[ D day - 2 ] [ 35 H :39 M :20 S ] [ Home Town A ]
Two more to go.
The incense sticks he had now are not enough for either of the holes, both of whom have a tiger sized dog hole. He felt tired just looking at the size of these holes.
If it were a fox or dog, then he could have felt reassured at least a bit. It's a damn lizard. Just cleaning up the Pangolin's from the three holes just now sapped up his energy.
Putting the battle into perspective, the lizards just now had three skills.
Thick skin, camouflage, and venom spit.
All are hunting methods used by various other reptiles, not of the local pangolin he is hunting. Udumu, as they are called, is neither a monitor lizard, nor a pangolin, but the creature's appearance varied between both, and it's skills included even venom spit, which is a skill mostly reserved for frogs and snakes.
So, chances are the creatures from these two holes would have at least one such skill from other reptiles.
What else is left now ?
Ah! The thousand pound bite.
Crocodiles have a bite power almost unparalleled in the world.. Pangolins have the smallest mouth.. But .. it's not a pangolin that this dungeon belonged to. So, it's quite possible a variant with strong bite force would appear.
What else ? …
Rolling up like a pangolin ? Vikram would be more than happy if that were the case, but he doubted such a thing is possible at all. If this dungeon has shown him anything, it only progresses from ' aggressive ' to 'wildly aggressive'.
Hmm..
Smoke spitting ? .. venom spray ? jump and latch ? or just plain twist and swallow ? or tongue lash ?
It doesn't matter. He had to stay here and kill the damn reptiles before he could get out. For he knew something the others didn't. Once a person challenges the dungeon and exits it, the dungeon's creatures get an upgrade.
That way, they become more and more impossible to conquer, and they keep spitting out crazy strong animals, while the boss remains in the dungeon. This way, the dungeon becomes a permanent fixture, till a chain of dungeons form a fully closed area.
Then, the dungeons merge, forming an open dungeon area, which contains all the animals, cities and otherwise. Then this land becomes even more impossible to obtain or conquer.
At the same time, this converged land's area is larger than what it was before, finally disproving the eternal investment advice on buying real estate, ' money may grow, but land will not.'.
It's a pity Vikram did not know how much of a big deal dungeon destroying was when he knew all the other irrelevant information about dungeons.
Now.. back to the pangolin boss.
Vikram pondered solutions, for staying at a single hole and destroying pangolins as they come by is not a viable solution for the last two holes.
Then… there's only that method, he thought.
He must build a cave of his own. He wandered all over the boulders, and cleared up an area where they could make a round dias. He stacked the surrounding area with all the boulders making a round kiln like structure.
Thankfully, there's wet earth in the holes he had already cleaned pangolins off. So he built a structure similar to a round stone hut.
After a break, he held the honey pot in his hand and pondered which hole he should lead the honey pot towards.
Not much honey is there, so… he must really decide on direction carefully.
The direction must give advantage of fifty-fifty, so at least some lizards would pick a fight with one of their own weakening the beasts for him, yet, they shouldn't pile up making it hard for him to kill them.
So, he thought carefully.
Finally, he settled on a route that led them through a narrow pass like the Sicilian point. He could stand on either boulder, to stab in with a crowbar and strike at them easily.
However, this is not where he would stand.
He will stand at the entrance of the stone hut and bash the heads of pangolins, like before.
He was not a fighter in the first place, and this bashing skill, he had enough practice now to do it accurately.
He did one final rehearsal, because at this point he had a trauma about getting bitten. Foxes may be alright, for they never go for the neck, but lizards the size of hand carts could more than bite off his head to immediate death.
So, it's best he won't stand in the direct path where he could get bitten off.
Finally, it's time.
Vikram poured the honey in the center of the hut and directed it outwards through the route in between Sicilian point, and almost to the point that's between two of the entrances.
Then, he walked as fast as he could and climbed atop the stone hut to wait for the arrival of the lizards.
As expected, they started coming out.
Their appearance scared Vikram, for his prediction of bite force had come true.
