After Soren and Lavenza left behind the mysterious person who bumped to them, they made their way towards Hall C where all the encyclopedias are. After they made it there, they were met again with a hall with bookcases full of thick books and some thinner books. This time, Soren was going to look for an encyclopedia that had monster entries so he could start his planning for the mission. This time he had 5 days, which, compared to before is much better, but unlike before, he couldn't afford to rely on his luck to hunt for monsters. There were definitely the neutral creatures which Soren wanted to avoid at the very least, since his blessing will force them to be friendly and he doesn't have the mental fortitude or courage to stab a creature that is showing mercy, so his only course of action was to look for actively hostile enemies that didn't belong in the sea-creatures category, even though every living being that is underwater, is technically a sea-creature.
This time, it took around a full 10 minutes until Soren found a book about monsters, because a decent amount of the encyclopedias were actually dictionaries and those weren't of any use to Soren. After sitting on a nearby table with the monster encyclopedia in hand, he opened it and started to read the beginning part of it.
[Many of these entries are still under the category of WIP since there are many secrets held within them and not all of them have been found.]
'So some of these entries are incomplete... Well those are probably the high level monster entries so I don't have to worry about them much.' Soren thought to himself after reading that first sentence. After flipping a couple of pages, he saw the first entry:
[Monster Species: Sea Wolf
Race: Beast
Combat Rank: F-E/Tier 1
Description: These creatures are considered some of the weakest in the entire world due to the fact that they are extremely frail and also that these creatures are lone hunters, so it is rare to see these creatures in packs. Sea Wolves also have the characteristics of a normal land wolf but with the addition of a fish tail instead of an extra pair of legs. Their overall combat power is extremely low and their attacks consist of claw swipes and lunges that rely on pure instict.
Potential evolutions: Ravaged Wolf]
"It shows the name, the race, the level of power, a decent description and it's pote tial evolutions. But why is it saying Beast and not Mer-Beast? Could it be that those are considered just normal beasts in the eyes of the writters? And what is this Tier thing next to it's combat level?" Soren said quietly to himself while reading the book. He was feeling confused because his system didn't show that kind of stuff, so it was a pretty unfamiliar concept for Soren.
'System, do you use this kind of information when you scan an living being or is it too much for the system to handle?' Soren said inside his head.
[The system does not abide by the information used by the mortals and completes it's assements by scanning the properties and power levels before giving a complete report.]
'So the concept of tiers and combat level is completely foreign to the system.' Soren thought to himself before he asked:
'Do you think it's possible to use that kind of information?'
[Negative. Adding any more parapeters into the system will cause it to stop funcioning properly and may even run the risk of completely shutting down.]
'A system that can break completely if I try to add anything else that wasn't intended for it. Its creator must be a perfectionist or they hate changes that don't align with their desires.' Soren thought to himself while holding his head.
After getting the thoughts about the system out of his head, he continued reading about the entries and found some that could be of help:
[Monster Species: Viscocious Jellyfish
Race: Beast
Combat Rank: E/Tier 1
Description: Sticky Jellyfish that feed on animal eggs or dead animals. Their tentacles excrete a deadly poison, thought it is slow-acting and rather painful and can be easily countered with normal antidotes. Their tentacles are also covered with an extremely sticky substance that is used as superglue.
Potential evolutions: Static Jellyfish]
[Monster Species: Mer-Gobiln
Race: Humanoid
Combat Rank: F/Tier 1
Description: Short humanoid creatures that hate all other humanoid creatures. Their only difference between normal goblins and them, are the tail that they have instead of legs.
Potential evolutions: Mer-Hobgoblin]
[Monster Species: Salty Slime
Race: Other
Combat Rank: F/Tier 1
Description: Common slime monsters that appear near brine pools. Due to their extremely high exposure to the brine pools, they salt that they contain in their bodies is extremely poisonous and can not be consumed without being processed. Their cores also have a slight amount of magic, but they are just normal salt balls.
Potential evolutions: Sea Slime, Earth Slime, Water Slime, etc.]
[Monster Species: Sea Snake
Race: Beast
Combat Rank: E/Tier 1
Description: These monsters tend to hunt in the shadows and lay ambushes to weaker monsters than it, but it never engages in direct combat. Usually, this monster has water magic in its arsenal, but occasionally it comes with another element, so it is highly advised to take caution againthis monster if you intend to hunt it.
Potential evolutions: Sea Serpent]
Those four entries were the only ones that Soren could find that were the weakest he could find.
'From the way these monsters are described, they seem like they have no hint of intelligence and even with my blessing, they should still be feral. At least I hope, I don't want to kill a monster that will give me the puppy eyes the moment it sees me.' Soren thought to himself.
"Those are all the tier 1 monsters that I could find that I believe we can fight without any problems. But that still leaves us with only one more monster that we need to hunt. Problem with that is the fact that we need to fight a tier 2 monster and if that ravaged wolf was a weakling compared to most of the monsters of its level, this may prove more troublesome than I thought." Soren said quietly to Lavenza.
"Hmmm..." Lavenza also was having trouble to come up with something.
"I guess we have to search of the monster we have to put as our final hunt." Soren said dejectedly.
After spending some time reading on the book, Soren found a couple of monsters that that they could try and hunt.
[Monster Species: Mer-Hobgoblin
Race: Humanoid
Combat Rank: E-D/Tier 2
Description: The evolvution of the Mer-Goblins, with higher power, intelligence and overally, a much better build than a normal Mer-Goblin. The are the same as normal Hobgoblins, but with a tail instead of legs.
Potential evolutions: Mer-Ogre]
[Monster Species: Crystal Charger
Race: Beast
Combat Rank: D/Tier 2
Description: A rare and valuable monster that is huntef mainly for its crystal horn. Although it may look like a bunny with a crystal horn and a fishtail, it is pretty vicious in combat and if it ever feels cornered, it will charge at its opponent recklessly as a last measure. Do not underestimate this monster.
Potential evolutions: Mer-Bunnyfolk]
"These two are our best options at the moment, in terms of my blessing not screwing things up. The others are monsters that seem like they can be reasoned with or they wouldn't feel hostility and are probably quite out of our league at the moment. I swear, Rohan is probably trying to force me to fail at this point." Soren said seriously while holding his head as if he was having a headache.
"Kyuu~..." Lavenza tried to comfort Soren while rubbing his head with her tail.
"I guess the Mer-Hobgoblin is really our only option." After said that quietly, he put away the book back in its place and started making his way towards the exit, but just as Soren was leaving hall C, a loud thud was heard from a thick red book that fell down. Soren looked behind him and saw the thick, red book that fell and wondered for a bit how it made that noise when they were underwater. The moment he picked it up though, he realised that it was much heavier than he thought and struggled a bit with carrying it back to a table. He checked the bookcases around to see where it fell from, but he didn't find any similar books nearby or any emply slots where books used to be.
Since Soren couldn't find the place of this book, he wouldn't bother trying to search the entire library for its place, since it was way too heavy to even carry and it was a big hassle that he didn't need. Of course, that didn't stop him from letting his curiousity get the better of him and check its contents.
"Huh? Empty? Wait... More empty pages? This... This entire book is empty. Why is such a thing here." Soren said quietly but with a shocked expression. Since the pages were empty, he tried to check the book's information with the help of the system, but the moment the interface appeared, he was left with another shock.
[(5@;31': This information can not be accesed.]