Caspian watched as hundreds of fish fell onto the solid surface as he had done hours before, wanting to test out his new strength, he jumped up and swiped at a fish. Catching it easily, he gave the fish a light squeeze and crushed its body, killing it. With no hesitation, Caspian commanded the system to extract the Essence from the fish corpse, curious to see how much Essence he would be granted.
[50 Essence acquired].
'WHAT'?! Caspian was shocked that these fish were worth so little, and at the same shocked that the elders were worth so much.
After some time, Caspian had managed to kill a total of 200 fish, securing a satisfying 10,000 Essence for himself, bringing his total to 15,853. Caspian decided that if he was going to start making any progress, he needed to make big sacrifices. Converting 8,000 of his newly acquired Essence into stat points, using half for strength and half for agility. After applying his new points his stats looked like this:
Name- Caspian Munro, LVL 1
Race- Merrow
Essence- 7,994
HP- 10/ 10
MP- 10/ 10
Strength- 5/ 10
Agility- 5/ 10
Intelligence- 4/ 10
Skills- NONE
Status Points- 0
1 Status Point = 2,000 Essence.
Every muscle in his tiny body felt like they were trying to burst from his skin, tearing and mending themselves just to repeat the process over again. As for the agility, Caspian felt his body become lighter than before. Just to test out his new physical abilities, Caspian jumped as up as hard as he could and shot into the air at least twenty feet high. From the air, he could see deep into the giant hole in the center of the stomach. Down in the bottom where the water fell into along with the fish that he was not lucky enough to catch was a mass of what appeared to be green acid. If he were to guess, the water from each meal was drained into the hole and turned into the acid which was slowly filling up every time the creature ate.
If Caspian was right, then he needed to get stronger and fast. Once that acid reached the top of the hole, it had a possibility of melting him down to nothing. The first thing Caspian needed was to find a point of exit, after that he could work on an escape plan. Thinking back to whales, Caspian remembered that whales had a blow hole in the top of their backs. He searched for awhile and found no such opening, besides the giant hole in the center of the room and the tube he entered through there was no other escape option.
After pondering for a while longer, another load of fish entered the room, and with it, so did the Essence that Caspian required. Among the newest meal were the usual fish which Caspian made sure to catch, but also a new species appeared. It was a larger fish with a row of spikes on its back. Each spike was about a foot long and deadly sharp, having a blue liquid stained on the tips. With the increase in speed and strength, Caspian was able to catch all the creature's food for himself. After taking care of more than 500 fish, Caspian made his way to the big catch of the day. Upon trying to crush the fish's skull, the fish suddenly turned its body and shot one of its spikes into Caspian's shoulder.
"AGH" Caspian shouted, inwardly cursing himself for letting his guard down.
Quickly moving out of the way of another shot, Caspian decided to pull the spike out of his shoulder and use it as a weapon. He ignored the pain as he closed the distance between himself and the fish. Caspian stabbed at the body of the fish, effectively ending its life, and extracting the Essence.
[Congratulations, New Skill Acquired- Venom Spike/ Venom Spike Shot.]
[Would You Like To Use Essence To Heal Your Wounds?]
Caspian could not believe it, a new skill just from this one fish, plus the ability to heal just from using Essence. It was truly a stroke of good luck as this skill would no doubt be useful in the future. As for the healing, it appeared to be a default ability from the system, relying on Essence to replenish damage to his body. Caspian decided that the new skill could be experimented with later, but the immediate issue was his wound. It would no doubt be fairly expensive to heal himself in terms of Essence, but it was a necessary buy. Accepting the option to heal, Caspian waited for the process to begin.
[Now converting 15,000/32,864 Essence to heal wound. Please wait a moment while the healing process begins.]
Caspian watched in amazement as his shoulder was cast in a bright red glow, it felt like a cold shower, unpleasant, but not unbearable. It took only a few minutes to heal a wound that would have led to a permanent disability in his old body. Now that the wound was no more, Caspian began to investigate his new skill.
Name- Caspian Munro, LVL 1
Race- Merrow
Essence- 17,864/ 52,000
HP- 10/ 10
MP- 10/ 10
Strength- 5/ 10
Agility- 5/ 10
Intelligence- 4/ 10
Skills- Venom Spike/ Venom Spike Shot
Status Points- 0
1 Status Point = 2,000 Essence.
[Venom Dart/ Venom Spike Shot-
A large white spike protrudes from the forearm, which is poisonous to enemies, the spikes can also be shot out of the forearms at high speeds.]
Caspian immediately used his new ability, he looked down at his arms and saw that there were indeed two large white spikes protruding from his forearms. They did not feel like bones at all, they felt stronger than bone. As soon as he decided to shoot one from his right arm, it flew away with blinding speed. However, as soon as this happened, Caspian checked his stats and saw that his MP stat went down to 9/10. This meant that he only had ten shots before he needed to refill his MP with Essence. With this new skill in mind, Caspian began to think of an escape plan before he became fish food…again.