The black wide mouthed lizard bit off the head of the golden small mouthed pangolin coming from otherside.
Black pangolins' supremely sharp teeth broke, but the bite force was enough to fracture the head of the golden pangolin.
Damn! It's the spear against the shield. He thought absurdly.
The black pangolin's attack force is supreme, with it's inch long three row incisors and boulder crushing bite.
The golden pangolin's defence is great, with it's skin not even breaking when diamond sharp fangs couldn't even break it's skin while using boulder crushing strength.
He has some hard times ahead of him.
The golden pangolin vanished. He was surprised to see the gene fragment did not go to the black pangolin next to it, but to himself.
[ golden skin gene fragment 0.1 ]
The black pangolin came running towards the hut. This is something Vikram was experienced with.
He bashed in the black pangolin's head. It vanished in a series of sparkles.
[ power muscles gene fragment 0.1 ]
Good!
The next golden pangolin was attacked by the black pangolin, and was dead the same way.
The status quo lasted for fifteen pangolins before the sixteenth black pangolin failed to make even a small dent on the neck of the pangolin.
The golden pangolin blinked sleepily at the black pangolin, and crawled it's way to Vikram lazily.
The black pangolin had given up attacking, and ran ahead to get it's share of honey.
The golden pangolin gently bashed it's tail at the black pangolin.
It really did not look like much. It looked like there was a mosquito on top of the black pangolin's head, and the golden pangolin was merely bashing it.
The black pangolin was crushed to paste.
Chills ran up and down Vikram's spine. His legs almost turned soft at the sight.
He already finished integrating the golden skin fragment, but even so, he felt afraid to be under attack of this pangolin.
Vikram concentrated all of his vision on the golden pangolin, trying to see its weak points. There is a minutely small red point on it's head, which gets exposed for a fraction of a second when scales move.
The scales of this pangolin gleamed like diamond, and with just one look, one can see this would make a fine skin. The skin underneath is all red, as if it's almost transparent.
If he misses his chance, his life is lost.
Vikram is very strongly aware of this point, for the golden pangolin's bash is by no means small.
The scales are like three triangles arranged in half circles, however, on its head, just one of the scales is chipped off, giving him this opportunity to attack at it.
Right scale moved to the right extreme.
Left scale moved to the left extreme.
The chipped scale is exposed completely, along with the redspot.
Now!
His brain screamed.
He moved like a flash.
The iron crowbar penetrated straight into that redspot, to strike at the skull of the golden pangolin. Bracing on the long crowbar like a spear, Vikram swung his own body to the other side.
The tail of the golden pangolin bashed at the boulder he was standing on.
A foot wide hole is turned into rubble, and the crowbar penetrated into the skull of the pangolin.
[ Diamond skin gene fragment 0.1 ]
The golden pangolin vanished into a series of sparkles.
From then on, the scene reversed.
The golden pangolins killed black pangolins, but the black pangolin's bite had chipped off a single scale on the heads of golden pangolins.
However, the concentration needed to see this little chipped scale is on the verge of studying for a most difficult exam with a single hour of study time.
His entire brain is put into overdrive.
His body almost loosened to even release his bowels when he finished the kill.
Unfortunately, after four such pangolins, there was no black pangolin.
There was no chipped scale to provide him a weak point.
' I am screwed ! ' is all Vikram could think as he saw a twenty foot long, one and half feet wide gleaming golden lizard made its way to the stone hut.
He did not strike at it. There's no way he could.
'status' he called weakly to check himself.
[ Evolution specimen H-2234 ] [ dungeon orb : 2 ] [ Evolution gene modifications : 3]
[ All nighter : C ] [ Enduring muscles : C ] [ Super recovery : Ex+ ] [ nightvision : D ]
[ agility : D ] [ Dexterity : D ] [ explosive muscles : S ] [ Thick skin : D ]
[ Poison resistance : D ] [ camouflage skin : E ]
[ Power muscles gene fragment 0.3 ] [ explosive muscles gene fragment 0.1 ]
[ Diamond skin gene fragment 0.1 ] [ Golden skin gene fragment 0.4 ]