“Are you ready?” Vivian asked.
She was holding a very, very large snake by the neck. It was at least three meters long—probably closer to four. Its scales were mostly dirt brown, with swirling yellow patterns like eddies running along its body.
The snake writhed in her grasp, but Vivian’s vice grip held firm as she looked to Elias, waiting for an answer. He gulped, used Analyze on the monster once more, and gave her a single nod to show he was ready.
*******
Pneumaconda
Uncommon
Level 10
*******
Vivian vanished in a flash of light, like the brief twinkle of a star, leaving Elias alone with the giant snake.
The snake, finally free from Vivian’s grasp, wasted no time. It coiled back and launched itself at Elias in a single, fluid motion, its mouth wide open to strike as it closed the distance in moments.
As the creature lunged to bite down on his shoulder, Elias twisted and drove an upward punch into its head, slamming its jaws shut. He kept the motion going, twisting his body further so the monster sailed past him instead of crashing into him.
The snake hit the ground barely a meter from Elias, only slightly disoriented by the blow. It was hardly slowed. It quickly twisted its body toward him and struck again, though its aim was slightly off this time.
It wasn’t until Elias landed five solid blows to its head that the creature finally began to show real signs of disorientation—and that’s when he struck.
As it sailed past him once more in another failed attempt to hit him, Elias leapt forward and kicked its head with all his strength, snapping it slightly farther from the rest of its body. Before it could recover, he grabbed it by the neck and began hammering punches into it.
But the Pneumaconda wasn’t so easily bested.
It coiled in on itself, doing its best to wrap itself around Elias to constrict him. Its mouth opened wide, as if to hiss—but no sound came. Instead, a great rush of air was pulled into its body like a vacuum, and it began to swell, ballooning in size with alarming speed.
Even as it finally managed to coil around Elias and begin to constrict him—its rapidly expanding body adding to the pressure—he didn’t stop. With near-desperate intensity, he kept raining down blows on the snake’s head, the only part of its body that hadn’t magically inflated like a rubber balloon.
It was a race against time. He had to kill the snake before it crushed him.
The pressure mounted around him, and soon Elias felt his body begin to creak like old wooden floorboards. His joints popped one after another, but he could tell the creature was on its last legs as well—its head was a bloody mess.
Then, just as he was about to give out, the pressure suddenly eased and the snake began to deflate like a popped balloon.
 
You have gained 200 exp.
 
Much like the deflating snake, Elias collapsed to the ground in exhaustion. His body ached in ways he didn’t quite have the words to describe, but he was fairly certain at least a few things had been crushed.
“Good job, Eli. How are you feeling?” Vivian asked, popping up beside him.
Before he could answer, she waved her hand, and a small spark of light flew into his chest. His body glowed golden for a brief second, and he felt the aches quickly fade. By the time the glow vanished, he felt as good as new.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Better now,” he said with a relieved smile.
“Good. Just rest for a bit while I go fetch a monster for Rebecca,” she said.
Speaking of his friend, Elias looked over to where she was standing a couple dozen meters away. She was grinning widely, and when she caught him looking, she gave him an enthusiastic double thumbs-up.
He chuckled, then let his head drop back onto the dirt.
The monster his mother chose for Rebecca looked like a plain doe. It was easily one of the least threatening creatures Elias could imagine encountering in this zone, standing just over a meter tall. It looked about ready to bolt the moment his mother let it go.
That is, if you ignored the crackling arcs of electricity dancing between its two short, knobby horns.
Elias used Analyze on it.
*******
Arc Deer
Uncommon
Level 10
*******
It looked like getting struck by the monster’s electric horns would be an extremely painful experience, so Elias wished his friend good luck—but he needn’t have bothered. Rebecca dispatched her monster with considerably more ease than he had with his.
In the same breath that Vivian let go of the creature and vanished, reappearing beside Elias, Rebecca was already in motion. She drew and launched two throwing knives, then bolted after them, drawing her larger combat blades as she moved—all before the doe had time to react.
The moment it realized it was free, the monster exploded toward her, charging straight into the path of the knives. One sank into its shoulder; the other aimed for its head, but brilliant arcs of electricity lashed out to meet it, deflecting it with a sharp thunderclap.
While this spared the Arc Deer from being impaled through the skull, it sealed its fate, as the blight flash and sharp crack disoriented it for a moment.
That was all Rebecca needed.
Before the creature could recover, she was already beside it, stabbing its throat with her knives like a jaguar sinking in its fangs.
Elias stared agape at the ease with which she dispatched the Uncommon-rank monster.
From beginning to end, she acted with intent and without hesitation. She had clearly followed a previously crafted plan and executed it flawlessly. It was pure experience at play.
Rebecca glanced at Elias and smirked smugly, flashing her knives back into their straps in a single, fluid motion. It was like she was saying that whatever she lacked in combat skill compared to him, she more than made up for with her far greater experience fighting monsters.
In less than a minute, the three of them were once again jogging along the dirt trail toward the tunnel leading into the Novice-rank zone. This time, Vivian reacted much faster to any monsters that dared to approach. In fact, Elias didn’t even catch sight of them. All he saw was his mother’s glowing magic sphere darting through the air occasionally, presumably killing the monsters before they could even get close.
It took them nearly twice as long to cross the Beginner-rank zone at a steady jog, confirming that it really was twice the size of the newbie zone. The tunnel at the end of the trail looked the same, and they entered it without hesitation, arriving in the next zone only a few minutes later.
The difference between the Beginner-rank zone and the Novice-rank zone was the same as before—namely, everything was nearly twice as large.
It was so eerie how everything else remained unchanged that Elias got the impression it wasn’t the environment growing larger, but they themselves who were shrinking. In the previous zone, he had felt dwarfed by everything. Now, he felt more like a particularly small cat, or a large rat.
Even the smallest trees he could see were as thick as he was tall, stretching impossibly high toward the ceiling. And speaking of that, the ceiling was now so far away—and the crystals embedded in it shone so brightly—that it looked as if the cavern roof were made of glittering gems. What’s more, even some of the fallen leaves littering the ground were nearly as big as he was.
The trail leading out of the tunnel could barely be called that anymore. It stretched over five meters wide, more like a dirt road than a trail.
As they emerged from the tunnel, Vivian snapped her fingers, and five more spheres of light materialized around her. They circled her lazily for a moment, like bees around a flower, before four of them shot off into the jungle. The remaining two zipped over to Elias and Rebecca, hovering above their heads like halos.
Like this, they jogged on for several more hours, undisturbed the entire time. Occasionally, Elias heard crashing sounds or the dying wails of monsters from deep within the jungle, but none ever came close to reaching them.
The only time Elias saw a monster was near the tunnel leading out of the Novice-rank zone. They had stopped to eat the sandwiches they had packed for lunch when he asked his mom to let them see one of the monsters.
Vivian had smiled wickedly, and less than a minute later, an enormous rat—nearly three times his height—crashed out of the foliage. It screeched madly, its rage-filled eyes gleaming blood red, and charged at them. As it moved, flames erupted across its body, and its claws glowed the yellow-orange of hot iron.
Three balls of light shot forward and pierced it repeatedly, killing it within moments, but not before Elias managed to use Analyze on the creature.
*******
Moltenclaw Rat
Rare
Level 30
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