Lux had explored for 30 minutes but hadn't seen anything unordinary. He had seen plenty of monsters though, he was lucky that they weren't interested in him since he was such a low level that it would be a waste of time. Even so, he was still very cautious.
He still hadn't found any way to get back up and began to worry if there even was a way up, Lux shook his head and kept walking. He was traveling around the stone ledges but was paranoid that a flying creature would gain interest in him. Lux then saw the jungle starting to fade into clear waters, there weren't any monsters in the waters which surprised him.
"That's not normal water then" Lux climbed down and inspected it. A huge crystal clear lake stood in front of Lux, it was absolutely gorgeous and would make anyone want to jump in and swim around. Lux pulled a bag of the marbles from his inventory and tossed one into the water, it bounced twice before sinking and immediately dissolved into bubbles.
The lake was made up of acid.
Lux sighed and relieved that he didn't jump in carelessly or try to drink it before testing if it was safe. Then a shadow moved in the water, Lux stepped back and hid behind a nearby rock. Lux peeked through the other side of the rock and saw…
"An ant?" Lux was confused, it was obviously huge but nothing compared to the snake, not to mention the centipede that was double the snake's size. It was the size of a small house and had two black horns on its forehead having red veins sticking out of them.
But what was terrifying was what it had in its mouth, a centipede arm.
Lux froze in fear, why did it have that? Did it really kill the centipede?
Lux saw even more ants coming from the water, they each had something that belonged to the centipede from an arm to a piece of its scales. Lux wondered how they managed to kill the centipede, it was at least level 85! Were they stronger than that?
Lux really started to fear that they could sense him behind the rock. He didn't dare make a sound and held himself tightly in a ball. He heard the crawling of the ants starting to fade but still didn't dare move. After waiting for an hour of straight silence, Lux slowly peered out of the rock and sighed in relief.
The ants had left, but Lux then realized where they went. Long ant-made tunnels stretched out for who knows how long, Lux then got a stupid idea.
"Maybe one of the tunnels lead up to the surface?" Lux almost laughed at the idea but it seemed like the only way to escape the hellhole he had been put in.
Lux turned back to the lake and decided he would continue traveling to find another less risky way to get out. He climbed back on the stone ledge he had been traveling on and began walking carefully, if he saw anything move he would have to hide immediately so he wouldn't get caught.
After traversing around the lake, Lux had reached a maze of tunnels made up of dark cool green crystals. Lux looked around in awe as the texture of the crystals was very smooth, almost like water. Lux then saw something with a displacing color to it, Lux hid quickly into a random tunnel and peeked through the almost clear crystal walls.
The crystal glass walls made the other side blurry but Lux could make out some shapes and colors. There were little white larva-shaped ovals, not just a couple though, there was a whole pile of them.
"Ant eggs!" Lux realized in shock what they were.
Lux looked around but didn't see any ants around, although it was stupid to go in the nest he wanted to take a closer look at them. He creeped out of the cave he was in and entered the nest. The eggs were just lying there, there were no guards anywhere.
Lux picked up one of the eggs, it was the size of a chair. He expected the larva egg to be slimy but was surprised to see it was like a seashell with little jagged curves that wrapped around it like a blanket.
Two little spikes stuck out of the end of the larva egg, Lux figured they were the horns of the ant. Lux then thought this is a living creature so if I kill it then I'll probably jump up some levels. Lux looked at the larva egg with a sigh, he summoned his dragon tooth dagger and began cutting the front of the egg.
Little ant footsteps were heard in the distance, even if they were very low Lux still heard them. He quickly put the egg down and jumped back into the cave he was in before. It was a smaller ant, it seemed like it was a kid but had an old look on it. Lux watched it grab some eggs and put them into a bag made of silk, the bag looked so fragile that it seemed like it would break down with the weight of the eggs but it started stretching like rubber.
The ant then carried the eggs on its back and exited the crystal tunnels. Lux sighed and entered the room again. While he was in the cave he had the great thought of stealing some eggs and putting them into his inventory, he planned to raise them in the future when he was stronger. He only took one, scared that the ants would notice there were eggs missing.
He then went deeper into the crystal tunnels, it was very quiet there. It wasn't dark either, the crystal walls illuminated themselves in a water green atmosphere and made it look very fancy. Lux kept walking down the long corridors, listening closely to any sound. After a while of walking, he reached into a new ravine but it was underground. The ravine was incredibly long, reaching around the length of the centipede.
Down in the ravine was more part of the jungle, Lux could see it brimming with life as light baby blue crystals shone from the ceiling of the ravine. Lux climbed down slowly and made it to a good distance from the ground to where he stood by the stone ledges. Lux then saw a fight happening down below.
It was a black shelled hermit crab fighting against a horned ant, Lux watched closely wanting to see the true power of the ants. Lux was then horrified by the result of the battle, the ant was fiercely beating the hermit in absolute submission. The speed of each one of its attacks was incredible and showed the power of level 80's. Even the shell of the hermit couldn't resist the brute force attacks of the ant, it was terrifying.
After a while of fighting, the result was a crippled hermit with little to live for but the ant didn't finish it off and left it there. The ant instead left out of vision. Lux didn't let this opportunity go and immediately climbed down, he saw the hermit lying there and couldn't even figure out if it was alive. Lux knew he didn't have much time and carefully approached the hermit. He reminded himself to never be careless even in front of an injured monster from the experience he had with the injured crow.
Lux was now in front of the crippled hermit and summoned his dragon tooth dagger. With all his force, Lux smashed his dagger in the head of the hermit. The shell of the hermit was extremely hard, even with the sharpness of a dragon tooth Lux was barely able to finish it off. Now that the hermit was dead, Lux looked around the hermit for any holes for him to carve out some meat, and oh boy were there tons. The shell of the hermit was completely shattered like glass and there were tons of puncture wounds all over its stomach.
Lux was ecstatic, if he managed to eat this creature he would probably jump up to ten levels! The reason the number wasn't higher was that the creature did have a lot of meat on it as most of its claws and legs were tough muscles that were as hard as a rock. Even the meat that was considered soft was as hard as stale beef jerky. Lux didn't mind that at all though, he was just excited to eat the creature but didn't cook it right away. He instead cut some meat out and wrapped it up in some jungle tree leaves he collected.
After wrapping it up he then put it into his inventory and climbed back up onto the stone ledge. Lux moved himself a little far from where the dead hermit was so the ants wouldn't see the smoke from the campfire. He started cooking the hermit meat, it smelled amazing like a buttery crab. When the meat was done, it was much more different than when it was raw.
The smoked tender meat was cooked to absolute perfection, Lux ate the hermit meat like it was a 5-star course meal from a fancy restaurant, who knew hermits tasted so good. He later washed it down with a swig of water.
"Mhmm" Lux closed his eyes and enjoyed the beautiful taste of the hermit meat.
...
After Lux finished eating, he checked his stats and he had jumped up 8 levels!
He was now level 21.
Lux's body felt like he had been purified from all human limits, he had almost exceeded humane strength and believed that when he reached level 25 he would no longer be human anymore.
Lux packed his things back and started traversing the ravine again. He traveled for some time before finding something that really answered some questions.
Corpses were everywhere, from goblin to wolf. And the latest addition was a gigantic centipede skeleton and three snake skeletons.
The sight of it all made quite clear who was on top of the food chain in this place, the ants.