While Caspian's mind worked to come up with possible solutions regarding his escape, he made a significant discovery. As it turned out, Essence was not the only resource that Caspian required to refill his MP, he could also just wait for his MP to refill itself. It worked relatively fast, replenishing one point of MP in about 30 minutes time.
In terms of a plan, Caspian was making great strides in that department. The plan was simple, he needed to finish leveling up his stats and get to level 2. After getting to level 2, Caspian intended to jump back into the intestine of the creature and climb his way up to the mouth. At this point in the plan Caspian was going to leave the outcome in the hands of fate. The only foreseeable problem with this was the creatures eating schedule. More specifically, the creature only ate when it felt like it, there was no way to predict it. If Caspian were to be in the process of his climb and the creature decided to eat, then Caspian would be bombarded with a tidal wave of water and hundreds of fish and anything else the creature saw as a meal.
At most, Caspian only planned on sticking around for the next two meal cycles before attempting his plan. What he needed to focus on most right now was getting as strong as possible before the next feeding time so that nothing like that spiked fish happens again. Caspian thought about the best method to go about this and remembered what Yam had said about increasing his Intelligence so that Essence and upgrades would cost less. He decided to go ahead and fully upgrade his Intelligence skill before the new wave so that the new points he gathered would go further than they did currently.
[Would You Like To Convert 12,000 Essence into Stat Points?]
Agreeing, Caspian braced his body for whatever physical sensation was to come with this new upgrade. Unfortunately for him, what he felt in the next moment was nothing less than pure mental anguish. Caspian instantly fell to his knees and screamed, holding his head as the system did its work. It was as if Caspian's brain wanted to leap out of his skull, the pain was so great that he thought of throwing himself into the acid pit to escape the mental barrage. Eventually after a while, Caspian felt the pain begin to dull down and fade away.
Once the pain had completely vanished, Caspian made a vow to himself to never make huge jumps in upgrades like that again. On the other hand, it felt like he had expanded his mind and had become a bit more intelligent. Even Caspian's senses had become sharper, his eyes were able to pick up more details in the room than before.
Name- Caspian Munro, LVL 1
Race- Merrow
Essence- 5,464
HP- 10/ 10
MP- 10/ 15
Strength- 5/ 10
Agility- 5/ 10
Intelligence- 10/ 10
Skills- Venom Spike/ Venom Spike Shot
Status Points- 0
1 Status Point = 3,000 Essence
Now all that was left to do was to wait for the Creature to satisfy its hunger so that Caspian could steal all the catching for himself. If the previous time scale was to be believed, then Caspian would not have to wait much longer. While he waited for time to pass, Caspian decided it would be a good idea to eat something as he had not done so since he woke up in this new body. Caspian activated his Venom Spike and almost jumped back in surprise, as he stared, he could see that his spikes had grown by another five inches or so. This made them less like spikes and more like spears at this point. Caspian walked to the closest fish and stabbed at it with his spike, seeing that his new weapon was exceedingly sharp.
He proceeded to use the tip of his spike to cut the fish open, drain the blood, and remove the skeleton. Once the fish was condensed to a piece of meat, Caspian decided to power through the texture since he had no way of cooking it. To his surprise, the fish was delicious, and he found himself wanting to eat the fish whole instead. Picking up another fish, Caspian popped it into his mouth and found that chewing through the scales, bones, and head was easy and delightful even.
Once Caspian had eaten his fill, he continued walking around his temporary cell. It was growing increasingly difficult to remain patient as he wanted to get out of the creature's belly as soon as possible. As if on cue, Caspian finally heard something out of the ordinary. A faint sound of rushing water coming from above which Caspian had not heard before was growing louder by the second. This just went to show how far Caspian's senses had come in the upgrade. Finally, the many gallons of water came rushing down, just as it was going to hit the floor Caspian stood below it to try and feel how powerful the rush was.
To Caspian's surprise, the blast was too much for him even with his new body. Caspian was instantly swept away, smacking his face on the wall behind him. As much as he wanted to rest for a moment, he knew he could not because he had fish to catch. Caspian jumped up and began sprinting around, gathering fish, and tossing them into a pile in the corner of the room. Once all the fish were gathered and the Essence was extracted, Caspian had amassed an astounding 26,000 Essence.
It was quite disappointing that the value of one skill point only went down to 1950 Essence. Nonetheless, Caspian made sure to upgrade all his remaining stats one by one, as not to have a repeat of the intelligence upgrade.
[Congratulations, You Have Reached Level 2]
Name- Caspian Munro, LVL 2
Race- Merrow
Essence- 6,500/ 52,000
HP- 25/ 25
MP- 25/ 25
Strength- 10/ 20
Agility- 10/ 20
Intelligence- 10/ 20
Skills- Venom Spike/ Venom Spike Shot
Status Points- 2
1 Status Point = 3,000 Essence
[Congratulations, Your Body Will Now Be Aged Into A Low Level Merrow.]
Caspian suddenly felt his entire body go into a fit of uncontrollable spasms, it felt as if his skeleton was melting, and his skin was threatening to tear itself in pieces. At that point, Caspian lost Consciousness.
...….
Caspian awoke sometime later, feeling terribly dizzy, he stood and made his way around his prison. He made sure to eat some fish and check his statistics which had not changed. Finally, he noticed that his arms and legs were longer than before. This must have been what happened to make him pass out like that. Still even with his new size, he was only around the size of a ten-year-old human child. Either way, this was a much-needed upgrade. As Caspian tested out his new body, he was suddenly aware with the familiar sound of water rushing overhead. Prepared this time, Caspian stood aside, ready to catch whatever came down that tunnel. However, when the water rushed in from the tunnel, what followed was not what Caspian had expected. The thing that fell into the belly of the creature…was a person.