Lux had now found a perfect place to level up, but now he needed a perfect place to set up camp. It had to be near the dragon but far enough for it to be safe, at first he thought near the mountains but the weather over there was harsh with several thunderstorms happening and avalanches.
Lux then thought back to the shack he had previously been in, it wasn't too far and there were no monsters near it. It was like the perfect place to set up camp, so Lux traveled over to the little shack. It was pretty run down, with the rusty exterior bearing small holes and the door is just a couple of wooden boards.
"Well this is going to take a while to transform into an actual base, might as well get to work" Lux stretched his hands and started sweeping out the dust in the house with a feather duster he constructed from a couple of bird feathers that he found near the dead dragon. It seemed the dead dragon had been here for a while so there would have been more fights between monsters, yet all the dead bodies of the supposed monsters don't seem to be anywhere.
Lux wondered where the bodies could have gone, he had two theories currently about this.:
One: Monsters can also eat each other and level up
The thought of this terrified Lux but he was forced into putting it into consideration.
Second: All the monsters decomposed already
That one was a very loose theory but still made sense in some parts. Lux scratched his chin in confusion but soon left it on hold after finding a book under one of the floorboards while cleaning. The front cover was blank and it was very scratched up. Lux opened it carefully and as he opened the first page, a ton of sand came falling from it.
"Ah man, now I have to clean the floor again" Lux frowned but then when he read the title of the page his face changed.
"Crafting recipe for Lizard skin armor acquired!" Lux couldn't believe he found the crafting recipe for the exact thing he needed, although he didn't have the materials for crafting it he could now base the armor he was going to craft on this one.
Lux pulled out a table and started following the steps carefully and started crafting his own version of it. Using intricate knitting was hard to do but in the end, Lux managed to make a long coat from it and some gloves. If he were to encounter that lizard again Lux was more confident in fighting it.
He checked the name of his armor and was very happy with the name of it.
"Metal Wolf Long Coat and Metal Wolf Gloves".
Lux headed back towards the dead dragon in hopes of gaining more XP. Once again, a gang of goblins resided there which were perfect for killing since they don't need to be eaten. After taking care of the goblins, Lux searched around the dragon and found some more monsters.
They looked like goblins but they seemed more muscular and taller and even had hair. Lux squinted at their spears and saw they had silver tips. It seemed like these goblins were a more evolved version of the normal goblins Lux would see, meaning they were just around Lux's level or even higher. Their spears now gave them an advantage as the Lux wasn't sure if they could pierce his armor or not, he also didn't know how powerful they were than the regular goblins.
Lux didn't want to risk it and turned back, wanting to find monsters at his level Lux started traveling towards the shack and then past it. Lux wanted to see what was beyond the shack. After walking for a couple of hours, Lux found that the desert was almost endless or to him impossible without something to ride on. If he had one of those wolves he could definitely ride across the desert but he was certain it was not possible to tame a monster. Lux gave up and started going back, as he was walking back the ground shook as something shrieked from under him. Lux's instincts pushed him to jump to the side and he was glad for that as a 120-meter long golden centipede erupted from the ground, along with it was a giant purple snake half the size of the centipede that was wrapping itself around it.
Lux was in shock and calculated that they should at least be level 85 to break down the ground as they did. Lux was nowhere near that power level and started running as fast as he could away from the fight. But it seemed like the gods weren't in his favor as the fight started going for him as the two monsters tumbled around the desert where Lux was going towards too!
"Ah! Why me?" Lux shouted as he ran just fast enough to miss the large centipede's body from crushing him like a tomato.
The snake hissed aggressively and bit the centipede in the neck but couldn't penetrate the tough scales it wore on itself. The centipede screamed as it couldn't get rid of the snake from its body. The snake was latched on its body like a parasite and started squeezing the life out of the centipede. Lux watched in horror, settling a couple of miles from the battle he could still see the battle clearly.
Then suddenly the scale of the centipede started shaking violently as smoke ran down it. The snake made a gross expression and jumped off from the centipede. Lux was shocked at what just happened and continued watching from afar. The snake hissed but didn't dare get near the smoke, the centipede started curving into a fighting position. If a level 85 didn't dare near the smoke, then it must have been extremely dangerous to breathe in.
The centipede recovered its strength and launched a full-on assault on the snake, the cunning snake grinned and hissed at the centipede. Then two other snakes similar in size jumped out of the sand, the only difference between the purple snake and them was that the other two snakes were black instead of purple. With the centipede at a disadvantage and not near its smoke, the others attacked it in formation.
The purple snake smashed its head into the abdomen of the centipede, as it clenched its stomach the other two snakes whipped their tails on the head of the centipede crushing it into the ground.
The ground vibrated abnormally, at first Lux shrugged it off but now it was concerning as it felt as if he was on a rope bridge held by people who were moving it up and down. Lux heard heavy cracks opening and feared for the worst, these beasts had broken the floor of the earth and had fallen into the underground system of caves and ravines. The problem wasn't that they had fallen down there, the problem was that they had smashed the ground so hard that they tore a hole that stretched all the way towards where Lux had settled himself in.
As Lux was falling down to his death, he grabbed hold of some sort of vine and that broke his fall and he was now caught upside-down wrapped around a vine from his knee and down. He could still hear the centipede and the snakes duking it out deep in the caves. As he held on for dear life on this one vine he looked at his surroundings and saw that they were actually tons of vines beneath him and on top of him.
There was an underground jungle! Surely filled with terrifying monsters, Lux wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. Lux couldn't reach the vine to cut it with the dragon tooth dagger so he used the sand machete and threw it at the vine holding his foot.
Slap!
He instantly started falling but latched onto a vine under him and hung onto it. He slowly started moving towards the ledge where the vine originated from, a flower that it was sprouted from. Having cute pink leaves, it glowed beautifully against the stone and was a very smooth contrast to the green vines. The vines themselves were incredibly stiff near where the plant sprouted but grew slimmer along the middle where it was farthest from the plant.
Lux climbed down the vines for a while till he reached the floor, there were hundreds of plants and greenery that looked entirely like a jungle. Lux still heard the battle of the centipede and the snakes as it endlessly lasted. He could hear the cries of the centipede and the hissing of the snakes grow louder with massive booms shaking the walls of the jungle.
Lux himself was hiding away on top of a stone ledge as he saw tons of creatures that were way above his level. Some had long sharp teeth while others spit hot white magma that was as bright as the sun. Even though the place was beautiful, it was a hellhole to be in. Lux wanted to go back up to the surface but the vines didn't reach that high up and he would have to find another way. Gritting his teeth, he set up camp on a thick ledge above where no monsters could reach him. He didn't hear the Centipede or the snakes anymore and wondered who won, he shrugged it off and started cooking up the rest of the wolf's meat.
It had now become night.
Once he had finished his meal he had reached level 13, paranoid he might fall asleep and get attacked Lux started practicing his skill Swipe instead of sitting there idle.
After a couple of hours of this, Lux had reached a whopping 12 mastery levels from practicing Swipe and he saw improvements during that time. For one, his hand speed and coordination had reached a very considerable height but what was more cooler was that he could now use rapid attacks with Swipe since before he could only use it once every time.
Lux was happy with this result and spent the rest in meditation, mostly mentally preparing himself for anything crazy that would happen because he was still human. Lux then picked up his things and prepared to search for a way out of there.