than that, I want to roast it. Can't do that with the splitting method, but I know of another method.

Slowly swimming toward it I set up two spells. Gravity field right under the crab and ice spell on its body. When I got around 20 meters near it. I hunkered down near a rock and activated the magics. Feeling cold and heavy the crab tried to run away but was put down by my super reserve of mana.

10 minute passed, the crab was frozen. Ice forming around it. Just to be safe I decided to wait another 5 minute. When the time was up I went near the crab and flipped it. Crabs have these flaps under their belly, it's where the female crabs keep their babies. It is also a weak spot of the crab. I pulled up the flap and stabbed it with my short spear.

"Glug Gulag glup glugga.. ?"

"Huh? Is this a soft shell crab?"

I was a little bit confused. I did not apply that much pressure but the spear penetrated all the way through. 'Oh well, as long as it's dead.' Stubbing the crab a few more times I brought it up on the shore.

Making a few ice chunks with water I put the crab under them to defrost nicely and went to find woods and dried grasses. A few hours passed in preparation and it was finally ready. I didn't have anything fancy so I just lit up the fire and put the legs on it. Flipped around a few times and it was ready.

Imagine, you are working in the field. Tending to crops. The sun is high on the sky in its full summer glory. The humidity is unbearable, and your beautiful wife brings you a big bowl of {Pantha Bhat}. You take the rice under a tree. Slow breeze grazing your tiredness away. You are almost glad that you chose this life over corporate slavery. It tested nothing like that, but when I bit into the crab flesh I almost wanted to shout 'this life is the best'. It was that good.

[{Pantha Bhat} : Make rice, cool it down, put water in it. A lot of water. Almost 2 fingers deep. Put the lid back on and let it rest for 12 to 15 hours. Don't worry it won't rot. After the time is up, chop a shallot and a few green chilis. Mix them well with the rice and water. Put salt according to your taste and done. It's tasty, keeps your body cool on a hot day. Highly recommend it. / you can also use yogurt, chicken curry, fish fry, banana or whatever you fancy. It tests well with almost anything that you can eat with rice.]

The legs alone were enough to fill me up. I took some rest, daydreamed about having sex and went to hunt again. For this biome I had a different plan. There were no prominent species in it. The power level was distributed evenly among all of them. So it was easier than other biomes. That also meant there were too many monsters to hunt.

For the first few weeks, I hunted only edible monsters. Crabs, prawns, carps, eels and a few other fishes. There were no turtles or electric eels. After hunting more than enough food I started the genocide programme.

You may be asking why am I collecting so much food right? Aren't they gonna rot in a few days? No. They don't rot. Otherwise I wouldn't have bothered with all that extra work. I don't know why they don't rot but they do become fossilized if they are kept on the floor of my storage rooms. My flesh on the other hand does rot.

I marked a big area under the sea and channelled the strongest poison I had. For next few days I spent most of my mana on poisoning the water, ate when I got exhausted, collected the dead bodies and repeated this routine. I realised that I have a lot of mana. 'Am I OP? Don't think that, don't think that, you're gonna get smacked if you think that.'

Before you ask, let me explain. Mana is present in everything. Rocks, air, trees, hair, everything. When magic is used, the charged particles that come into contact with an uncharged particle try to transform them into charged particles. In a battle of spells you get damaged when you use the wrong type of spell. Like using air against fire instead of water or ice. Opposite charge neutralizes each other. In case of similar type charge the powerful one wins. How does one make their magic more powerful? I don't know. If I did, my life would have been a lot easier.

The mana shield works like a radiator, it lessens the effect by scattering the incoming energy. Resistance toward any magic makes it harder for the hostile spell to convert the receivers mana.

Ya ya this and that, why bother with them. Either way it's fire or ice coming toward you. Yes, and no. Let's say you get booped by a fire ball. Unless your clothes are on fire it will only burn your skin. On the other hand if your mana gets converted into fire element you will be burned to crisp from inside out. If that was not the case people would just put a log on fire and throw it toward their opponent. It would do more damage than magic. Remember how I got really badly injured by the flame lion's kamikaze attack? That blast was 1.5 sec to 2 sec long. It was not enough to burn me that badly.

I explained all of that just to say that even when I am not using poison directly, the water stays poisonous and the more poison I use the more toxic it becomes. Making my hunting significantly easier.

I did that for 4 days. My harvest was mind blowing, but everything good comes to an end eventually. On the 5th day the water became turmoil. From far away huge waves came crashing on the shore. Then forming a gigantic whirl upward a massive creature came out.

"A sea horse?"

Not a seahorse. A horse in the sea. Blackish green in colour. Lower body of a fish. Four giant fins coming out from where its legs should have been, and a spiky fin replacing its mane. Walking on water it effortlessly makes its way toward me.

Looking at it closely, I noticed. It was not that effortless as it seemed. The horse was drooling. Blue green unnatural patches all over its body. It was poisoned. Quite badly at that. It did not understand what was happening so it came out of water. When it saw me its red eye curse worked up and now I am in danger.

Thinking about it hard I made a decision. Let's give it a try. I may not get another chance like this. It's a boss monster, who knows if it will die or aquair a resistance toward poison.